Why We Believe in Gods

[_EAllusion]

Um, you do realize that computer programs are intelligently designed, right? I was hoping you were going to provide something from the natural world that arose naturally; something that would actually bolster your argument here. Computer programs, as intelligently designed "things," actually undermines the point you're trying to make.

With respect to the RNA-World hypothesis, RNA doesn't self-replicate, which is what you said is required for NS to take place.

Uh, Avida sets up a world according to rules by which natural selection operates on programs. That the world is an artifice doesn't change what is happening in the context of that world. It doesn't matter that the program was written by humans. The world involves natural selection operating on nonliving things. It's just an example of natural selection operating with a nonliving thing. It doesn't undermine my argument to point out a obvious example of what I was talking about.

To the second point, RNA can self-replicate in theory. I'm not sure what you think the RNA-world hypothesis entails, but it does involve self-replicating RNA that we'd be hardpressed to call alive.

[_EAllusion]

Kevin -

Define genetic information.

Thank you.

[_EAllusion]

Is this a hypothesis or an scientific fact, that genes react to the chemicals transmitted from the environment, thus resulting in their various beneficial adaptations? So for instance, when an organism like a butterfly mutates and forms what appears to be huge eye balls on its wings, for the purpose/benefit of scarying off predators. You're saying this came about from chemical transfers from the environment.

OK, so how does that really answer the question: "How did the genes know that by producing such an image, it would be beneficial for its survival?" That is the mystery that I don't see science explaining.

This is confusing. You asked how genes interact with the outside world. I explained how genes regulate cell function in response to external stimuli. What you seem to be actually asking is how genomes change overtime in ways that are beneficial. That's a totally different question. This doesn't require foreknowledge. Random changes in the genome are accumulated and passed on to progeny. Mutation sources are varied. Natural selection can and does act to increase the likelihood of the more fit ones persisting over time. Asking how the genes knew is an improperly loaded question. There's no reason to think genes "know" anything.

[Guest]

Hmmm... I disagree. Something can most definitely achieve its intended aims and still be poorly designed. What about efficiency? What about life span? Maintenance? There's more to design than just "does it do what I want it to?" Unless what you're saying is that a lack of efficiency, etc, were also the design goals. But again, not taking into account other factors, can it really be considered "good?"

Assuming the designer wanted "efficiency" or "lifespan" etc. is baseless when you don't know anything about the designers aims. That's the problem. If the designer wanted to the eyeball to be as efficient as it is, then it created a perfect design. I don't think you read "achieving intended aims" as specifically as it was meant. If the designer wanted the vertebrate eyeball to have the features it does, then it produced a good design in that sense by hitting the nail on the head. Things are only suboptimally designed when they've fail against their aims. They aren't as efficient as they ideally were shooting for, for instance. When you don't know what a designer wanted, you can't speculate on how good or bad the design is according to its aims. It does no good to point out that we'd like it if eyes worked better than they did. That just means they are poorly designed from the perspective of our desires.

[_EAllusion]

Would you mind explaining to me how this isn't a double standard? What immediately comes to mind is your jaw-dropping concession that we don't even know how to define a "species," coupled with your dogmatic certitude that we know speciation occurs. So the process of becoming X is true, even if we can't say with absolute certainty what X really is! Well, I guess you just vindicated theosis.

I can't define hot and cold in terms of exact temperatures or when one becomes the other, but I know that when I've put boiling water in my freezer and came back and found an ice cube, hot did become cold at some point. Likewise, while species concepts are fuzzy at the borders of change, it's easy to tell speciation has occured when large enough changes are there. It's not really that difficult of an idea. It's like you're trying to pick a fight.

My certitude that speciation has occurred is no more dogmatic than my certitude that the earth isn't flat. This is extremely well-established stuff here and my belief in it is in proportion to the evidence.

[_EAllusion]

Viruses are subject to natural selection. There is an intense, seemingly endless debate over whether viruses are actually alive. That's because "life" isn't a brightline concept. In high enough focus, the definition is fuzzy and viruses are in that fuzzy border. I lean towards the alive side, yet there are plenty of people who wouldn't call them alive. Those who think that don't also think that means natural selection no longer applies. That's because if you actually understand the selection mechanism, you realize that something doesn't have to be alive to be subject to it.

[_Some Schmo]

Assuming the designer wanted "efficiency" or "lifespan" etc. is baseless when you don't know anything about the designers aims. That's the problem. If the designer wanted to the eyeball to be as efficient as it is, then it created a perfect design. I don't think you read "achieving intended aims" as specifically as it was meant. If the designer wanted the vertebrate eyeball to have the features it does, then it produced a good design in that sense by hitting the nail on the head. Things are only suboptimally designed when they've fail against their aims. They aren't as efficient as they ideally were shooting for, for instance. When you don't know what a designer wanted, you can't speculate on how good or bad the design is according to its aims. It does no good to point out that we'd like it if eyes worked better than they did. That just means they are poorly designed from the perspective of our desires.

I understood what you were saying and the extent of what it meant. The original point in context was that you said you didn't think poor design (at least, by human standards) works as an argument against a designer. If all we are talking about is just "any old designer" then I would agree with you whole-heartedly. But apparently we're talking about a designer who's intelligent and powerful enough to create the universe and life, and from that perspective, it's a decent argument. (I already understand you disagree, however, and that's fine). We may not know what the designer's aims are, but I think we can infer his "design standards" based on other aspects of his "creation."

[_JohnStuartMill]

Kevin's problem is that he's emotionally wedded to teleology -- he is a priori opposed to any explanation that doesn't appeal to "purpose".

Its comments like these that make me refer to atheists on this forum as generally boring and anti-philosophical.

Christ Almighty.

I was a philosophy major for most of college, dart. My degree ended up being in political theory (i.e., the branch of philosophy that deals with politics). I participated in philosophy clubs in my spare time, and talked to my roommates (who got degrees in philosophy) about little else. To say that I'm anti-philosophical is like saying that the Pope is anti-Catholic.

Perhaps by "philosophy" you mean "metaphysical studies", as in the bookstore section? If that's the case, then yes, I'm anti-philosophical, but that's hardly a put-down.

I suppose I could have interesting discussions on these matters with just about anyone I meet outside the forum, without the slightest hint of contempt. But you guys make it sound like some kind of intellectual deficiency to even ask such questions.

It's not an intellectual deficiency to ask such questions, but it is an deficiency to refuse any other answer, as you continually do.

If science hasn't answered the question, then it shouldn't be a real question! Anyone who asks it must be an idiot. Good grief. Schmo once laughed at the notion that philosophy could provide us with any kinds of truths. Who else agrees with this?

Not me. But continue flailing, please.

I could easily respond by calling JSM's problem a blind devotion to a random universe and a dogmatic loyalty to atheistic assumptions.

Umm, no. Like I've repeatedly said before, if double-blind studies showed the efficacy of prayer, I'd be pretty convinced that there is a God that answers prayers.

He is a priori opposed to any explanation that appeals to purpose.

False. I'm just opposed to any "explanation" that is merely mumbo-jumbo masquerading as explanation. Insofar as we don't know the nature of the designer, that is what Intelligent Design is. (This is the reason I accept teleology in anthropology and archaeology, and am wary of it in biology and cosmology.) Just as you can't explain the origin of the universe by invoking a magic walnut, you can't do it by invoking a "God" that has no other posited attributes. It's not an explanation if the being invoked to do explanatory work is mysterious.

Like EAllusion has said, if we knew more about the purported designer's intent, then we could look for clues of its machinations. The problem is that IDers continually beg off of answering this question, except to mention phenomena (like the existence of humans) that can be explained much more succinctly by natural processes, thereby falling for the anthropic fallacy.
-----
Look, Kevin: your basic problem in the evolution debate is that you really don't understand what you're railing against. Your conception of evolution has apparently been almost wholly formed by misinformation from the likes of the Discovery Hackstitute. I, too, was an anti-evolutionist once upon a time, so I can sympathize. If my understanding of evolutionary processes were limited to yours, I'd probably come to similar conclusions about the need for a designer. But your ignorance of evolution aggravates everybody, including yourself (although you probably don't recognize this).

If you really wanted to do a really good job of arguing against evolution, you'd be reading stuff like Darwin's Dangerous Idea with an open mind and a charitable disposition. That way, you'd understand the arguments for evolution given by people who actually believe in it, instead of the risible caricature of it set up by its ideological opponents. I challenge and encourage you to do that, because it's in line with your own present aims of dismantling evolution.

Are you a serious scientific and philosophical iconoclast, Kevin? Or are you merely a brainwashed sentimentalist? Your ability to accurately portray evolution as it is currently understood by biologists and philosophers of biology will tell.

[_JohnStuartMill]

Assuming the designer wanted "efficiency" or "lifespan" etc. is baseless when you don't know anything about the designers aims. That's the problem. If the designer wanted to the eyeball to be as efficient as it is, then it created a perfect design. I don't think you read "achieving intended aims" as specifically as it was meant. If the designer wanted the vertebrate eyeball to have the features it does, then it produced a good design in that sense by hitting the nail on the head. Things are only suboptimally designed when they've fail against their aims. They aren't as efficient as they ideally were shooting for, for instance. When you don't know what a designer wanted, you can't speculate on how good or bad the design is according to its aims. It does no good to point out that we'd like it if eyes worked better than they did. That just means they are poorly designed from the perspective of our desires.

I understood what you were saying and the extent of what it meant. The original point in context was that you said you didn't think poor design (at least, by human standards) works as an argument against a designer. If all we are talking about is just "any old designer" then I would agree with you whole-heartedly. But apparently we're talking about a designer who's intelligent and powerful enough to create the universe and life, and from that perspective, it's a decent argument. (I already understand you disagree, however, and that's fine). We may not know what the designer's aims are, but I think we can infer his "design standards" based on other aspects of his "creation."

I think what we're uncovering here is the illegitimate trucking in of objectivity into words like "omnibenevolent". There's a real tension between a God that wants you to be happy and aphorisms like "God's ways are not man's ways" that theists can't really account for.

[_Some Schmo]

If science hasn't answered the question, then it shouldn't be a real question! Anyone who asks it must be an idiot. Good grief. Schmo once laughed at the notion that philosophy could provide us with any kinds of truths. Who else agrees with this?

Not me. But continue flailing, please.

I just saw dart's comment here by reading your quote of it (as is how I discover most of what dart write's these days, since I'm trying to avoid killing brain cells reading his stuff). All I can say is... LOL

It's as though dart intentionally tries to misinterpret what people say, which leads people to accuse him of poor reading comprehension (or simply not reading at all).

I once said something to the effect that science was the only mechanism for determining and verifying reality/truth, and that neither religion nor philosophy could do so (actually, we were talking about knowing things, as opposed to believing things - this was what led to the classic dart comment, "I know there's a god" which has since, at least for me, cast a shadow over anything dart has claimed "to know"). That's not quite the same thing as claiming "philosophy could(n't) provide us with any kinds of truths." It's one thing to make a religious or philosophical claim; it's quite another to say it's a verified truth. I can philosophize all day long, but until my hypotheses are verified scientifically, I don't actually know if they represent reality or not.

Of course, this is far too nuanced for dart to understand, so he continues to blithely believe whatever the hell he wants to, and this is why discussing things with him is bad for your mental health.

I also think it's pretty funny that dart wants to paint the atheists on this board as anti-philosophy. The majority of my thinking time is spent philosophizing about one thing or another and I appreciate the philosophical works of others. I just don't take the extra step dart does and think that my notions (or any other unverified ideas) necessarily represent reality.