Posted on 03/16/2019 11:26:56 AM PDT by Simon Green
The notion of “intelligent design” arose after opponents of evolution repeatedly failed on First Amendment grounds to get Bible-based creationism taught in the public schools. Their solution: Take God out of the mix and replace him with an unspecified “intelligent designer.” They added some irrelevant mathematics and fancy biochemical jargon, and lo: intelligent design, which scientists have dubbed “creationism in a cheap tuxedo.”
But the tuxedo is fraying, for intelligent design has been rejected not just by biologists but also by judges who recognize it as poorly disguised religion. Nevertheless, its advocates persist. Among the most vocal is Michael J. Behe, a biology professor at Lehigh University whose previous books, despite withering criticism from scientists, have sold well in a country where 76 percent of us think God had some role in human evolution.
Behe does not rely on the Bible as a science textbook. Rather, he admits that evolution occurs by natural selection sifting new mutations and that all species are related via common ancestors. Where he parts company with other biologists is in his claim that the important mutations producing new types of organisms are not random accidents but are deliberately installed by a designer with a plan. A pious Catholic, Behe sees the designer as the Christian God but concedes that there could be other mutation-makers. These designed mutations solve what he sees as a problem for natural selection: the origin of some complex biochemical features. Such features appear to defy Darwinian explanation because, claims Behe, they can’t function until all the parts are in place. (Unguided natural selection requires that every step in the evolution of a complex feature must enhance an organism’s fitness.) Ergo, these “irreducibly complex” systems must have been forged by a designer who made simultaneous changes in several genes.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
So are you or any of the posters here an atheist or an agnostic, and if you, do you support America being pro-God, and what is the basis for your moral views?
Which is exactly why I say that the “artificial intelligence” they are touting today is indeed artificial, but not intelligence.
True intelligence requires conscious self-awareness, which is a quantum mechanical phenomenon and can never by achieved through software alone. What they call “artificial intelligence” these days is nothing more than highly intricate if-then programming with some statistical analysis thrown in.
Quantum mechanics is the only branch of science that even touches upon consciousness. A conscious observer is required for a quantum mechanical event to occur, ala Schroedinger’s cat.
I believe in a God who is the conscious observer who brings the universe into existence. There is no reason to believe that such a God could not create matter with the mathematical blueprint to self-assemble life one step at a time.
Whoever God is, He is far beyond our comprehension. My idea of who God is is just as valid as yours.
How does something that is dead magically come to life, with the ability to collect energy from the environment to sustain its metabolism, and then some time later, even more magically reproduce a copy of itself that also has all those abilities?
Absent God, it ain’t gonna happen, no matter how many billions of years and billions of galaxies and billions of stars you want to count.
So God couldn’t possibly create a universe with matter that does that?
He has to magically pull rabbits out of hats like a carnival magician?
That response makes no sense at all.
Indeed, The Creator’s ability to speak the worlds into existence and then bring forth life by the application of His will is so much more amazing than some “give it enough time” nonpurposeful accidental freak show that cannot be proven based on the observed, only by bullying and a myriad of bad assumptions laced with “should and could and may haves”.
Of course God used the materials He spoke into existence at the creation, and he breathed life from His essence/logos into His creation- that is the miracle of Life, not some cosmic accident of chirals self-destructing in some dead presupposed swamp....
And, furthermore and more importantly, He gave purpose and meaning to life, so we should live as if it means something.
Are we arguing here? I don't recall challenging your religious beliefs.
I merely opined that a jumble of atoms requires the 'spark of life' to become a living thing. Scientists have been able to string amino acids and enzymes together in chains identical to those of living things for decades now, but they haven't been able to bring them to life.
I'm not arguing over who the grand designer is, or how that spark of life is introduced into inanimate matter. I'm just noting that it is.
True intelligence requires conscious self-awareness, which is a quantum mechanical phenomenon
I have been working with artificial neural networks for years. We don’t have “artificial intelligence.” Not even close.
So everything you know you know because you were “told.”
Do you ever intend to have an original thought in your lifetime?
Evolution is religion that pretends to be science. Evolutionists and Global Warmists have weaponized the word “science”. The bible warns about this very thing.
“True intelligence requires conscious self-awareness, which is a quantum mechanical phenomenon”
You asserted the above. Now you’re telling me it’s
just an idea you have. Thanks, I’m trying to see
who I’m dealing with here.
So how much experience do you have programming “artificial intelligence?”
I’m trying to see who I’m dealing with here.
Right after you explain what quantum mechanics has to do with consciousness.
So you don’t have any experience programming artificial intelligence. Good to know.
Name one branch of hard science that even touches consciousness other than quantum mechanics.
Not fake sciences like sociology or psychology.
No, you made the assertion. You defend it.
I did. Put up or shut up.
Here’s my final comment to you.
Thus the brain is very far removed from the conditions required for any coherent quantum computation.
https://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=16534
That’s reads like the same kind of research-grant non-scientific “science” that says globull warming “science” is settled.
And I never said the brain was a quantum device. I said there is a quantum mechanical component to consciousness. You had nothing to contribute, you just wanted to send that link.
The artificial “intelligence” being peddled these days is zombie stimulus-response. That ain’t intelligence.
So how much artificial intelligence programming have you done? Just so I know what I’m dealing with, other than a link-bot.
I just wanted to send that link? Yet waited half a dozen posts to do so? We’re done.
You contributed nothing. You think posting a link to a chat room proves me wrong?
You know nothing, and you proved it.
So, how much artificial intelligence programming have you done?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.