DNA evidence, at least, supports it.
From PBS.org:
Posted on 10/01/2005 5:09:16 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
Professor focused on intelligent design as theology, not science, at Dover trial Friday.
HARRISBURG — If there is a God, then he could have made the monkey and the human with similar genetic material.
In the fifth day of Dover Area School District’s trial over intelligent design, John Haught, a Georgetown University theology professor, agreed that was true.
So, the idea that “we came from some monkey or ape is conjecture at this point?” Dover’s lead attorney Richard Thompson asked Haught under cross-examination.
Haught disagreed.
In a First Amendment battle in U.S. Middle District Court in Harrisburg, the Dover district is defending its decision last year to include intelligent design in its biology curriculum. Eleven parents filed suit against the district arguing the concept is a veiled attempt to force religion into science class.
On Friday, Thompson, in trying to cast doubt over the theory of evolution — referred to as the unifying concept of modern biology — raised the issue of common descent.
But Haught said that in the world of science, there is little debate that humans share a common ancestor.
The professor, who spoke deliberately and extensively on the philosophical differences between religion and science, was the day’s sole witness.
Questioned by plaintiffs’ attorney Alfred Wilcox, he said intelligent design’s basic premise — that the complexity of life defies all explanation but the existence of a designer — is essentially an old religious argument based on the 13th-century writings of St. Thomas Aquinas and the “watchmaker” analogy put forth in 1802 by British philosopher William Paley.
A person walking through a field stumbles upon a watch. It is carefully assembled and wouldn’t function without all its parts working together. The person’s inevitable conclusion? The watch must have a maker.
Under cross-examination, Thompson asked if there was a controversy in the scientific community over the idea of irreducible complexity — essentially, the watchmaker’s observation that if a single working part of an organism were to be removed, the entire system would cease to function.
Haught told him that there exists a controversy between Lehigh University biochemistry professor Michael Behe, who coined the term, and most of the scientific community.
“So, you agree there is a controversy?” Thompson asked.
While most of plaintiffs’ expert testimony this week focused on establishing that intelligent design is not science, Haught’s focused on why it’s theology.
Science asks, “How?” he said. Religion asks, “Why?”
As an example, Haught compared the differences to water boiling on the stove.
What causes it to boil?
Well, one could answer it’s because of rapidly vibrating water molecules.
Another answer could be because “I want a cup of tea,” Haught suggested.
Both are correct answers, but one doesn’t discount the other.
One doesn’t bring the subject of desiring tea into the study of molecular movement.
It’s also a mistake to say, Haught said, “It’s the molecular movement rather than I want tea.”
Ad Hominem is a fallacy that introduces irrelevant personal premises about an opponent. In the case at hand, you made an authoritative comment attacking the scientific knowledge of others. It is not an irrelevant personal attack, nor is it too much to ask of you to provide the credentials of your claim of authority.
It appears that the universe is billions of years old and that evolution (in a general sense) happens, but how does it appear that all terrestrial life evolved from a common ancestor? Where is the actual evidence for this? It could very well be that there was more than one starting life form, or maybe just one, we simply don't know. I think the assumption of a single common ancestor just comes from a materialistic philosophy, not from any actual evidence.
And postulating a supernatural substance wherein this pattern (i.e. your mind) is instantiated solves your problem exactly how?
But you and I both must assume that our abstract thoughts or reasonings can stand on their own two feet (i.e. they are objective). Because if they are merely the result of causation, then we can never have a conversation about anything, and we might as well never have discussions such as these.
Sorry, but the one doesn't follow from the other. And also, what are thoughts the result of if they are processes in a supernatural realm instead of the natural one?
So here we are: We both assume reason is valid (or at least, I assume it is and I assume you assume it is).
I assume my reasoning abilities lead (in many instances) to valid conclusions because there is that constant feedback from reality as PatrickHenry already noted. And this is independent of whether my mind is the result of matter in motion or supermatter in motion.
Naturalism has difficulty finding an outside force that allows abstract thoughts to be objective, because, if naturalism is true, there can be no force outside the universe that is independent of it and thus not the result of a string of causations or material interrelations or some sort.
Yes, and? You say this as if it is a bad thing.
And why does there have to be some ominous outside force at all? Also, what does it change if this force exists but is the result of a string of causations of supermaterial interrelations?
Our thoughts are merely the movements of electrons and atoms, began by some other material force with no particular purpose at all.
As I said in my previous post, we are patterns in motion so from an information theoretical point of view it's completely irrelevant what kind of "substance" it exists in.
But if I can, of sheer will, independently force these electrons to behave in such a way as to form a mental picture, then I have just done something that is outside of nature itself.
How so? If you are the result of the interaction of these electrons then you didn't. On the other hand if the pattern which makes up your mind resides in some supernatural realm what led to the change in this pattern so you did 'A' instead of 'B'?
Of course, I'm sure you'll agree we have both been guilty of poor reasoning in our lives, but at least with this model we can trust the art of reasoning itself.
Poor reasoning? Yes of course I had enough of that in my life but again I don't see how your model resolves anything instead of introducing new problems.
What force, according to naturalism, could do such a thing and still be independent of causality so that you or I could trust reasoning to be rational and not merely be the result of causality?
What's your problem with causality and why does causality preclude rational thinking?
May I also inform you that this billard-ball or clockwork universe is long dead.
But if, as Christianity and other theistic thought systems suppose, man is partly supernatural, or has some supernatural component, than he may be able to, of mere will, force particles in certain instances to form certain mental pictures, and he thus has the choice to think one way or another, which means that he doesn't come as close to violating his initial assumption of independent thought.
And this "mere will" is the result of some supernatural processes which are the result of...
You see, you not only run into the same problems as with a completely naturalistic model but you introduce new ones: the interaction of the supernatural with the natural.
I hope you are aware of the fact that this ominous force you postulate has to interact in a much stronger fashion with the matter of your brain than the neutrinos that are constantly bombarding us from all directions. And as you may also know we have the capability to detect neutrinos but so far there is no trace of this ominous force which influences our brains in such a massive way.
Now, we could both agree that just because some outside force stimulated the thought doesn't imply that said thought is incorrect. This is true. But if all thoughts are merely the result of some material thing, and have no independence from the material world, then we cannot know beforehand or afterward whether we can trust the stimulating forces to create proper conclusions.
You keep asserting this but you show no reason why an independence from the material world makes our reasoning abilities any more reliable. What kind of mechanisms are at work in the supernatural world that make it superior to the natural world?
It is still possible that I have the ability to direct matter in a supernatural way, but I am myself a slave to an outside force and have no free will. But neither you nor I want to consider ourselves deterministic slaves, because if we have no free will, we are still at the same problem as before: We have no reason to trust reason and must therefore end this conversation here and now. Instead, we must assume from the outset that we have free will and our reasoning is itself free from outside coercion.
OK, first off, what is free will? How can YOU tell whether you have it or not? And what makes your will any freer if it is supernatural?
And again, the notion that our natural universe is deterministic was discarded a long time ago (at least 100 years or more if I'm not mistaken).
Again, theism can allow for some supernatural process that allows me to spontaneously, and of my own free will, force electrons in my brain to move in certain ways so as to form mental pictures, and it can allow that I have the free will to do so. I have not been shown that naturalism can do the same.
But what are these supernatural processes? And what's even more important how do they allow you (and again what is YOU if not the sum of these processes?) to force electrons in your brain to move in certain ways?
Methinks you want to solve a riddle with a greater conundrum.
Now let us move to consciousness. How come, if all there is to me is matter and energy, I realize that I exist, and I can ponder not only my existence, but how my experiences influence that existence? I am no different, really, from a tree or a desk, or my computer, when it all comes down to it. Sure, I am more complex than those things, but I am still just a large meat popsicle.
Well, of course you are different from all those things. As I already said numerous times before, it's the pattern that matters and not the substance it is instantiated in. In other words, a table in the supernatural realm is still a table and a NAND logic circuit will have the same output whether it is supernatural or natural.
One could argue that somehow it has to do with the size of the brain, but there are computers that are much faster than I at doing certain things, and are in a lot of ways more powerful, but they don't think about the fact that they exist. They don't consider their own emotional needs. They may be programmed to learn, but they don't stop and think, "What do I mean by learning (we have entire fields of thought on this subject)? What is it in my core that allows me to improve my computing processes? What is it about the constructs of the universe that allow me to even have these considerations?"
Now speed isn't really important in this aspect. What is important however, is that your brain is still more complex than the most advanced computer. So, whether future generations of computers will be able to do what you mentioned in your last paragraph, I cannot say but I think it's a bit premature to declare that they never will.
If you want to have more authoritative answers to your questions I suggest you contact FReeper "tortoise" who is a lot more knowledgeable wrt information theory than I.
Sorry, I meant to ping you as well.
In case you need some other hints (and for lurkers)....
There is an editing error on the web site you cut and pasted one of your responses from.
And there is a difference between 'attributes' and their 'value'. For example, bricks and walls share the attribute of height (length, width, etc), but the value of height is different for each.
DNA evidence, at least, supports it.
From PBS.org:
I don't have time to give a more complete answer right at the moment, but the position that I tend to favor is that the last universal common ancestor was an ancestral gene pool - i.e., multiple discrete organisms that shared information via lateral gene transfer, parasitic insertion, etc.
What "evolutionists", i.e. secularly minded scientists, are afraid of is you - An irrational firebrand hell bent on who knows what ultimate path. You are the one who puts us in mind of Lysenko, the Stalinist toady who supressed modern genetics in favor of his own ideologically motivated doctrines. I don't think there could be a clearer case of projection than the charges you make in your fulminations. "I know you are but what am I?"
BMCDA, because of your excellent reply I don't feel compelled to try to say the same thing, and so I can happily go make dinner. :-)
Here’s another silly argument:
- The atoms comprising this barrel of bricks are practically weightless.
- So this barrel of bricks is practically weightless.
The predicate “practically weightless” is true of each atom; i.e., it is true of the barrel of bricks distributively, if you think of the barrel of bricks as a collection of atoms. Yet the predicate is clearly false when you think of the barrel of bricks as a whole; barrels of bricks have noticeable weight.
Arguments like this are said to commit the fallacy of composition. The fallacy of composition consists in assuming (wrongly) that predicate that applies to a subject distributively must also apply collectively.
These examples have been silly, but they point to deep philosophical issues. For example, many people would agree with the following argument:
- Everything in the universe has a cause.
- So the universe as a whole must have a cause.
Now, the predicate “caused” is true of everything in the universe (nothing is uncaused); in other words, the predicate “caused” is true of the universe distributively. But from that, can we be certain it’s true collectively as well? No, because we know that predicates true distributively are not necessarily true collectively. This argument commits the fallacy of composition.
Here’s another, more complex and extremely common argument:
- All the individual cells comprising my body lack consciousness (i.e., no individual cell is conscious).
- Therefore, my body can’t be conscious.
- But I am conscious.
- Therefore, I must be more than a mere body. I must have a mysterious non-physical component to account for my consciousness.
I hope you see that the move from (1) to (2) is clearly a fallacy of composition. What’s true of my cells (me distributively) is not necessarily true of me (me collectively). So the argument consisting of statements (2) through (4), though of modus tollens form and valid, is still unsound.
Emergent Properties
Some properties emerge only after you combine things into wholes. Such properties are called, not surprisingly, emergent properties. That’s often why what’s true of the parts isn’t necessarily true of the wholes, and vice-versa. Using John Searle’s famous example, being wet is an emergent property of water. None of the water molecules are wet. But wetness happens when you put enough of those molecules together. Obviously, then, the following argument is silly:
- All the individual molecules comprising this water lack wetness.
- Therefore, this water can’t be wet.
- But this water is wet.
- Therefore, this water must be more than these mere molecules. This water must have a mysterious non-physical component to account for its wetness.
The move from (1) to (2) is an obvious fallacy of composition because wetness is an emergent property. Searle says consciousness is an emergent property of brains just like wetness is an emergent property of water. Neither wetness nor consciousness necessarily requires anything non-physical to explain it.
Great reply!
I'll stick to the Carbon-14 dating and some of the science method and theory, but this one is all your'n.
Like Lewis, I would use supernatural not as synonymous with divine as in common usage, but as something outside and independent of the material world.
Those who make a proper inference about sequences of events are more likely to outlive, yes. Those species, from a Darwinistic perspective, that realize that jumping off a cliff = death and thus avoid it will live longer and reproduce. Even a non-lving computer can be programmed to learn this, but it isn't really what we mean by abstract reason. How does one explain why we humans can abstractually consider what forces, both atomic and subatomic, cause one to fall, can propose the theory of gravitation and Newtonian physics, can then refine Newtonian physics with quantum physics, and can search for a GUT. This is not a simple, "I drop a rock on my toe, my toe hurts, therefore I won't drop rocks on my toes." This is a pure abstraction. And far from recognizing natural phenomenon, we actually create natural events via superconductors and things like this to test our abstractions.
Moreover, if my reasoning abilities developed purely randomly, what does that imply as to their trustworthiness?
Very-wet placemarker.
1. The atoms comprising this barrel of bricks are practically weightless.
2. So this barrel of bricks is practically weightless.
Both atoms and the barrel (made of atoms) share the attribute of weight (or if not in a gravitational field, mass). The term 'practically weightless' is imprecise and subjective and misleading.
For example, many people would agree with the following argument:
1. Everything in the universe has a cause.
2. So the universe as a whole must have a cause.
Where do I start? This example is totally dependent on the definition of the attribute 'cause' and the assumption the first statement is true. And is the universe 'everything' or something apart and separate from 'everything'?
Here’s another, more complex and extremely common argument:
1.All the individual cells comprising my body lack consciousness (i.e., no individual cell is conscious).
2. Therefore, my body can’t be conscious.
This example depends on the definition of 'conscious'....which, IIRC, is a philosophical concept that by definition only applies to human beings The 'emergent property' (attribute) here is subjective. One could argue that individual atoms have no color but collectively they do. But this depends on the definition of color. If color is what the human eye detects, this is true. But if color is the wavelengths of light absorbed, reflected, or ignored, this is not true.
Flowering plants appered much later
Not all humans are stupid.
The universe is full of information that demonstrates its old age. Not only light.
Geologists can count layers. Physicists can measure decays of many materials that have much longer decay times than just C14. Biologists can find mutations in DNA that date how long ago species branched, and can tell us how long non functioning human genes like our Vitamin C gene have been broken. Layers can be counted in Ice. The speed of continental drift can tell the time lapsed since certian situations existed. The date of the comet that probably killed the dinosaurs can be determined.
Either God lied in virtually all of the universe, as we measure it in many different ways with many different disciplines. Or your interpretation of Gods word is wrong.
I chose the second option.
Thank you. Very timely post.
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