Posted on 04/25/2009 7:33:14 PM PDT by GodGunsGuts
25 April 2009
Materialist Poofery
Barry Arrington
From time to time we see materialists raising the “poof objection” against ID. The poof objection goes something like this: An ID theorist claims that a given organic system (the bacterial flagellum perhaps) is irreducibly complex or that it displays functional complex specified information. In a sneering and condescending tone the materialist dismisses the claim, saying something like “Your claim amounts to nothing more than ‘Poof! the designer did it.’”
I have always thought the poof objection coming from a materialist is particularly ironic, because materialists have “poofery” built into their science at a very basic level. Of course, they don’t use the term “poof.” They use a functional synonym of poof – the word “emergent.”
What do I mean? Consider the hard problem of consciousness. We all believe we are conscious, and consciousness must be accounted for. For the ID theorists, this is easy. The mind is a real phenomenon that cannot be reduced to the properties of the brain. Obviously, this is not so easy for the materialist who, by definition, must come up with a theory that reduces the mind to an epiphenomenon of the electro-chemical processes of the brain. What do they do? They say the mind is an “emergent property” of the brain. Huh? Wazzat? That means that the brain system has properties that cannot be reduced to its individual components. The system is said to “supervene” (I’m not making this up) on its components causing the whole to be greater than the sum of the parts.
And what evidence do we have that “emergence” is a real phenomenon? Absolutely none. Emergence is materialist poofery. Take the mind-brain problem again. The materialist knows that his claim that the mind does not exist is patently absurd. Yet, given his premises it simply cannot exist. So what is a materialist to do? Easy. Poof – the mind is an emergent property of the brain system that otherwise cannot be accounted for on materialist grounds.
Please, do point me to a medically documented reference to someone who was fully conscious despite having no brain tissue.
Cephalopods are probably the best subject to use as an example of the evolution of memory. Octopuses and squids, for example, have developed highly specialized, dedicated memory centers that enhance their ability to learn and remember. As a result, they modify their hunting techniques based on past experiences.
What makes them a good study subject is the availability of their close relative, the primitive nautilus. The nautilus, while having a similar albeit simpler brain structure, lacks the dedicated memory centers present in the more developed species of cephalopods. Despite this handicap, it appears the nautilus still has developed a rudimentary capacity for temporally separated short and long term memory (about 1 hour short term, and roughly 6-12 hours long term). This suggests that a very basic ability to recall recent past events developed in ancestral cephalopods. As new species emerged, brains with more pronounced and sophisticated memory centers contributed to their success and therefore became a trait favored by natural selection.
An interesting assertion, but for it to be so it would have to follow that species with greater memory capacity are more successful at survival. That would tend to form an inverted pyramid of life with those having the best memory forming the top layer and so on. Such is not the case.
Comparing the nautilus and squid, why is one having less memory than the other a handicap if both survive and are successful?
I will suggest that the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, and Jews may be considered the experts on the Old, and they don’t think the two are compatible.
I can recommend this excercise to you: Take a weekend with a good translator’s Bible and go through Matthew and actually compare the Greek text of “fulfilled prophesy” to the Old Testament Hebrew words that are referenced.
They normally work pretty well in Greek, but not in Hebrew, which shows that “Matthew” wasn’t Jewish, and was trying to convince Greek speakers ignorant of rabbinical training that there was a Old Testament prophesy.
For the same reason that trees don’t have memory.
Species with memory only have an advantage over species with less memory in an environment where memory is favored.
Take the standard Democratic convention. Memory there is not positively correlated with your chances at mating.
Trees don’t have memory? Then how do know when to drop their leaves? A silly statement to be sure but no more so than:
“Species with memory only have an advantage over species with less memory in an environment where memory is favored.”
While any objective thinking person realizes that materialism is total bunk, it does not follow from this that common origin is bunk.
Comparing the nautilus and squid, why is one having less memory than the other a handicap if both survive and are successful?
Short answer:
A species doesn't have to be as successful as possible, or even very successful. It just has to be successful enough to propagate the next generation.
Longer answer:
Brains take energy. The higher the capacity the brain, the more energy it uses. In some cases, a larger brain would consume more energy than it is worth, resulting in a shortage of energy for other, more useful traits. Natural selection doesn't care about the strongest, the smartest, or the fastest. It cares about the fittest for a given situation. If a more developed brain would give a population an edge in survival, then members of that population will likely pass this trait on in larger numbers than those members with a less developed brain. However, if that brain comes at the expense of a physical ability that makes a more necessary contribution to survival in the given environment, the brain will probably lose the evolutionary battle for dominance in the population's development.
Most species of life have little need for highly developed brains, and therefore expending energy on one would be a lethal luxury. Species that sacrifice energy for brainpower have a harder time finding niches to successfully fill. Therefore 'dumber' species that instead have developed other, specialized ways of survival vastly outnumber those whose physical abilities took a back seat to a big brain. On the other hand, brains come in very handy when the environment suffers a significant change. If those mindless, specialized critters lose their niches, they tend to die out and become extinct. A species that can learn another way to survive stands a better chance of at least surviving long enough to fill a newly created niche.
Many other documented cases exist.
First of all “Jews” are not just one group of opinions, even in Jesus’ day what they understood the Hebrew Scriptures to mean was all over the map and still is.
Hence “experts” by what logic? That they don’t think the two are compatible is hardly a surprise, is it?
But it need not take a weekend to find what I believe you have in mind (I trust you’ll correct me if it isn’t an example), Matt.1:23 quote of Isa. 7:14.
“’almah” was rendered by the LXX as “parthenos” in Greek so those translators thought the Hebrew and Greek worked pretty well together as have translators like Lamsa.
Matthew Levi, a Jew, wrote his account in Hebrew so I rather think he would know what the word “almah” was generally understood to mean.
The longer answer sounds like what is called a just so story.
“Natural selection doesn’t care about the strongest, the smartest, or the fastest. It cares about the fittest for a given situation.”
You’re one funny guy. Natural selection can’t “care” or not care about anything.
And saying that if a thing is helpful it will be passed on but if it isn’t it won’t is the same logic that says we know it’s raining when water falls from the sky, etc.
Thanks anyway.
You’re one funny guy. Natural selection can’t “care” or not care about anything.
I apologize for my sloppy terminology. If you prefer, I'm happy to rewrite the sentence as such:
Natural selection doesn't necessarily always favor the strongest, the smartest, or the fastest. Instead it favors the fittest for a given situation.
And saying that if a thing is helpful it will be passed on but if it isn’t it won’t is the same logic that says we know it’s raining when water falls from the sky, etc.
Well, that's the premise behind natural selection. Apparently you accept it as an obvious truth, so I don't have a problem with you pointing it out as such.
Thanks anyway.
You are quite welcome.
No need to apoligize, I had a bit of fun with that but hopefully not over much.
Good night and cheers!
Hence, it is meaningless, and thus a subject for religious studies, rather than a subject for science.
You missed the point. The greater question at issue is essentially "who died and made science the end all and be all of 'knowledge'?"
I would say that "science" is not superior to any other method - including religious faith - as a means of understanding origins. Science is, by its very nature, limited in its scope and application, and by its own rules, is completely incompetent to speak as to what actually happened "back then." If empiricism is what you're looking for, then you're going to have to basically dump any hopes that science will be able to tell us what happened, origins-wise. All we have to go on, empirically, is forensic evidences - many of which are more supportive of the YEC interpretation of the data than they are the old earth, materialist evolutionary interpretation. As far as true empiricism? Nope, not gonna get it.
This is why I say that NEITHER creationism nor evolution are "science" in the strictly defined sense most widely meant when people use that term. Both camps use faith - I have no problem with admitting and accepting that.
But no, so far as accepting "science" and the scientific method as some sort of unquestionable arbiter of all that is true and right? Nope, I don't buy it and I'm an completely and thoroughly unwilling to grant "science" that authority. And that's speaking AS a practitioner of the scientific method. I know better than the limitations and foibles of science than do these FReepers running around, flapping their yaps about "science", while sitting behind their desks working as accountants or insurance adjusters of whatnot.
Obama.
Okay, materialism is spooty and ID is just way better stuff. What chapter and verse tells us how to make cold fusion work?
==Instead, it is pointed out that ‘irreducible complexity’ has been thoroughly debunked through demonstrations and examples of separately evolving subcomponents of so-called irreducible mechanisms (like your aforementioned flagellum).
Actually, all of life is based on an irreducible structure, not just bacterial flagellums and blood clotting cascades.
More evolutionary assumptions and materialist poofery.
You mean like “Poof, The Magic Dragon”?
Evolution uses evidence.
That is why we have all those dug up bones in museums. That is why people do experiments. Darwin himself did experiments, and combined information on how long seeds would remain fertile with information on ocean currents gathered from ship captains all over the world. The results were published by the Royal Society. Given different concentration of species, why would there not be breadfruit plants in North America, but there are breadfruit plants in Tahiti?
Hypothesis: Breadfruit plant seeds would not be able to germinate after immersion in sea water for the length of time needed to reach North America.
Test: Calculate time required for a breadfruit plant to move by ocean currents from Tahiti to North America. Soak a sample of breadfruit plant seeds in sea water (in several of Darwin’s bathtubs, he had a large home). At intervals tale one out and plant it. Record the results of germination. If no germination is recorded after the calculated time, then the hypothesis is confirmed.
That is science. Not quote mining. Not whining about bias.
Predictions, experiments, and most importantly, evidence.
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