Does this help?
(hey, those look pretty good -- now I am hungry!)
Posted on 09/24/2009 6:08:52 AM PDT by xcamel
William Dembski, the “intelligent design” creationist who is a professor in philosophy at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, has some rather interesting requirements for students of his creationism courses — 20% of their final grade comes from having written 10 posts promoting ID on “hostile” websites: Academic Year 2009-2010.
Spring 2009
Intelligent Design (SOUTHERN EVANGELICAL SEMINARY #AP 410, 510, and 810; May 11 – 16, 2009)
NEW! THE DUE DATE FOR ALL WORK IN THIS COURSE IS AUGUST 14, 2009. Here’s what you will need to do to wrap things up:
AP410 — This is the undegrad [sic] course. You have three things to do: (1) take the final exam (worth 40% of your grade); (2) write a 3,000-word essay on the theological significance of intelligent design (worth 40% of your grade); (3) provide at least 10 posts defending ID that you’ve made on “hostile” websites, the posts totalling 2,000 words, along with the URLs (i.e., web links) to each post (worth 20% of your grade).
AP510 — This is the masters course. You have four things to do: (1) take the final exam (worth 30% of your grade); (2) write a 1,500- to 2,000-word critical review of Francis Collins’s The Language of God — for instructions, see below (20% of your grade); (3) write a 3,000-word essay on the theological significance of intelligent design (worth 30% of your grade); (4) provide at least 10 posts defending ID that you’ve made on “hostile” websites, the posts totalling 3,000 words, along with the URLs (i.e., web links) to each post (worth 20% of your grade).
Yes, it is pretty amazing, dearest sister in Christ! Yet really, they never argue the point; they just level the accusation, hit-and-run style.
Speaking as a Christian, I have no problem whatsoever with material and efficient causes in nature. These are the stock-in-trade of science. Science also accepts a rather attentuated form of formal cause — initial conditions + the physical laws. What it rules out in principle, however — ever since Francis Bacon — is formal cause, by which Aristotle referred to causal "ends," or purposes. Increasingly it is becoming obvious that biology cannot be done if formal causes continue to be excluded from the scientific method.
Anyhoot, CottShop spoke in an earlier post about Alex Williams' inversely-causal Metainformation, which would be a formal cause. Theoretical biologist Robert Rosen reintroduces formal cause in his relational diagrams as the necessary cause that "closes the causal loop" in complex systems (especially biological ones), such that all causes within the system — formal, material, and especially efficient — take place within the system itself, and not through dependence on causal influences from the surrounding environment. In a multicellular/multi-component system such as a biological organism, this type of "causal closure" would appear to be necessary for the proper organization of the system.
Anyhoot, I'm a Christian, and I just love this stuff!
And I know you do too, my dearest sister in Christ! Thank you ever so much for writing!
I misspoke myself: This statement — "Alex Williams' inversely-causal Metainformation, which would be a formal cause" — should have read "Alex Williams' inversely-causal Metainformation, which would be a final cause."
Ditto with the statement referring to Rosen: "Theoretical biologist Robert Rosen reintroduces final cause in his relational diagrams."
Jeepers, sorry for the careless error! It's late. Time to turn in for the day!
Good night to all and God bless you!
[[But keep disrespecting yourself. Your posts look like a baby who keeps soiling himself while smiling and saying “I did a poopy!”
And you are so gonna get it when mommy (who knows if you have a daddy — your “look at me” issues suggest not) comes downstairs and finds you are wasting real grown-up’s time again.]]
As I mentioend in previous post- I really don’t liek discussing anythign with you because you start off reasonable enough- but the more facts refute your claims- them ore you turn to childish insults and avoiding the issues
[[I have made it clear what real science requires.]]
You have doen no such thing- All you’ve done is deny deny deny without giving ANY evidnece whatsoever that life was able to violate chemical biological and natural laws- ALL you’ve doen is insist it did- You’ve avoided the issues right from the beginning, and done nothign but obsess over my spelling and insinuating that creationsits ‘don’t understand science’- Sorry- but any 5 year old can make those kinds of lame generalized ‘arguments’- so don’t flatter yourself- Let’s see the evidnece that chemicals purified themselves soemhow- let’s see the science behind nature providing the means for htose chemicals to purify themselves- let’s see the evidence that amino acids made the biologically impossible leap to protiens- let’s see the evidence that shows nature was able to violate the second law trillions of times- let’s see th3e evidence that nautre weas able to trnasfer metainformation to species so they coudl remain fit and antipiating problems down the road-
Again- you’ll simply wave all this away and insist that somehow 10 million other scientists who also IGNORE these impossibilities equates to the impossible hypothesis of Macorevol,ution being true without providing ANY evidnece that it coudkl had accomplished even one of the above problems it faces- ASSUMPTIONS are apaprently al lthat is needed in your brand of ‘science’, and when you can’t provide evidence, then just resort to name calling and attackign someone’s typing skills- Yep- what a winniong strategy you’ve got goign for yourself therte- Not! (Oh, and oyu’ve got a lot of nerve statign that others ‘don’t understand hte science’ when you can’t even provide basic answers to basic problems that macroevolution faces- foot stomping aint gonna cut it here fella- let’s see some evidenece- Any child can hurl insults- let’s see some real grown up ‘science’ come from you for once- step it up a notch (not that I expect you will- but meh- do what you want- your continued aversion to the issues speaks volumes!)
[[In a multicellular/multi-component system such as a biological organism, this type of “causal closure” would appear to be necessary for the proper organization of the system. ]]
I’ll have to read your post over more tomorrow- but just wanted to add that this closed loop entails species specific parameters which prevent going beyond certain measures to ensure the species remains fit and viable and able to thrive- these parameters are also what allows Microevolution to occure within the closed loop- Macroevoltuion apparently demands that the loop not be closed to allow for mega-structural changes- but we know from myriad experiments this isn’t the case now or ever- the species would be moved beyond it’s own species specific capabilities without any species specific metainformation to handle the changes
I strongly suggest you repost your post — I just can’t read it.
Please use tools available on the Internet to assist you if you have a learning disability. We here at FR are ready and able to assist you in overcoming your mental handicap.
I also suggest the following (your mommy and daddy probably have said this, too, but it bears repeating):
Read posts for content. I have been crystal clear in all matters of evaluation of TToE versus pure mythos. I have stated the science-based criteria for incorporation data into the scientific realm. If you do not understand these, my hands are tied. It is describing eyesight to the blind.
I am not the reason for your ignorance. Your ignorance is a construct of your own inability to comprehend the proper and accepted methodology of science.
Have a blessed night. I shall say a special prayer that the knowledge eyesight you have available to you been opened to see God’s hand, and that you cease plowing Satan’s rows to pull down people of good spirit but feeble intellect.
After that it is in God’s hands.
Or put another way, it's like placing a template down over reality, and everything that shows through is admitted as relevant to one's problem; but the template itself also occludes much from view, which is still very much a part of the reality under investigation.
I hope this makes sense. Sometimes the most obvious things are the most difficult to explain. Go figure!
Anyhoot, if the use of doctrinal templates is what constitutes a "method," then it seems to me it's a pretty bad one. FWIW.
I agree, (and this is what I find disagreeable about science based on Biblical literalism) but submit that this is something of an oversimplification. To say that we put a "template" over reality that occludes parts of it from view implies that without that template those parts would be visible - all we have to do is not apply that template and we'll see it all. Taken in those terms, that appears to be an implicit assertion of materialism - that everything that is there can be perceived, so what we can perceive is all there is.
To say that limitations that are a consequence of the range of our sensory perception are "doctrinal" seems disingenuous.
Seems to me there are many things which cannot be reduced to offer a logical explanation based on physical causation. Among these are the love between a man and a woman, that one person may be crushed by an event that another finds inspiring, the origin of space/time and therefore physical causality itself and so on.
And of course I strongly agree that biology cannot progress much without dealing with final cause. It is absurd for the biologists to speak in terms of "apparent" functions.
Biological systems are exceedingly well organized; if the liver was not functionally specific, we would be physically dead.
The implied taboo on final causes under methodological naturalism certainly should not apply to biological life.
And I assert it should be lifted altogether. After all, there is nothing scientifically inappropriate in asking whether anything else in the universe appears to be functionally organized.
There are indeed.
It's been submitted that we shouldn't be applying a "template" to our view of reality that limits us to only considering physical causes.
I don't necessarily have a problem with that. What I do have a problem with is removing that template, with the intent of immediatly applying another one to the non-physical causes.
[[What it rules out in principle, however — ever since Francis Bacon — is formal cause, by which Aristotle referred to causal “ends,” or purposes. Increasingly it is becoming obvious that biology cannot be done if formal causes continue to be excluded from the scientific method.]]
And htis is a key point- The study of biology shows that indeed there is purpose- especially behind species specific metainformation- this is a major problem for the hypothesis of macroevolution, and hte evo simply dismisses purpose- or at best tries to claim unguided mistakes have purpose because the system they are workign on already has the information present to ‘guide’ the mistakes in a purposeful manner, and as the species suppsoedly evolves more and more, the complexity of information builds through trial and error- William’s article on life’s irreducible structures clearly showed that this is impossible- which again, is why evos simply dismiss the whole fact of inversely-causal Metainformation. They dede hierarchy, but claim heirarchy came about in a stepwise fashion without hte help of a metaguide system- or at best, claim the metainformation was trasnfered from nature to the species durign hte process of suppsoed macroevolution, apparently much like a game of red rover (I can’t beleive some i nthe evo field even suggest that- but there ya have it)
[[Science also accepts a rather attentuated form of formal cause — initial conditions + the physical laws. ]]
But they are stuck insisting hte impossible- that nature ‘could provide’ anticipatory information to deal with problems that are bound to arise in the future- so they devise a scenario whereby species, as they supposedly evolved, storing all manner of presently useless information, and when problems do arise, the problems are seived through al lthis stored info until just by chance ‘somethign works’, at which point, it’s retained, and passed along because of the benifit. However, Macroevolution hypothesis tells us that what isn’t useful is discarded, and one would gave to wonder just how many trillions of years it would take, and how many generations it woudl take for this weeding out process to take place by happenstance.
Ruling out formal cause, right fro mthe getgo, certainly isn’t an objective pursuit of science, espeically when we see a plethora of evidence to show that an anticipatory guidance system is inplace, keeping speices fit within species specific paramters.
I think I missed the thread on Rosen’s ‘closed loop’- would you have a link to it as I think htis is also a key to understandign hte heirachal system of metainformation- was the loop referrign to comication of informaiton? or just to the presence of species specific information?
[[I also suggest the following (your mommy and daddy probably have said this, too, but it bears repeating):]]
I’m sorry- I was under the impression that I was discussing issues with an adult- apaprently I was mistaken- my mistake- run along now kid
There was a thread up re: Rosen a few months back, but I don't think this particular issue of "causal closure" by means of a final cause came up there. It's based on recollection of arguments in his wonderful book, Life Itself: A Comprehensive Inquiry into the Nature, Origin, and Fabrication of Life. Rosen's approach to theoretical biology is intensively mathematical. His method is mathematical modeling of complex systems, in particular biological ones.
He doesn't get into information/communication issues explicitly, nor is he building a hierarchical model of a biological organism of the type Williams created. Rather, he is dealing with the causal characteristics (organizational structure) of complex systems in general, and how they differ from the "simple system" structures we call mechanisms and machines.
It is, IMHO, a revolutionary book. It seems to be gaining wider attention among theoretical biologists, especially those who favor a mathematical approach. Which to me is a promising way to advance; for as Eugene Wigner put it, mathematics is "unreasonably effective" in probing/describing the universe. (Or words to that effect.)
Of course the Evos would detest final causes; they cannot have a system that is NOT completely open to the environment. All the prompts to speciation are said to come from the environment. The environment "pushes," and "natural selection" does all the rest, in a purely blind, purposeless process....
Of course, it's my view that people who say such things must also believe in fairy stories....
IMHO, your analysis of the Evo "predicament" is spot-on, dear CottShop! Thank you ever so much for writing!
Do your mommy and daddy know you are using the computer before doing your homework?
You are really gonna get it.
How would it work in practice? I could make any calculation come out however I wanted by simply declaring whatever arbitrary axioms were required to produce the result I wanted.
CottShop, you did ask about some of this on a previous thread. For tacticalogic and freedum2003, I'm copying below your remark then and my reply:
I’ll try to “sum it up” this way…
There are four different kinds of “causation.” To use an example, the formal cause would be the blueprint for your house. The material cause would be the lumber, nails, etc. The efficient cause would be the construction workers who build it. And the final cause would be the house itself, the reason for the previous three causes.
Since the days of Newton, science has ignored formal and final cause with the assumption that everything in the universe is a machine that can be understood by material and efficient causes.
Among other things, this allowed them to insist philosophers and theologians stay away to let them do their work.
And their presupposition has been wildly successful for centuries because, with the notable exception of living things, the rest of the universe can be understood as a machine.
Evidently, the scientists always considered biology to be a “special case” – minor in comparison to the rest of the universe – and not really worth their time. The machine presupposition works well in physics and chemistry, so it’s just a matter of time before they can explain life as a machine, too.
The biologists meanwhile didn’t care either. The machine way of looking at things works well enough in the laboratory until people ask inconvenient questions – and besides they can always claim that life is evolution, the historical record itself. Which is to say, it is because here we are (see Anthropic principle.)
Well, enter the mathematical biologists (Rosen and his predecessors) and mathematicians/physicists who dared to ask (vonNeumann, Pattee, Yockey, Chaitin, Wolfram et al) and it becomes glaringly apparent that life is not simply a machine after all.
From Rosen’s outstanding arguments we see there is no (efficient) cause outside of the organism doing the maintenance, repair, metabolizing and building. It’s doing it on its own. And so he has developed a relational biology, a mathematical model looking at the organization itself. And thus Rosen declares that "a material system is an organism if, and only if, it is closed to efficient causation."
That is how he answers the question “What is life?” His model is not static, the organism doesn’t just sit there dead as a doornail. There is a flow in the organizational model from one element to the next. And that flow involves both encoding and decoding. That is “chasing” in the model. His model is not concerned with time but with the ordering, the flow, the chasing.
The same is true of Shannon’s mathematical model of communications. It is all about the chasing. Information is defined by Shannon as the reduction of uncertainty in the receiver (an element to Rosen’s model) – the chasing, the flow – not the message itself.
My only complaint so far about Rosen’s book is that he did not give enough credit to Shannon even though his theory relies on Shannon’s work.
To compare the two, think of Shannon as a discrete single chase through Rosen’s organization, e.g. it starts with a sender, a message which is encoded and sent through a channel subject to noise whereupon it is decoded and thereby reduces the uncertainty of the receiver. Shannon's has a beginning and an end. It is discrete.
Rosen's is not a discrete instance, his goes endlessly one to another, turning it into a circular model. One flow (input>process>output> to another (input>process>output) seamlessly.
And so, if anyone asks me “What is life?” I will answer them with both.
Under Shannon, that which successfully communicates in nature is alive. If it cannot, it is either dead or non-life. Shannon’s model doesn’t care whether the elements of the model are biological, radios, tvs, computers, non-physical, etc. Thus the Shannon definition applies to biological organisms (nature), alien life forms (cosmos), artificial intelligence (man-made), spiritual beings, etc.
Under Rosen, expanding his above definition beyond the material (nature) - a thing is alive if it is closed to efficient causation. Which is to say, the thing doesn’t need an outsider to do maintenance, repair, etc.
Because of this, Rosen’s definition rejects artificial intelligence and thus has been criticized by some in that camp. It also arguably would only recognize God as having Spiritual life in Himself (as the Scriptures say.)
The two models are not mutually exclusive. Which one I emphasize in a debate will probably depend on the subject matter.
The Shannon model has a track record in pharmaceutical and cancer research. The Rosen model is just now getting some attention and its application is also reaching to physical cosmology (Fineman et al.)
Did that help?
For instance, Einstein's special relativity is built on several postulates one of which is a four dimensional space/time continuum. Falsify that and the entire theory is falsifed.
Mathematics is formal and thus the presuppositions are known up front. In my view, scientific investigations should be formalized the same way.
Thus, if the scientist starts with a presupposition that the earth sits on the shell of a giant, invisible turtle, there's no need to read further except perhaps for amusement.
The “mathematical model” argument seem to be operating under the premise that the model is a perfect representation of whatever is being modeled. I find that a dubious proposition.
Not only are you erudite, but you have a heck of a memory.
When you and your sister (in Christ) get rolling, I feel like a boogie boarder on Hawaii’s North Shore. Huge beautiful waves of words, but not what I expected when I parked the car.
I understand why it is you link science and philosophy, but that is not and never has been my argument.
My argument is and always has been a practical one: How can you apply amorphous musings (no offense) to the modern scientific model? Answer: You can’t. It can certainly be part of the individual and even the collective pursuit, but the process has nor (nor should it have) any “bucket” to hold it.
Philosophy is a different realm that hard science. All scientists engage in philosophical debate and many are very good at it. But that is still different.
The idea, for example, that evolution is “looking for something” (I am broadly paraphrasing for example’s sake) can establish a direction for science to pursue (a proper role) but once the pursuit begins, it becomes “what physical, non-supernatural phenomena constitute ‘looking?’” (FWIIW, it is stochastic processes).
So as much as I really admire the depth and breadth of your knowledge and ability to apply to the issue at hand, I still feel it takes the discussion in paths that wander away from the core issue.
IMHO and YMMV
Does this help?
(hey, those look pretty good -- now I am hungry!)
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.