I guess you do not have much use for the masterpieces of Ad Reinhart!
Ad Reinhart, Black Painting No. 34, 1964
Source=
http://www.wisc.edu/arth/ah202/ava/wk15lec1.html
Posted on 01/18/2006 3:09:20 PM PST by xzins
Vatican Paper Hits 'Intelligent Design' By NICOLE WINFIELD ASSOCIATED PRESS
VATICAN CITY (AP) -
The Vatican newspaper has published an article saying "intelligent design" is not science and that teaching it alongside evolutionary theory in school classrooms only creates confusion.
The article in Tuesday's editions of L'Osservatore Romano was the latest in a series of interventions by Vatican officials - including the pope - on the issue that has dominated headlines in the United States.
The author, Fiorenzo Facchini, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Bologna, laid out the scientific rationale for Darwin's theory of evolution, saying that in the scientific world, biological evolution "represents the interpretative key of the history of life on Earth."
He lamented that certain American "creationists" had brought the debate back to the "dogmatic" 1800s, and said their arguments weren't science but ideology.
"This isn't how science is done," he wrote. "If the model proposed by Darwin is deemed insufficient, one should look for another, but it's not correct from a methodological point of view to take oneself away from the scientific field pretending to do science."
Intelligent design "doesn't belong to science and the pretext that it be taught as a scientific theory alongside Darwin's explanation is unjustified," he wrote.
"It only creates confusion between the scientific and philosophical and religious planes."
Supporters of "intelligent design" hold that some features of the universe and living things are so complex they must have been designed by a higher intelligence. Critics say intelligent design is merely creationism - a literal reading of the Bible's story of creation - camouflaged in scientific language and say it does not belong in science curriculum.
Facchini said he recognized some Darwin proponents erroneously assume that evolution explains everything. "Better to recognize that the problem from the scientific point of view remains open," he said.
But he concluded: "In a vision that goes beyond the empirical horizon, we can say that we aren't men by chance or by necessity, and that the human experience has a sense and a direction signaled by a superior design."
The article echoed similar arguments by the Vatican's chief astronomer, the Rev. George Coyne, who said "intelligent design" wasn't science and had no place in school classrooms.
Pope Benedict XVI reaffirmed in off-the-cuff comments in November that the universe was made by an "intelligent project" and criticized those who in the name of science say its creation was without direction or order.
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We've already answered that question. We have our daughter in a private Christian school. We pay for it. Ideally we'd like vouchers. As for other organizations that we don't agree with, I believe the government should STOP taking our tax dollars and STOP supporting these idiotic parasites. If they didn't have our tax dollars they wouldn't exist.
IMHO, disputes between confessions are inevitable when the doctrines include opposing views of nature.
Of a Truth, God the Father has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit, in Scriptures and in Creation (Psalms 19, Romans 1).
And sadly, many who say “thus sayeth the Lord” – are not speaking what He is saying but rather what they think He is saying or what others are telling them He is saying.
But One cannot create a masterpiece with a single color on His palette – and the disagreements add a certain beauty to the canvas of “all that there is”.
Spunkie: Assuming that your logic was impeccable (a giant leap of, ummm, faith, that!), faulty premises lead through perfect logic to faulty conclusions as is obvious from your posts. Faulty premises rarely lead through imperfect logic to other than faulty conclusions either.
Not primacy but of substantial or even coequal weight in relation to scripture. No Catholic thinks scripture is of diminished value compared to sacred tradition or the magisterium despite the proclamations of some non-catholic preachers.
Typical, What died Dan, the body or the soul or both? Are the "Dead in Christ" spiritually dead or have their material bodies died? Are you trying to start a brand new or slightly repackaged heresy? It's the irresponsible self guided biblical interpretation that precisely illustrates why Christ gave us a Church before He gave us the fullness of scripture.
Settle for the modernest version of Christianity with its deaf and blind attitude toward the fullness of revelation if you want, it's your choice but I reject your cult of pope Dan.
"There is no way that someone with this perspective can be a conservative"
Sure they can. People can be fiscally and politically conservative, i.e. a Jeffersonian-type Republican without wishing to force their religion down other people's throats.
You social conservatives are an enigma, honestly. On the one hand, you cry out for more fiscal responsibility and decrease in size of gov't (both things I agree with). OTOH, you fully expect gov't to endorse only your religion, usually with taxpayer funds. It's puzzling.
"So what if there's a part of the body that you haven't discovered the purpose of. "
Umm...science has LONG-ago shown the appendix to be vestigial. There's nothing "undiscovered" about it. You can't seriously believe we're going to find some magical use for this, do you? Thousands are removed from people daily (mine at age 16) to no ill effect.
Humans EVOLVED to no longer need them. Sorry.
"I'll wait until human Science has, maybe, gone ... say a hundred years without changing its tune ... before I'll believe it over God. "
I've listed an example where the Bible that the earth has 4 corners. "Science" has known for at least 500 years (or longer) that the earth is a spheroid, and thus has no corners whatsoever. So...do you still believe in a flat-earth with corners and that "the pillars of the earth are the LORD's, and he hath set the world upon them." I.E. Are you a flat-earther, as God allegedly said in the Bible?
Science has shown stars to be extremely large objects. It's done so with repeated observations and evidence that cannot be argued. If one was to hit earth, earth would be completely incinerated long before impact.
Yet, the Bible states :And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters."
This is ludicrous. Earth would not survive a stellar impact.
"That you can't fathom the Creator's purpose in this is not at all surprising. "
You got that right. I refuse to worship a God whose grand plan involves the intentional killing of his only Son as punishment for man's imperfection, which isn't man's fault since God created man that way! Again, I wouldn't treat my dog as badly as God allegedly treats man. I noted that you didn't try to explain the masochistic purpose behind this 'plan' either. So much for "spreading the Word", eh?
"The challenge remains: show one Bible verse that encourages anyone, ever, to try to make contact with those who have died. It is not that complicated"
BibChr is right. It's not that complicated:
At the end of John 11:14-44, Jesus very clearly tries (and apparently succeeds!) to make contact with someone who is dead. His name is Lazarus.
"And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth,"
Before being "called forth", Lazarus was clearly dead. Jesus successfully made contact with him.
To quote you, "Point won."
Since you obviously have no idea what the bible says, why are you debating religion?
Archival.
As ever, God bless you and yours and those involved with your daughter's school.
I agree. Can I get the second award?
The vast majority of the time, the Darwinian simply substitutes an "Intelligent Creator" with "chance." That is why it can only ever at best be a theory. You cannot directly observe, you can only hypothesize.
Chance has no causal influence. Chance is merely a substitution for a lack of data. The problem is that this "substitution for a lack of data" is used to outright dismiss any possibility of an Intelligent Creator. It basically says, "We don't know what caused this because we don't have enough information, but we can tell you what didn't cause it." Well, no...they cannot.
Darwinian Evolution is not presented as a theory in classrooms. It is presented as unquestionable fact. Rather as being presented as one possible explanation of human origins, it is presented as the only possible explanation. That doesn't represent science, that represents an agenda.
So the Evolutionist's cries of "You're just trying to disguise Judeo-Christian Creationism in scientific language" are rather hypocritical given the fact that they're quite often trying to disguise atheism the same way.
Umm...science has LONG-ago shown the appendix to be vestigial. There's nothing "undiscovered" about it. You can't seriously believe we're going to find some magical use for this, do you? Thousands are removed from people daily (mine at age 16) to no ill effect.
Humans EVOLVED to no longer need them. Sorry.
Why should I be sorry.
Humans run well with them.
Humans run well without them.
Humans run better than anything intelligent humans have ever designed.
I don't always clean up my designs from all the extra stuff, either.
"I'll wait until human Science has, maybe, gone ... say a hundred years without changing its tune ... before I'll believe it over God. "
I've listed an example where the Bible that the earth has 4 corners. "Science" has known for at least 500 years (or longer) that the earth is a spheroid, and thus has no corners whatsoever. So...do you still believe in a flat-earth with corners and that "the pillars of the earth are the LORD's, and he hath set the world upon them." I.E. Are you a flat-earther, as God allegedly said in the Bible?
Science has shown stars to be extremely large objects. It's done so with repeated observations and evidence that cannot be argued. If one was to hit earth, earth would be completely incinerated long before impact.
Yet, the Bible states :And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters."
This is ludicrous. Earth would not survive a stellar impact.
Certainly you've heard of 'figures of speech'.
Surprise ... the Bible uses them.
I'll bet you do too.
"To the contrary, there is neither physics nor physical causation without spatial and temporal dimensionality. Without time, events cannot occur. Without space, things cannot be.
The keyword applied to "worlds" is "possible".
" the beginning of real time is the metaphysical naturalist objection to all cosmologies."
I'm not sure what you mean by this. This world is locally Lorentzian. The first instant of time in this world was at the beginning, when the first Lorentz frame unfolded. Time elsewhere is whatever it is.
"There is no autonomy in the void in which there is no space, no time, no energy, no matter, no physical laws, no physical constants, no physical causation – the void is both singular and transcendent -"
I don't agree with this, but I'm not a mystic. This world does not exist in the void. That is clear. Autonomy, time, energy, physical laws and causation do though. The original unfolding of this world as a phase transformation requires it. Recall the 3d2t space that describes this world and embodies various 10/11 dimensional spaces(string theories). The original one you mentioned awhile back is a deSitter space(flat in 5d), there is also an anti-deSitter space(not flat in 5d). Gravity arises in different ways in the 2. Which theory applies, I don't know. Thanks for the link to Vafa.
"– thus Shannon completes the circle and gives us a definitive response to the "what is life v. non-life/death in nature" root question."
I don't see that. Information theory applies to dead things also, in the same way.
" You are too dismissive in your objections to Schneider’s calculation of thermodynamic entropy in his article, ...“after the coin has settled on one side, the uncertainty is only one bit lower because there are half as many microstates” "
In the FR link, that I gave covered this. The microstates in the Cu penny don not change. They are the same before and after the penny is flipped. That can be seen by noting that the molar entropy of Cu is the same before and after the flip, regardless of the shape, or makings on the slug. The thermodynamic entropy change is zero! Schneider should have stuck with his normal assignment of receiver understandable outcomes, instead of attempting to bring thermodynamics in. He is flat out wrong there. It's a common error I've seen and Schneider himself cautions against it.
" he illustrates that the reduction of Shannon entropy in a molecular machine as it goes from a before state to an after state, pays the thermodynamic tab, increasing entropy by releasing corresponding energy in the local environment."
His Emin to communicate a bit calculation is right, but the coin flip involved the energy of a person's hand, not the coin. Emin is on the order of 10-23.
" Thus by taking the reader through the exercise he addresses your objection quite directly – Shannon entropy is not to be confused with thermodynamic entropy, albeit the formulations are virtually identical and a relationship exists between the successful communication (the math) and physics."
Information theory normally ignores background in order to simplify the matter. The person modeling the system must identify the relevant aspects of the process and note what events have meaning to a reader of the receiver. Thermodynamics includes everything, regardless of the fact that most of it is meaningless to any receiver. However, in some problems, they can be the same, as in his Emin calc. That also applies to more complex systems. Doing so however, requires the background be separated out and that is usually more difficult than ignoring the background in the first place. To separate it out, one has to calculate the answer they're looking for, then subtract it from the total, then subtract that from the total again to obtain the answer they're looking for. It's a redundant waste of effort. That's why the 2 applied theories generally don't correspond. All of this illustrates why thermodynamic entropy calculations do not, in general, correspond to information theory entropy and deltaS and R(info).
The original post, #57, contains no premise. The premise is to be chosen. The starting point is the definition of science, which includes the scientific method in the search for truth. The scientific method is what you leave out in your search for truth claim.
Your failure to grasp the problem is grounded in your choice of concluison beforehand. Your conclusion is apriori. that is not logical. That is the sole basis for your claim that my "conclusion" is wrong. In fact I made no conclusion. I simply pointed out facts.
This testing is quite common. The response time for human thought can be easily measured. It depends on priors though, and in general, comparisons of response time require simple tasks on folks essentially holding the same set of weighted priors.
Comparison of instinctive type behavioral response time is also, done and comparison with animal response time can easily be made. The order of brain response time is in the ~10s of millisec range. Motor response takes it a decade, more higher.
"here may be a measurable empirical way to offer an empirical scientific explanation for the behavior some day. But that day has not yet arrived..."
Modern texts in animal and human neurophysiology cover this subject in depth. Regardless of the fact, that it's not complete, it's been around for some time now. Real time images of brain subcomponent response to stimuli have been made.
"how about some empirical evidence for your dogmatic claims about what animal instinct truly "is"?"
I don't offer classes in the subject, but I can tell you where to find the info. You'll have to start from the beginning. The information you're looking for is contained in neurophysiology texts and the references therein. If you're interested in learning about intelligence and understanding that process, I recommend "Universal Artificial Intelligence", by Marcus Hutter, Springer, 2004. Excursions into both will require considerable background. If you can grasp these subjects, you'll be able to begin learning about consciousness itself.
" Unless, of course you can offer us measurable evidence for your "fast human thinking = slow animal instinct" claim."
I made no such claim. I said, "Instinct in humans has another aspect, that is simply fast thinking." Consider the task of driving and braking. The reponse time for most folks is ~>800 ms. Pros get it down to ~200-300 ms.
Perhaps you'll ponder and pose the maternal instinct as something unfathomable. It's not. It's studied, has a biological foundation and is covered as an emotional response. In higher organisms, emotion is a driving force for behavior.
papertyger, comparative neurophysiology covers the evolutionary aspect.
You missed the point. How do you prove that nothing other than measurable aspects are involved in the process? How do you prove the real absence of what by definition is a non-measurable thing? Your measuring only explains fully the phenomenon if from the start you presuppose that only measurable things are real. And that presupposition is not scientifically provable, only philosophical assumable.
Some philosophers posit the existence of a soul, which by definition is not measurable, as part of the explanation of the difference between human thinking and animal instinct. (They base in our observation that humans act freely and choose against instincts like fear, on occasion.) But no, we can't prove by measurement that the soul/non-measurable mind is working here. It rests on philosophical reasoning. Other philosophers posit/presuppose the non-existence of a soul. You may be one of them. But those of us philosophers who do posit the existence of a non-measurable don't claim to explain things solely by empirical, measurable data. We employ those but we also employ "non-scientific" or "non=empirical" philosophy and we assume that all explanations of reality need to employ both. Those who assume that all explanation of all reality requires only measurable data are also making a simple philosophical assumption, holding a philosophical belief.
They have the harder task--disproving the presence of non-measurable, spiritual/mental factors. If you are one of these philosophers, you either (1) simply assume that no such thing exists, that reality is explicable entirely in measurable, empirical terms. We may lack enough data today to explain everything but if we could get all the data all phenomena could be explained empirically. Or (2) you recognize that scientific, empirical explanation cannot explain all reality and that animal instinct/human thought might well be one of those things that can only be explained by a combination of science and philosophy. Both (1) or (2) are already philosophical/religious beliefs. Science by itself cannot tell you whether (1) is more true than (2) or whether both are wrong. Philosophy is the larger, more inclusive discipline. Empirical science is a subset.
ID recognizes this relationship between philosophy and science and offers explanation that employs both. If the portion of ID that involves empirical science does its empirical science badly, then ID deserves to be criticized and sent back to the drawing board. If the portion of ID that does philosophy does its philosophy badly, then it deserves to be sent to the philosophy woodshed. But it deserve a hearing from both scientists (strictly speaking) and philosophers of science and general philosophers and theologians. They all ought to be engaging it, pointint out its flaws.
Simply dismissing it as "not science" only shows that the dismisser neither understands the proper limits of science within philosophy of science nor the general principles of philosophy itself.
Those scientists who assume axiomatically that only what is measurable can be admitted as explanation of reality (rather than as explanation of [limited] scientific "reality") are imperialistically extending the boundaries of science beyond what science itself claims for itself.
I am using "science" here in the sense it is commonly used: empirical/hard/natural science--there's really no good term to describe the way most people use the word--each of the adjectives I employed doesn't really work but they're the best we have. "Science" used to mean what we now call philosophy--it was "natural philosophy" as a subset of philosophy in general. That terminology at least made the interrelationship between the two clearer.
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