Searching for GOD...

[torridon]

Can you assume that all beneficial mutations were chance events?
Can you assume that any beneficial mutation was a chance event?

That would be the assumption unless there were some evidence to the contrary.

[Shaker]

Well......Yes.

I feel you are trying to detract us from Torridon's dogmatic statement that intelligent design of life is irrational.

Unlike the hardarsed Scientismatist. I think there are things science could notionally solve but things which it cannot, things for which it is methodologically inadequate...the falsifiability barrier if you like and I have outlined what these things include.

Have you outlined what alternative methodological toolkit you would use for these things? You would be the first one to have done so.

Ever.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Have you outlined what alternative methodological toolkit you would use for these things? You would be the first one to have done so.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz oh, what. Science can't solve every question so in that case we must grit our teeth, suck on a victory V and...........use science!

........and that folks is scientism.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

I feel you are trying to detract us from Torridon's dogmatic statement that intelligent design of life is irrational.

No, it’s that intelligence as first cause is irrational.

Unlike the hardarsed Scientismatist.

I know you’re keen on that straw man characterisation, but again – have you ever seen anyone here actually express such a position?

Ever?

I think there are things science could notionally solve but things which it cannot, things for which it is methodologically inadequate...the falsifiability barrier if you like and I have outlined what these things include.

Science cannot “resolve” any claims of the non-material.

The trouble is though, neither can anything else. 

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz oh, what. Science can't solve every question so in that case we must grit our teeth, suck on a victory V and...........use science!

........and that folks is scientism.

No.

First, that science cannot answer something tells you nothing about whether it ever will.

Second, when assertions are made about a supposed non-material then it’s for the claimant to come up with a method of his own to distinguish the claim from white noise etc - which is when you always disappear from the stage.

Third, no that isn’t scientism. Scientism is just putting undue weight on the methods and findings of science. What you’re thinking of is called “metaphysical naturalism” (or sometimes “philosophical naturalism”) which holds that the material is necessarily all there is. I’ve never come across anyone who subscribes to it (and nor I suspect have you) but either way they’re not the same thing at all.   

[Gordon]

I have already pointed out that intelligent design does exist as demonstrated by numerous man made designs.

Which is an utterly stupid comment to make, as others have pointed out.

As the Christian bible says we are made in God's image, so it is feasible that we inherited this attribute of intelligent design from God.

Which is a fallacious argument from authority: don't believe everything you read.

And does it matter what method God used to produce a DNA molecule containing all the data and mechanisms needed to create and maintain a complete human being?  The specific complexity of the end result far exceeds the Goo which would be produced by two billion years of totally random events acting on life's basic ingredients.

Which is a clear example of begging the question, with an added splash of your usual personal incredulity.

[Alan Burns]

“Crashes and” Burns,

Yes, but it’s not analogous to evolution. In fact, top down design is pretty much the opposite of bottom up evolution.

And that’s called the fallacy of begging the question. That a book says something tells you nothing about whether or not that something is feasible. For your point to stand, you’d first have to establish the Bible as necessarily authoritative on the matter.

What the fuck is wrong with you? Seriously – what? You’ve had what evolutionary theory actually entails explained countless times yet you just ignore every explanation and repeat over and again your ignorant misunderstanding of it. 

First, there’s been life on earth for a lot longer than 2 billion years.

Second, you have no good reason at all to think that evolution wouldn’t have produced any manner of complex life given the time and oportunity to do so with no god involved.

Third, “the specific complexity of the end result” is just your repeated reliance on the reference point error. Evolution works bottom up – it’s not working toward a specific anything; it just enables adaption to environmental change by countless trial and error events. That “you” rather than something else just happen to have popped out of it is entirely irrelevant.

Good grief.

So why and how would a survival machine aquire the attribute of subjective conscious awareness, causing it to waste precious time on religious discussion boards instead of getting on with the more important job of surviving?

[Gordon]

So why and how would a survival machine aquire the attribute of subjective conscious awareness, causing it to waste precious time on religious discussion boards instead of getting on with the more important job of surviving?

You should perhaps have thought a little more before you wrote the above nonsense, Alan: why not give thinking (of the critical variety) a go for a change.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Crashes and…

So why and how would a survival machine aquire the attribute of subjective conscious awareness, causing it to waste precious time on religious discussion boards instead of getting on with the more important job of surviving?

Seriously?

Seriously seriously though?

How do you think my time spent here in any way impairs my ability to “survive” exactly?

Look, you have a long history here of evasion and avoidance but could you at least try to engage head on just this once with the arguments that undo you? Can you now see for example that attempted analogies with car factories and the like fail because they start with an intended, top down outcome (the car) and ask “what are the chances eh?” whereas evolution is bottom up and purposeless – it cannot know what its outcomes will be because there’s nothing to do the “knowing” and because those outcomes occur as the result of countless interactions with the environments the genomes occupy?

Surely you can now see this much at least can’t you?

Can’t you?     

[torridon]

So why and how would a survival machine aquire the attribute of subjective conscious awareness, causing it to waste precious time on religious discussion boards instead of getting on with the more important job of surviving?

I'm sure we have covered this many times before 

Conscious awareness evolved in vertebrates probably in the Cambrian as a means to prioritise the flood of new information flows from all those new sense organs that evolved during that time.

[bluehillside Retd.]

torri,

Conscious awareness evolved in vertebrates probably in the Cambrian as a means to to prioritise the flood...

DON'T MENTION "THE FLOOD"!!!

AAARRRGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

[Gordon]

The methodology of science tells us what science is capable of.
For science to fulfil what you require it to would require a change in methodology.

And with that the concept known as Hillside exploded in a puff of logical contradiction and the room was covered in, of all things, Black Forest Gateau.

Nope: the technology may change but the methodology remains (the discipline of the 'scientific method').

One might call it progress, Vlad, which is why most of us here in the UK no longer rely on the horse as our routine method of transportation.

[Shaker]

So why and how would a survival machine aquire the attribute of subjective conscious awareness, causing it to waste precious time on religious discussion boards instead of getting on with the more important job of surviving?

My survival needs are taken care of (q.v. Maslow's hierarchy of needs). Some of the spare time I have left over I waste on your frivolous and thoughtless nonsense, becaue it's amusing to me to do so. Such as watching 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown similarly.

The fact that I have whiled away many an amusing hour - and am doing so right now - doesn't seem to have impacted upon my survival in the slightest.

[Alan Burns]

Crashes and…

Seriously?

Seriously seriously though?

How do you think my time spent here in any way impairs my ability to “survive” exactly?

Look, you have a long history here of evasion and avoidance but could you at least try to engage head on just this once with the arguments that undo you? Can you now see for example that attempted analogies with car factories and the like fail because they start with an intended, top down outcome (the car) and ask “what are the chances eh?” whereas evolution is bottom up and purposeless – it cannot know what its outcomes will be because there’s nothing to do the “knowing” and because those outcomes occur as the result of countless interactions with the environments the genomes occupy?

Surely you can now see this much at least can’t you?

Can’t you?     

But evolution can't be a bottom up process if it was intelligently guided.

[Shaker]

But evolution can't be a bottom up process if it was intelligently guided.

As earlier it's the "if" that scuppers your post. If my aunt had knackers she'd be my uncle. If wishes were horses beggars would ride. What of it?

Is evolution intelligently guided? There's zero evidence that it is. So where does that leave you?

[Nearly Sane]

But evolution can't be a bottom up process if it was intelligently guided.

By your god that kills babies in pain

[Shaker]

By your god that kills babies in pain

Well there's that too.

[Alan Burns]

I'm sure we have covered this many times before 

Conscious awareness evolved in vertebrates probably in the Cambrian as a means to prioritise the flood of new information flows from all those new sense organs that evolved during that time.

And precisely how can a random copying error in a DNA molecule facilitate the prioritisation of information flow from sense organs?

[Nearly Sane]

And precisely how can a random copying error in a DNA molecule facilitate the prioritisation of information flow from sense organs?

As opposed to your sadist god breathing in the suffering of children while giving itself a little hand shandy.

[Alan Burns]

As earlier it's the "if" that scuppers your post. If my aunt had knackers she'd be my uncle. If wishes were horses beggars would ride. What of it?

Is evolution intelligently guided? There's zero evidence that it is. So where does that leave you?

I would say that any evolutionary process relying entirely on random events to drive it has absolute zero probability of producing anything as intelligent as an earthworm.

[Gordon]

But evolution can't be a bottom up process if it was intelligently guided.

Since it is bottom-up though, which is what the available evidence indicates, then it follows that it wasn't intelligently guided.

Congratulations - you're just refuted your own argument for 'God'.

[Gordon]

I would say that any evolutionary process relying entirely on random events to drive it has absolute zero probability of producing anything as intelligent as an earthworm.

All you're doing now, Alan, is making a fool of yourself by showing your ignorance of evolutionary theory (via your trademark personal incredulity). You've been corrected on this so many times that why you keep digging beats me.

[Nearly Sane]

Since it is bottom-up though, which is what the available evidence indicates, then it follows that it wasn't intelligently guided.

Congratulations - you're just refuted your own argument for 'God'.

But 'Ican'tbelieveit'snotgodidit!'

[Shaker]

I would say that any evolutionary process relying entirely on random events to drive it has absolute zero probability of producing anything as intelligent as an earthworm.

Then contrary to your prior assertions you don't understand evolution by natural selection after all.

[torridon]

And precisely how can a random copying error in a DNA molecule facilitate the prioritisation of information flow from sense organs?

Clearly it is not usually a case of one single mutation producing entire new features singlehandedly. Mutations are happening constantly, I've suffered several dozen whilst writing these two sentences, the vast majority will not result in major evolutionary change. But it is inevitable that some mutations will produce modification in the germ line, and some of these modifications will put the descendants at a competitive advantage whilst others will be disadvantaged.  All this is inevitable and derivable from mere probability.  Can you explain how a line of organisms that benefits from a survival advantage would not be more likely to prosper than those without it ?