Re: Irreducible Stupidity (No, Not Nashy this time)


jgrisham@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
chris.linthompson@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-horton/irreducible-stupidity_b_21520.html

From the essay:

"Do you imagine that god, after the long lunch that he took after
sending a lightning bolt through the primeval ooze thus getting
evolution started, would get back to the office and say,
'oh...my...self, I forgot about bacterial flagellae, no way they are
going to get evolved through natural selection, I'd better just whip
(yes, a pun) one up, then I can go and have a long dinner because
everything else can get taken care of by natural selection'? Or does he
pop in every so often and have a bit of a fiddle to keep his hand in so
to speak? Or do you imagine that if you found one example this would
mean that everything else got done by god too? But why would you think
that, when natural selection was working perfectly well? I ask in all
seriousness, because I have a lot of trouble understanding the minds
that can believe this stuff."

Chris

What some people tend to forget is that methodological naturalism is
just a story that some people made up and whether or not this story is
better than a story made up several thousand years ago is really the
essence of stupidity, because almost certainly in a couple thousand
years, there will be another story, a better story, made up by people
of that future day and time that will make both stories appear absurd.
What all evolutionists should keep in mind is that evolution isn't
over, it's a continuation and we're not at the end of anything.
Evolution means the only constant is change and if you think you're at
some great height of human understanding, the joke's on you. There will
always be new and different ways of perceiving the world and you need
to learn from the past and apply it to the future.

As for deity, I see no substantive difference in random chance by
natural selection and goddidit. Neither one is predictable. Neither one
is definitive. If it makes you happy to substitute random chance for a
god, then you just seem easily amused. I suppose, whatever gets you
through the night!


JTG 5/24/06

methodological naturalism is not a story, Genesis creationism is a
story, methodological naturalism is the only methodology that works for
investigating the real world, no one 'made it up', it was discovered
over thousands of years through trial and error, starting with the
highly imperfect efforts of the laboratory alchemists, and culminating
during the so-called Enlightenment Period (which, i concede, was false
advertising) when these methods started to be recognized as the only
ones which worked. and yes, of course we are evolving in our
understanding the universe, and evolutionary researchers are probably
more aware of this than anyone, but the joke, in fact, is on anyone who
refuses to accept, despite the preponderance of supporting evidence and
total lack of disconfirming evidence, the observervable (and observed)
fact of evolution by natural selection. the sad thing is that, even if
there be mysteries about life that still await discovery, and which may
not be explained by ENS, and I for one suspect that such mysteries do
await discovering, the sad fact is that creationists and IDers will not
be part of these discoveries, and will probably do nothing but try to
hinder them. a new theory cannot be confirmed by trying to pound their
own square pegs into the round holes of an opposing theory; if IDers
wish to be taken seriously as scientists, then they need to use all the
methods of science, disregarding all preconceived theistic notions
about life, and they need to accept when the data goes against them
(which would force them to admit the fact of ENS), and search for data
which only their theory fits and which evolution does not, cannot, and
never can explain better (this means that any ID 'discovery' would have
to be treated like all other discoveries as a provisional
interpretation of the data, subject to possibly being revised or
overturned in the light of a better explanation from a different
theory; at least Behe has been willing to admit when the biological
systems he claimed were 'irreducible' have been shown to be the
products of ENS contrary to his initial assertion). Of course, to even
begin this work, ID would have to become a theory, not just a wild
speculation designed to fill those current gaps in our knowledge of
evolutionary history and processes, which ideas as the history and
processes are better understood have been steadily defeated by
evolutionary researchers. If you wish to join "The Great
Conversation", then you need to agree to the rules of this
conversation, i.e. the accumulated knowledge of science and its
established methodology (as well as the protocol for attempting to
establish a new form of methodology), including peer review, testable
and falsifiable predictions, supporting data from both experimental and
empirical research, major replicability, etc..., etc... Good luck with
that; I don't expect creationists or IDers to ever actually join the
Great Conversation, but who knows, maybe some of them will one day (I
guess Behe might be considered part of the conversation, to the limited
extent that, when his claims to 'irreducible complexity' have been
defeated, he has been more than willing to admit it, though it does
seem pseudoscientific not to concede the likelihood that, given how
many of his claims have already been defeated, that quite likely the
entire notion of Intelligent Design is flawed, and of course he fails
to make predictions or specify the designer even to the extent of
suggesting HOW the designer designs, which specifications would be
necessary for any predictions).

That said, there is a HUGE difference between random mutation and
godditit. As a matter of fact, we CAN predict a large category of
random mutations, at least to the extent that we can say, for example,
"mutation x will occur in an average of three individuals out of every
hundred people", and we can also predict risk factors that increase the
chance of mutation. by invoking the "goddidit" argument, we can make
no such predictions, because even if we do seventy studies in a hundred
years that say that mutation x occurs in 3 out of every 100 people, and
that, say, drinking alcohol raises the risk by up to 10 times, we would
still be forced to conclude that it was a coincidental correlation,
that God FELT like giving 3 out 100 people mutation x and FELT like
giving it more frequently to alcohol drinkers (perhaps as punishment
for their sins? that would have to be the explanation under the
goddidit explanation). researchers would then waste their time pouring
through the Bible or various Hebrew tomes looking for an explanation as
to why God gives people mutation x, and they would end up prescribing
prayers and moral practices and various superstitious rituals to avoid
coming down with mutation x, and people with mutation x would be
regarded as sinners being punished by God or perhaps being punished for
the sins of one of their ancestors (and the sins of the father shall be
visited upon the son, yea even to the seventh generation), and
alcoholics with mutation x would be told that it was their sinfulness
which caused the mutation, or the sins of their mother for drinking
(while pregnant). but, by understanding random mutations as a natural
phenomenon, not as a "godditit" phenomenon, mutation x would be studies
as a biological phenomenon, with biological causes and possible
biological treatments or cures; people with mutation x would be
regarded as medically, not spiritually or morally, ill, and alcohol
drinkers would be studied medically to determine the biochemical
factors linking alcoholism with mutation x. furthermore, those who had
mutation x because it was inherited from an ancestor, or caused by
their mother drinking when pregnant or whatever, would not be regarded
as being "punished for the sins of the father/mother". therefore,
there is a huge difference between random mutation and "goddidit".
now, if you mean that we cannot predict exactly when a random mutation
will prove beneficial and be selected for by differential replication,
that is true, but this is explained by chaos theory, not by "goddidit".
any system as complex as the global ecosystem will always be
unpredictable to a degree, due to the fact that, contrary to what
Einstein thought, quantum physics has proven that "God rolls dice with
the universe" (I don't mean God literally, I'm just paraphrasing
Einstein), that the laws of probability allow that, no matter how
certain an outcome may seem by Newtonian causality, there is always a
quantum possibility, however remote, of the outcome being different,
and highly complex operations of nature, such as ENS or the crashing of
a billion trillion air molecules together, are uncertain to a degree
that we cannot easily make exact predictions about when, where, and how
something will happen. Perhaps, in a thousand years, we will be able
to make such predictions, but for now what we can predict about
evolution are things like what kinds of adaptations a species will show
given certain known survival challenges in certain known contexts (for
instance, parental investment theory predicts that, whichever gender of
a species makes the greater initial investment in offspring, i.e.
pregnancy or nesting, will be more selective of sexual partners and
will not compete as much intrasexually for mates as the opposite
gender; this prediction is borne out by the fact that in species where
females invest more, they tend to be pursued by males more than they
pursue males, whereas in seahorses, where males invest more, the
opposite is true; there is more evidence in fact for this theory than
what i have just said, but it is a single example of how evolutionary
research makes predictions and subsequently confirms or disconfirms
them against reality).

Please, learn about science, or withhold your opinions on it. Your
understanding of science is about as advanced as Ptolemy.

.

Relevant Pages

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