Intelligent Design vs. Casino Universe

@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

Its pretty obvious that, with evidence for the appearance of life in such a slow , non-directed basis with the longest times spent with the very simplest life forms , we have evidence that life WAS NOT created in a blinding effort of intelligence.

Where this is 'evident' from? I can give you a plausible scenario in which this is not entirely evident.
Suppose that I am an ILF from another system, our planet is dying (engulfed gradually by our sun that has turned into a blue giant) and I have found and calculated that we (our civilization) will succeed to alfa-centaurii the Earth and to save whatever has left of our knowledge and skills ... and of our civilization ... and ability to intelligently design life & biodiversity.
We are masters of the genetic engineering, but we have a huge problem: we cannot ship directly the life forms from our planet to the Earth - besides that they are not adapted to the new conditions and most probably will not survive there. So we have to design & develop life on the new planet 'from scratch'.
- 3.6 BNya we ship/make the bricks of life - the simple cells, the prokaryots
- 3.4 BNya we ship/make the cyanobacteria performing photosyntheis (for we don't like that 7000 ppm CO2 and 3000 deg C surface temperature that impose infinite risks to life)
- 2 BNya we start shipping/making the complex cells (the eukariots)
- 1 BNya - we design the multicellular life
- 600 mya simple animals, etc.
...
- 3000 years ago we write 'Instructions Manual' to our descendants/heirs (our chosen ones) of how they would be able to achieve immortality of their species ... by abstracting from petty greed and the accompanying stupidity and by start reasoning at a higher level - for those who can understand it.

I am not saying that it happened this way. All I am trying to say is that 'so far as other plausible hypotheses could be found nothing is obvious'.

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@Herald,

If that's the case then your alien "Farmers" had not recognized that Earth itself has played a significant role in clipping and modifying life that your aliens hhad no idea what would be the outcome. In two occasions (Ordovician and Permian) there were lmost complete extinction event tht resulted in life taking a different turn and colonization began to favor specie that hd yet to be evolved.

Then there were about 4 other (less cataclysmic) extinctions which had their own effects on the planets life.

The earth is a very dynamic system that was, if seeded, done in a rather simple minded (think-non intelligent) fashion. With long periods of stasis in species and then, some pulses of rapid variation .

Earths history and the fossil record don't really support your idea there . It would have been a big waste of efforts to appear to go through several BILLION years of blue green algae and prokaryote cells and stromatolite piles on shores that may or may not exist yet. when all they had to do to save time would be to insert gymnosperms and angiosperm plants (Both aquatic and terrestrial) and several initial animal phyla. That would have set up the Oxygen blanket much quicker and kicked the animal species on high.Then they could have done something about Importing animal life that DOESNT use vast amount of CO2 in their shells.

NO , although itd make a another science fiction story(like the terraforming episode of Star Trek) for the kids that are first learning about earth history.

1 Reply

@Herald,

Quote:

So Yes, we do have evidence that life WAS NOT created in a blinding effort of intelligence. We don't have proof. But we do have evidence

well said Ros. That's the entire point. I find the evidence compelling. Kinda like a civil court case where the "preponderance" of evidence serves one side or another. Its not "without a reasonable doubt" but its quite compelling.

Now, my only problem with the majority of the science writers whove taken that position, is that they've not done a great job in presenting the evidence in a structured NON-DISMISSIVE manner. Guys like Lewontin,Dawkin Dennet, Hull, Gould, and Myer(not Creationist MEYER) have been busy just talking down to the public. I think it is difficult to not be subjective in this education process but many of those writers begin by first using cruel jokes about the religious or those people NOT in the craft of evolutionary sciences .

Dave RAup, Niles Eldredge, Douglas Palmer and Daniel Fairbanks are a few of the scientists and writers who present a reasoned, non-judgemental pack of data and evidence about the subject and maybe that approach (with deeper data presented with humor and approachable writing) should be more of a standard approach.

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@farmerman,

Quote:

well said Ros. That's the entire point. I find the evidence compelling. Kinda like a civil court case where the "preponderance" of evidence serves one side or another. Its not "without a reasonable doubt" but its quite compelling.

This is not a civil court case fm.

What's compelling is that the folks like mysterious ceremonies in which "man" and, in some notorious cases, "women" present a sense that our bodily presence as one of the many weird and wonderful productions of evolution has dignity. Or a modicum of it at least.

We haven't of course as you might have noticed when taking a dump over the taffrail.

But we like to think we have dignity. And High Mass in St. Peters is one end of the dignity scale. The taffrail is the other.

Which way up one sees the scale is merely a matter of aesthetic taste. On the one hand it is a denial of our biological inheritance, which we all know is a pretence, and on the other the embracing of it.

It's funny stuff really old boy.

Atheism and Humanism also pretend we are separated from our biological inheritance. As does lingerie as you might know. And many other aids to try to stress that chasm. Bridging it, restoring us to sanity, is the source of much harmless fun.

1 Reply

@rosborne979,

rosborne979 wrote:

Frank Apisa wrote:
farmerman wrote:
...
we have evidence that life WAS NOT created in a blinding effort of intelligence.

We have no such thing...and more than likely, never will.

All the evidence we have and all the scientific knowledge available to humanity clearly show a naturally evolving cosmology and biology. Granted that isn't "Absolute Proof" that super-magic didn't start it all. But if every scrap of scientific knowledge related to cosmology and biology just screams "natural causes" (which it does), then it's more than reasonable to carry that knowledge back to a consistent presumption of natural cause, rather than to flippantly introduce magic as a somehow equal counter option.

So Yes, we do have evidence that life WAS NOT created in a blinding effort of intelligence. We don't have proof. But we do have evidence.

Actually, you do not, Rosborne. You are engaging in a logical fallacy (I cannot say with certainty what kind, but it appears to be of the argumentum ad ignorantiam sort)…and arriving at a false conclusion...namely that we have evidence that life WAS NOT created in a particular fashion.

All the evidence we have and all the scientific knowledge available to humanity…does indeed clearly show a naturally evolving cosmology and biology--but that, Rosborne, is not evidence in any way that the beginning of that continuum was not started in a blinding effort of intelligence.

Fact is, the same evidence seems to point to a blinding effort of “who knows what?” A “singularity” that “Big Banged” the universe into existence seems so easy for scientific types to accept.

I defy anyone to show one scintilla of evidence that the Big Bang was not the result of an intelligence. And I do not limit that to a GOD…but that it could be the result of an intelligent living being in a world that makes our universe look like a sub-atomic particle in its REALITY...doing a lab experiment.

Yeah, as you and Farmerman both point out…the evidence is fairly convincing of how things have proceeded…but to assert from the evidence being used that the same evidence IS EVIDENCE that the start was not the result of intelligence is way, way, way off base. It simply does not follow. It is the result of a logical fallacy...and I hope someone comes along to actually name that fallacy. I'm interested in that.

1 Reply

@farmerman,

Evidence is able to be measured and "weighed" it is not "Intuited" like that of the argumentum ad carborundum man. When lack of knowledge of a natural world is substituted with superstitious opinion, that's not a logical argument, its guessing based on childhood legends.
As Ive said before (many times) the evidence supporting a naturally occurring world many times outweighs a similar story based upon a supernatural causation. In fact, the supernatural (Creation/ID) has NO evidence at all (unless one considers bunch of dubious origin texts composed at various times in the late Bronze Age and " disingenuous diddling" with clearly organized data from fields and labs.

How the earth proceeds after "life" began, is easily tracked and understood. The origin of life was clearly a long drawn out process with evidences of several false starts (see Flinders Hills cherts, Isua Formation, Canadian Shield meta sedimentary rocks etc). Now if one doesn't accept isotopic results or paleo data, then one needs to say so .

Several sites with varying ages from mid Archean to the NeoArchean show strong evidence that a kind of "life" based upon C12 "biopolymers" had tried to get going in various places around the margins of a single sea bed that later split apart in the early Cambrian.(C12 is the carbon isotope selected by life) These sites were of different ages (several hundred million years apart in time) and only the most recent sites yielded examples of Archean cells and cyanobacters (followed by moore complex cells as time pprogressed).
Careful study of the evidence kind of makes one feel comfortable with concluding that earth was a struggling site for life to organize and flourish.
This, plus the fact that it took almost 2 Billion years to truly establish life leaves me with the conclusion that gods9OR ANY OTHER id SOURCE TERM) were merely an invention of superstitious people of the desert whose own personal story of "Creation" is the most popular one in Western Civilization.

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@farmerman,

"Reason indeed may oft complain
For Nature's sad reality,
And tell the suffering heart how vain
Its cherished dreams must always be!
And Truth may rudely trample down
The flowers of Fancy newly blown."

Emily Bronte.

Same problem fm! You can tell us some of the lines Science took from the Fancy but you can't explain the Fancy itself.

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@spendius,

Quote:

And High Mass in St. Peters is one end of the dignity scale.

What's dignified about a bunch of adults repeating mind numbing mantras led by a dupe repeating those same mind numbing mantras?

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@JTT,

You have failed to understand my post JT I am sorry to say. It is often the case when there is an unseemly rush to judgement causing a premature ejaculation!

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@spendius,

I actually didn't make any attempt to understand your post, Spendi. But that one sentence caught my attention and I chose to comment on it. The inane mindless repetition that goes on in masses, high or low, is truly something to miss.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

began to favor species that had yet to be evolved.

So, you claim that you are an expert in reconstructing evolutionary histories, on the grounds of data about the existing species and from the fossil records. Let me ask you something: the turtles for example are inhabiting the earth for over 220 MN years - why are they not evolving into anything, but remain 'fixed'? 220 MN years is a lot of time.
What about Varan de Komodo - it exists for over 40 MN years and hadn't evolved 'an inch'. It has always had 6 types of delay death bite venom ... and they have always been six ... and are never increased or reduced? How did it happen for it to acquire 6 types of venom at first (from evolutionary point of view) ... when one type of venom would be more than enough to do what it is doing (killing buffaloes with a bite on the leg).

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@JTT,

It has helped us take your measure JT.

That you consider ceremonial incantation to be mindless and inane is truly astonishing. And, presumably, ceremony itself.

And your admission is jejune to say the least. The "actually" is fatuous.

Don't you think that the brilliant and precocious, innocent insights of adolescence, often of a self-serving nature, are due a modicum of revision as experience takes its toll?

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@Herald,

the genus Varana, which includes the Komodo dragon, can only be traced for 4.0 or so million years from ancestral forms in SE Australia.(not 40 MILLION years as you said) There were several species, the Komodo being one (and not the largest) species of the genus. Usually multi genera favor evolution more than does only one species. The Komodo is in danger of extinction so, that's all I know. As far as its venom,, like the blood clotting of porpoises involving 26 distinct enzymatic cascades, we know that the evolution of such content is usually evolved from earlier , less complex "formulae"

Turtles have been around since the Permian and are the only remaining member of the Anapsid reptiles (reptiles with a solid skull roof). These evolved from COTYLOSAURS, which contain such pre-dinosaurians as Seymouria andDiadechtes There are 4 orders of the Superorder Chelonia (turtles) and theres been significant evolution and extinction among them all. SO, to say they've remained the same since the Permian is a bit disingenuous.
(Im certainly no expert on these but we use turtle ancestors as an indicator of a specific geological province in Africa, an area that contains recoverable petroleum.)

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The Internet debater is a species that has been in existence for over 20 million years...and remains completely unchanged during all that time...overbearing, obnoxious, stone-headed, and given to hyperbole.

How does that fit in with all this nonsense?

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@Frank Apisa,

youre a master 'dbater

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

The Internet debater is a species that has been in existence for over 20 million years...and remains completely unchanged during all that time...overbearing, obnoxious, stone-headed, and given to hyperbole.

That is neither hear nor there. What sets the high class internet debater apart from the canaille is the fun. Being overbearing, obnoxious, stone-headed and given to hyperbole is just one of a number of methods of having fun.

Gushings of sentimental effusions subtly conjuring up visions of personal wonderfulness is another. Strutting half-baked, banal scientific certainties also.

If a poster makes a joke it doesn't matter if nobody gets it as long as it provides him with a good titter.

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@Frank Apisa,

Frank Apisa wrote:

Actually, you do not, Rosborne.

I'm sorry Frank. Your entire post is simply incorrect. And it's incorrect in so many places that I don't even know where to start. So I won't. You can believe what you want (and yes, you are believing something).

Farmerman made an attempt to explain it to you. Unfortunately I do not have the time.

1 Reply

@rosborne979,

rosborne979 wrote:

Frank Apisa wrote:
Actually, you do not, Rosborne.

I'm sorry Frank. Your entire post is simply incorrect. And it's incorrect in so many places that I don't even know where to start.

I suspect that is because there were no errors in that post.

Quote:

So I won't.

Excellent idea on your part. I compliment you on it.

Quote:

You can believe what you want (and yes, you are believing something).

No I am not...but I am getting a huge kick out of the people who make that issue a priority.

Quote:

Farmerman made an attempt to explain it to you.

Farmerman was offering up some rationalizations. There are no reasonable "explanations" for what he was trying to 'splain.

Quote:

Unfortunately I do not have the time.

Sounds like that works out for your benefit.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

There are no reasonable "explanations" for what he was trying to 'splain.

Oh yes there are. Dickietalk is no small matter. If Church rules on rumpy-pumpy were not a factor fm would not have the slightest in these matters.

All the heresies of the past, Marcionists, Cathars, Gnostics, Free Thinkers, Protestants, etc et bloody cetera were all about nothing else but rumpy-pumpy.

I have heard of strange and somewhat exotic goings on in the Amish cult. And in a few others.

Henry Miller describes one in Opus Pistorum in lurid detail. I saw a film once about the Burning Man persuasion and anybody who didn't know what that was all about was a little slow on the uptake.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

Now, my only problem with the majority of the science writers whove taken that position, is that they've not done a great job in presenting the evidence in a structured NON-DISMISSIVE manner.

I think that's because they don't want to present it in a non-dismissive manner. They don't bother me very much.

Let's face it, a vast majority of scientists go about their work every day without any discussion or controversy. They present their theories in a simple factual manner and they don't bother to couch their information in ways which address pedantic philosophical and theological ramblings. They accept the scientific method and communicate within it's framework.

There are only a tiny few scientists who even attempt to explain scientific knowledge to that giant swath of humanity that has no knowledge (of the subject material) and who don't even discipline their own thought processes. I think the world needs at least a few scientists who are willing to be just as colorful and passionate about their own point of view as their counterparts are.

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Intelligent Design vs. Casino Universe

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