Immune to Correction! (or, some of my best friends are theistic evolutionists!)
First, thanks to IAMB who graciously pointed out that the odds involved in the card shuffling example were listed incorrectly. I do tend to grab things from the internet and don't always check the math, so I am grateful. The actual odds, be they 1 in 10^80 or to the 166th or even more, are not specifically important to the point but accuracy is always better. By the way, the first commenter who discerns the source for either one in 10^50 or some other number as the agreed upon "line of impossibility" will be highlighted and applauded herein!
Then, there is s cohen!
"Thanks iamb... I was going to make the exact same point, however, it's not just his math that needs correction. What would really help is the elimination of the arrogant 'immune to correction' attitude that radar sometimes exhibits. He made this satement:
"...10^8196, which is far more than the 1 in 10^50 considered to be the number beyond which a chance is considered an impossibility"
Which is easily refuted, since the outcome shuffling a deck of cards produces a result that is less likely than 1:1*10^50, yet instead of saying, "You're right, I was mistaken", we get a whole post of how he was actually right. One that is filled with bad math, selective quotes and ignorance.
I guess what it really boils down to is this: Should we trust a person that can't even properly calculate the permutations of a single deck of cards to make an argument based in statistics?
I say no."
Hee-hee! "Immune to correction!" I love it! I posted the very involved but carefully explained argument presented by Dr. Harold Morowitz, who undoubtably has better credentials that either myself or s cohen. S cohen cannot say anything about that post so he rags on me personally instead. It is to laugh! Earth to s cohen, you can't correct someone when he is right and you are wrong! Morowitz is right....and therefore you are wrong.
Worse yet, I have explained the logic behind why the card canard does not apply to the situation and after having met resistance, done it again in language a sixth grade student could understand. The card canard involves an outcome that can be random. RANDOM, not ordered.
Frog on a lily pad = ordered.
Frog subjected to a blender ride = random.
Only one is still a frog although both may have the exact same ingredients. Maybe it is because I am a YEC and s cohen cannot allow himself to hear anything I say, so maybe one of you logical evolutionists can explain it to him.
I liked what Dan S posted later:
"In its modern usage, hubris denotes overconfident pride and arrogance; it is often associated with a lack of knowledge, interest in, and exploration of history, combined with a lack of humility. An accusation of hubris often implies that suffering or punishment will follow, similar to the occasional paring of hubris and Nemesis in the Greek world and the proverb "pride goes before a fall" is thought to sum up the modern definition of hubris."
Me? I depend to a large extent on the wisdom of scientists more knowledgeable than myself. I pull together their findings and post them here in order to present reasoned arguments. I am neither a scientist nor a historian nor a philosopher as a vocation. On the other hand, the interested and involved man should probably be involved in many pursuits.
Dan S, with whom I largely disagree, is a great example of a man who is interested in a great number of issues in many fields of study and can present a reasonable argument for his side. Now this is the way to do it! Example:
"Metaphysics/Religion (Not science)
"This is philosophically difficult to defend but for those who believe in God and think that evolution has somehow been proven, a logical fallback position. It is a blend of natural and supernatural, . . .. Was God capable of creating Bacteria but not the Bison? Could He come up with the Trilobite but balked at the Termite?"
Of course, what you're saying (given belief in a omnipotent and somewhat inscrutable Creator God) is that God couldn't have made the universe so that the origin and subsequent evolution of life on Earth could have happened through natural processes. That God's way of working in this case couldn't be through natural processes, despite such things being taken absolutely for granted by religious people - even the most literally-inclined - throughout the modern world in terms of basic physics or weather or disease or medicine or . . .
And really, that's the ultimate slippery slope. Once you admit that Zeus doesn't cause the lightning, then - short of the stalling or collapse of scientific progress - nature gods, even montheistic Christianized ones, are doomed. If you want to worship a nature god as a literal explanation-for-physical-phenomena being, you're always going to have trouble, at least until the next time the light flickers out."
Awesome, Dan S!!! I disagree, but well said!
First, I believe metaphysics is essentially intrinsic to many scientific pursuits and that the study of origins is a perfect example.
Second, I would say that God could have created any way He wanted, but I have a book in which He told us how He did it and in that book He didn't need evolution in order to create. Also, logically, God would be more likely to just create a thing rather than begin a long, drawn out process that would in millions of years begin to yield that same thing, would he not?
Third, I simply assert that God has created a Universe in which there are operations that follow the laws He has set up and that science is an endeavor to determine what those laws are and use them to our best advantage. Have we not always depended on a Universe that is logical rather than random? We know that if we drop a hammer on our foot, it is going to fall on that foot and it is gonna hurt, unless (corrollary comes in here) another hand quickly grabs it, or our foot has been therapeutically numbed, etc, etc. We are confident that the hammer will fall EVERY TIME on that foot unless an outside action is brought into play. One may well suppose that a randomly occurring Universe would be, at its core, random. Well, this Universe is, at its core, logical. I thereby expect that it was designed by a logical being. I never say that God is literally throwing the hammer down or causing the nerves to send the message to my brain that "oh, boy, this really hurts!" and so on.
Worhty opponent/commenter Dan gives me something to respond to, to think about, something with substance. If you simply make ad hominem attacks or cry "Strawman!" then you really make no argument at all.
Derision is not an argument. Derision is not persuasion. Derision is a front while you think of something to say that is actually relevant.
Dan? By the way, Talk Origins has not addressed this Morowitz essay at all. I wonder if you recognize in my recent posts indications that I have actually read some of these Talk Origins links, despite my dislike for them. But I am tempted to do the point four of this discussion based on Talk Origins assertions....hmmm. Could be a plan?! The mind is simmering even now...
Xiangtao says this: "Even if we are to agree that everything radar has done here is completely correct, all he has proven is that life didn't spontaneously emerge the way that he says abiogenesis would happen. However, what are the chances that it all happened some other way? That is the problem with calculating the odds on abiogenesis: we just don't know enough about how it might have happened to start calculating the odds of it."
Ah, science! The beauty of it all is that no one has presented a plausible way it could have happened....yet....so many people believe it did anyway!
Metaphysics and Origins (in which radar concedes a point)
Back to Dan, I just want to say that some of my best friends are theistic evolutionists! Hee-hee! No, really, it is true! It doesn't make sense to me, but then again it is merely my opinion. One cannot calculate the odds for or against an opinion. To people who hold this opinion, the opinion is valid. They agree with me that God created life, so I find it hard to argue with that part. They aren't interested in abiogenesis, for it is not part of the discussion from their point of view.
I will concede this point: Evolution as presented by many scientists, and studied by many scientists, involves the development of complex life from simple and does not address the origin of life from non-life. So for many evolutionists, my assertions backed by good scientific minds means nothing to them. They simply believe they are able to show that complex life has evolved from simple life no matter where the simple life may have come from and work to study the ways this may occur or may have occurred.
My assertions concerning abiogenesis then, are conducive to a discussion with a naturalistic and materialistic scientist but not to one who is a theistic evolutionist. Agreed!
Jake says: "This is off topic of this thread, but I figured Radar, being such an Ann Coulter fan, might be interested in meeting the challenge found at the end of this post:
No evidence for evolution?
befre you do, though, I recommend you read the clarificationPZ posted after getting a few responses."
I amy have mentioned before that Ann Coulter is a conservative hottie (if you are over 40) with an attack-dog mentality who makes a lot of money by getting the more radical wings all worked up. After reading that 'clarification' post, I would have a real hard time suggesting that Coulter is as arrogant as PZ. But neither makes their living being diplomatic, obviously.
Jake, what Ann should have said is not that there is no evidence for evolution. There are metric tons of evidence which many scientists will say is evidence for evolution. She should have said, there is no proof of evolution and then she would have been accurate. Then again, Ann is accurate when it stirs up hornet's nests and otherwise falls back into opinion mode.
Uh, PZ? If Ann Coulter's fans couldn't read her books they wouldn't be fans, would they? I thought only the Democrats had to work their way up the reading scale?
Then, there is s cohen!
"Thanks iamb... I was going to make the exact same point, however, it's not just his math that needs correction. What would really help is the elimination of the arrogant 'immune to correction' attitude that radar sometimes exhibits. He made this satement:
"...10^8196, which is far more than the 1 in 10^50 considered to be the number beyond which a chance is considered an impossibility"
Which is easily refuted, since the outcome shuffling a deck of cards produces a result that is less likely than 1:1*10^50, yet instead of saying, "You're right, I was mistaken", we get a whole post of how he was actually right. One that is filled with bad math, selective quotes and ignorance.
I guess what it really boils down to is this: Should we trust a person that can't even properly calculate the permutations of a single deck of cards to make an argument based in statistics?
I say no."
Hee-hee! "Immune to correction!" I love it! I posted the very involved but carefully explained argument presented by Dr. Harold Morowitz, who undoubtably has better credentials that either myself or s cohen. S cohen cannot say anything about that post so he rags on me personally instead. It is to laugh! Earth to s cohen, you can't correct someone when he is right and you are wrong! Morowitz is right....and therefore you are wrong.
Worse yet, I have explained the logic behind why the card canard does not apply to the situation and after having met resistance, done it again in language a sixth grade student could understand. The card canard involves an outcome that can be random. RANDOM, not ordered.
Frog on a lily pad = ordered.
Frog subjected to a blender ride = random.
Only one is still a frog although both may have the exact same ingredients. Maybe it is because I am a YEC and s cohen cannot allow himself to hear anything I say, so maybe one of you logical evolutionists can explain it to him.
I liked what Dan S posted later:
"In its modern usage, hubris denotes overconfident pride and arrogance; it is often associated with a lack of knowledge, interest in, and exploration of history, combined with a lack of humility. An accusation of hubris often implies that suffering or punishment will follow, similar to the occasional paring of hubris and Nemesis in the Greek world and the proverb "pride goes before a fall" is thought to sum up the modern definition of hubris."
Me? I depend to a large extent on the wisdom of scientists more knowledgeable than myself. I pull together their findings and post them here in order to present reasoned arguments. I am neither a scientist nor a historian nor a philosopher as a vocation. On the other hand, the interested and involved man should probably be involved in many pursuits.
Dan S, with whom I largely disagree, is a great example of a man who is interested in a great number of issues in many fields of study and can present a reasonable argument for his side. Now this is the way to do it! Example:
"Metaphysics/Religion (Not science)
"This is philosophically difficult to defend but for those who believe in God and think that evolution has somehow been proven, a logical fallback position. It is a blend of natural and supernatural, . . .. Was God capable of creating Bacteria but not the Bison? Could He come up with the Trilobite but balked at the Termite?"
Of course, what you're saying (given belief in a omnipotent and somewhat inscrutable Creator God) is that God couldn't have made the universe so that the origin and subsequent evolution of life on Earth could have happened through natural processes. That God's way of working in this case couldn't be through natural processes, despite such things being taken absolutely for granted by religious people - even the most literally-inclined - throughout the modern world in terms of basic physics or weather or disease or medicine or . . .
And really, that's the ultimate slippery slope. Once you admit that Zeus doesn't cause the lightning, then - short of the stalling or collapse of scientific progress - nature gods, even montheistic Christianized ones, are doomed. If you want to worship a nature god as a literal explanation-for-physical-phenomena being, you're always going to have trouble, at least until the next time the light flickers out."
Awesome, Dan S!!! I disagree, but well said!
First, I believe metaphysics is essentially intrinsic to many scientific pursuits and that the study of origins is a perfect example.
Second, I would say that God could have created any way He wanted, but I have a book in which He told us how He did it and in that book He didn't need evolution in order to create. Also, logically, God would be more likely to just create a thing rather than begin a long, drawn out process that would in millions of years begin to yield that same thing, would he not?
Third, I simply assert that God has created a Universe in which there are operations that follow the laws He has set up and that science is an endeavor to determine what those laws are and use them to our best advantage. Have we not always depended on a Universe that is logical rather than random? We know that if we drop a hammer on our foot, it is going to fall on that foot and it is gonna hurt, unless (corrollary comes in here) another hand quickly grabs it, or our foot has been therapeutically numbed, etc, etc. We are confident that the hammer will fall EVERY TIME on that foot unless an outside action is brought into play. One may well suppose that a randomly occurring Universe would be, at its core, random. Well, this Universe is, at its core, logical. I thereby expect that it was designed by a logical being. I never say that God is literally throwing the hammer down or causing the nerves to send the message to my brain that "oh, boy, this really hurts!" and so on.
Worhty opponent/commenter Dan gives me something to respond to, to think about, something with substance. If you simply make ad hominem attacks or cry "Strawman!" then you really make no argument at all.
Derision is not an argument. Derision is not persuasion. Derision is a front while you think of something to say that is actually relevant.
Dan? By the way, Talk Origins has not addressed this Morowitz essay at all. I wonder if you recognize in my recent posts indications that I have actually read some of these Talk Origins links, despite my dislike for them. But I am tempted to do the point four of this discussion based on Talk Origins assertions....hmmm. Could be a plan?! The mind is simmering even now...
Xiangtao says this: "Even if we are to agree that everything radar has done here is completely correct, all he has proven is that life didn't spontaneously emerge the way that he says abiogenesis would happen. However, what are the chances that it all happened some other way? That is the problem with calculating the odds on abiogenesis: we just don't know enough about how it might have happened to start calculating the odds of it."
Ah, science! The beauty of it all is that no one has presented a plausible way it could have happened....yet....so many people believe it did anyway!
Metaphysics and Origins (in which radar concedes a point)
Back to Dan, I just want to say that some of my best friends are theistic evolutionists! Hee-hee! No, really, it is true! It doesn't make sense to me, but then again it is merely my opinion. One cannot calculate the odds for or against an opinion. To people who hold this opinion, the opinion is valid. They agree with me that God created life, so I find it hard to argue with that part. They aren't interested in abiogenesis, for it is not part of the discussion from their point of view.
I will concede this point: Evolution as presented by many scientists, and studied by many scientists, involves the development of complex life from simple and does not address the origin of life from non-life. So for many evolutionists, my assertions backed by good scientific minds means nothing to them. They simply believe they are able to show that complex life has evolved from simple life no matter where the simple life may have come from and work to study the ways this may occur or may have occurred.
My assertions concerning abiogenesis then, are conducive to a discussion with a naturalistic and materialistic scientist but not to one who is a theistic evolutionist. Agreed!
Jake says: "This is off topic of this thread, but I figured Radar, being such an Ann Coulter fan, might be interested in meeting the challenge found at the end of this post:
No evidence for evolution?
befre you do, though, I recommend you read the clarificationPZ posted after getting a few responses."
I amy have mentioned before that Ann Coulter is a conservative hottie (if you are over 40) with an attack-dog mentality who makes a lot of money by getting the more radical wings all worked up. After reading that 'clarification' post, I would have a real hard time suggesting that Coulter is as arrogant as PZ. But neither makes their living being diplomatic, obviously.
Jake, what Ann should have said is not that there is no evidence for evolution. There are metric tons of evidence which many scientists will say is evidence for evolution. She should have said, there is no proof of evolution and then she would have been accurate. Then again, Ann is accurate when it stirs up hornet's nests and otherwise falls back into opinion mode.
Uh, PZ? If Ann Coulter's fans couldn't read her books they wouldn't be fans, would they? I thought only the Democrats had to work their way up the reading scale?