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Author | Topic: Is my rock designed? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
Excellent questions, Mike, but not the topic of this thread. I think you know how to propose new topics.
--Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
BVZ writes: I can. However, I dont know how to post images on this forum. Same way as almost all other forums. This forum uses an extended superset, called dBCodes, of the standard codes, but you can pretty much count on all the standard codes being available. Let me know if there seems to be a code missing from the repertoire. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
Bio-molecularTony writes: Intelligently copying the natural processes to create a rock is an none issue to me. Intelligence for sure has the ability to create anything it likes if the power and know-how is there. It's important to note that this is an actual direct answer to the question posed by this thread: Is my rock designed? The answer, evidently, is that there is no way to know, since a sufficiently sophisticated intelligence can create anything, including a perfect imitation of a naturally created rock. We've seen this answer before, and of course it brings us to the ever-present ID dilemma about how we know what a designer did and didn't do. ID begins with the premise that there are certain things and processes (like life) that are too complex to have come about naturally, and that therefore could only have been the product of an intelligence. But this intelligence can obviously do much more than just the complex things. If he can do the complex, then obviously he can do the simple, too. If he can create the immensely complex bacterial flagellum, then he can obviously create the much simpler grain of sand. So how do we tell what the designer did and didn't do? If he could create life on earth, why would he restrict himself to just creating the life? Wouldn't he also want to carefully craft the environment for that life? Shouldn't there be evidence of the designer's handiwork in constructing the continents and the oceans, the mountains and the islands, the deserts and the forests, not to mention the tectonic processes that constantly rework our planet's surface? And isn't the earth's near-circular orbit at just the right distance and sharing the orbit with no other planets evidence that the designer must have placed it here? Shouldn't there be evidence of how he moved the planets of the solar system around? Perhaps the asteroid belt out beyond Mars is a former planet that was mined to oblivion to provide the resources for constructing the solar system? What I'm getting at is that there are a rich set of questions that come up once you take seriously the possibility that a designer rather than nature did everything. ID will never address these questions because its real goal is not advancing science by adding to our knowledge but advancing religion through the elimination of any science that contradicts conservative Christian beliefs.
Nature (scientific physical laws) does not have any know-how or power to Create complex machinery, complex information commands. To cook up a story that it can happen is to lie in the face of intelligent people. Wouldn't you call throwing out unsupported assertions the same thing as "cooking up a story"? Which you equated to a lie? I suggest you stick to the topic and leave characterizations of your opponents out of future posts. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
I'll answer only the on-topic portion of your post (this topic is about a rock):
Bio-molecularTony writes: TONY: God has all the time in the world. He can create the process and let the rocks and sand form themselves - within the laws of physical matter, etc. Intelligent design claims to be science, so instead of "God" you should be saying "intelligent designer", or just "designer" for short, otherwise people might begin to suspect you're doing religion instead of science. So, yes, the designer could "create the process and let the rocks and sand form themselves". The question is, did he, and what is the evidence supporting your answer to this question? --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
Bio-molecularTony writes: Percy: So, yes, the designer could "create the process and let the rocks and sand form themselves". The question is, did he, and what is the evidence supporting your answer to this question? TONY: The big mystery is just that... what things did God hand make and what other things are a result of the complex "processes" he designed and put in place. That I am still sorting out in my own head, and so is all mankind. Okay, I think I see what you're saying. Regarding a simple thing like a rock, God may have designed and crafted it, or it may have happened naturally, but we don't currently know how to determine which. But more importantly, there is a threshold of complexity beyond nature's power to produce without divine assistance. Do I have this right? If so, then the question becomes, how do you measure complexity, and how do you determine the threshold of complexity above which divine assistance is required. A last point. The Discovery Institute, which is the primary organization force behind the intelligent design movement, advises those who ask that the divine is not part of intelligent design theory, that intelligent design is science, not religion. If your goal is to displace or at least reduce the treatment of evolution in public school science classrooms, then you have to stop talking about God as the creative force and start talking about an intelligent designer. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
Thank you for that wonderful incoherency, Tony, but do you have an answer to the question: How do you measure complexity, and how do you determine the threshold of complexity above which divine assistance is required?
Concerning your next message, Message 64, if "God can and will speak for himself" then why don't you give him a chance to do that. In the meantime perhaps you could address the topic. ID claims to be science, so in this science thread you should drop the God talk, shift into science mode, and begin presenting scientific evidence for ID. The focus in this thread is how design is determined, and the specific question before you is how to measure complexity, and how to determine the threshold of complexity beyond which intelligent intervention is required. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
Hi Tony,
I think we've fallen into a pattern here with us asking questions that you keep thinking you're answering. What's missing from your answers is any evidence. For example, when you say this:
Bio-molecularTony writes: God created matter out of his energy, and created what we think of as "the natural" process the systems of weather changes, etc. that can form rocks. What is missing is a following sentence that begins like this:
We know this because...... In other words, discussion doesn't consist of just describing your position. Clearly characterizing your position is just the starting point. Once you've made your position clear then you have to go on to present the evidence and rationale supporting your position. So you can't just declare that God created matter out of his energy, you have to present evidence that this is what really happened. You can't just declare that God created the system "processes", you have to present evidence for it. Without scientific evidence supporting your position it will carry no more scientific weight than what it actually appears to be, a statement of religious belief. --Percy Edited by Percy, : Grammar.
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Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
Dawn Bertot writes: Actually no, but that is very funny "twelfeth of never". thats commical The Twelfth of Never has become a catchphrase in American popular cultural. It's the title of a well known pop song first recorded by Johnny Mathis. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
Rephrasing your question, since we can tell that a spaceship or boat or car or ballpoint pen is designed just by looking at it, obviously we can detect design, so why can't we tell whether a rock is designed?
The answer is that we *can* tell whether a rock was designed. It wasn't. But just looking at things and classifying them as designed or not designed is not very scientific and probably very error prone. For instance, was this designed (it's a termite mound):
ID claims an analytical or algorithmic procedure for detecting design. We'd like someone to describe this procedure on something like a rock, but it doesn't have to be rock, we could choose something else. could can you describe for us how one might apply this procedure in order to tell that the termite mound was not designed but this was (it's modern art):
Not to distract from your question or the topic, but it might be worthwhile noting that much of what ID purports to do is not the detection of design but of evidence of the work of an intelligence. Most of the evidence people leave behind is not designed. It often isn't even created with intent, as when you leave footprints in the sand. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4
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Portillo writes: quote:The same way the archaeologist does it. Archaeologists are not looking for design. They're looking for things that show evidence of having been made or modified by people. At opposite ends of the spectrum the design argument is simple: you know it when you see it. A belt buckle is designed, a rock isn't. But as you move more toward the middle you reach a large grey area. For example, take these polished pebbles:
Are they from a polishing machine and therefore designed? Or are they from a stream bed and therefore natural? That's all this thread is asking. You're given this polished pebble. How do you tell whether it was designed? This is the question that people like Spetner, Gitt and Dembski claim to have answered, and all we want is a description of the method that determines whether or not this rock was designed. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
Robert Byers writes: Design always means the fantastic complexity of nature.Not rounded stones. So stones rounded by human beings are not designed? The stones in an opal necklace, for example? --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
Thank you, Robert, for this second declaration of belief. Should there come a time when you feel like addressing the thread's topic then please visit us again. Until then, adieu.
--Percy
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