An argument from design

The real problem is how the creation is possible. Chance and multiple Big Bang scenarios are speculation. This is why I say the universe is fine-tuned, because life is able to exist in it, and all the laws are orderly, made with ingredients of the right measure. It seems plausible that there was only one creation event. How is it that chance/naturalism always convinces you that in order to get order and intricate systems (universe), you simply need spontaneous natural events, and in order to get natural events you need some kind of intricate systems, or universe (place)? [circular]. That's a none-answer, because you're just increasing the term "nature" for an infinite and naturalistic answer to be possible. It seems that so very many laws in design can't all come about by nature. After all, NS doesn't account for gravity and light.You say that a few things are answered for naturally, therefore all things are answered for naturally.It's like saying, a few people kill, therefore all people kill.DunIho.com is for sale | HugeDomains ^{Fallacy of Illicit Process of the Major Term
When the conclusion is about every member of the major term, the major premise must also be about every member of the major term. The argument is otherwise invalid.}In fact, nothing in nature indicates or answers for the consistently demonstratable design, or at least you cannot attribute anything NOT to a designer anyway. Example; even if evolution happened (for arguments sake) then that doesn't mean that God didn't intend it to happen, and he still could have created the universe so essentially in the chain of cause and effect, it would all lead back to God.We see systems and fundamental orderly universe with gravity, and we also see designs in nature. So you might say "NS accounts for design" but does it account for gravity and the fundamentals we see in the universe? You have to account for many intricate designs, but the more you invoke naturally, the less convincing it becomes, unless nature has a consciousness. So NS might account for design in nature (according to you, certainly not me) but it wouldn't address the other orderly truths.Even if some kind of pre-biotic primordial occurrence happened, it was still ABLE TO HAPPEN hence the fine-tuned criteria. Now as to whether life can adapt, I think it can via Natural Selection, yet this still means a designer could make life to "repair itself" as Jar might say. And so the laws of physics would only be set up at the creation event. They are made a specific way, in order to enable life, which can change somewhat, except I'm unimpressed with the mutation scenario - from blob to critter. Since the design in nature is apparent, it seems far more likely that the reality we witness is essentially because of a designer. You can't arrive and then get fit enough to exist, or you don't exist. I know you're clever enough to think about that, and realize it's the truth.If the first life came about via a biogenesis, then fundamentally that spoils any chance of a food chain scenario. You're not going to get sharks made for eating fish and tearing flesh, and specific designs from nature without needing each organism to be in place evolving with each other to keep the chain.I mean for Pete's sake the food chain is intricate. Each critter is designed for a place, and when one critter dies out, it's obvious that God designs another organism to replace it. This is why you find creative changes in the fossils. These creative explosions must happen when a certain amount of organisms have died off, as they haven't time to evolve.For example, the first cells of life would apparently exist avoiding the late heavy bombardment of course, and these things could apparently survive already as they had came to be. So evolution is moot. Why would life come about and then need to get fit enough to survive by adapting over millions of years? It's ludicrous that you could get a tangible consciousness involved in cellular activity. Time won't create it as you're just going to get a jumble of cells.Natural "selection" is just the fittest nature surviving anyway. It never actually selects anything other than the fittest. Now that kind of weak selection would in no way lead to intricate DNA designs with specific creative pathways leading to thought and consciousness.If you "need" to adapt to your environment, then millions of years is always going to be useless. There are many trees where I live, but it doesn't matter how many I climb, monkey arms won't be useful for me in a million years from now.If I get cut, my body repairs itself. If I get in any kind of trouble then I have all kinds of basic protection. How could life go without all these things for vast periods of time? I'm so very unconvinced by this secularist and Naturalistic bogus story.Change = moot over long periods. Land going critters stick to land, and the same for pon-goers. The behaviour of the organism isn't just what keeps the lion in his field, and the whale in his pond. But by necessity these organisms MUST stay in there in their designated environments because their place is assigned by the Lord. Moving out of them means death because change over long periods wouldn't work. Each organism is part of the food-chain and balance which can only be explained by a conscious cause.You can't get an eye from choosing the fittest, when you've never chosen anything BUT the fittest. The delusion is not that Natural selection is happening, ( it is a small mechanism which merely chooses a trait WITHIN the species, a TRAIT not a mutation!) but that it can happen on a supreme level, when infact it can only choose the fittest. The deception is in the mutation, which is simply bogus. Life moves to a niche available? There's never been a niche available! The monkey moves to land - he gets eaten. The whale comes out of water, he gets beached. The mutation? but there's where a designer is needed. You can't get a design of DNA from a mutation.
Information wouldn't come about chancefully. Any sea dwelling creature would not "keep" a land mutation anyway, but I'm not getting tricked into talking about mutations like they're real, i.e. as in they are an insufficient interacting system/design.This message has been edited by AdminPhat, 04-05-2005 02:08 PM

This is so unfocussed Mike that it couldn't fit nicely into any single forum.Perhaps you would like to pick what you want to discuss and pare it down? You might want to start more than one topic if you feel like taking it on.Also I think that each of the points you bring up have been or are being discussed in other threads. Do you think you can post your points to those?This is, as it sits now, unpromotable in my opinion. Other admins may choose to stuff it somewhere anyway.

I've shaved some unecessary banter off, and focued it more on the design elements. Should I cut it more?

I think you are still between two and three times longer than necessary for the point you appear to be trying to make. The point seems to be that God must have structured the universe such that it makes everything we see work out as it has. Most specifically the basic laws of nature.for example the paragraph starting with:
"Even if some kind of pre-biotic primordial " could be cut in half. It then would cover your point.The paragraph and 3 following this:
"Long term mutational adaptation is simply moot IMHO"seem to be completely unnecessary.This one:
"The fundamental flaw for me"
is on the NS and evolution topic which is NOT the same as the fundamental laws of nature one. As is the rest of the post.And a small nit pick if I understand the arguments correctly. This is an argument to design not from design.Once again are you sure that there aren't existing threads that you could add this onto?

Translation: Creation is only possible through intelligence. I agree. Science has a different qualification than does faith. Why do ID creationists have this need to attempt to persuade scientists to think within the context of a Creator rather than as detached observers? Right on, Mike! God is obvious to me as well! Because you are unable to convince others is not because they can't think as you do. It is because they do not want to think as you do. They are able to detach themselves from faith in God and/or embrace faith in observable logic. You have to do a better job of replicating YOUR logic in order to convince them. Obvious to you.
Important to you as well. Unimportant to them. So what is your speculative answer, Mike? In as few words as possible. Do you go with the 6000 year scenario? In my opinion, creation is a mystery based in part upon the intrinsic way that humans think.We humans will never embrace the obvious. God did it. I believe that He did indeed do it, but the beef that I have with ID people is that they then attempt to explain how He did it. I say that it is better to just say that you don't know or to embrace the traditional scientific method. Think about one part of what you want to convince people of and go with it. You cannot logically show God to be a workable proof. You can get people to think if you are clever enough and short and to the point. IMHO, Buzsaws greatest post was not one in which he attempted to logically prove anything. It was the one...his last e-mail--where he blessed everyone and prayed for them.I am not against you. I would love for everyone to see the light.Lets discuss this in the coffee house.This message has been edited by AdminPhat, 04-05-2005 12:48 PM

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

I've cut out a paragraph and quite a few sentences despite this now being in cofee house. (Didn't want to remove everything because of quotes from Phatboy which now won't exist etc)

No.I think going where the evidence and logic truly leads will help. I'm not suggesting a strict Genesis, but I am pointing (philosophy) to what is to me, intrinsically created truths pertaining to a designer, which Einstein could obviously see.For example, one must look logically at what I am saying concerning NS. If NS answers instead of a designer, then what about the other things that look like design? Are they answered for?If everything that is designed turns out to have a natural answer then surely that isn't what chance would allow? Or any random spontaneous creation would allow (Big Bang).So either nature IS a mind (pantheism), or there is a mind outside of it.certainly I'm not just saying that YEC is the only alternative. An open mind is a good alternative though, and a study of what I say logically. (Find me out, atleast test my logic!) I think a lot's been said about Buz because he isn't here to say anything back. Good chap. You're wise to agree, because the only consistent answer is NOT goddidit, but that consciously caused systems are intrinsically and purposefully and functionally designed with information FROM a consciousness. NO OTHER answer is available.It is NOT the goddidit answer Phatz. That's a huge strawman by the other side because any in depth look into my iD arguments show matter of fact, that consciouss intelligence is a REAL possibility because NS isn't going to answer for gravity is it?We ARE seeing a mind at work. Nature = many mechanisms which simply would not come to be because of.....? add circular infinity.

Can said fishies get involved instead of jovially popping yo lil fishheads out of the water to lurk please, thankyou kind sirs.

Okay. One of your very first arguments in this thread is a strawman.Don't say I never did nothin' for ya.

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"You can't expect him to be answering your prayers when he's not real, can you? That's like writing to the characters of a soap opera and expecting a reply, Mr. Silly Sausage!"
-Jane Christie

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How is it that chance/naturalism always convinces you that in order to get order and intricate systems(universe), you simply need spontaneous natural events, and in order to get natural events you need some kind of intricate systems, or univeres(place)? [circular].

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It doesn't. I've never suggested that natural events need intricate systems. Some do but you've already pointed out that it is fallacious to extend some to all.It would be fairer to ask:
"What is it about theism that always convinces you that in order to get order and intricate systems (universe) you need order and intricate systems (God) [circular]"But is that not the position you are setting up against naturalism ?To claim that you are in a better position you need to provide an explanation for order and "intricate systems" that does not assume either - and one that cannot be adapted to work as well or better for naturalism.

Mike,Science uses methodological naturalism. Science deals with the rules already in place. What you are dealing with is ontological naturalism, a natural origin for those rules. The two are different philosophies, the former being the foundation of science while the latter being the foundation for theology.But questions still remain. Could different natural laws still result in life? If so, then the universe was not designed, according to your argument.Also, we see design in nature but still assign this design to chance. For instance, dragon shaped clouds. My avatar is also a good example, a string of bacteria that just so happen to look like a human being. These are chance designs. The human mind seems to be wired for recognizing design, no matter if that design is natural or sentient in origin.

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Since the design in nature is apparent,

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But why is it apparent? Is it objective or subjective in nature? Does the recognition of design differ between individuals? How can we determine if design is due to chance or due to forethought? These are the problmes that the Design-fans are still dealing with.

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Each critter is designed for a place, and when one critter dies out, it's obvious that God designs another organism to replace it.

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It is not obvious, it is simply asserted by you. It is obvious to me that life has changed over time, and that species have changed to take on new roles over time. It is obvious to me that new genes occur through random mutation, and those genes become entrenched in populations due to selection. These are obvious because they have been observed. What has not been observed is a supernatural being coming to earth to make new species. You might as well be claiming that it is obvious that Zeus hurls lightning bolts down to the earth.Also, you seem to think that your own incredulity is a reflection of reality. Just because you can't imaging an intricate food chain developing through evolution does not mean that reality has to bend to your imagination. "It simply can't happen because I can't imagine it" is a poor argument. In fact, it is a common logical fallacy called "Argument from Incredulity", a common mistake made by most IDers.

Thing is, ID, even if developed to the point where it was empirically testable and verifiable, wouldn't necessarily resolve between these two alternatives. You'd still have Buddhism, or liberal Christian notions such as process theology, as viable alternatives to the traditional Abarahamic view of the nature of the designer, at least on scientific grounds.

Mike, your rant seems to be entirely made up of strawman arguments and arguments from incredulity. I guess I don't even know where to start, it is such a mess (I'm amazed it even got promoted to the coffee house).To start I'll just point out a couple of places where you don't seem to have biological reality correct: Why? Speciation events have been documented, that is, instances where one species becomes two. If abiogenesis creates one species there is no reason that one species couldn't have speciated into numerous species. If any one of those species begins engulfing one of the other species, a food chain is formed. You are making some kind of assumption that in order for the food chain to exist as it is now, it must have been originally set up that way - this is simply not the case. All sorts of food chains exist in the world where a novel species has invaded an area and altered the food chain. The evolution of a complex food chain is not a problem - if you have several organisms in a food chain and you add or subtract one the chain doesn't neccesarily completely collapse as you suggest (in the absence of divine intervention). But you are quite wrong here. "Co-evolution" does happen; sometimes called an evolutionary "arms race". For example: Prey evolves a new color pattern to act as camoflage against a predator; predator evolves a new vision system to detect the prey at different wavelengths.A well-documented example is that the silica content of North American grasses increased rapidly in response to climatic changes, resulting in the natural selection of horses with rapidly growing teeth and more molar teeth. You would seem to argue that "the horses teeth are of a design to eat available coarse grass; therefore they could have only have been designed to be compatible - if one changed a characteristic, the other would die."That would be an incorrect conclusion given the evidence, which demonstrates that grasses weren't always so coarse, and that horse teeth weren't always able to deal with the coarseness.The two characteristics evolved together. This is perhaps the most ridiculous simplification of ecology I have ever read.I guess you're ignoring all amphibians? Or mammals and birds that spend a significant amount of time in the water (otters, penguins, etc.)? Or fish that spend a significant amount of time on land (mudskippers)?These aren't biological "anomalies", this represents a huge portion of the tree of life. All of these creatures that you ignore are living transitionals between aquatic and non-aquatic environments.Any arguments you make from the statement "land animals stay on land and water animals stay in water" is therefore flawed.Add in trees and air as enviroments and it gets even more complicated. A frog exists that spends time in the water, on the ground, in trees, and gliding through the air from one place to another. What is this frog's designated enviroment? Again, you'd have to ignore all of the simian species that this does not apply to - chimps, lemurs, macaques split there time between tree and ground and survive just fine.You've got the ecology dead wrong. And THE LORD sayeth, the mudskipper shall be assigned multiple designated environments, for it hath googly eyes and walks on its fins. Everybody else, stay put; except seals, and otters, and beavers, and lemurs, and macaques, and frogs, and salamanders, and platypi, and penguins, and loons, and cormorants... aw fuck it, Mike is wrong. So sayeth THE LORD. Egads. Don't you realize that a mutation is a trait?I'm tiring, but let me leave you with the most important point:The Theory of Evolution predicts that life evolved to be compatible with the planet; not that the planet was created in order to be compatible with life.This is why the bulk of your gist is a strawman argument - if the planet was different, life would have simply evolved differently (assuming it existed). In other words, even if you prove that the universe/planet was created, evolution would still proceed regardless of the designed origin - your jump to arguments against random mutation and natural selection are therefore unfounded.Storytime: Imagine gravity was to begin to increase extremely slowly, so that in one million years it was twice what it is now. Over that time life would evolve to compensate - with the increase there would be selection for creatures with compensatory musculature and skeletal systems, circulatory systems, respiration and metabolism, etc.However, I'm sure that on my hypothetical planet in a million years, some form of intelligent life will be claiming "Isn't great that the almightly Mikdawiz created the planet to have exactly the gravity it does? If it was half as much life could have never existed! All praises to Mikdawiz!"And that intelligence would be as misguided as you are now.

That AdminPhat is such a softie. I suspect this one is not going to be reopened. Will probably need a new start via a new "Proposed New Topic".Stand by - There is also a "Private Administration Forum" topic happening concerning this issue.Adminnemooseus

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