evolution and chemical accidents

[wakawakawaka]

"uniformity of nature" in what way?
Living things tend to try to keep on living, whether self aware or not.
And pass on their characteristics to a new generation before they die.
That would be "uniformity", but the shapes living things have are hardly "uniform". From ants to eagles, shape (form) follows function, and usually adequately enough to permit more generations in that form.

this guy claims that only the christian worldview can justify the idea that what happened today in a science experiment will happen next time because God promised to Noah he will uphold the seasons, and that only in his worldview can you justify induction, though i dont think he even understands what induction is

 

[I Ratant]

I didn't see Enlil promise anything like that to Gilgamesh in Tablet 11.
http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh/tab11.htm
Ask the Noahite what shape raindrops had prior to the Flood, so the rainbow after was unique?

 

[Iamme]

I didn't see Enlil promise anything like that to Gilgamesh in Tablet 11.
http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh/tab11.htm
Ask the Noahite what shape raindrops had prior to the Flood, so the rainbow after was unique?

After the flood they mysteriously became prism shaped.

 

[marplots]

Whether evolution is true or evolution is false, we are still "bags of chemicals." Or, alternatively, we are whatever we are, regardless of how we came to be.

His arguments are best described as Red Herrings.

 

[I Ratant]

After the flood they mysteriously became prism shaped.

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Air pressure and surface tension makes a rain drop spherical. As shown..
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And then, the sunlight is refracted... any other shape isn't possible in nature.
http://www.ask.com/wiki/Rainbow?qsrc=3044
So one has to presume there was no rain prior to the Flood.
In which case Noah (Utnapishtim) had to say "Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiggghhhttt*." when god told him of the coming deluge.
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*Cosby

 

[barehl]

“By definition, anything resulting from evolution is necessarily an accident. According to the dictionary an accident is an “unplanned event or circumstance” involving “lack of intention… rather than by design.”

Basically, what he is doing is suggesting that nothing has value unless it has a predetermined purpose. The lack of a creator would negate purpose and therefore nothing (to him) would have value. And, since he considers value to be a common sense observation, he claims therefore that this proves both a purpose and a creator.

So, you can boil his argument down to one question: Can anything have value without a planned purpose? I can think of several examples of this.

The ship the Great Eastern was built in 1859. It was six times larger than any other ship when it was planned. As I recall, when it was launched, it was still three times larger than any other ship. It turned out to be an economic failure. However, this huge ship was used to lay the first transatlantic cable which is something it was never intended to do.

Henri Becquerel believed that phosphorescence was related to x-rays. He at first got a positive result with phosphorescent uranium salts which were able to cloud a photographic plate even through opaque paper when exposed to the sun. However, during one set of experiments it was cloudy so he expected that the film would show only a trace of fogging, but this was not the case. By accident, he had discovered that uranium emitted x-rays unrelated to sunlight and also founded the basis for medical x-ray films.

There were two experiments set up to detect proton decay which was associated with a type of string theory. These detectors failed to ever detect this phenomenon. However, they did detect a neutrino burst from supernova 1987A which confirmed a completely different theory.

Clearly, something can indeed have value by accident rather than design.

he keeps calling people “chemical accidents” of evolution was true, and said caring for a baby was no different then caring for a drum of oil

This has a second error which you might call either a deconstructive fallacy or a fallacy of transcendental exclusion. In other words, you argue that something cannot be different or more than its individual parts. However, this assertion is clearly wrong.

A birthday cake is not merely a pile of flour, milk, butter, sugar, and baking powder.

A car body cannot move by itself. A wheel can only roll downhill. A motor can turn but cannot otherwise move. Therefore, by Lisle's logic, a car either cannot move or can only coast downhill.

The most obvious error he commits though in an argument for emotional detachment from deconstruction would be the Bible itself. By his logic, the Bible is nothing more than pigmented symbols on thin layers of dead plant fibers so why would it have any more value than graffiti spray-painted on a tree trunk?

 

[barehl]

the amount of rhetorical nonsense found on his blog is astounding i am suprised that he can even get up everyday, but there is something else i like to ask, he keeps claiming the uniformity of nature as "ultimate proof" of his god, what are some secular was to justify, uniformity of nature? i have several ideas but i am uncertain of them

I'll see if I can address some of his assertions.

In a secular universe there can be no such thing as an objective “right” and “wrong.”

This is not correct. What he is actually refuting is the Ayn Rand philosophy. In the real world, things like nurturing and cooperation are the basis for morality. These in turn are a function of the greater likelihood of beneficial results.

Apart from the Christian worldview, any reason that we offer for any belief cannot be ultimately justified. It would appear that there are only two options for a person to hold. One can either be a consistent Christian, or one can be irrational.

This is a voting argument. He is basically saying that if everyone has a single vote then all votes are equal and therefore nothing can be determined. Interestingly, they had this same problem on the Space Shuttle. How can you objectively know if your computer is working and giving you the right answers? You can't. You can add a second computer but what if they disagree; how can you know which one is correct? The solution for the Space Shuttle was to have three computers. In society, we generally assume that informed consensus is more likely to be correct than either uninformed consensus or a single informed opinion.

Uniformity is the principle that God upholds the universe in a consistent way such that when conditions are sufficiently similar, a similar outcome occurs.

Actually, this is a basic assumption of physics and is one of the things that led to the speed of light paradox. This is rather reminiscent of Becquerel's experiment which was originally thought to require sunlight to function but was found to be independent of sunlight. The question for Dr. Lisle is: How would the universe function differently if the laws of physics were not related to God?

 

[barehl]

I think of evolution as a progress that builds on previous results. At the same time there are stable results that more or less merely adapt, such as bacteria which have been the same for millions of years I guess.

A multicellular organism on the other hand is a progress as a result of evolution building on the previous results of single-celled organisms.

So a human being is definitely an evolutionary progress compared to for example a rock, lol.

ETA: Bacteria are probably also a progress with evolution building on the result of protocells without DNA, but that was billions of years ago.

I'm glad you included statistical bounding. What this basically says is that while it would not be completely impossible for an organism to be born with stable, large scale genetic changes, this is vastly improbable. So for example, Kirk Cameron's croco-duck is not completely impossible but for all practical purposes, the chance of it occurring are statistically zero. In general, a small genetic change is more likely to be stable and functional than a large genetic change.

What is interesting about this concept is the similarity to engineering where you have either research or development. Most things are developed or refined or altered from existing things. This matches evolutionary theory. However, it is possible to do research and create something new. This is more inline with classic, creation arguments.

However, it looks like the element you are missing is an energy bound. Having more DNA requires more energy. Having larger brains also requires more energy. You can't have changes like this unless you are also able to obtain more energy from your environment. It is not entirely correct to think of these things only in terms of complexity or progress. For example, a pygmy shrew has a high energy strategy whereas a much larger sloth does not. A higher energy strategy allows greater complexity but does not require it. Secondly, high energy strategies can certainly be detrimental.

 

[barehl]

Is the appeal to childish thinking an argument that skeptics should ever accept, besides in children below a certain age? "I can't explain why I think Apollo was hoaxed, but my childish belief that it was hoaxed remains unshaken."

I've seen almost identical arguments from scientists for such things as:

T-Rex as the ultimate predator
Black holes in the 10 solar mass range
Multiple personalities
Time travel
Terra-forming
Snowball Earth

The primary basis for these beliefs seems to be that the world is more exciting if they are real.

 

[I Ratant]

...

This is a voting argument. He is basically saying that if everyone has a single vote then all votes are equal and therefore nothing can be determined. Interestingly, they had this same problem on the Space Shuttle. How can you objectively know if your computer is working and giving you the right answers? You can't. You can add a second computer but what if they disagree; how can you know which one is correct? The solution for the Space Shuttle was to have three computers. In society, we generally assume that informed consensus is more likely to be correct than either uninformed consensus or a single informed opinion.



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The Lockheed L-1011 had three identical computers with that voting system, which would de-select whichever of them differed from the other two, and notify the pilots of the situation.

 

[RussDill]

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The Lockheed L-1011 had three identical computers with that voting system, which would de-select whichever of them differed from the other two, and notify the pilots of the situation.

But then what? If state n is corrupted, one can assume state n+1 will be too. Do you then just fly with 2 computers? Do you reset all three computers?

 

[I Ratant]

But then what? If state n is corrupted, one can assume state n+1 will be too. Do you then just fly with 2 computers? Do you reset all three computers?

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The operators note the warning. And write up the occurrence for the maintanence people after the flight. The plane can operate safely with no computers, if it came to that.

 

[Anders Lindman]

However, it looks like the element you are missing is an energy bound. Having more DNA requires more energy. Having larger brains also requires more energy. You can't have changes like this unless you are also able to obtain more energy from your environment. It is not entirely correct to think of these things only in terms of complexity or progress. For example, a pygmy shrew has a high energy strategy whereas a much larger sloth does not. A higher energy strategy allows greater complexity but does not require it. Secondly, high energy strategies can certainly be detrimental.

It's enough that say a multicellular organism has a survival opportunity in an environment to cause the progress in terms of complexity. Otherwise the whole world would still only be populated with single-celled organisms. And since there is such progress in some cases it means that the process of evolution as a whole has the same progress.

 

[John Jones]

I've seen almost identical arguments from scientists for such things as:

T-Rex as the ultimate predator
Black holes in the 10 solar mass range
Multiple personalities
Time travel
Terra-forming
Snowball Earth

The primary basis for these beliefs seems to be that the world is more exciting if they are real.

Where did you read about this primary basis? Please explain how these 'almost identical arguments' are unscientific, untrue, or whatever it is you're claiming.

 

[Reality Check]

Babies have a capacity to feel pain, pleasure, satisfaction, and suffering; ....

Add that babies have morals without the need for a god (or maybe even a parent!) to impose them (The Moral Life of Babies).

 

[jasonpatterson]

I think the observation was that www seems to be reasoning like a child here. It's rather disappointing, considering that they claim to be an adult, claim to be member of a profession dedicated to helping young adults put the ways of childhood reasoning behind them, and to have come to a discussion forum explicitly devoted to adult reasoning.

Perhaps the claim was made elsewhere, but I didn't see any claim about belonging to this profession. All he or she ever wrote in this regard concerned being a political science major rather than a biologist. Even if wakawakawaka were a professional biologist, how would coming to a skeptical forum to ask advice on how to refute an argument be childish?

I mean, isn't it a fundamental principle of mature skepticism that, past a certain point, if you can't articulate a rational justification for your belief, then your belief is unfounded?

I would argue that not being able to articulate a justification for a belief is a different thing from that belief being unfounded. In any case, what would you have a person do, if, after hearing a claim that is clearly absurd (Caring for a baby is different from caring for an oil barrel, so evolution isn't real.) he or she could not come up with a clear counterargument. Accepting a stupid claim on its own stupid merits is a bad choice... Perhaps, I don't know, coming to a place where there might be people who knew about that kind of thing, and, hmmmm, this is a crazy idea, but bear with me, asking for help? That's what mature people do, regardless of whether they are skeptics or not.

In this case, wakawakawaka wasn't even asking for jrefers to supply an argument. If you read the posts, they all seem to be focused on trying to identify particular logical fallacies at play.

At some point, a self-proclaimed teacher, voluntarily participating on a discussion board devoted to skepticism and rational thinking, should be called on their incapacity to articulate a rational rebuttal to a claim they dispute. Appealing to their reasoning being that of a child just compounds the problem.

Again, perhaps the claim was made elsewhere, but I'm not seeing anything to do with being a teacher, particularly one with expertise in biology or evolution.

 

[wakawakawaka]

i was just asking to identify and confirm fallacies yeesh, and yet for somereason a bunch of you guys attacked me for it, besides i can easily spot jason lisle's( he is the guy who wrote a paper trying to justify how in a 6000 year universe you can see light millions of years away) mistakes but i often have problems forming responses into words that only make sense in my mind

 

[MikeG]

Jeez, waka, I have sympathy for your situation regarding this question........but I'd have a load more if you just put a few capitals and punctuation marks into your sentences in appropriate locations. It makes reading so much easier.

 

[wakawakawaka]

well here is another statement from him that doesnt make any sense what so ever- can you guys take a look at it and maybe help me figure out what he is trying to say?
""Why in the secular worldview should we suppose that our mind has the capacity to be rational? Rationality involves choice; we consciously consider the various options and then choose the best. But in the secular worldview, the brain is simply chemistry – and chemistry has no choice. Chemicals always react according to prescribed laws of nature. In the secular worldview, there is no more reason to trust a human brain than there is to trust in reading tea leaves. Both are just the inevitable result of chemical reactions."

 

[marplots]

well here is another statement from him that doesnt make any sense what so ever- can you guys take a look at it and maybe help me figure out what he is trying to say?
""Why in the secular worldview should we suppose that our mind has the capacity to be rational? Rationality involves choice; we consciously consider the various options and then choose the best. But in the secular worldview, the brain is simply chemistry – and chemistry has no choice. Chemicals always react according to prescribed laws of nature. In the secular worldview, there is no more reason to trust a human brain than there is to trust in reading tea leaves. Both are just the inevitable result of chemical reactions."

He's trying to attack a materialist worldview - one I actually hold. He's making two assertions - the first is that rationality necessarily involves choosing between options (which is fine, I guess), and the second is that "dumb chemistry" doesn't allow for any "real" choices.

I see a couple of problems. The first is that any materialist view of mental states allows for interaction with an outside world. In other words, even if it really is just unthinking chemistry, it still reacts to input, and there are choices embodied in that input. You are presented with a menu and your unthinking chemistry chooses. I am presented with a slightly different menu and mine chooses differently.

But his real mistake is assuming we understand, at the kind of detailed level required, that there is some straight line process from brain mechanisms to rational thought. As a materialist, I would assert that one leads to the other, but there can (and are) many, many twists and turns in between.

As he presents it, we are either programmed robots or... what? What other ingredient will he slip into the mix? If he introduces "spirit" as an alternative, he's got the same problem, only without neurons in play.

In the end, it's a rehash of ideas about free will, clothed in terms of rationality. The standard answer is that there are many layers of complexity and chaos in between the chemistry and the behavior. "Rationality" acts as a checking mechanism, so that while your brain is capable of producing a vast number of options, emergent rationality, by way of heuristics and experience, then winnows down those options in a meaningful, goal-directed way.

tl;dr: He's simplifying too much and losing all the necessary nuances.