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Intelligent Design

Educate yourself, Aridas. This TED talk should help:

"Why is our universe fine-tuned for life? | Brian Greene

At the heart of modern cosmology is a mystery: Why does our universe appear so exquisitely tuned to create the conditions necessary for life? In this tour de force tour of some of science's biggest new discoveries, Brian Greene shows how the mind-boggling idea of a multiverse may hold the answer to the riddle."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bf7BXwVeyWw
 
Fudbucker said:
Educate yourself, Aridas. This TED talk should help:

"Why is our universe fine-tuned for life? | Brian Greene

At the heart of modern cosmology is a mystery: Why does our universe appear so exquisitely tuned to create the conditions necessary for life? In this tour de force tour of some of science's biggest new discoveries, Brian Greene shows how the mind-boggling idea of a multiverse may hold the answer to the riddle."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bf7BXwVeyWw
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:rolleyes:

You've got nothing, then? This isn't new or unaccounted for information.
 
Fudbucker said:
Nothing, right. Remind me, who's been posting links in this thread and who hasn't?.......l
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The same person who hasn't noticed that each and every argument he has made has been taken apart systematically, whether it was backed by links or not.
 
Fudbucker said:
Nothing, right. Remind me, who's been posting links in this thread and who hasn't?

But seriously, I got nothin. Lol
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Yup, you look like you've got nothing. Maybe you could actually deal with the various points actually made, though, if you think that you've got something, rather than invoke various fallacies to try to defend other fallacies? For example, why did you separate your 1 and 4, anyways, AND treat them significantly differently, when 4 counts as an example of what you describe in 1? And do you have any good reason why substituting in factors that are qualitatively different would not inherently change equations significantly?

These are, of course, minor things compared the the larger issues that you've failed to deal with.
 
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Aridas said:
Yup, you look like you've got nothing. Maybe you could actually deal with the various points actually made, though, if you think that you've got something, rather than invoke various fallacies to try to defend other fallacies? For example, why did you separate your 1 and 4, anyways, AND treat them significantly differently, when 4 counts as an example of what you describe in 1? And do you have any good reason why substituting in factors that are qualitatively different would not inherently change equations significantly?

These are, of course, minor things compared the the larger issues that you've failed to deal with.
Click to expand...

Sigh.



"That night in Hawaii, Faber declared that there were only two possible explanations for fine-tuning. “One is that there is a God and that God made it that way,” she said. But for Faber, an atheist, divine intervention is not the answer.

“The only other approach that makes any sense is to argue that there really is an infinite, or a very big, ensemble of universes out there and we are in one,” she said."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/blogs/physics/2012/03/is-the-universe-fine-tuned-for-life/

Sandra Faber.

I keep telling you, it's god or the multiverse.

Or, in other words, lol. :)
 
Fudbucker said:
Educate yourself, Aridas. This TED talk should help:

"Why is our universe fine-tuned for life? | Brian Greene

At the heart of modern cosmology is a mystery: Why does our universe appear so exquisitely tuned to create the conditions necessary for life? In this tour de force tour of some of science's biggest new discoveries, Brian Greene shows how the mind-boggling idea of a multiverse may hold the answer to the riddle."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bf7BXwVeyWw
Click to expand...


Sorry, didn't do much for me either Fudbucker.

Lots of flamboyance and pictures with some attempts at humour but no coherent answers given. It would seem some others were not impressed with Brian's approach either:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20yRHABy5Oo
 
Fudbucker said:
Sigh.
Click to expand...

Indeed, your posts have been sigh worthy.


Fudbucker said:
I keep telling you, it's god or the multiverse.
Click to expand...

Those are the generally most favored options, yes, for a number of reasons. That they are such does nothing to salvage the various fallacies that you've been invoking, though. Nor does that even begin to address the points that I've generally been making. I may as well ask again, though, since you so blatantly dodged the last post's simple questions... How would your 4, which you presented as one of the likely options, not qualify as an example of your 1, which you tried to claim seems not to be the case? Do you have any good reason why substituting in factors that are qualitatively different would not inherently change equations significantly?
 
Thor 2 said:
Sorry, didn't do much for me either Fudbucker.

Lots of flamboyance and pictures with some attempts at humour but no coherent answers given. It would seem some others were not impressed with Brian's approach either:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20yRHABy5Oo
Click to expand...

Ehh... that's far from the most useful example, given that the most relevant part to this is just a truth said loudly and amusedly. String theory still has far too many flaws to count as anything more than a theoretical work in progress, at present, despite the great amount of progress that has occurred over the past decades. So... depending on it actually being true outside of a hypothetical context is still not particularly warranted.
 
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@ Fudbucker

Well put. :thumbsup:

You get my vote for being a rational skeptic.

When an atheist is absolutely certain in their own mind that there is no God, you cannot get them to admit to even the slightest possibility. They are not open to the best philosophical arguments about hypothetical prime cause.

They know better. And hence are superior (by evolution they say) to both skeptics and theists.

Of course, evolution has proven that religion has a purpose, namely the advancement of a group or society. They have no explanation for the propensity of the human mind for mystical thought.

They might be fatally wrong in thinking that they are sufficiently advanced that they can now do without it.
 
Of course this debate could be simply settled.

Get the intelligent designer to create life from nothing. It's done it before, just let it do so again. Take a sterile test tube, fill it with water, charcoal, some salts, air and a bit of phosporous, keep it at room temperature and have the ID make life de novo.
Do this in a testable, reproducible way and ID is proven.

On the materialistic side there is a LOT of work going into abiogenesis, what is the ID crowd doing to prove their theory?
 
I'm taking a moment to marvel at someone who has demonstrated themselves to be utterly clueless about probability theory advising someone who has demonstrated themselves to be very knowledgeable to educate themselves, then another to marvel at someone who has demonstrated themselves to be equally clueless congratulating the first clueless person.

All done.
 
PartSkeptic said:
.......They know better. And hence are superior (by evolution they say) to both skeptics and theists........
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What utter bollocks.

See if you can find anyone, anywhere on this board, who has ever claimed that atheists are, as a result of evolution, better* than anyone else. If you can't, then it would be really decent of you to withdraw this statement.

*There is no such thing, evolution-wise.
 
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Fudbucker said:
Sigh.........
"That night in Hawaii, Faber declared that there were only two possible explanations for fine-tuning..........
Click to expand...


Before you sigh so much that you faint from hyper-ventilation, you might consider acknowledging that you are presuming the existence of fine-tuning without providing any understanding that isn't a generally accepted position. It is clear that you are doing this to sustain your weak argument.
 
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Fudbucker said:
Let E (evidence) = a string of cosmological constants that are, prima facie, fantastically finely balanced for life to be possible at all.
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Stop there. Stop right there.

Now, please present your evidence that these constants could have taken any random values in the real universe.

(Note, incidentally, that these constants do not specify the universe; they are inserted into an abstraction we have constructed of the universe in order for its properties to match that of the universe.)

Dave
 
Dave Rogers said:
... (Note, incidentally, that these constants do not specify the universe; they are inserted into an abstraction we have constructed of the universe in order for its properties to match that of the universe.)

Dave
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Kudos and applause at the caution against model-gazing.
 
Pixel42 said:
I'm taking a moment to marvel at someone who has demonstrated themselves to be utterly clueless about probability theory advising someone who has demonstrated themselves to be very knowledgeable to educate themselves, then another to marvel at someone who has demonstrated themselves to be equally clueless congratulating the first clueless person.

All done.
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You used to post something reasonable (but often incorrect). Now you intersperse your posts with mockery and negative hyperbole. Sign of some-one losing the debate?

No mention of any hypothesis of why the universe started out the way it did.

For example. An interesting constant (if you can call it that) is the amount of matter, and the very sightly less amount of anti-matter. Why? Why would they not be equal, except that we would not be here. Why not smaller amounts or larger amounts - in which case it is also unlikely we would be here. To me, the "anthropic principle" is a curiosity and not scientific. It is an evasion or side-step.

Apart from mathematical theory, is there any evidence whatsoever that multiverses exist? Do you not think that it is an attempt to give an alternative (but fanciful) hypothesis to respond to the FACT that our universe is not only incredibly complex but beautifully "designed" with everything "just right" and with the constants and equations all in harmony and fine tuned?
 
Fudbucker said:
It's right up there with something coming from nothing.
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You're touching on something here that could be significant. There's the old question, "Why is there something instead of nothing?" That's a question that science cannot answer. There is no way science can explain it, because any experiment involves starting at some known initial conditions, so we would have to ask why there were initial conditions.

So, there really is a mystery, and an unsolvable one at that.


However, that doesn't get us anywhere near intelligent design, or proof of God. Intelligent Design claims to be able to show that there must be an intelligent designer in order to explain the existence of life. They're wrong, and merely saying, "We have no explanation for why the universe exists" does not get us any closer to proof of God.
 
Lukraak_Sisser said:
Of course this debate could be simply settled.

Get the intelligent designer to create life from nothing. It's done it before, just let it do so again. Take a sterile test tube, fill it with water, charcoal, some salts, air and a bit of phosporous, keep it at room temperature and have the ID make life de novo.
Do this in a testable, reproducible way and ID is proven.

On the materialistic side there is a LOT of work going into abiogenesis, what is the ID crowd doing to prove their theory?
Click to expand...


At one point abiogenesis seemed to be quite easy. Now it seems that it is incredibly complex, requiring multiple scenarios in just the right sequence. So far, beyond science.

But even if they achieve it, can one prove that God did not decide to make/allow the experiment to work by adding a little bit of soul/spirit to the mix?

Reproducing life is not proof of God. If God wishes to remain hidden then nothing you can do will change that. If someone accidentally proves the existence of God that event can be nullified by God and any history of it removed.

The ID crowd support their belief with personal experience - self and others.
 
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