RE: [asa] Altruism and ID

One must clearly distinguish the theoretical ideas we have about Nature and Nature itself. The former do not contain a designer; expect the one that developed the theoretical ideas himself. On the other hand, Nature and its existence cannot be said not to point to a Creator. I quote from a former professor of mine,

"From the truth that God created the world, and hence the actual order of nature from among possible orders, there is no enlightenment as to what that order is. The latter may be discovered whether or not one believes in God. This fact constitutes the element of truth in the statement attributed to Laplace, that experimental science has no need of God." [William Oliver Martin, The Order and Integration of Knowledge, The University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, Michigan (1957), p. 215.]

Moorad

________________________________

From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu on behalf of PvM
Sent: Tue 6/5/2007 2:09 AM
To: asa
Subject: [asa] Altruism and ID

Compare http://www.evolutionnews.org/2007/06/waiter_my_steak_isnt_altruisti.html#more

<quote>Altruism, in contrast, has no matter or energy. It has no
'location', no weight, no dimension, no temperature. It has no
properties of matter. Altruism entails things like purpose and
judgment, which aren't material. Altruism has no parts, in the sense
that there is a 'left-side' of altruism and a 'right side' of
altruism. There are, of course, left sided and right sided parts of
the brain, which may be associated with acts of altruism, but there is
no 'left' or 'right' to altruism itself. Of course, objects (like
human brains or bodies) that have location, weight, etc. can mediate
or carry out altruistic acts, but the altruism itself doesn't have a
location. Altruism isn't spatial. 'My altruism is three inches from
the edge of the table' is a nonsensical statement.

There is no shared property yet identified by science through which
brain matter can cause mental acts like altruism. Material substances
have mass and energy. Ideas have purpose and judgment. There is no
commonality. The association between brain function and ideas is
fascinating, and the association of ideas with regions of the brain is
a proper object of scientific study. But where there is no commonality
of properties, association cannot be causation. Ideas must be caused
by substances that have properties common to ideas- such as purpose
and judgment.

</quote>

with http://www.healthnews-stat.com/?id=382&keys=altruistic-behavior-brain-altruism

<quote>Activation of brain region predicts whether people will be
selfish or altruistic. Research determines that altruistic behaviors
are predictable.</quote>

And wonder why people come to realize how scientifically vacuous ID really is.

This argument of information has no mass or dimensions or altruism has
no mass and energy shows how infantile the ID arguments have become.

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Received on Tue Jun 5 08:23:28 2007