Re: [asa] Easter Island WAS Does the flagellum prove Genesis?

On Dec 9, 2007 5:46 AM, John Walley <john_walley@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Pim,
>
> Granted there may be some technical distinctions between Easter Island and
> the cosmological constants because one can be described through known
> natural designers while the other can't, but I contend this a distinction
> without a difference.

It's perhaps not an intuitive difference but from a scientific and
mathematical perspective it is a major difference. Which is why I find
ID so threatening to science and faith because it reinforces intuition
in spite of the underlying science. It starts with calling our
ignorance 'design' and it only gets worse with terminology like
information, complexity etc.

> For you scientists this may be a big deal but to the average objective
> observer, the take away is the same, it is too coincidental to be explained
> without inferring intention.

Yes, I understand that the ID argument can be quite compelling to
those who do not understand the bait and switch argument. Which is why
I am such a strong opponent of ID. We humans have a strongly evolved
sense of seeing 'design' and the need for 'explanations' but the
reality is that on closer examination ID breaks down. Much scientific
research has been done into the human need to find intention, after
all, once our survival depended on such inferences and false positives
were less costly than false negatives.

> Likewise I think the prima facie implications of a finely tuned universe are
> meant to stand on their own and to the average person (consumers of ID) they
> do. Further as I have mentioned before, it is ironic that many non-Christian
> scientists like Hoyle, Rees, Davies etc accept these finely tuned parameters
> as indicative of design so it curious why so many Christians feel compelled
> to overturn them.

Ironic perhaps but again that has little relevance to the discussion.
I also disagree with your representation of Hoyle, Rees, Davies etc.
They may accept the fine tuning as 'real' but they do not necessarily
require 'design'.

Of course, they may be 'quoted' as seemingly supporting such a
conclusion but unless one reads their primary literature, relying on
such mining of quotes seems counter productive.

> Keep in mind I am only trying to defend the generic design inference or the
> "weak ID" argument, not the anti-evolution and special creation components
> of ID.

What is this 'weak ID' argument? That ID is compatible with those who
believe in a Designer?

> As far as biology, I think we have same designer implying evidence in that
> scientific record as well just like we do in physics. We have covered that
> here extensively although unceremoniously in the analogy of Gould's hallway
> that constrains the staggering drunk to make forward progress. Once again,
> that is from secular non-Christian scientists so that is hardly a
> religiously motivated contrivance.

The problem is that in both cases we see a scientific explanation and
an appeal to design BUT ID is all about a better explanation and in
neither case is ID a better explanation. If John's weak argument is
that ID always remains a possibility then we agree but whenever ID has
to face an existing theory or even our ignorance, ID can at best
remain at a stalemate.

Sure we observe a fine tuned universe and thus we need to be able to
unravel cause an effect.

> From my layman's analysis, I think if ID had been defined in these more
> general and less over reaching terms from the beginning it would have been
> more defendable and a generally valid theory.

Valid in what ways? How could ID be more generally defined than it is
defined right now?

Let's see how we can unravel the question of which explanation is more
probable, multiverses, cosmological natural selection, pure chance, or
intelligent design? For an overview of explanations see
http://www.citebase.org/abstract?id=oai%3AarXiv.org%3Agr-qc%2F0411093

Also there is the following contribution which extends Smolin's
evolutionary concept:

<quote>All anthropic cosmological interpretations share a common
theme: a recognition that key constants of physics (as well as other
physical aspects of our cosmos such as its dimensionality) appear to
exhibit a mysterious fine-tuning that optimizes their collective
bio-friendliness. Rees noted (Rees, 2000) that virtually every aspect
of the evolution of the universe—from the birth of galaxies to the
origin of life on Earth—is sensitively dependent on the precise values
of seemingly arbitrary constants of nature like the strength of
gravity, the number of extended spatial dimensions in our universe
(three of the ten posited by M-theory), and the initial expansion
speed of the cosmos following the Big Bang. If any of these physical
constants had been even slightly different, life as we know it would
have been impossible:</quote>

http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0647.html

Of particular overlapping interest seems Smolin's cosmology which
involves evolutionary principles of offspring and selection. Finally,
while we see quite some theoretical and experimental interests, none
involve the ID 'explanation' which returns me to the lack of fertility
of such an explanation.

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Received on Sun Dec 9 14:16:07 2007