Fine tuning?

The ancient and long accepted view, confirmed by other sources such as channelling and NDEs. would be that the conscious entity is striving to know itself.

The trouble is, I'm never sure that means very much, or that it means the same to different people.

Does it help to think of the supreme being by analogy with someone on a psychiatric couch?

I became interested in Seth for a while, but then I came to realise that so much of his output seemed to have a studied vague quality about it.

OTH, it is hard to believe that channelers aren't communicating with some entity, particularly if they do it with automatic writing.

David

Actually, I do think the evidence points to a teleological purpose but try going down that path with someone who scoffs at anything that smacks of a challenge to Darwinism.

The best answer would be to read up on the Discovery Institute arguments that evolution by natural selection is FALSE. Most of them are written in a down to earth style, and I have said before the relevant bits of genetics at the level of the cell are fairly simple and you don't need to understand all the messy organic chemistry side of the subject.

David

I am hoping that @Brian would discuss his combination of Materialism and Christianity a bit more, because it wasn't my intention to knock his philosophy - just to critique it.

David

I am hoping that @Brian would discuss his combination of Materialism and Christianity a bit more, because it wasn't my intention to knock his philosophy - just to critique it.

David

Not to put words in his mouth but I think his point wasn't that he was a Materialist but rather that there was no hard proof - in the sense of being evaluated by consensus science - for any supernatural beliefs and these have to be accepted as faith based.

I guess we could contrast Psi & Survival with QM, which does seem extraordinary but STEM academia agrees with what the evidence shows even if interpretations vary.

(Personally I think Psi & Survival passes a kind of "legal" standard, even if the data is not replicable in the way QM is.)

The best answer would be to read up on the Discovery Institute arguments that evolution by natural selection is FALSE. Most of them are written in a down to earth style, and I have said before the relevant bits of genetics at the level of the cell are fairly simple and you don't need to understand all the messy organic chemistry side of the subject.

David

I do read Discovery Institute articles, I have read books by Stephen Meyer and watched many videos from he and others from the DI. However, I do so with a constant proviso that I know that I am being presented with biased material. I accept that and make allowances derived from my own non-religious POV yet I still find many of the arguments persuasive.

Still, I would not even bother to urge an ideological atheist/materialist to spend any time on the DI website. A waste of my time and theirs because they will never get past the first hurdle: that the DI is funded by evangelicals. I have tried and failed to find a truly unbiased source of information which is a great pity in these times. It is like watching American Cable News channels - they fall into two camps, Left and Right, and people watch whatever reflects their preference. Both claim to tell the truth yet both, to varying degrees, misrepresent the truth or tell outright lies. Yet there are ways of fact-checking news stories for those who really want to dig deep. I'm not sure that is the case with the evolution and origins debate. Whenever a DI scientist presents his or her research he or she is attacked for their religious affiliations rather than on scientific merit. Then I, the non-scientific observer, am expected to see through the ideology and discover the unadulterated nuggets of truth. It is frustrating and depressing.

I do read Discovery Institute articles, I have read books by Stephen Meyer and watched many videos from he and others from the DI. However, I do so with a constant proviso that I know that I am being presented with biased material. I accept that and make allowances derived from my own non-religious POV yet I still find many of the arguments persuasive.

Still, I would not even bother to urge an ideological atheist/materialist to spend any time on the DI website. A waste of my time and theirs because they will never get past the first hurdle: that the DI is funded by evangelicals. I have tried and failed to find a truly unbiased source of information which is a great pity in these times. It is like watching American Cable News channels - they fall into two camps, Left and Right, and people watch whatever reflects their preference. Both claim to tell the truth yet both, to varying degrees, misrepresent the truth or tell outright lies. Yet there are ways of fact-checking news stories for those who really want to dig deep. I'm not sure that is the case with the evolution and origins debate. Whenever a DI scientist presents his or her research he or she is attacked for their religious affiliations rather than on scientific merit. Then I, the non-scientific observer, am expected to see through the ideology and discover the unadulterated nuggets of truth. It is frustrating and depressing.

I would be curious to learn what actual lies or misrepresentations you have found the DI to be guilty of in their reported and documented ID research studies.

If you read it again you might see that the mention of lies was with regard to news organisations. The comparison was really about bias and fact-checking. On the other hand, I don't trust anything I read from ideological sources, be they skeptical or evangelical. May I ask where you go to check what you read at the DI?

I do read Discovery Institute articles, I have read books by Stephen Meyer and watched many videos from he and others from the DI. However, I do so with a constant proviso that I know that I am being presented with biased material. I accept that and make allowances derived from my own non-religious POV yet I still find many of the arguments persuasive.

I agree - they interpret any evidence that life did not arise naturally or evolve naturally asevidence for their brand of Christianity. Stephen Meyer has been interviewed by Jo Rogan, and there he somewhat acknowledges this - it is well worth listening to (though it is over 3 hours long!).

Still, I would not even bother to urge an ideological atheist/materialist to spend any time on the DI website. A waste of my time and theirs because they will never get past the first hurdle: that the DI is funded by evangelicals. I have tried and failed to find a truly unbiased source of information which is a great pity in these times. It is like watching American Cable News channels - they fall into two camps, Left and Right, and people watch whatever reflects their preference. Both claim to tell the truth yet both, to varying degrees, misrepresent the truth or tell outright lies. Yet there are ways of fact-checking news stories for those who really want to dig deep. I'm not sure that is the case with the evolution and origins debate. Whenever a DI scientist presents his or her research he or she is attacked for their religious affiliations rather than on scientific merit. Then I, the non-scientific observer, am expected to see through the ideology and discover the unadulterated nuggets of truth. It is frustrating and depressing.

First, I'm not exactly a DI apologist, but the DI has done a lot of published research working to prove that NeoDarwinism is wrong, while other scientists bury any such results! However, yes their organisation is Christian, and you and I and most people here aren't (excepting Brian of course).

Note that as soon as Meyer is attacked for being a Christian, it is a strong sign that his opponents don't have strong scientific arguments against him.

As I see it, the DI is arguing the following:

Creating life by chance is impossible (see particularly James Tour).

The most that natural selection can achieve is minor tweaks to an organism - so for example evolving a land based mammal by natural selection to become a whale is utterly impossible.

It is impossible to derive a consistent tree of life. It rather looks as though the designer(s) re-used components such as the eye in many different places in the history of life.

It really does look as though evolution happens in discrete jumps (as Stephen j Gould argued many years ago) but Darwinism has to work in small steps.

David

Not to put words in his mouth but I think his point wasn't that he was a Materialist but rather that there was no hard proof - in the sense of being evaluated by consensus science - for any supernatural beliefs and these have to be accepted as faith based.

I wish he would add speak for himself on this thread!

I guess we could contrast Psi & Survival with QM, which does seem extraordinary but STEM academia agrees with what the evidence shows even if interpretations vary.

(Personally I think Psi & Survival passes a kind of "legal" standard, even if the data is not replicable in the way QM is.)

I would say science often has to deal with evidence that is not utterly conclusive, but normally it does its best - think of archaeology for example.

David

(Personally I think Psi & Survival passes a kind of "legal" standard, even if the data is not replicable in the way QM is.)

If you mean “on the balance of probabilities” I’d agree