Kamarling Wrote:There are some prominent doubters of Darwinism who are not religious and there are probably many more who would rather keep their jobs than voice their doubt.
I'm sure that's true.
Quote:As for research and peer review, it seems to me that for peer review to work, there should be peers with an unbiased approach. This is an old complaint about peer review when it comes to anything outside - or at the fringes - of orthodoxy. Peer review is effectively cut off at the outset because ID is deemed to be not scientific, therefore not eligible for scientific review. Not scientific because most scientists adhere to methodological naturalism, as defined here by Keith Augustine:
Then the IDers will have to peer review their own stuff, perhaps asking some of those doubters to do it anonymously.
Quote:ID proposes an intelligent agent which, as David suggested above, might be considered to be beyond what scientists deem to be natural (part of the physical world). If science must be restricted to materialism (as Lewontin and others maintain) then ID will never be accepted as science, therefore never accepted for peer review. The people at the DI might put forward a few papers that challenge neo-darwinism but don't directly violate naturalism but any inference to an intelligent agent would have to be avoided.
Here's the thing, though. If the designer really is outside of the reach of methodological naturalism, how would you expect there to be any research program? There is no reach, no search, no research. There is nothing to study.
If, on the other hand, there is something about the designer that affects the natural world, then we should be able to get a foot in the door, to bootstrap some kind of research program. And since IDers are making the claim that the designer did, in fact, affect the natural world, there ought to be something.
Quote:I can't see a way around this impasse. It is a matter of base assumptions and it seems to me that the scientific community has, for the most part, decided a philosophical question and ordained that materialism is absolute and incontestable.
The way around this impasse is to point to something science can study.
~~ Paul
(2017-12-07, 10:53 PM)Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Wrote: [ -> ]I'm sure that's true.
Then the IDers will have to peer review their own stuff, perhaps asking some of those doubters to do it anonymously.
From the link you provided above, here's the
link to a more comprehensive list. I don't know which are ID friendly publications, however.
(2017-12-07, 10:53 PM)Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Wrote: [ -> ]Here's the thing, though. If the designer really is outside of the reach of methodological naturalism, how would you expect there to be any research program? There is no reach, no search, no research. There is nothing to study.
If, on the other hand, there is something about the designer that affects the natural world, then we should be able to get a foot in the door, to bootstrap some kind of research program. And since IDers are making the claim that the designer did, in fact, affect the natural world, there ought to be something.
Again, that link I just provided above is entitled "Research" so your claim that they don't do research seems to be your opinion, not theirs. My opinion is that the claims they make point to evidence of design which is precisely what you are asking for when you say "something about the designer that affects the natural world". Just because you disagree with them doesn't make them wrong or you right. That's what this whole debate is about, isn't it?
(2017-12-07, 10:53 PM)Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Wrote: [ -> ]The way around this impasse is to point to something science can study.
~~ Paul
Again you are repeating your opinion. They do organise debates on the science and, occasionally, darwinist scientists take part but generally they revert to the claim that ID is not science and use the forum to attack religion rather than discuss the science. Those debates are there on YouTube if you need confirmation.
Kamarling Wrote:From the link you provided above, here's the link to a more comprehensive list. I don't know which are ID friendly publications, however.
Good to see some papers after 2011.
Quote:Again, that link I just provided above is entitled "Research" so your claim that they don't do research seems to be your opinion, not theirs. My opinion is that the claims they make point to evidence of design which is precisely what you are asking for when you say "something about the designer that affects the natural world". Just because you disagree with them doesn't make them wrong or you right. That's what this whole debate is about, isn't it?
The papers that are actually about ID are based on probability calculations. Those calculations are suspect, as has been shown by various mathematicians over the years. In particular, if you look at the list of publications I don't think you will find any calculations of CSI for a biological mechanism. But if they have a foot in the door, great. I'm just not sure where it can go.
Edited to add: The ID folks now agree that to evaluate the CSI of a biological mechanism, you also need to calculate the probability of it coming about by evolution. This is, unfortunately, impossible.
Edited again to add: Here is a reasonable summary of the state of CSI:
http://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/20...-part-one/
http://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/20...-part-two/
~~ Paul
(2017-12-08, 12:57 AM)Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Wrote: [ -> ]Good to see some papers after 2011.
One of the papers is on the algorithmic specified complexity of the Game of Life. I thought I'd give it a read, but so far I'm not having any luck finding it outside a paywall.
~~ Paul
(2017-12-07, 10:47 PM)Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Wrote: [ -> ]There would be some sort of proto-organism. Perhaps a bag of chemicals with a simple membrane. Perhaps a group of tightly bound molecules that were difficult to separate. If these organisms could replicate, then some kind of rudimentary selection would occur. Note that no genes are required in the conventional sense.
But, again, I make no claim to understand how things started. If I did, I'd be a famous biologist.
~~ Paul
I think if someone could demonstrate a bag of chemicals that met that specification, I might believe it a bit more, but modern cells seem to become ever more complex as they are investigated.
Note that selection implies that the bag of chemicals could exist in several related but different forms - otherwise there would be nothing to select between.
I think that if there were an alternative idea as to how life began, the incredible chicken and egg problem of starting life would have pushed science to look at alternatives, but the idea of ID just raises such hackles! Essentially this is just an accident of history - that science played a part in defeating the Christian domination of Europe and the US, so it adopted the most extreme opposite position regarding the mind.
It really need not do so, we exist in physical bodies, and yet our mentality remains strangely distinct from our bodies. We can think about a vast range of subjects, there is evidence of reincarnation, and there is all the evidence from NDE's. That all points to a separate non-physical aspect to consciousness. In some sense I think it was
us that devised life - using our minds!
The bigger picture really could be vastly more interesting than most scientists accept.
The current argument between ID science and the orthodox scientists is absurd. It is like a crazy concept of archaeology, where whenever anything is discovered - even bits of pottery - someone attempts to devise a hand-waiving explanation as to how it might have formed naturally! I mean, maybe a curved shard of pottery formed when some magma swirled in a whirlpool - and then wind patterns etched the symbols on the side!
If science shifted ground a little, I am sure most people would separate from those Christian ID enthusiasts who want to declare that Yaweh did it. There are just so many more interesting possibilities. I certainly don't think J. Scott. Turner imagines that Yaweh did it!
David
DaveB Wrote:I think that if there were an alternative idea as to how life began, the incredible chicken and egg problem of starting life would have pushed science to look at alternatives, but the idea of ID just raises such hackles! Essentially this is just an accident of history - that science played a part in defeating the Christian domination of Europe and the US, so it adopted the most extreme opposite position regarding the mind.
It really need not do so, we exist in physical bodies, and yet our mentality remains strangely distinct from our bodies. We can think about a vast range of subjects, there is evidence of reincarnation, and there is all the evidence from NDE's. That all points to a separate non-physical aspect to consciousness. In some sense I think it was us that devised life - using our minds!
How would you suggest science approach the nonphysical?
~~ Paul
(2017-12-08, 01:17 PM)Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Wrote: [ -> ]How would you suggest science approach the nonphysical?
~~ Paul
Not answering the question for David, but for myself and a legion of others: the non-physical has been approached, quantified to some degree, mathematically described, harnessed by engineering and put to practical use. Information science has changed the face of human culture and how the world works.
In light of the current topic - bio-information fields of study are determining the conversation. Bio-semiosis, bio-informatics and the coding research in genetics are all dominated by how information runs physical processes.
All that is left is the myth of the magic of matter and physical substance. And how "meaning" comes from brain cells and not being naturally present in our environments like gases. Just as there are still believers that the earth is flat - there are still believers in the magical properties of blood as a special class of matter. Many folks do not understand genes and codons in any other way, than as a "magical" power of matter.
When in fact, science shows us signal molecules in biology are just "meaning laden" with information as specified instructions. Instructions which are able to connect the bio-signals they convey with the functional goals achieved by organic systems.
(2017-12-08, 02:28 PM)stephenw Wrote: [ -> ]Not answering the question for David, but for myself and a legion of others: the non-physical has been approached, quantified to some degree, mathematically described, harnessed by engineering and put to practical use. Information science has changed the face of human culture and how the world works.
You are saying that we have technology based on the nonphysical? What are some examples?
Quote:All that is left is the myth of the magic of matter and physical substance. And how "meaning" comes from brain cells and not being naturally present in our environments like gases. Just as there are still believers that the earth is flat - there are still believers in the magical properties of blood as a special class of matter. Many folks do not understand genes and codons in any other way, than as a "magical" power of matter.
There is meaning floating around in the environment? Could you give some examples?
~~ Paul
(2017-12-05, 02:53 PM)Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Wrote: [ -> ]The evolution of the genetic code is most certainly a physical thing. If you believe it is not, could you point to the "information mechanism" that drove its evolution?
The periodic table is no more an add-on to valence electron chemistry than the code table is an add-on to biology.
~~ Paul
Think about it calmly, take out the information on a chart that makes it easier for humans to understand and the chemistry that has gone on lawfully for 14 billion years or so, is totally unaffected.
Take out the operating real world structured information that is the natural coded language of nature and biology - and death to all organisms.
A parallel observation would be to remove the natural code between physical things interacting known as the laws of physics.
Let me be plain - I am saying that the coded messages of DNA/RNA/Ribosomes are natural events from the intelligence of living things and should be included in naturalism as much as the laws of matter and energy.
(2017-12-08, 05:02 PM)Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Wrote: [ -> ]You are saying that we have technology based on the nonphysical? What are some examples?
~~ Paul
the ascii code, logic gates, storage architecture, quantum computation, etc.......