Darwin Unhinged: The Bugs in Evolution

I think that the argument about whether God did it is a distraction. As is whether or not ID proponents are pushing Christian myths. What is of value, however, is asking legitimate questions about if and how NS/RM can produce complex organisms over time. Start with DNA for example, the most complex molecule imaginable which operates like a well managed factory. 

Questions about the motives of some Old Testament deity who allows cancer and plagues are pointless. That’s for another discussion with theologians. For what it is worth, I don’t think there would be much point in evolving this physical reality without all of its negative aspects as well as the positive ones. I might say that that seems to be the point of it. School of hard knocks and all that. But again, that’s not relevant here. 

I have yet to see a convincing argument about how NS/RM can account for all of the rich diversity of life and irreducible complexity can’t just be dismissed because it is argued by a self-confessed Christian. I’m certainly no expert but whenever I have watched a debate involving the well known ID scientists I have not been impressed by the arguments they are expected to answer ... which usually boil down to the same as are being put forward here - “so you’re saying that God did it? This same God who lets children die of cancer?”.

Questions about the motives of some Old Testament deity who allows cancer and plagues are pointless.

Absolutely.  Not understanding somebody's motives is not proof of their non-existence or the non-existence of something that has a similar function.

...which usually boil down to the same as are being put forward here - “so you’re saying that God did it? This same God who lets children die of cancer?”.

Hmmm I think the Darwinist is putting forth a different - and fallacious - argument than the one I'm making.

I'm saying there are two separate parts to ID ->

Part 1. Is there evidence of design in the evolutionary chain?

Part 2. Who might be the designers?

Part 1 is up for grabs IMO, though it is hard to know how we get rationality and the capacity to hold concepts in our minds without some kind of intervention. But I also don't think IDers have shown a smoking gun.

Part 2 is something IDers pretend isn't up for any scientific analysis and so people can just decide for themselves, though I think this is wrong. We can use our science along with reason to at the very least rank the designer candidates. And God, as in the big-G who shows up in any scripture, is pretty far down that list.

The Darwinist seems to be saying that you can knock God off the list in Part 2, and this negates even consideration of the evidence in Part 1. Which, as noted above, is a fallacious argument but also not the one I'm making.

I think that the argument about whether God did it is a distraction. As is whether or not ID proponents are pushing Christian myths. What is of value, however, is asking legitimate questions about if and how NS/RM can produce complex organisms over time. Start with DNA for example, the most complex molecule imaginable which operates like a well managed factory. 

Questions about the motives of some Old Testament deity who allows cancer and plagues are pointless. That’s for another discussion with theologians. For what it is worth, I don’t think there would be much point in evolving this physical reality without all of its negative aspects as well as the positive ones. I might say that that seems to be the point of it. School of hard knocks and all that. But again, that’s not relevant here. 

I have yet to see a convincing argument about how NS/RM can account for all of the rich diversity of life and irreducible complexity can’t just be dismissed because it is argued by a self-confessed Christian. I’m certainly no expert but whenever I have watched a debate involving the well known ID scientists I have not been impressed by the arguments they are expected to answer ... which usually boil down to the same as are being put forward here - “so you’re saying that God did it? This same God who lets children die of cancer?”.

You hit the nail on the head.

The bold is a spurious charge. Look back to my posts - I'm the person who most advocated for Christian philosophers like Feser, Swineburne, Bonnette, on Skeptiko and here. I don't even think anyone had posted about Christian Apologetics on Skeptiko until I showed up?

The only religion I can think of that I've actively criticized is Hinduism, and only then insofar as the caste system is concerned.

ID being a half-at-best science, with its practitioners holding to the claim that there's nothing to be said scientifically about who the maker of the flagellum is, has nothing to do with disliking Christianity. It has to do with IDers not presenting a compelling enough argument even for other Christians to take it seriously, and then putting blinders on regarding the reality that their field is a branch of parapsychology.

This isn't to say it's all garbage, there are hints of design like that grasshopper having gears in its legs and other evolutionary oddities like the 3d optical illusion on this moth's back. And as Kastrup notes there's no way to be certain mutations in the past were just random. And much of our mental existence, such as our capacity for rationality and aboutness-of-thought, cannot be explained in evolutionary terms.

So perhaps someday IDers will have something that is rock solid, but I'm not convinced that day has come.

I notice that you haven't answered my invitation to explain why you apparently don't agree with the clear implications of Darwinism that I quoted. Accordingly, I have to assume you agree with them and Provine and still are inclined to accept Darwinism as the explanation for how life has evolved. Since these clear implications totally rule out existence of the spiritual as an existential reality, then I assume that you consider that nonexistence as quite likely.

I notice that you haven't answered my invitation to explain why you apparently don't agree with the clear implications of Darwinism that I quoted. Accordingly, I have to assume you agree with them and Provine and still are inclined to accept Darwinism as the explanation for how life has evolved. Since these clear implications totally rule out existence of the spiritual as an existential reality, then I assume that you consider that nonexistence as quite likely.

I can't even tell if you are being serious here, or trying to make some point about how ID is the only hope for defeating Physicalism.

I think it's pretty clear from my posting history that I am opposed to the Physicalist faith.

As for whether Darwinism inherently means human existence is best described by Nihilism - no, I'm not convinced that's the case. Does Darwinsim have to mean Physicalism? - Donald Hoffman doesn't seem to think so.

I can't even tell if you are being serious here, or trying to make some point about how ID is the only hope for defeating Physicalism.

I think it's pretty clear from my posting history that I am opposed to the Physicalist faith.

As for whether Darwinism inherently means human existence is best described by Nihilism - no, I'm not convinced that's the case. Does Darwinsim have to mean Physicalism? - Donald Hoffman doesn't seem to think so.

Yes. That's why I think your position is self-contradictory. Darwinism claims all aspects of all living organisms including human beings arose in evolution through an undirected basically mechanical/statistical process of random with respect to fitness genetic variations interacting with natural selection. No meaning, purpose, intelligence, etc. allowed. How could this universal scheme not lead to nihilism? Please explain.

Yes. That's why I think your position is self-contradictory. Darwinism claims all aspects of all living organisms including human beings arose in evolution through an undirected basically mechanical/statistical process of random with respect to fitness genetic variations interacting with natural selection. No meaning, purpose, intelligence, etc. allowed. How could this universal scheme not lead to nihilism? Please explain.

1. I've never said design is false, just that the probabilistic case IDers make isn't 100% convincing.

2. If a child is an accidental pregnancy, does that mean his/her whole existence is therefore meaningless? I'd say it is not meaningless, and extrapolate that to the entire human race.

3. As Kastrup notes, we just don't know if mutations across biological history were random. Even if the progress of evolution has no interventions, that doesn't mean souls don't exist.

 Perhaps the Cosmic Fine Tuners - who might've been ourselves - planned evolution out at the beginning before the Big Bang.

 Perhaps evolution is "guided" by genuine randomness but only after a point did the non-conscious biological mass become suitable  for incarnating souls who exist in another realm.

 And so on..

Hmmm I think the Darwinist is putting forth a different - and fallacious - argument than the one I'm making.

I'm saying there are two separate parts to ID ->

Part 1. Is there evidence of design in the evolutionary chain?

Part 2. Who might be the designers?

Part 1 is up for grabs IMO, though it is hard to know how we get rationality and the capacity to hold concepts in our minds without some kind of intervention. But I also don't think IDers have shown a smoking gun.

Part 2 is something IDers pretend isn't up for any scientific analysis and so people can just decide for themselves, though I think this is wrong. We can use our science along with reason to at the very least rank the designer candidates. And God, as in the big-G who shows up in any scripture, is pretty far down that list.

The Darwinist seems to be saying that you can knock God off the list in Part 2, and this negates even consideration of the evidence in Part 1. Which, as noted above, is a fallacious argument but also not the one I'm making.

And what I'm trying to say is: does Part 2 matter? I don't care what someone believes so long as they are not inventing evidence. It seems to me, however, that their arguments have merit and stand whether or not God did it. I personally don't believe in the kind of omniscient designer god that is often put forward but I do think that there is some kind of teleological process going on. Your own arguments on this forum when pointing to the probability of fine tuning support that teleological view, don't they?

When I say, does it matter, I mean does it matter to the argument over the evidence for and against NS/RM? I just think that they are not two parts of the same question but separate debates.

And what I'm trying to say is: does Part 2 matter? I don't care what someone believes so long as they are not inventing evidence. It seems to me, however, that their arguments have merit and stand whether or not God did it. I personally don't believe in the kind of omniscient designer god that is often put forward but I do think that there is some kind of teleological process going on. Your own arguments on this forum when pointing to the probability of fine tuning support that teleological view, don't they?

Well it matters if we want a complete scientific investigation into ID. For example, does a combination of Jim Carpenter's First Sight Theory of Psi + Sheldrake's Morphic fields allow a mechanism for an organism to pass own its experience epigenetically in the form of adptation?

But no, it doesn't matter in the sense of negating evidence. Someone can be wrong about Part 2 yet completely 100% correct about Part 1.

Just like Rovelli can be correct that QM shows we live in separate universes of separate (physical) information, but wrong about his claim that Physicalism is true.