Well, It seems that I could not even finish this response or put it up by the 1st of august like I'd hoped. This will be my closing statement to this debate, and my last post here. No tears, people, come on now...
My two aborted attempts at my fifth response can be found on GoogleDocs if anyone is interested in reading them: (The second one is the latest and longer)
https://docs.google.com/document/edit?id=1p_2-vJXXCd3Y-5vUNMIupgtdT_g8IFVf8msuyhOVoXw&hl=en&authkey=CNnjn_gO
https://docs.google.com/document/edit?id=1m6XxZJQcag8Pso_e-iPvnVCcpmtZ_DUSQKO894nTMZE&hl=en&authkey=CNflm_wC
I want to thank FirstFreedomFighter for putting up with me this whole time, I have not been a good opponent in this debate. My posts have habitually been late, and I don't feel that I have argued as forcefully as was expected. But I did enjoy this exchange and I learned some interesting and important things, so I still feel this has been a good thing.
In his last post, Livingstone assures us that we can know that life was designed by the same reasoning that assures us that Stonehenge was designed: the fact that no natural process is known which can account for it.
The simple fact, however, is that this reasoning is false. That is not how we know that Stonehenge was made by an intelligent designer. I dealt with how we can tell these things way back in my very first post. Basically, it is because Stonehenge is made of cut stones placed and stacked and we know humans cut stones and place and stack them. Plus, we know that humans exist.
Now let's contrast this to life. Living cells are not like anything we know is made by humans, nor were humans (humans being the *only* intelligent designers we know exist) around when life began. This is exactly the opposite situation with Stonehenge, but Livingstone wants us to believe they are the same.
Look, folks. If what Livingstone says is correct, and if the intelligent design of life was as obvious as the intelligent design of Stonehenge, then pretty much all biologists would accept the intelligent design of life, right? I mean sure, there would be some hardcore atheists who would reject it on ideological grounds, but it would still be a mainstream biological idea, right?
It would, if things were like Livingstone claims. But the simple fact is that things aren't like that. That is obvious to all of us. Livingstone's (and Dembski's before him) naive criteria for design simply isn't how science works. I've tried to explain that here, but apparently not well enough.
All throughout this debate, it has been Livingstone's job to show that intelligent design is not only a good explanation for life, but *necessary* to explain life. He's failed to do this. Even in his last post when he acknowledged this and said his new focus about be on the necessity, he failed to do this. I don't think I've won anything with my lackluster performance, but Livingstone has certainly failed.
But that isn't the point of this debate, we knew we weren't going to convince each other of anything. the point of this debate was to learn and to compare ideas and to try to understand each other. In that sense, I think this debate has worked, and that we have all won.
I wish I had the stamina to have stayed with it, or the tenacity to hammer my points more effectively, or the better knowledge to give concrete devastating examples to crush my foe.
But ultimately, we are just two guys talking about some stuff on the internet, and sharing it with you all.
One thing that I have learned, is that if I am going to be in a debate again, I want a definite limit on number of responses and posting dates. This informal open-ended stuff just enables my lazy ass. And I wouldn't mind debating again on another topic (Oh God please, a different topic!) If Livingstone or anyone else is interested.
And with that, I bid you all adieu. Keep fighting the good fight, folks.
Daniel "Theophage" Clark
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You said that life isn't designed like anything that we have created as humans, but cells bare many similarities between computers from information theory such as DNA having a code conversion program converting the nucleotide bases to amino acids to proteins.
ReplyDeleteAlso the Venture project which was able to produce a synthetic genome used a computer to produce the artificial genome for the bacteria,so this is another verification of the similarities between cells and computers, which should indicate intelligent Design even from your perspective since you said that Stonehenge was designed because we know that it was produced by human actions of cutting stones, which would not be produced by nature, and this same case applies to the cell because we know that the genome can be produced by intelligent agents(the scientists from the venture project), but we cannot know that it was produced by non-intelligent agents since we don't have a time machine, so we must rely on plausability.
Howdy Andrew,
ReplyDeleteYes, DNA is similar to a code, and codes are something that humans do make, but that similarity really isn't enough; life is more than DNA.
Similarly, I find the comparison you made with the Venture project's work unwarranted. Just because they used computers to help design the artificial genome, it no more supports a comparison between life and computers than does the fact that computer models which are also used in weather prediction show a comparison between computers and weather. Your analogies here are simply reaching too far.
Your last point comparing life to Stonehenge is both right and wrong where you say, "and this same case applies to the cell because we know that the genome can be produced by intelligent agents(the scientists from the venture project), but we cannot know that it was produced by non-intelligent agents since we don't have a time machine, so we must rely on plausability."
It is right in the fact that yes, we do have to rely on plausibility, but it is wrong in the fact that just because something can be done by an intelligent agent that it means that it is more probable that is was done by an intelligent agent.
If you recall, I tried to address this with my example of rain falling on my house. Certainly an intelligent agent could be dripping water on my house, but the possibility alone does not make it more plausible. We know of exactly zero intelligent beings in existence more than 3 billion years ago when life began, so just because the process could be done by an intelligent being does not mean that the existence of an intelligent being at that point is more probable. We knew that intelligent beings existed when Stonehenge was built. If stonehenge was found buried by a precambrian lava flow, it's intelligent origin certainly would not be as...certain for the very same reasons.
An unknown designer is not inherently more likely than an unknown natural process no matter how hard you want it to be so.
On the other hand, if it was shown that life could *only* have come from an intelligent designer, that the required natural processes are not merely unknown, but actually (or practically) impossible, then you would have a case; then even though the designer's existence was unknown, it could be reasonably inferred and more probable than not.
That was Livingstone's job here in this debate, to show that intelligent design is *necessary* for life to exist. And that is the job that (I'm sorry to say) he simply failed to accomplish. It's not just him, however, everyone who has tried to justify this assertion scientifically has failed so far.
That is why intelligent design is not mainstream biology.
Daniel "Theophage" Clark