So I am supposed to conclude this entire debate with my closing statement. I had set out to prove that intelligent design is necessary to account for life on earth. Well, obviously this is an impossible thing to do if there is no rigid definition of what entails ‘necessary.’ It is frankly impossible to prove that anything is absolutely necessary. Would Theophage say that intelligence is necessary for the construction of a piece of high-quality literature? Perhaps, but there would be no way to prove that it is absolutely necessary. Simulations might be run to determine if random processes could produce a piece of literature, yet these simulations could not rebut the notion that maybe, just maybe, somehow, something extremely lucky happened and this hypothetical literature was produced by chance processes. There is always the possibility that something incredibly lucky happened, which would render any attempt to prove intelligence absolutely necessary null and void.
This is why I regret that no attempt to define what we mean by ‘necessary’ was made by any of the debating parties.
On the other hand, I am satisfied with my performance on demonstrating that intelligence is a more adequate explanation for certain biochemical systems than mindless processes.
Ultimately, I agree with Theophage that we have all won this debate (i.e. we have both lost the debate from a pessimist’s point of view).
So I wish my opponent good luck in any of the things he’s going to be doing, and I wish the audience luck.
Livingstone Morford
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Monday, August 2, 2010
Theophage's Closing Statement
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
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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