Vanderzyden

As am I. You did not provide a response in our last engagement on this <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=58&t=001333&p=4" target="_blank">page</a>:

-- Do agree that this is the major contention?
-- Do you understand that I have no few problems with proper sciences such as oncology?
-- Do you agree that it is enough to simply invalidate evolutionary theories on lack of evidence? Why is it necessary that an alternative be proposed?

You question my use of the term Darwinism. Well, let me be clear: it is not so much a science as it is a philosophy. It is a worldview that has been interwoven into much of modern science.

Vanderzyden

[ September 11, 2002: Message edited by: Vanderzyden ]</p>

Starboy

Van, you are still here. I responded to your question. Are you formulating a response or are you lurking?

Vanderzyden

Yes, you said information is physical, and I think the implication is that thoughts are information. But are they?

If we hook your brain up to a scanning device, will we be able to tell precisely what you are thinking? No. They aren't "empirically" verifiable, as Skeptical insists.

We could get into the definition of information, but let's set that aside for a moment. Presuming that your thoughts are information, what makes you think they are physical?

Vanderzyden

Starboy

DD, I guess I see it differently. ID is not about design; it is about a being that created everything. It is not about irreducible complexity it is about an infinite omnipotent being. That’s what motivates Vander to propose ID and IC in the first place. He didn’t just dream them up; they are a consequence of his concept of existence. Vander hopes that if ID and IC can be verified that it will prove the existence of god. What he doesn’t realize is that if god exists it doesn’t matter. We then all exist in MatrixLand. I think you were on to something when you asked, is god inconsistent with objective reality. I would have to say yes. If he exists there is no such thing as objective reality. I suspect that is what Vander thinks. If he is still lurking perhaps he can comment on this.

Starboy

Doubting Didymus

Vander: Would you agree that you can no more demonstrate that they are not physical?

[ September 11, 2002: Message edited by: Doubting Didymus ]</p>

scigirl

Ha ha ha. 8 pages of whining about how we materialistic darwinists (whatever that means)don't consider supernatural, and yet not one specific example of how we can even DO what you plead us to do!!!

I agree that it is, but I still don't understand WHY that is?

Special creation of what? Us? Apes? Bacteria? Rocks?

Do you agree that certain biological and geological phenomoenon clearly have a natural creation explanation? Anti-biotic resistant bacteria, for example? Or the creation of geologic formations caused by volcanoes or waterfalls?

If yes, than how do you personally separate those phenomoenon from those that are clearly "designed" according to you? If we agree that science can address some questions but not others, how do we know which questions are off-limits? Because you say so? Because a church says so? The church said the same thing about the solar system (remember Galileo)? It appears that the areas that only religion gets to delve into keep getting smaller and smaller. Why? Because scientists find other explanations that are testable, observable, and repeatable.
No I still do not understand, because you reject the methodology of genetics.

Vanderzyden, you objected to both the methods and the inferences in that last chimp chromosome paper, right?

Do you understand that these are the exact same methods and inferences used in cancer research?

Here's what you are doing:

Forensic scientist: Well we have all the evidence we need to convict Joe of murder. There was the victim's blood on his clothing, his weapon matches the bullet wound, the alibi was fabricated, and there was a motive.

Vanderzyden: No I don't believe you. Joe is innocent.

Forensic scientist: Well ok. Why do you believe his innocence? Which of my methods or pieces of evidence are you disputing?

Vanderzyden: None of them, they all worked fine last week to convict Fred of murder. But I just know that Joe is innocent so you must be wrong.

Fields of science are not separate from each other - they are highly interconnected and regulated by each other.

I'm learning this right now in medical school. The physiologists' explanations of hemoglobin better match up with the biochemists' and with the physicists' and with the geneticists' and so on. Guess what - they do match up.

If the evolutionary biologists are wrong about such basic techniques as DNA sequencing, then so are the cancer researchers, and so are a whole bunch of other scientists. And we are probably (ok definitely) wrong about a great many things. Questioning science is how science works.

But Vanderzyden, you are not critically evaluating science methods. You have already rejected evolution because of your religion, and now you are picking and choosing which science articles you think are wrong, and which ones are a-ok. However, you just can't do that in science - because the articles are all inter-related. Do you understand this?

I know you don't see it that way Vander. You want to believe that the evolutionary biologists are 'different' because they have some weird Darwinian philosophical blinders on. They aren't, and they don't.

I agree to a point. But if you don't have, or know of any, alternative explanation, than why would you reject a perfectly reasonable explanation that works?

Also, this question simply does not apply to evolution. There is a hoarde of evidence for evolution.

<a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/" target="_blank">Click here.</a>

Tons. Oodles. Not only do we have lots of 'circumstantial' evidence for evolution, we are just now starting to figure out how it could have occured.

scigirl

Starboy

You could be right Vander. It is a working hypothesis. There is some evidence to support this claim. All information that I am aware of requires some sort of medium to contain it. Without the medium there is no information. As far as I can tell, if there is no body/brain there are no thoughts. Information can be destroyed. I am old enough to attest to having lost information. Do not get me wrong. I do not assert that I can prove that information is physical, all I am saying is that I can construct theories based on this claim and construct experiments to test those theories. What makes me think they are physical is information is order and order cannot exist without some physical medium. Do you know of an example that violates this proposition?

Starboy

Philosoft

Hmm. I would think one would need to be able to show cause and effect as well.

<strong> But if "the magic power of Uri Geller" fundamentally violates naturalistic cause and effect, you could potentially eliminate all matter in the universe except for Uri Geller and still never have empirical data that Uri Geller is doing anything with regard to the structure of the universe. The best you can do is a strong correlation because of the very fact that you fundamentally lack the ability to discern the alleged mechanism that Geller is using.

Doubting Didymus

Thus the hypothesis fails based on parsimony: natural explanations for the same effects are better fit to the empirical data. However, theoretically, it would be possible to confirm a non-natural hypothesis by empiricism. (in practice it won't happen, because there are no non-natural things that exist in my opinion). You could prove that uri at least uses unnatural powers, for example, by progressing through all natural explanations and finding that they do not explain the phenomenon.

Starboy

DD, what good is a theory you can't put into practice?

Starboy