rainbow walking

Since I was unable to respond to this before it dissappeared I hope my response now will rejuvenate some discussion as I eviscerate a theist's argument for ID.



Refractor: But all you proved by citing your specific examples is that some things may have *joint-causes*.

rw: Not only “joint-causes” but also sequential causes, such that any assignment of primary or secondary, to a specific cause, is rendered even more pretentious and goes to show that the entire concept of cause and effect is a purely HUMAN, (as opposed to supernatural), invention with nothing more than utilitarian value in both science and practical experience. These facts begin to cut the buttresses from beneath your cosmological meanderings in spite of your determination to cling doggedly to this postulate as though it were the only basis of your argument. It is a blade that cuts two ways: “Joint-causes” (glad you conceded this much of the argument) makes it more obvious how arbitrary any assignment of cause is and “sequential” demonstrates how inaccurate or incomplete any arbitrary assignment really is. But for practical matters to be arbitrated we need not require precision, cause and effect has its utilitarian value. It’s just easier to say that gravity caused the apple to fall to the earth than to say that the mass of the earth is greater than the mass of the apple. And you do know that this phenomenon is often reversed or negated on the sub-atomic level, especially in quantum physics. Of course this doesn’t account for the series of events that led to the apple’s disconnection from the tree, growing seasons and weather patterns but all of that is immaterial to the fact that all of these “causes”, whether we label them joint or sequential, are NATURAL explanations and do not lead us to the conclusion that somewhere in the chain of events that led to this particular event there just had to be a supernatural cause, even if we attempt to suggest that this “sequencing” just has to lead us back to a beginning event. It doesn’t have to lead us to any such conclusion but even if it does, it doesn’t point to an intelligent designer because we’ve already discovered that very simple patterns in nature, over time, can lead to very complex events. These are facts of nature and scientifically verifiable.

Refractor: That is fine and dandy, but it didn't undercut the main claim of my first premise-point, which is that almost all physical events have causes. Merely pointing out plurality within causation does not undercut that point. So there is no "unraveling" of my argument, at least not from the first-premise-point.

Rw: Pointing out “plurality” demonstrates both the inaccuracy and arbitrariness of this principle when applied to specifics…and your argument is leading us to a specific…that god dunnit. In addition, your main claim fails to mention that all assigned causes of physical events are, themselves, physical causes. How and when you plan to introduce your supernatural, non-physical cause has not so much to do with cause and effect as it does with yours, and many humans, unwillingness to consider the possibility of infinite regress as an equally viable explanation. There just had to be a beginning to all this and that beginning could not possibly be natural or physical. That is the inherent plea in your argument. Why you will not consider this as a possibility likely has more to do with your personal sentiments than with the facts. You appear to have homed in on those areas of discovery yet to be made and concluded from this ABSENCE that there’s still ample room for a god. So your argument thusfar is based more on what is not known than on what is, although I am compelled to point out that you are borrowing, and thus basing your position, on what is known, and has been ascertained scientifically, rather than spiritually, to support your position. You also appear to be ignoring quite a number of knowns and givens along the way.





Refractor: Above you said that every event has many causes. Now, if you claim that many events are the same as their cause(s), then you're basically saying the events caused themselves......that the events are both their own cause, and effect.


rw: This is what I said: . Upon closer examination it will be noted that every event has many causes, none of which can be directly attributed as the single primary cause of any such event, all of which are required for any such event to have occurred.
How, from this, you’ve gathered enough hay to stuff such a straw man is a mystery to me. For the record, nothing in what I’ve said thusfar either implies or specifies that any natural event caused itself.


Refractor: Remember, I am not speaking of events/causes in the ontological sense, but only in the context of a causal relationship. If an event/effect is not separate and distinct from it's cause, then it is the SAME as it's cause. (in a causal relationship) If the effect is the same as it's cause(s), then the effect is self-caused, which is a logical/physical impossibility. So my premise-point 2 is sound, and remains unscathed by your arguments.

Rw: You can separate and distinguish any EVENT of your choosing. That is not my bone of contention. Your argument however is not leading us to an event but a CAUSE. Your claim is that nature in the aggregate must have had a cause. You base this claim on the observed relationship within nature’s specifics between cause and effect. My rebuttal is focused on your attempt to separate and isolate particular causes to any chosen event and goes to show how inaccurate and incomplete this is within itself. You have yet to offer us a postulate that nature, in the aggregate, is subject to this human observation or that such subjection can be accurately assigned to an intelligent designer. The fact remains that cause and effect is an artificial separation and largely incomplete, if not entirely inaccurate, as an explanation for any phenomenon. But I’ll concede this point to you on technical grounds, in part, because it is wholly uninteresting, but mostly because it fails to lead us towards any conclusion that nature in the aggregate must therefore be connected to a cause and that this cause must necessarily be the result of an intelligent design.




Refractor: You keep claiming this, but have not SHOWN this so far. The only viable rock you've thrown at my argument is pointing out the fact that some events are the result of an interconnection of joint-causes. That's fine, but plurality of cause does not change my argument that nearly all events have causes, and that those causes are separate and distinct from the events, on the basis of *causal relationship*.

rw: sigh…the above was in response to this statement made by you:

Refractor: All complex lifeforms (and there are billions of them on this planet alone), as well as the entire universe itself may be evidence of a supernatural primary cause.


It was addressed towards your assertion of a supernature and your assignment of a primary cause, without substantiation. You’re making a huge leap and I’m just shining the light of reason on the chasm all your efforts are intending to obscure. I think your choice of “primary and secondary” as value assignments may have somewhat to do with this obfuscation. It would be more concise to describe causes as either original or consequential. Can we infer from the cause/effect relationship observed within nature that the universe itself must also be subject to this relationship? If so, why? Can we then also infer from the complexity of this relationship that it must have had an intelligent origination? If so, why?





Refractor: Yes, the initial universe was different than what it is today....but exactly how it was different is decisively unknown;

rw: O’kay, let’s run with that thought for a moment. Since you concede that the universe has changed over a period of time resulting in our current state of affairs, what role do you imagine this god of yours played in this phenomenon? Did he intervene at opportune moments in history to guide things to this point or did he imbue matter with specific properties that just naturally led to our current eco-system? These are important questions and have a serious bearing on theological issues such as Armenianism or Calvanism; determinism or random happenstance.

Refractor: there is simply no empirical evidence that proves what the conditions in the early universe were actually like.

rw: Uh…that’s simply un-true. We’ve managed successful measurements of background radiation such that we’ve been able to date the last big change in the universe to within a respectable timeframe, we’ve peered into the distant past at nebulae and galaxies with amazing clarity. Again, when you say “early universe” that too is a relative term, since we have no idea if the universe is ageless or actually had a literal beginning.

Refractor: So no matter what ideology you prefer, all anyone has is speculation. But as a general rule of epistemology, we should make speculations about the unknown based on what is known, and that is exactly what my argument does.

Rw: Is that the same rule that led men to conclude the earth was flat and the center of the universe? It appears to me you are making speculations about the unknowable based on what is not yet known. Because science does not yet have answers on origins of life and the precise mechanics of this universe you appear confident that a non-physical entity is in order. The line of reasoning you’ve chosen to argue your case does not, however, endow us with this same level of confidence as it fails to make any meaningful connection to the supernatural you allege as the original author of nature.




Refractor: Yes I can justify this claim, as I am doing now. Whether or not you choose to accept my justifications is another issue.

Rw: Then my standards of justification appear to be more stringent than your own.



Refractor: Oddly, It seems to me that you are arguing against Newton's principle that for every action there is an equal reaction.


Rw: Stranger still is your apparent ignorance of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle that illustrates how even the attempt to observe a phenomenon can alter the reaction process, a principle that eventually led to quantum mechanics. Newton’s contributions not withstanding, they only apply within a certain range of known events and do not facilitate precise predictability.

Refractor: It seems you think Newton was just making "arbitrary" descriptions.

Rw: General observations that reveal consistent predictable patterns are good descriptors for establishing a benchmark but when applied to specifics they are, at best, incomplete statements and often lead to inaccurate conclusions. There is a world of difference between describing an action and determining an accurate and exhaustive cause for any reaction. In reality “action” is a misnomer. All energy transfer is either reactive or retroactive and sequential.

Refractor: Perhaps all human descriptions of physical phenomena are "arbitrary", in which case the entire institution of science is nothing but one big hairball of arbitrary descriptions and conclusions!! That is exactly where your argument leads, so I suggest you reevaluate it.


Rw: I think you must be referring to philosophy and religion rather than science. Science is incomplete and often inaccurate and many of its assertions are built on arbitrary assignments but, unlike religion, it is constantly being reviewed and tested to reduce the arbitrariness to a minimum. Until we determine precisely where we are in both time and space all measurements relative to these specifics are arbitrary yet they work as long as everyone accepts them as a benchmark standard. The arbitrariness is inconsequential to their effectiveness in predicting future events. For instance, if you and I agree to meet tomorrow at a specific place at noon and we’re both punctual we’ll both arrive at the same time but does this mean it’s April 25th, 2003, twelve noon, in the universe? Hardly. It only means that we’ve both learned to work from an arbitrarily assigned measurement of time relative to our place in this universe. Since your god has failed to provide us with a cosmic timepiece to set our clocks by I guess we’ll just have to go with what we’ve got. It’s practical but hardly accurate in any universal sense. But your argument incurs a metaphysical stretch to achieve a supernatural standard for time and space by imputing a beginning before one has been determined to be necessary or relevant.




Refractor: My argument never denied joint-causes, or a the reality of causal chains. But we can isolate primary causes in most cases. For example, the event of an apple falling is caused by gravity. The apply falling does not cause gravity, but gravity causes the apple to fall. Thus, we can rightly say that gravity is the primary cause of the event of the apple falling.

rw: Can we? And what causes gravity? What caused the apple; or the stem to break loose from the tree? How can you assign gravity the primary causative factor without incurring a degree of arbitrariness? Is gravity then a supernatural factor or a property of matter? How do you propose to take us from gravity to god?

Refractor: In cases where an event is caused by numerous joint-causes, the primary cause simply resides further back on the causal chain, but it is still there nonetheless.

rw: And that is exactly where your propositions are leading. All the way back to a point in the chain obscure enough to invoke a god as the primary causative agent. But the chain you are pulling is a natural chain with no apparent supernatural links. It is nothing more than rank speculation to assume the chain has a master link and that this master link resides in some supernatural realm beyond time and space. Simply pointing out the complexity of the chain or that some of the crucial links have not yet been identified is hardly grounds for invoking a god…but even if we allowed this is it necessary to mention that your god has also gone a missing, so this link still doesn’t give us any better explanatory power or scientific positioning to alleviate the arbitrariness in our basic assignments.




Refractor: LOL No, the reason I have never observed these things is because there is no evidence to observe. There is no evidence for the existence of any kind of "natural process" that causes complex universes to pop into existence, or that originate complex lifeforms out of non-living matter.


rw: Has it ever occurred to you that the reason there is no evidence of these things is because universes do not pop into or out of existence and that animated chemical reactions on the baseline do not require complexity to achieve what we would deem “living” status? Because chemical reactions begin at the sub-atomic level where matter displays amazingly different properties than it does on the molecular level it isn’t likely we’ll solve this riddle until we’ve determined working sets of rules from these reactions capable of allowing us to make more accurate predictions. You seem to be saying that because we can’t mix the proper chemicals to produce a test tube monkey therefore life must be the result of some irreducibly complex supernatural affiliation that transcends any natural methodology; that some intelligent designer was required to tweak the properties of matter to facilitate animation. But your only support for this reasoning lies in your claim that it has not yet been reproducible observationally. If this universe is all there is and has always been and merely changes form there will never be any evidence of universes popping in to or out of existence. It’s good to ask these questions as long as they are relevant but we must be careful to examine the underlying assumptions we load into them in the asking that appear to lend them credence only to discover later that they are essentially unfruitful lines of investigation based on faulty inferences from existing incomplete observations.

Refractor: The idea of lifeforms coming out of non-living matter reminds me of the Dark Age superstition that postulated maggots were produced by rotting meat. A lot of naturalists believe this concept of "life out of non-life" has somehow become more plausible today, simply because modern theorists have dressed it up in fancy, "scientific-sounding" terminology. But I am not fooled. I'll believe non-living chemicals can produce single-celled organisms no more than I'll believe rotting meat can produce maggots.

rw: Need I say more? Insects are a far cry up the food chain from molecular biology.



Refractor: Not true at all. I am not forcing the evidence to fit my notions for the simple fact that there is no evidence proving how the universe and lifeforms originated.

rw: Let’s set the record strait, shall we? We know from observation that the universe exists and that complex lifeforms like ourselves had to have an origination point somewhere in the history of this universe. We know this because the universe and life forms are a part of nature. We have absolutely zilch by way of observation or evidence that such a being as an intelligent designer or god exists or ever has. We have no good or logical reason to insist the universe had a beginning and/or was created and we have no evidence that any life form was tweaked or created independently from nature. Both your assertions are metaphysically constructed straw men concocted in the void of human ignorance or mis-application of basic natural properties that we have no additional reason to apply to the universe in the aggregate. We have observed evolutionary processes, both on a cosmological level and a biological level, that suggest nature endowed with its many properties can and continues to produce some amazingly diverse phenomena. We have discovered that extremely complex patterns can be achieved from a few basic rules or properties given time and replication. Check out Stephen Wolfram’s “ A New Kind Of Science” circa 2002 and his amazing discoveries about cellular automata for a glimpse into the future of the natural sciences.

Refractor: I can't force "evidence" that *doesn't exist*.

rw: Really? Then why draw conclusions based almost entirely on the absence of this evidence? You are forcing conclusions and using the lack of conclusive evidence as a form of “evidence” to support your assertions.

Refractor: You are correct that there is an absence of DIRECT evidence. So ANY conclusions made about the origins of the universe and the origin of lifeforms are "preconceived notions" based on an absence of direct evidence. We are all in that boat together, whether you choose to believe it or not makes no difference.

rw: Again you are mistaken. There is ample direct evidence for the evolutionary process alone. There is no evidence whatsoever for a supernatural inculcation. It is you and a host of others like you that are on a boat that is sinking fast under the onslaught of wave after wave of scientific advancement. I am on a bridge under construction and have no intention of abandoning this solid structure to climb aboard a sinking ship in the hopes of circumventing the honorable labors of science only to arrive at the bottom of the sea. To accept your assumptions that the universe requires an origin or that life is too complex to have originated from nature is to abandon reason altogether. You must offer me more than the fact that my bridge is not finished as justification for trusting your already over-loaded boat.

Refractor: However, we do have quite a bit of INDIRECT evidence to make some predictions. As I have shown in my arguments, we have much indirect evidence for intelligent designers directly creating complex systems, and no evidence of blind natural processes directly creating complex systems.

rw: The only indirect “evidence” you’ve offered revolves entirely around the fact that science has not yet completed its investigations into the origins of life and the additional assumption that the universe requires a beginning. One is not evidence but a fading fact and the other is just a philosophical speculation that bears little resemblance to logic. Do you have any indirect evidence that such a being is anything more than the figment of man’s imagination?

Refractor: So for any case where the cause of a complex system is unknown, my assumption that the cause was an intelligent designer is supported whereas your assumption that it was caused by a mindless natural process, is NOT supported.


rw: Supported by what? The fact that the origin of a complex system is unknown automatically defaults to a god dunnit? I fail to see the connection, especially when there’s no evidence that such a being exists and there is ample evidence that nature not only exists but has the amazing ability to evolve complex patterns from the most basic properties, that this is also an inherent property of matter.




Refractor: Yes, you dismiss it and accept a "natural-process-of-the-gaps" invention instead. Thats going from the frying pan to the fire considering we have much indirect evidence for intelligent designers creating complex systems, but no evidence of blind natural processes directly creating complex systems.

rw: Historically, every gap that was once filled by a god and has now been replaced by natural processes is all the evidence I need to remain confident that I have made the wiser choice in taking the incomplete bridge rather than the sinking boat. Your pointing to the fact that my bridge is incomplete does not, in any way, validate your own choice nor does it prove that such a being exists or ever has. Calling that incomplete bridge “indirect evidence” for intelligent design remains, as always, bald assertion.