Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Charles Darwin · 08-16-2003, 10:29 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by HRG
No, just showing a better understanding of biochemistry, molecular genetics and evolution.

And, as Sherlock Holmes might have said: "Never confuse the unlikely with the impossible".

BTW, do you have any plausible estimate for the probability of the existence of a being which is required for a supernatural explanations of organisms ? Until you do, you cannot exclude that the mere existence of your God is even less likely than a natural origin of DNA (which is a code only in a metaphorical sense).

Regards,
HRG.

I like your 2nd argument a lot better than your 1st one. Re the 1st one, I happen to be a fan of Sherlock Holmes, and I completely agree. If I said that evolution must be impossible, then that was an accident -- merely improbable.

Charles Darwin · 08-16-2003, 10:41 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by enfant terrible
You either can't read or can't think. You are making an obvious fallacy again. "Monetary value" of the hand is completely irrelevant. (There is some reason I used bridge in the example: in bridge /especially duplicate/ a hand has no value on its own.) The point is that any hand you get was extremely unlikely before the fact, but once you observe it after the fact, it is there with probability 1, no matter how unlikely it used to be.

You are committing at least three separate fallacies here. First, you are assigning "value" to the state with life on Earth, and classifying "outcomes" based on that value. But there is no justification for such valuation.

The fact that the state and the "outcome" (however defined) which we observe would have been very unlikely before the fact, is exactly what I dealt with in the cards example. Your second fallacy actually works against you: no matter how you define it, an "outcome" is a set of states, so there are always more possible states than outcomes (or equal number, in a trivial case). So (assuming equiprobable states), any given "outcome" was a priori more likely than any given state.

The third fallacy is a misapplication of physics, not of logic. You implicitly value states according to the resulting entropy of the Earth's biosphere, as if it were the entire universe. (That is the only way I can imagine a scientific justification of your notion of a "rare outcome" and a royal flush analogy.) But that doesn't make sense; you ought to consider the entire universe. Then, if you want to define outcomes in some analogy to thermodynamical states, you could consider, for example, the number of the planets in the universe that have developed life as the index of the "outcome". That would give some meaningful quantitative structure to your argument. Unfortunately for you, you have empirical data only about (at most) 9 planets, out of who-knows-how-many-billion planets in the universe. Tough luck.

You are making three rebuttals, none of which make sense to me. Rather than a lengthy discussion on all 3, I'd prefer to handle just the first one right now. If you are correct, then other two become moot anyway.

I'm having trouble seeing it your way. I do agree with your point that I am distinguishing between different outcomes, but what's wrong with that? You say there is no justification for it. Are you saying my distinctions aren't real?

Charles Darwin · 08-16-2003, 10:47 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Jah191
Let me use the analogy of light and dark. In the same way that dark is the absence of any light, silence is the absence of sound, etc. atheism is the absence of belief in god(s). Theists seem to think that the "default" is a belief in god and everything else is irrationaly opposed to it. Infants have no religion.

Well let's keep it simple and stick to just one, well defined, God. So then it would be accurate to say that while you don't believe in this God, you also don't disbelieve in this God?

Charles Darwin · 08-16-2003, 10:49 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
Why did you choose the handle "Charles Darwin", given that you evidently know virtually nothing about evolution?

Evolution is fact. We know it happens. It isn't a great mystery, it's actually an inevitable consequence of the existence of imperfect replicators and heritable mutations. We have a whole forum to debate these issues, and this isn't it. But I think your attitude says much about your adherence to dogma. Arguing against the fact of evolution is like arguing that the sky is green: it simply doesn't address reality.

Sounds like a different forum is needed to further this discussion. Mind if I use your claim that evolution is a fact as a starting point?

Charles Darwin · 08-16-2003, 10:57 PM

quote:
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Can you provide any argument why "God" would be more likely than you to have created the Universe?

Because God is capable of it and I am not.

Quote:

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
Circular argument. Why do you believe that God is capable of creating the Universe? There is no evidence that he is capable, you've merely arbitrarily assumed that he DID do this, and worked backwards from there.

No, this isn't circular. Why do I believe the Lakers are capable of being a basketball team? Just as the Lakers *are* a basketball team, so too God is defined as, among other things, having created the universe. I understand you reject this God, but that doesn't change the definition.

Biff the unclean · 08-16-2003, 11:02 PM

Reject what god?
You've never presented us with a god. Only a story that you have no way of knowing is true.
We reject your fairy tale.

Philosoft · 08-17-2003, 12:11 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
Just as the Lakers *are* a basketball team, so too God is defined as, among other things, having created the universe. I understand you reject this God, but that doesn't change the definition.

That's not a definition. 'Created the universe' is something God is supposed to have done. It offers no information about what God is.

Jack the Bodiless · 08-17-2003, 03:28 AM

Quote:

Circular argument. Why do you believe that God is capable of creating the Universe? There is no evidence that he is capable, you've merely arbitrarily assumed that he DID do this, and worked backwards from there.

No, this isn't circular. Why do I believe the Lakers are capable of being a basketball team? Just as the Lakers *are* a basketball team, so too God is defined as, among other things, having created the universe. I understand you reject this God, but that doesn't change the definition.

This is not a definition of a "god". It would, for instance, mean that Zeus and Athena wouldn't qualify as gods.

You cannot simply assume that a disembodied magical inteligence is capable of creating a Universe. Or, referring to my earlier analogy, are you saying that it's OK to assume that a toenail clipping is also capable of this?

HRG · 08-17-2003, 08:34 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
[B]quote:
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Can you provide any argument why "God" would be more likely than you to have created the Universe?

Because God is capable of it and I am not.

No, this isn't circular. Why do I believe the Lakers are capable of being a basketball team? Just as the Lakers *are* a basketball team, so too God is defined as, among other things, having created the universe. I understand you reject this God, but that doesn't change the definition.

"God" is usually defined as the unique supreme being (if such being exists). It is not at all inherent in this definition that he also created the universe (or acted as a source of morals); he could have left that task to a subordinate.

In case you want to include all those activities into your definition of "God", I'd like to remind you that existence arguments become harder when additional properties are required in the definition!

Regards,
HRG.

Charles Darwin · 08-17-2003, 05:03 PM

quote:
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Originally posted by Charles Darwin
[B]quote:
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Can you provide any argument why "God" would be more likely than you to have created the Universe?

Because God is capable of it and I am not.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quote:

Originally posted by HRG
"God" is usually defined as the unique supreme being (if such being exists). It is not at all inherent in this definition that he also created the universe (or acted as a source of morals); he could have left that task to a subordinate.

Regards,
HRG.

So God is not capable of creating the universe because He could, theoretically, have delegated the task? Of course not.

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08-16-2003, 11:02 PM	#266
Biff the unclean Banned Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: an inaccessible island fortress Posts: 10,638	Reject what god? You've never presented us with a god. Only a story that you have no way of knowing is true. We reject your fairy tale.

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