I can dream, can't I?
uath.org/english.php
The only debate on Intelligent Design that is worthy of its subject ::: 08.11.2005, 10:38
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Moderator: We're here today to debate the hot new topic, evolution versus Intelligent Des---
(Scientist pulls out baseball baat.)
Moderator: Hey, what are you doing?
(Scientist breaks Intelligent Design advocate's kneecap.)
Intelligent Design advocate: YEAAARRRRGGGHHHH! YOU BROKE MY KNEECAP!
Scientist: Perhaps it only appears that I broke your kneecap. Certainly, all the evidence points to the hypothesis I broke your kneecap. For example, your kneecap is broken; it appears to be a fresh wound; and I am holding a baseball bat, which is spattered with your blood. However, a mere preponderance of evidence doesn't mean anything. Perhaps your kneecap was designed that way. Certainly, there are some features of the current situation that are inexplicable according to the "naturalistic" explanation you have just advanced, such as the exact contours of the excruciating pain that you are experiencing right now.
Intelligent Design advocate: AAAAH! THE PAIN!
Scientist: Frankly, I personally find it completely implausible that the random actions of a scientist such as myself could cause pain of this particular kind. I have no precise explanation for why I find this hypothesis implausible --- it just is. Your knee must have been designed that way!
Intelligent Design advocate: YOU BASTARD! YOU KNOW YOU DID IT!
Scientist: I surely do not. How can we know anything for certain? Frankly, I think we should expose people to all points of view. Furthermore, you should really re-examine whether your hypothesis is scientific at all: the breaking of your kneecap happened in the past, so we can't rewind and run it over again, like a laboratory experiment. Even if we could, it wouldn't prove that I broke your kneecap the previous time. Plus, let's not even get into the fact that the entire universe might have just popped into existence right before I said this sentence, with all the evidence of my alleged kneecap-breaking already pre-formed.
Intelligent Design advocate: That's a load of bullshit sophistry! Get me a doctor and a lawyer, not necessarily in that order, and we'll see how that plays in court!
Scientist (turning to audience): And so we see, ladies and gentlemen, when push comes to shove, advocates of Intelligent Design do not actually believe any of the arguments that they profess to believe. When it comes to matters that hit home, they prefer evidence, the scientific method, testable hypotheses, and naturalistic explanations. In fact, they strongly privilege naturalistic explanations over supernatural hocus-pocus or metaphysical wankery. It is only within the reality-distortion field of their ideological crusade that they give credence to the flimsy, ridiculous arguments which we so commonly see on display. I must confess, it kind of felt good, for once, to be the one spouting free-form bullshit; it's so terribly easy and relaxing, compared to marshaling rigorous arguments backed up by empirical evidence. But I fear that if I were to continue, then it would be habit-forming, and bad for my soul. Therefore, I bid you adieu.
uath.org/english.php
The only debate on Intelligent Design that is worthy of its subject ::: 08.11.2005, 10:38
[]
Moderator: We're here today to debate the hot new topic, evolution versus Intelligent Des---
(Scientist pulls out baseball baat.)
Moderator: Hey, what are you doing?
(Scientist breaks Intelligent Design advocate's kneecap.)
Intelligent Design advocate: YEAAARRRRGGGHHHH! YOU BROKE MY KNEECAP!
Scientist: Perhaps it only appears that I broke your kneecap. Certainly, all the evidence points to the hypothesis I broke your kneecap. For example, your kneecap is broken; it appears to be a fresh wound; and I am holding a baseball bat, which is spattered with your blood. However, a mere preponderance of evidence doesn't mean anything. Perhaps your kneecap was designed that way. Certainly, there are some features of the current situation that are inexplicable according to the "naturalistic" explanation you have just advanced, such as the exact contours of the excruciating pain that you are experiencing right now.
Intelligent Design advocate: AAAAH! THE PAIN!
Scientist: Frankly, I personally find it completely implausible that the random actions of a scientist such as myself could cause pain of this particular kind. I have no precise explanation for why I find this hypothesis implausible --- it just is. Your knee must have been designed that way!
Intelligent Design advocate: YOU BASTARD! YOU KNOW YOU DID IT!
Scientist: I surely do not. How can we know anything for certain? Frankly, I think we should expose people to all points of view. Furthermore, you should really re-examine whether your hypothesis is scientific at all: the breaking of your kneecap happened in the past, so we can't rewind and run it over again, like a laboratory experiment. Even if we could, it wouldn't prove that I broke your kneecap the previous time. Plus, let's not even get into the fact that the entire universe might have just popped into existence right before I said this sentence, with all the evidence of my alleged kneecap-breaking already pre-formed.
Intelligent Design advocate: That's a load of bullshit sophistry! Get me a doctor and a lawyer, not necessarily in that order, and we'll see how that plays in court!
Scientist (turning to audience): And so we see, ladies and gentlemen, when push comes to shove, advocates of Intelligent Design do not actually believe any of the arguments that they profess to believe. When it comes to matters that hit home, they prefer evidence, the scientific method, testable hypotheses, and naturalistic explanations. In fact, they strongly privilege naturalistic explanations over supernatural hocus-pocus or metaphysical wankery. It is only within the reality-distortion field of their ideological crusade that they give credence to the flimsy, ridiculous arguments which we so commonly see on display. I must confess, it kind of felt good, for once, to be the one spouting free-form bullshit; it's so terribly easy and relaxing, compared to marshaling rigorous arguments backed up by empirical evidence. But I fear that if I were to continue, then it would be habit-forming, and bad for my soul. Therefore, I bid you adieu.
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SF Bay Area
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Re: How To Debate Intelligent Design
Sat, June 7, 2008 - 7:53 AMI think it's better to debate the old-fashioned way: affirm or negate a resolution agreed upon in advance by both sides. -
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Re: How To Debate Intelligent Design
Sat, June 7, 2008 - 3:16 PM<I think it's better to debate the old-fashioned way: affirm or negate a resolution agreed upon in advance by both sides>
I agree, but I can dream, can't I? -
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Re: How To Debate Intelligent Design
Sat, June 7, 2008 - 3:17 PMEvolutionary scientist in this case: Bill
Intelligent design advocate: Dan.
We can dream, can't we? -
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Re: How To Debate Intelligent Design
Sat, June 7, 2008 - 4:35 PM<We can dream, can't we?>
Since it's my dream, can I have a big railroad spike in my baseball bat? -
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Re: How To Debate Intelligent Design
Sat, June 7, 2008 - 8:11 PMHeck, if it's a dream then you can have a metal rod bristling with retractable spikes if you wanted. There were walking sticks like this that were popular during the violent and unpredictable times of the French revolution.
If it's a dream, then why not use the 'Celestial staff of obedient iron'? That would do a number on Dan's kneecaps.
The Celestial staff of obedient iron is the instrument the Monkey king stole from the Dragon king of the Eastern ocean in Wu Cheng En's story 'Journey to the West' It weighs ten tons, and was the instrument used to beat down the rivers and oceans at the beginning of the world. You can make it expand or shrink to any size you want though. You can even keep it as a needle that fits in your earlobe. It will still weigh ten tons though.
Oh, and of course you would also be the master of all martial arts, capable of transforming yourself into seventy-two forms, and pretty hard to kill after eating all of the peaches of immortality stolen from the orchards of the celestial Emperor.
Watch out for the Buddha though! He is one crafty character that could spell trouble for the Monkey King!
www.aaronshep.com/stories/036.html#3 -
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Re: How To Debate Intelligent Design
Sun, June 8, 2008 - 7:20 AMVery nice, Bill, but I still have to go with the ultimate argument against "Intelligent Design" foolishness, a documentary called "The March of the Penguins." Anyone watching the struggle and hardships that penguins endure to guarantee there will be baby penguins, has to ask, "What the hell--what is intelligent about THIS design?"
With love under will,
Bob, Adastra, WOJ -
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Re: How To Debate Intelligent Design
Thu, September 11, 2008 - 10:02 AMOf course, to believe that there was intelligent design in biological history is not the same as thinking that every biological process ever was directly controlled by the intelligent designer(s)
And you may be anthopomorphising by projecting the discomfort you would feel in the sutuation of the penguins when that's the only life they know -
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Re: How To Debate Intelligent Design
Thu, September 11, 2008 - 6:35 PM<Of course, to believe that there was intelligent design in biological history is not the same as thinking that every biological process ever was directly controlled by the intelligent designer(s)>
What would be the criteria of deciding which process was intelligently designed and which process was not? Would not the suggestion that any bilogical process to be inteligently designed be suggesting that the entire process of life was begun intelligently?
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Re: How To Debate Intelligent Design
Tue, September 23, 2008 - 8:00 AM<<< you may be anthopomorphising by projecting the discomfort you would feel in the sutuation of the penguins when that's the only life they know>>>
Perhaps a bit, but the bottom line is that I'm not asking the penguins' perspective. I'm suggesting that any intelligent human being on contemplating the rigors endured by the penguins in their life cycle would have to question whether any intelligent entity could have designed so inefficient a process.
It was intended as a quip, not a detailed argument.
With love under will,
Bob, Adastra,
The Wizzard of Jacksonville -
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This is the maximum depth. Additional responses will not be threaded.
Re: How To Debate Intelligent Design
Sun, September 28, 2008 - 2:02 AMWhat is necessary to believe in intelligent design? Does it require that every species as it's constructed (for lack of a better word) now is as the intelligent designer made it to be? I don't think so. I believe in intelligent design, but not necessarily that all or even most of biology is intelligently designed. In fact, if you start with the premise that life began three or whatever billion years ago, whether or not there was intelligent design, it seems inevitable that there would be a hell of of a lot of evolution that would result as environments changed and species migrated,
Having said that, since we don't know the history of a species (precluding us from knowing how useful present design was in previous environments) nor is any of us an expert on making species, it's difficult (if not impossible) to assess whether any particular species is designed in an inefficient way or not. If the species is surviving, then obviously it has sufficient tools to survive. Just because it survives in environments we would find intolerable doesn't make them inefficient
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Re: How To Debate Intelligent Design
Thu, September 11, 2008 - 10:04 AMAre you equating an immediate, observable experience with the frankly unverifiable hypothesis that no intelligent design ever went into the history of life on earth? -
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Re: How To Debate Intelligent Design
Thu, September 11, 2008 - 6:38 PM<Are you equating an immediate, observable experience with the frankly unverifiable hypothesis that no intelligent design ever went into the history of life on earth?>
No.
I am equating any mention of God or Intelligent design in science with what it is, Creationism. Creationism can no more be proven or disproven than the existance of God. This places both the existence of God and Creationism/Intelligent Design firmly in the category of opinion. Neither has any business in science until the existence of either can be proven. -
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Re: How To Debate Intelligent Design
Fri, September 12, 2008 - 4:38 PM"I am equating any mention of God or Intelligent design in science with what it is, Creationism. Creationism can no more be proven or disproven than the existance of God"
What follows from that is that, if true, it is impossible to ever discover that some alien sentient beings ever created artificial life, say on some other planet we visit perhaps. I don't know why that's in principle impossible. Human beings have created artificial life forms; I don't know why it would be impossible in principle that that has happened. -
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Re: How To Debate Intelligent Design
Sat, September 13, 2008 - 12:32 PM<What follows from that is that, if true, it is impossible to ever discover that some alien sentient beings ever created artificial life, say on some other planet we visit perhaps. I don't know why that's in principle impossible.>
And now, from the makers of Simm City...
"Spore is a multi-genre 'massively single-player online game' developed by Maxis and designed by Will Wright. It allows a player to control the evolution of a species from its beginnings as a unicellular organism, through development as an intelligent and social creature, to interstellar exploration as a spacefaring culture."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spor...ideo_game)
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Re: How To Debate Intelligent Design
Sat, September 13, 2008 - 1:25 PM<What follows from that is that, if true, it is impossible to ever discover that some alien sentient beings ever created artificial life, say on some other planet we visit perhaps. I don't know why that's in principle impossible. Human beings have created artificial life forms; I don't know why it would be impossible in principle that that has happened.>
That would not make us God. (Read Lem's tales of Pirg the pilot. He wrote a story about life evolving on Earth from a used handkerchief.) If there were creators of the human race which were space aliens, that does not make them God. -
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Re: How To Debate Intelligent Design
Tue, September 23, 2008 - 12:49 AM"If there were creators of the human race which were space aliens, that does not make them God"
I didn't say they would be. But your claim was against the intelligent design hypothesis. If space aliens created the human race, then intelligent design is true; if intelligent design is in principle impossible to determine, prove, falsify, whatever, then it would be impossible to test whether sentient beings created life here or elsewhere. -
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Re: How To Debate Intelligent Design
Tue, September 23, 2008 - 8:14 AM>>>if intelligent design is in principle impossible to determine, prove, falsify, whatever, then it would be impossible to test whether sentient beings created life here or elsewhere.<<<
And sure enough, it is impossible to test that under current conditions. Until we run into some sentient beings from beyond our ken, there is no way to test whether they have created life here or elsewhere. First we would have to prove whether (or that) they exist before we can test anything. If we are all alone in the universe (which I seriously doubt as being most improbable), but if we are alone, then there is no other alien life to examine as to whether they might have created life. And if they are out there somewhere, then there remains the question of where they themselves came from and the choices are still two: 1. Creation by a deity of some kind, unconditioned and unquestionable, which leaves us back where we started or 2. Creation by a process of assembly of complex forms by the interplay of simpler processes--which gives us at least a process to examine and of which to ask questions. And we have laboratory examples of the second choice, which is more than we have to support the Creator God hypothesis.
With love under will,
Bob, Adastra,
The Wizzard of Jacksonville
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Re: How To Debate Intelligent Design
Tue, September 23, 2008 - 6:23 PM<What follows from that is that, if true, it is impossible to ever discover that some alien sentient beings ever created artificial life, say on some other planet we visit perhaps. I don't know why that's in principle impossible. Human beings have created artificial life forms; I don't know why it would be impossible in principle that that has happened.>
Maybe it has. perhaps we have been created by the Rigillians, or like Lem suggested, from a tossed kleenex. All that proves is that we have been created by beings as mortal or as careless as we are. In the case of the Lem example we were not intelligently designed, we were carelessly designed.
Secondly there is no proof that the galaxy was intelligently designed.
Third, there is no proof that there is an imaginary friend known as God. -
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Re: How To Debate Intelligent Design
Sun, September 28, 2008 - 2:04 AMYou repeat this "proof" red herring, as if every reasonable belief needs to be proven -
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Re: How To Debate Intelligent Design
Sun, September 28, 2008 - 4:27 PM<You repeat this "proof" red herring, as if every reasonable belief needs to be proven >
I understand that you are an attorney and as Robert A. Heinlein pointed out in Stranger in a Strange Land, "straining at gnats and swallowing camels are a required course in Law School". Still, I have a hard time considering the belief in God as a "reasonable belief". I personally find this to be an extraordinary claim that has persisted over the centuries due to the fact that the powers that be tend to kill those who do not conform to their extraordinary claim.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. This is not a 'red herring" it is a direct challenge. We can start by you explaining to me how the belief in an imaginary friend in the sky is in any way reasonable. -
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Re: How To Debate Intelligent Design
Wed, October 1, 2008 - 9:57 AM<What would be the criteria of deciding which process was intelligently designed and which process was not?>
An interesting question that I was wondering if anyone would respond to.
This leads me to ask the atheist, If the universe began and exists as a series of random events, what is the definition of intelligence?
If an intelligent creator does not exist, does intelligence exist, or is that concept also a creation of man's imagination? -
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Re: How To Debate Intelligent Design
Wed, October 1, 2008 - 10:33 AM<This leads me to ask the atheist, If the universe began and exists as a series of random events, what is the definition of intelligence?
If an intelligent creator does not exist, does intelligence exist, or is that concept also a creation of man's imagination?>
If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?
The unasked question is what does it matter? Yes, intelligence exists and yes it is more wide spread than Creationists give credit. Gorillas may not have our complex voice box but they do communicate quite well with sign language. Intelligence was not specially created, but occurred through random occurences. -
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This is the maximum depth. Additional responses will not be threaded.
Re: How To Debate Intelligent Design
Wed, October 1, 2008 - 2:17 PMBill,
I detect a bit of sarcasm in your responses. Kind of like your "belief in an imaginary friend in the sky" comment.
<Yes, intelligence exists and yes it is more wide spread than Creationists give credit.>
No one here has argued that God is an imaginary friend in the sky, except you. Just as no one here has excluded gorillas from intelligence. But in both cases, I'm not clear on how you are defining your terms.
How are you defining intelligence?
You have said that you are not an atheist. Does that mean you believe in a God that is not intelligent, that you believe in an intelligent God who did not create with intelligence, that you are an agnostic, or something else?
<Intelligence was not specially created, but occurred through random occurences.>
Do you have any scientific evidence for this claim. Or is it simply your belief?
Your definition of intelligence, may clarify on this point. -
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Re: How To Debate Intelligent Design
Wed, October 1, 2008 - 3:41 PM<No one here has argued that God is an imaginary friend in the sky, except you. Just as no one here has excluded gorillas from intelligence. But in both cases, I'm not clear on how you are defining your terms.
How are you defining intelligence? >
I am not defining intelligence because there is no definition to intelligence. Last time I bothered to count, psychologists had three or four different definitions of intelligence. Sociologists have their own as do theologians, and computer scientists. There is no definitive definition of intelligence just as there is no definitive definition for reality, consciousness, love, hate, or any other subjective concept. Being a subjective concept, intelligence is different according to how one looks at it. We are all Humpty-Dumpty putting our own meanings to the word. This is why intelligence is one of the most important weasel words in advertising or public relations. We all want to be intelligent, right? So intelligent people know why you should have Crunchy-O cereal for breakfast, and intelligent people know why Rush is right. There for I take a totally Zen approach to intelligence. I accept that it exists, but I do not try to define it.
<You have said that you are not an atheist. Does that mean you believe in a God that is not intelligent, that you believe in an intelligent God who did not create with intelligence, that you are an agnostic, or something else?>
God is the slipperiest weasel word on Earth. This is why God is so effective a tool for political organizing. You can say God and reach thousands of different people on thousands of different levels. I do not know what God is. I make no claims to the existence or the non-existence of such a being. I strongly doubt that such a being exists. If such a being does exist, I doubt that being is either conscious or aware. I am of the opinion that God is not a being as much as a phenomenon that we do not understand. Eliphas Levi proposed that God was neither aware or conscious, but was simply a force holding the Universe together. God has no reality except for the reality given to it by our own imaginations.
I find that to be a definition I can agree with. This is a definition that precludes a divine hand in any sort of Intelligent Design.
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This is the maximum depth. Additional responses will not be threaded.
Re: How To Debate Intelligent Design
Wed, October 1, 2008 - 3:53 PM"Intelligence was not specially created, but occurred through random occurences. "
Well, you certainly don't know that to be a fact. You have demanded proof for certain claims - do you have proof of this? And no, demonstrating that evolution has occurred and does occur does not prove this claim to be true. -
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Re: How To Debate Intelligent Design
Wed, October 1, 2008 - 4:00 PM<Well, you certainly don't know that to be a fact. You have demanded proof for certain claims - do you have proof of this? And no, demonstrating that evolution has occurred and does occur does not prove this claim to be true.>
So it comes down to your guess is as good as mine.
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Re: How To Debate Intelligent Design
Tue, September 23, 2008 - 12:50 AM"Neither has any business in science until the existence of either can be proven."
By the way, the idea that a hypothesis can't be in science until it's proven to be true is a horrible view of the scientific method. That's simply not how science is done. -
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Re: How To Debate Intelligent Design
Tue, September 23, 2008 - 6:26 PM<By the way, the idea that a hypothesis can't be in science until it's proven to be true is a horrible view of the scientific method. That's simply not how science is done.>
Then how do you move the concept of God out of the hypothesis stage? -
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Re: How To Debate Intelligent Design
Wed, September 24, 2008 - 9:05 AMForget about the Big Rock Problem.
Can humans create a God so alien they can't understand Him?
With love under will,
Bob, Adastra,
The Wizzard of Jacksonville
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