Epistemology of Design (The limitations of science)

by Matt , Sunday, December 13, 2009, 06:53 (5241 days ago) @ David Turell

It seems you are trying to prove a designer or creator by studying the whole universe, presuming that the appearance of life is predetermined and therefore we must look at the designer's plan from the beginning. I'm willing to take the early part of the plan as a given, and start just on Earth. 
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> Assume that we study life and find that the controls in DNA/RNA/epigenetics/ methylation/etc. are thousands, or millions of times more complex than we now know. Starting with very simple chemicals and reaching that level of complexity implies an enormous number of contingent steps, the odds for which appearing spontaneously would also become so enormous as to reach a probability limit. To me this would be an inferred proof of a designer. You seem to want an absolute proof. I am content with an inferred one.-Lets assume your above example. If that probability number still "fits within" this universe, then it's a determined property. There is no chance; no spontaneousness about it at all. It was preordained from the moment of the Big Bang. However improbable life may seem, it was a predestined artifact based purely on permutations and combinations of matter. How life got HERE isn't answered by this. But it gives us a benchmark for us to be able to say "How common is life?"-What makes it a bit more frustrating in your case, is that you are willing to make the claim without much to say about the nature of this deity... an explanation that includes a God must also include how it does what it does. I don't think I've ever asked you that...