Pigliucci Challenges Randomness (Religion)

by dhw, Friday, January 22, 2010, 11:32 (5201 days ago) @ xeno6696

Matt proposed the building blocks of language as an analogy to those of life, and I said this supported David's design thesis, because language requires intelligence.-MATT: The only difficult part I have with your thrust dhw, is that no one knows how language came to be.-I think we have to assume that language came into existence through the creatures that use it, though it raises the interesting conundrum of how a God might communicate. You have quite rightly broadened the argument: "Animals also communicate using what could be called a language..." I wouldn't hesitate to call it language. But use of sounds to communicate requires intelligence, whether human or animal.-You say: "What we need to define in terms of saying that language necessitates intelligence, is define exactly how much intelligence is required, and the type. Human language requires some level of human ingenuity. Everything else is perceptual intelligence." I'm not sure about the meaning or the accuracy of this last remark, but again it makes no difference to the analogy. No matter how simple the basic units may be, they could not have come into existence, and indeed would serve no purpose, without conscious intent, and that entails intelligence on the part of the user and on the part of the recipient. -I've taken the gist of your argument to be: the building blocks of life/language are so simple that they could have formed themselves, and we know that simple things can build themselves up into complex things. My argument has been that language is not capable of forming itself or even of building itself up to complexity without the input of intelligence. The degree of intelligence is only relevant to the degree of language sophistication. And so I still say that as an analogy it supports design. However, since you've brought in degree, I have to say that the original mechanisms of heredity, adaptation and innovation sound to me infinitely more complex than the original "grrrr mmmm oink gimme". Maybe it's not such a good analogy after all!-Briefly, in response to your latest post: I'm emphatically not an opponent of evolution, but there are aspects of it that I do think remain open to question. There seems to be a mistake in your Point 3 of Pigliucci's intentions. You say he aims to show "that the objections to evolution and natural selection at large are a thrust towards materialism and not science at all." Surely that should be a thrust towards theism. And that would be right, in my view, so long as one acknowledges that certain aspects of evolution CAN be challenged scientifically. But if Pigliucci "goes out of his way to demonstrate that it is possible for theists to support evolution", then I think all the misunderstandings have been cleared up now.-I really appreciate your putting his and Seth Lloyd's ideas to us. These discussions are all helpful, and even the misunderstandings make us clarify our thoughts. "Educate" would indeed sound condescending, but it's not inapt!