Genome complexity: what genes do and don't do, prove God (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, February 17, 2019, 22:55 (1895 days ago) @ David Turell

To further my thoughts about the value of science I've introduced an article by a philosopher on the value of science in theological attempts to prove God. See below.

dhw: Article after article points out that bacteria solve their own problems, but you have not changed your views and you prefer to ignore all the evidence which you kindly present to us. Instead you revert to the issue of survival which we are discussing on the “Big brain evolution” thread. Once again, please stop pretending that an “immediate driving force” (your own description of survival) is not a driving force and that the hypothesis of (possibly God-given) cellular intelligence excludes design.

David First of all I did not 'switch to survival' as you claim. Look at the first comment of yours in this iteration of our discussion I've edited. You returned to the subject: 'switch to survival' as you put it by noting the quote in the article above your quote. You are quoting Darwinian scientists who wrote the article. I carefully watch the obvious background thinking of those who write whatever. It always has great influence on interpretation of results. I fully agree with you: bacteria can solve immediate problems. You and I are in complete disagreement as to how that happens. Our divisions of thought will not change. I've always known , as stated in my first book, only the realization of the magnitude of extreme complexity of living beings through scientific research, will it then drive most of us to accept God, the designer. Thus I continue to present the science delving into the complexities of living biology. (my bold)

http://brianhuffling.com/2018/03/13/why-philosophical-proofs-for-god-are-better-than-sc...

"I am very familiar with the intelligent design arguments from cosmology and biology. They are all very good and very convincing. So what’s the issue? Well, for one, natural science alone can’t prove God. It needs philosophy.Then what makes the scientific arguments good? They are good because they show that the chances for the design (not existence) of the universe and life due to random events are essentially zero. But the jump from probability to cause is a philosophical one. Science, does after all, require the use of philosophy. As someone once said, philosophy is unavoidable. Science can give us probability, mathematics, and descriptions of how things are. However, by definition natural science studies nature and thus cannot make the move beyond nature to the supernatural. Again, that is a philosophical move.

His conclusion: "I hope that I have been clear that I believe theistic proofs that involve natural science are strong, but limited. Natural science alone cannot make a case for God. Further, such arguments are not as conclusive as philosophical ones, nor do they give us the God of classical theism which we can discover through philosophy. I agree with Ed Feser when he says, “To be sure, this is not to deny that considerations from modern cosmology—or from other natural sciences, for that matter—can be useful to the natural theologian; the kalam cosmological argument, I concede, shows that much. But I maintain that such considerations can never be sufficient, and that recourse to the philosophy of nature is necessary to get from the world to the God of classical theism'”

I'm sorry not to have given some excerpts, but the entire article is long, too dense and too important in its entirely to not be read in full. It illustrates my point from above in the last entry in this series; my bold:

only the realization of the magnitude of extreme complexity of living beings through scientific research, will it then drive most of us to accept God, the designer.

I know I can 't provide absolute proof with science, but will continue so it comes over like a tidal wave.