Chance v. Design Part 2 (Evolution)

by Matt S. , Saturday, June 06, 2009, 19:47 (5447 days ago) @ dhw

...but science still doesn&apos;t have much idea what constitutes nature itself, since 96% of matter and energy remains a dark mystery. Science has not proved that life can come about by chance (sorry, but you now know what I mean by this), and science has not been devastating to the idea that there might be some kind of creative force beyond what we at present regard as natural.&#13;&#10;> - Because... all of these things that you are talking about are NOT in the problem domain of science except one. Where do you get the claim &quot;96% of matter and energy remains a dark mystery?&quot; - And science can&apos;t tell us anything at all about a &apos;creative force&apos; because if such a creative force is &apos;supernatural&apos; it is by definition outside of the problem domain of science, which is the physical world. The best you can say about a creator is &apos;maybe.&apos; This is both because of ignorance of unknown properties of our universe, and for things we think we know. - Look, god is supernatural or he&apos;s not. If he&apos;s not, he&apos;s subject to and not above the laws of the universe and therefore subject to scientific inquiry. If however he&apos;s supernatural, he is outside the physical universe and any claims that he/she/it affects the physical universe has to come up with a way that it could do that, (including defining at least some of its physical limits). - &#13;&#10;> ...Why do you have to define its limits? In order to argue for infinity do you have to be able to define its limits? &#13;&#10;< - Yes. For one thing, Infinity is simply a very, very large number. For you to say that there is a creator that can influence the physical world, you have to be able to know at least something about its limits in order to be able to measure its potential impact in relation to chance. Otherwise you cannot differentiate the creator from chance. Remember the assumptions of natural science here. Science&apos;s problem domain is the physical world. If you say God created life, then you have to come up with a mechanism that science can test. Or, you can&apos;t say it at all. (The same goes with asserting god does not exist.) - The only safety I&apos;ve found here is in a deistic god. It&apos;s not enough that science can&apos;t or hasn&apos;t found an origin for life. And if science is wrong, why does it default to a creator? It doesn&apos;t. It defaults to no explanation at all. - >In order to argue for a creator you have, for one thing, to reject the theory of abiogenesis. < - Not true. The god of deism could have started the universe, and all things proceed according to natural law, of which abiogenesis would be a part. False dilemma. - >For another you have to point out the mysteries to which science has so far failed to find a definitive solution (e.g. consciousness, certain emotions, certain psychic experiences). < - Science thus far has proceeded to explain the mechanics of many these processes, but not the processes themselves. But we can verify that they are indeed physical processes, even if we can&apos;t fully explain them. What do you say to that? - >Theists will present you with more positive arguments (i.e. not just filling in gaps), but I am not a theist, so I won&apos;t. Perhaps, though, rather than &quot;defining limits&quot; you mean that in order to believe in a particular kind of god, you have to have some idea of its identity and its nature. That I would accept, though David Turell might not agree!&#13;&#10;> - - > You write that atheism and theism &quot;are adjectives, not nouns. (No, I&apos;m not being semantic either.)&quot; You are certainly not being semantic, perhaps you meant pedantic, but the fact is that both words are nouns unless you&apos;ve decided to mount a one-man crusade against English grammar. What was the point of this statement?&#13;&#10;> &#13;&#10;> Man&apos;s uniqueness is a subject that can be used to equal effect by both sides, but let&apos;s leave that for another time as there&apos;s already plenty to be getting on with.&#13;&#10;> &#13;&#10;Agreed.