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Old 25th January 2013, 03:35 PM   #3321
Wowbagger
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Originally Posted by Lowpro View Post
Biochemistry tells you were DNA originated moreso than natural selection but natural selection is what dictates the sequences.
I don't think that contradicts anything I stated.

I realize DNA originated from biochemical processes, currently being ironed out by abiogenesis scientists.

I was making a point that the reason DNA looks like "information" (in the language or code sense) is because Natural Seleciton worked out sequencecs that generally work... And innate human biases make us believe anything that works that well must have been intelligently designed that way.

Only through more careful examination* do we find that intelligence was not required, at all.

(*That is: An examination more careful than any creationist is willing to go.)

Originally Posted by Lowpro View Post
And really thermodynamics trumps both of them again so once again we can all thank entropy. You don't need a designer when you have that.
When did I say we need a designer?
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Old 25th January 2013, 04:14 PM   #3322
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Originally Posted by Mister Agenda View Post
I was unable to discern any substantive criticism in your post. Would you please specify your reasoning that something can't derive from absolute nothingness? I understand that you can ascribe properties to absolute nothingness that consist of further specifying things it is not or that it necessarily lacks: no space, no time, no matter, no energy, no elephants, etc; and perhaps I should have gone into that.

I am not interested in whether my comments provide handholds or not, I'm not here to win a debate, I'm here to discuss naturalism.
Alright then. Let's try this again. Your argument was nothing but rhetoric. Specifically, though, the "absolute nothingness" in question was defined in such a way as to remove even the potential of anything coming from it (and thus, if something did come of a nothing, it wouldn't be what he had been talking about, by definition), because last time, it was demonstrated that something can come from "nothing" as it exists for us. It's a self defeating position, really, for what he's trying to support, but not all criticisms are valid, regardless.
EDIT: Either way, since I'm still waking up, I failed to point out that, to put things in somewhat mathematical terms, 0 = 0+0+0+0+0+0+0+... Your argument pretty much relied upon a concept that isn't quite true about nothing. Adding an infinite number of absolute nothings is still absolute nothing, with nothing actually added, and thus, talking about nothing being produced is not actually saying that anything was produced.
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Old 25th January 2013, 06:59 PM   #3323
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Originally Posted by Brian-M View Post
If you're going to use the book analogy, then it's a book that consists of 98% meaningless gibberish.

(Due to the fact that the human genome is 98% noncoding "junk" DNA.)
no kidding ?!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/06/sc...anted=all&_r=0

Quote:
The human genome is packed with at least four million gene switches that reside in bits of DNA that once were dismissed as “junk” but that turn out to play critical roles in controlling how cells, organs and other tissues behave.
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Old 25th January 2013, 07:02 PM   #3324
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Originally Posted by yomero View Post
Natural chance, along with natural selection and natural chemistry did produce the information in DNA. Naturally.
amazing !!

the only problem is, that natural selection only started AFTER the first living cell was existing........

Quote:
If I see and read a written book (The Bible), that was written 2500 years ago and I do not know anything about its authors, then I deduce automatically, they were ignorant, supersticious, malevolent writters that wrote that book.
the old , boring brainless atheist drivel.......
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Old 25th January 2013, 07:13 PM   #3325
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Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
amazing !!

the only problem is, that natural selection only started AFTER the first living cell was existing........
Any opinion on emergent behaviour yet? No?



Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
the old , boring brainless atheist drivel.......
The old boring theist drivel.
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Old 25th January 2013, 07:19 PM   #3326
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Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
amazing !!

the only problem is, that natural selection only started AFTER the first living cell was existing........



the old , boring brainless atheist drivel.......
Can't you just ask your god to show forth his incredible love and power to each of us individually, insuch a way that we will all be amazed and turn from our disbelief and become believers?

Isn't that what your god wants?

Then we can all proclaim what happened so we can verify the truthfulness of it all.

Does your god love his creations or does he wish to destroy them?
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Old 25th January 2013, 07:31 PM   #3327
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Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
Once again, you don't realize what you are saying.

Brain-m was correct in saying that the junk DNA doesn't code for any genes. The junk DNA does contain elements that happen to alter the coding. These fragments goof with gene expression in weird ways.

As your article says...
Quote:
In one of the Nature papers, researchers link the gene switches to a range of human diseases — multiple sclerosis, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, celiac disease — and even to traits like height.
Now, what's funny is if you think DNA is evidence of an author. Then you must clearly believe that the author was a vindictive creep to write in things that would cause multiple sclerosis, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, celiac disease.



Now, how do you explain epigenetics and its rather huge impact on gene expression?
Take your time with an answer. I'll wait for you to google it.
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Old 25th January 2013, 07:49 PM   #3328
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Originally Posted by Wowbagger View Post
(emphasis mine)

One should not take analogies too far.
you don't know what you are talking about.

http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/dn...ists/dna-code/

Quote:
Information theory terms and ideas applied to DNA are not metaphorical, but in fact quite literal in every way. In other words, the information theory argument for design is not based on analogy at all. It is direct application of mathematics to DNA, which by definition is a code.

Dr. Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome Project (that mapped the human DNA structure) said that one can "think of DNA as an instructional script, a software program, sitting in the nucleus of the cell."

Quote:
Natural Selection can actually explain where all that information came from, much better, and in much more detail.
There is no physical reason why an algorithm such as Natural Selection cannot yield lots and lots and lots of information, in that way, over time.
oh sure....

http://elshamah.heavenforum.org/t287...-for-a-creator

Quote:
It has been calculated that it would be statistically impossible to randomly type even the first 100 characters in Shakespeare's "Hamlet". If the monkeys typed only in lower case, including the 27 spaces in the first 100 characters, the chances are 27100 (ie. one chance in 10143).
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Old 25th January 2013, 07:52 PM   #3329
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Originally Posted by Astreja View Post
Ah, ye olde "Watchmaker" argument,
No. Its not the watchmaker argument. Its a new argument, based on the fact that complex information is storen in the cell. That demands for a explanation. No other answer is reasonable, than to admit a intelligent mind must have created this information. Chance or physical necessity cannot produce such information .
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Old 25th January 2013, 07:55 PM   #3330
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Originally Posted by IanS View Post
If by "naturalism" you mean the explanations that have been determined by science, then the scientific research literature is filled with literally mountains of very precise evidence of everything ever discussed by science.

In fact, "evidence" is precisely what all those many millions of scientific research papers are about. That's almost all they contain - "Evidence".
what you are missing to answer, is, how you think that scientific evidence points to naturalism.
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Old 25th January 2013, 08:06 PM   #3331
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Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
amazing !!

the only problem is, that natural selection only started AFTER the first living cell was existing........
Amazing, then, that he didn't even imply otherwise? Is there supposed to be a point here? Maybe that you somehow think that he was claiming that DNA and cells appeared magically in their modern forms, despite the evidence that he wasn't saying that at all?

Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
you don't know what you are talking about.
The evidence, so far, suggests that you don't really understand what you're talking about.

Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
This, too. It's a straw man. One that's been addressed over and over and over. That you keep trying to use the "random" argument is a sign of your dishonesty, arrogance, and failure to account for your audience. You will not convince anyone with such tactics that was not already convinced and the demonstrable vacuousness of your case may well cause others to see it for what it is. Empty rhetoric.
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Old 25th January 2013, 08:22 PM   #3332
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Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
No. Its not the watchmaker argument. Its a new argument, based on the fact that complex information is storen in the cell. That demands for a explanation. No other answer is reasonable, than to admit a intelligent mind must have created this information. Chance or physical necessity cannot produce such information .
Define physical necessity? Something similar to the strong anthropic principle, maybe? Either way, you're using chance as random chance, so your last statement can be dismissed as irrelevant, because it doesn't deal with what is actually being held up as reasonable by the opposing side.

Either way, we are at something of an impasse, as you've specifically stated that you refuse to honestly consider alternatives to your belief. Given the evidence that we've seen and the natural processes that we've continued to gain better understandings about, we find it to be completely reasonable to say that it is completely reasonable that no intelligence was involved at all, just going on a mechanical basis. Furthermore, once we get into the philosophical and logical realms, the arguments that there must have been an intelligent creator fall to pieces on examination. Thus, your assertion is not trustworthy at all to us. That doesn't mean that it didn't happen the way you think it did, but it does mean that your arguments and assertions are deeply flawed, and thus, unconvincing.
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Old 25th January 2013, 08:40 PM   #3333
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Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
The article mentions 4 million of these "switches" in human DNA, but you have to remember that these 4 million "switches" are tucked away within 3.2 billion base pairs ("letters").

Plus the "switches" don't actually encode for anything, just control which parts of the encoding (non-"junk") DNA gets used.
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Old 25th January 2013, 08:51 PM   #3334
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Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
No. Its not the watchmaker argument. Its a new argument, based on the fact that complex information is storen in the cell. That demands for a explanation. No other answer is reasonable, than to admit a intelligent mind must have created this information. Chance or physical necessity cannot produce such information .
Not true. Mutation and natural selection can be shown to both generate new information in the lab and to account for the information already present in the many species currently on Earth. In fact, the interrelationship of DNA sequences between species was predicted by evolutionary theory long before DNA itself was even identified. That is the core of science- it generates hypotheses that make predictions; correct predictions reinforce the validity of the hypotheses, whereas incorrect ones lead to changes in the hypotheses. Evolutionary theory correctly predicted the DNA observations made over one hundred years later.

You seem to like the book analogy for DNA. Okay, what if you found a book with a word crossed out and replaced with another word that changes the meaning of the passage. Wouldn't you, by your analogy, assume an intelligence had made the change? Do you see where I am going, or should I complete my analogy?
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Old 25th January 2013, 09:18 PM   #3335
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Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
what you are missing to answer, is, how you think that scientific evidence points to naturalism.
How come you just skipped over my questions in post #3326?

Here is a reminder:

Can't you just ask your god to show forth his incredible love and power to each of us individually, insuch a way that we will all be amazed and turn from our disbelief and become believers?

Isn't that what your god wants?

Then we can all proclaim what happened so we can verify the truthfulness of it all.

Does your god love his creations or does he wish to destroy them?

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Old 25th January 2013, 10:03 PM   #3336
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Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
you don't know what you are talking about.

http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/dn...ists/dna-code/
Using the word "code" to describe DNA does not enable us to discover where it came from. Period.
The "best" you can say is "God did it!", but can't go into any details of how, when, where, or why, etc. Nothing can be gained from such a description, if one's goals is to discover more about the origins of DNA.

Using "replicating molecule" to describe DNA does lead us into experiments that can show us where it came from! And, we can thus figure out how it came about without any intelligent intervention.

I could go on with a point-by-point refutation of the article. But, I think I covered the gist of my point.

But, here are some brief responses:

Quote:
DNA’s definition as a literal code (and not a figurative one) is nearly universal in the entire body of biological literature since the 1960′s.
Yeah, so?! Back in the 1960's, not much else was known about it.

Scientists seeking to make new discoveries about DNA are generally NOT using the word "code" to describe it, anymore, except in the popular press.

Oh, and informatics people (database developers) will also often think of DNA as code, but it's their job to think of EVERYTHING as storable code. It's not their jobs to make the new discoveries about its origins.

Quote:
DNA code has much in common with human language and computer languages
But, it also has stuff that is NOT common in languages! The "meaning" of DNA can re-write itself based on the reading of other parts. Differences in how medium of DNA varies can yield differences in its "meaning", as well. Plus, it basically replicates itself. Etc. Etc.

If you use the word "code" or "language" to describe DNA, none of those things would follow from the analogy.

Quote:
DNA transcription is an encoding / decoding mechanism isomorphic with Claude Shannon’s 1948 model
So is Earthquake data. You claiming Earthquakes are a form of communication from mole people, or something?

Cloud formation can be understood with Shannon's model. Does that mean pictures in the clouds really are supposed to be pictures?!

DNA is NOT "by definition" a code, at all! By definition, it is a molecule. A molecule that replicates in an imperfect manner.
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Old 25th January 2013, 10:27 PM   #3337
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Originally Posted by Brian-M View Post
The article mentions 4 million of these "switches" in human DNA, but you have to remember that these 4 million "switches" are tucked away within 3.2 billion base pairs ("letters").

Plus the "switches" don't actually encode for anything, just control which parts of the encoding (non-"junk") DNA gets used.
To be fair, I don't think your "98% meaningless gibberish" statement was very accurate. DNA is certainly not efficient. One could encode an entire human with much, much less data.

But, just because the medium is inefficient, doesn't mean it's "gibberish".

For an analogy:
I could use 4 million lines of code to make a simple bubble-sort algorithm. Sure, one could do it with much fewer lines. But, if each of those 4 million lines contributed to the overall algorithm, even if it was in a rather Rube Goldberg-ish manner, all that code would not be "meaningless gibberish". It would just be an inefficiently coded algorithm.

For DNA, there is no expectation that its code be efficient, since it is an imperfectly replicating molecule, subject to the whims of selection pressures, and limited by the heritage of its ancestors. That is the more important point to get across.
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Old 25th January 2013, 10:30 PM   #3338
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Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
No. Its not the watchmaker argument. Its a new argument, based on the fact that complex information is storen in the cell. That demands for a explanation.
It is indeed the watchmaker argument. It became so the instant you inserted the alleged necessity for an intelligent designer.

The explanation is that a stable pattern of self-replicating organic molecules will tend to "grow" the same or similar organisms. It isn't the other way around. The human genome almost certainly did not intend in advance to grow humans with 2 eyes, 2 ears, 1 nose, 1 mouth, etcetera; that's just what the recipe happens to produce.

Quote:
No other answer is reasonable, than to admit a intelligent mind must have created this information.
And as I said earlier, your god is too stupid to have done it.
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Old 26th January 2013, 01:07 AM   #3339
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Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
Correct. And this detection has shown as never before in history the impossibility of naturalism. Chance or physical necessity cannot produce information as contained in a book, or in DNA. A mind can.
Originally Posted by yomero View Post
Natural chance, along with natural selection and natural chemistry did produce the information in DNA. Naturally.
[
Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
amazing !!

the only problem is, that natural selection only started AFTER the first living cell was existing........
Gibhor, other posters more knowledgeable than I am have tried to explain how the ''information'' in DNA developed through entirely naturalistic means. Perhaps a layman's perspective could convince you. At least I hope to plant a small doubt about yor opinion and inspire you to get better information. The link I'm posting is a good place to start.

Some, but not all, of DNA's nucleotides ''codify'' for sequences of amino acids and thus proteins. Many of these proteins are enzymes (catalysts). These enzymes catalyze biochemical reactions that optimize an organism's functions and thus increase the organism's chance of survival. In reproduction, the DNA is copied almost always faithfully and passed on to the new cell or new living being. Ocassionally there are copying errors and the ''information'' is transferred slightly changed. The alteration could be of no consequence, it remains in the DNA. It could be harmful, decreasing the new organism's opportunities for survival, and probably absent in future generations. Or it could be beneficial, giving the new living being an advantage over its competitors and preferentially passed on to future generations. The end result would be a set of ''information'' that developed by entirely natural means and is mostly beneficial to the carrier.

http://www.mcb.ucdavis.edu/faculty-l...tak-SA2009.pdf

The link is for an article in Scientific American 2009. Very easy to read. It explores one of the possible explanations for the origin of RNA (precursor to DNA) Perhaps it can satisfy your demands.

Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
If you see a written book, that was written 300 years ago, and you do not know anything abouth its author, then you deduce automatically , it was a intelligent writer, that wrote that book. ...SNIP:
Originally Posted by yomero View Post
If I see and read a written book (The Bible), that was written 2500 years ago and I do not know anything about its authors, then I deduce automatically, they were ignorant, supersticious, malevolent writters that wrote that book.
Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
the old , boring brainless atheist drivel.......
Probably old, boring and brainless, but very true.

ETA: The link isn't working . Google ''The origin of life on earth.'' It should come as the top result. The article is worth the effort.
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Old 26th January 2013, 01:14 AM   #3340
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Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
Originally Posted by IanS View Post
If by "naturalism" you mean the explanations that have been determined by science, then the scientific research literature is filled with literally mountains of very precise evidence of everything ever discussed by science.

In fact, "evidence" is precisely what all those many millions of scientific research papers are about. That's almost all they contain - "Evidence".

If you are trying to claim that there is no evidence of things like evolution, or the Big Bang, then you must be living in a dream world.

You are of course equally wrong if you are trying to claim that there is any evidence that an intelligent creator/god produced the Big Bang or created Homo sapiens through some unexplained "miracle".
what you are missing to answer, is, how you think that scientific evidence points to naturalism.



No, there is nothing of that kind missing in what I said.

Why do you think there is something missing?

To spell it out (again) - the "evidence" discovered through science, is fully explained (in great detail) as arising from what you are calling "natural" processes. Eg, from processes such as simple chemical & physical reactions.

There is no dispute about that (except in the fantasy world of uneducated religious creationists).

The explanations are perfectly and entirely "natural" in all cases. Ie, no invisible miracle gods involved.

Incidentally, you are evading the question (you were asked) of whether you fail to understand how science has explained millions of things (almost everything anyone could ever think of) by entirely “natural” (god-less, miracle-free) answers …

… and those scientific answers have not only been tested in great detail many millions of times over, but they have also been fully explained by theoreticians telling us with mathematical precision how and why the underlying maths shows that the scientific answers are correct.
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Old 26th January 2013, 01:20 AM   #3341
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Originally Posted by yomero View Post
Gibhor, other posters more knowledgeable than I am have tried to explain how the ''information'' in DNA developed through entirely naturalistic means. Perhaps a layman's perspective could more easily reach you.
It doesn't matter how clearly you answer a question if the person asking it is not listening.
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Old 26th January 2013, 06:40 AM   #3342
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Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
Stengers argument can easily be refuted :

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1112.4647.pdf
Quote:
If electrons were bosons, rather than fermions, then they would not obey the Pauli
exclusion principle. There would be no chemistry.
If gravity were repulsive rather than attractive, then matter wouldn't clump into com-
plex structures. Remember: your density, thank gravity, is 10
30
times greater than the
average density of the universe.
If the strong force were a long rather than short-range force, then there would be no
atoms. Any structures that formed would be uniform, spherical, undierentiated lumps,
of arbitrary size and incapable of complexity.
If, in electromagnetism, like charges attracted and opposites repelled, then there would
be no atoms. As above, we would just have undierentiated lumps of matter.
An unpublished article in archiv X?

Author of Expanding Space: the Root of all Evil?
http://arxiv.org/abs/0707.0380
Quote:
In this paper, we have shown how a consistent description of cosmological dynamics emerges from the idea
that the expansion of space is neither more nor less
than the increase over time of the distance between
observers at rest with respect to the cosmic fluid.
Cosmic fluid?



The quote you cite is not about fine tuning at all, their statements are hilarious. Fine tuning is about the parameters of the constants as they exist, not about saying, 'what if electrons were bosons'? Your quote has nothing to do with the fine tuning argument at all.

How many values for the mass of the electron X are possible between
mass of electron > X < twice the mass of the electron?

The one thing we can tell is that you GIBHOR have no comprehension of what the fine tuning argument is and you just copy and paste.

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Old 26th January 2013, 06:47 AM   #3343
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Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
So what caused it then in your view into existence ?
We don't know.
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Old 26th January 2013, 06:52 AM   #3344
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Originally Posted by IanS View Post
No, there is nothing of that kind missing in what I said.

Why do you think there is something missing?

To spell it out (again) - the "evidence" discovered through science, is fully explained (in great detail) as arising from what you are calling "natural" processes. Eg, from processes such as simple chemical & physical reactions.

There is no dispute about that (except in the fantasy world of uneducated religious creationists).

The explanations are perfectly and entirely "natural" in all cases. Ie, no invisible miracle gods involved.

Incidentally, you are evading the question (you were asked) of whether you fail to understand how science has explained millions of things (almost everything anyone could ever think of) by entirely “natural” (god-less, miracle-free) answers …

… and those scientific answers have not only been tested in great detail many millions of times over, but they have also been fully explained by theoreticians telling us with mathematical precision how and why the underlying maths shows that the scientific answers are correct.
please answer some questions :

http://www.sciencepointstogod.com/re...%20Version.pdf

Do accidents ever:
• produce laws that govern development?
• produce complex things from simple things?

Do accidents ever:
• develop precise parameters that work with complex laws to
govern their own results?
• cause anything to be fine-tuned?

Do accidents ever:
• cause anything to develop with exquisite precision?
• develop highly-improbable events and inter-related conditions
that produce cooperative ventures?

Do accidents ever:
• produce complex and highly cooperative ventures?
• develop structures and organize functions that our most
brilliant scientists cannot replicate?

Do accidents ever:
• harness and control the laws of physics?
• organize complex systems?

Do accidents ever:
• produce language-based information systems?
• produce smart information that not only knows how to do
things but then proceeds to actually do those things?

Do accidents ever:
• result in simple things assembling themselves into complex
things?
• result in the creation of intricate and elegant systems of energy
production, recycling and use?
• solve complicated problems, like how to prevent a living
organism from spontaneously burning up?

Do accidents ever:
• create mechanisms that reverse natural physical laws?
• produce intricate and sophisticated electrical grids necessary
to power data processing information systems?
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Old 26th January 2013, 07:17 AM   #3345
Wowbagger
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Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
Do accidents ever:
Depends on what you mean by "accident". We can demonstrate on computer simulations, that each and every one of those bullet points can come about through algorithms that match natural processes, without any intelligent intervention driving their direction. ALL OF THEM.

If by "accident" you mean "completely random chance", then no. We wouldn't expect most of those points to come about from completely random chance.

But, no naturalist, here, assumes random chance had anything much to do with life or the Universe.

Random chance is antithetical to the naturalist who examines natural processes that are not random.
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Old 26th January 2013, 07:42 AM   #3346
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Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
please answer some questions :
One of the problems with this thread, I think, is that too many of your references seem to have this false dichotomy. Either something MUST be designed OR it MUST be random accident.

To help illustrate why this is wrong, I decided to put together this little chart that answers your questions. (IanS: I hope you don't mind, since this was supposed to be targeted at you.)

Things that Can HappenCan Intelligent Design Do It?Can Natural Algorithms Do It?Can Random Accidents Do It?
produce laws that govern development?Yes!Yes!No. Unlikely.
produce complex things from simple things?Yes! Yes!Yes, in fact!
develop precise parameters that work with complex laws to govern their own results?Yes! Yes!No. Unlikely.
cause anything to be fine-tuned?Yes! Yes!No. Unlikely.
cause anything to develop with exquisite precision?Yes! Yes!No. Unlikely.
develop highly-improbable events and inter-related conditions that produce cooperative ventures?Yes! Yes!No. Unlikely.
produce complex and highly cooperative ventures? Yes! Yes!No. Unlikely.
develop structures and organize functions that our most brilliant scientists cannot replicate?Yes (with some limits)Yes!Maybe. Hard to tell this one.
harness and control the laws of physics?Yes!Yes!No. Unlikely in any significant manner
organize complex systems? Yes! Yes!No. Unlikely.
produce language-based information systems? Yes!Yes!No. Unlikely.
produce smart information that not only knows how to do things but then proceeds to actually do those things? Yes!Yes!No. Unlikely.
result in simple things assembling themselves into complex things? Yes! Yes!Yes! (happens all the time in random distributions)
result in the creation of intricate and elegant systems of energy production, recycling and use? Yes! Yes!No. Unlikely.
solve complicated problems, like how to prevent a living organism from spontaneously burning up? Yes! Yes!No. Unlikely.
create mechanisms that reverse natural physical laws? NO! NO!NO!
produce intricate and sophisticated electrical grids necessary to power data processing information systems? Yes! Yes!No. Unlikely.

Does that help illustrate the points we are making better?
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Old 26th January 2013, 08:04 AM   #3347
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Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
please answer some questions :
This will end well, won't it?

Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
Do accidents ever:
• produce laws that govern development?
Unknown. As in, you honestly don't know, either, and nor does the person who's asking. Either way, the bias here is blatantly obvious from the start by the very way that the question's being asked.

Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
• produce complex things from simple things?
Define complex versus simple? The results of a car accident can be pretty a pretty complex thing compared to a car, as an easy example. Emergent processes, in general, though, work just fine as examples of what the questioner is trying to imply doesn't happen.

Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
• develop precise parameters that work with complex laws to govern their own results?
See first answer. Either way, the complex laws referred to would likely be reasonably described as emergent properties of relatively simple base forces.

Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
• cause anything to be fine-tuned?
You have yet to give any real evidence that fine-tuning is the case that isn't amply countered by understanding the weak anthropic principle, alone, much less all the rest of the refutations, despite your efforts. Hence, asking this is somewhat stupid, even superficially.

Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
• cause anything to develop with exquisite precision?
This is actually dealt with with the previous answers. Either way, how is one defining the exquisite precision? By simply assuming that things could only be the way they are? By positing determinism? By attempting to apply somewhat flawed and convoluted logic? By begging the question?

Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
• develop highly-improbable events and inter-related conditions that produce cooperative ventures?
Highly improbable events happen all the time. Every day. Every minute. Every second. Nothing particularly remarkable about that, there's just a LOT of highly improbable events that could potentially happen. A very simple way to demonstrate it is to take a deck of cards, shuffle them, then deal the deck out. The probability that the cards will end up in that EXACT order is incredibly low to the point that most of the people making that argument would call it impossible, but yet they did. Even more interesting than that is that it is utterly and completely mundane and assertions of the necessary of supernatural involvement in the cards can be rightfully ridiculed. That's when there's less than 60 parts and the math is remarkably simple.

Now, to put this in perspective, that's a pittance. A quick look found me this link.

Quote:
The number of atoms in the entire observable universe is estimated to be within the range of 10^78 to 10^82. We’ve added the word ‘observable’ because we realize that there are really many things to discover about the entire universe so, basically, that range back there is only an estimate based upon what we currently know.
Bear in mind that this is far more complex than a set of cards. Should we be forever paralyzed by awe and disbelief that what is, is? Should we always commit the Texas sharpshooter fallacy?

Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
• produce complex and highly cooperative ventures?
Hey, look, repeating questions. That's totally not something I've see before from massive conspiracy-level arguments. Either way, this has been dealt with in previous answers.

Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
• develop structures and organize functions that our most brilliant scientists cannot replicate?
Don't you know? Flight is for birds. Humans will never fly. It cannot be done!

Seriously, this type of argument has been shown to be moronic so many times that it's honestly not funny. But hey, looky here! That we even know about those structures and functions is evidence for the usefulness of methodological naturalism! Theology had plenty of time to figure these things out, and yet it didn't. No gods provided this information through revelation, either, by the looks of it.

Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
• harness and control the laws of physics?
Totally not a leading question. Really. Maybe this is directed at the more spiritual atheists, though? In particular, ones who posit that the laws of physics can be *controlled?* Harnessing, well, methodological naturalism has found ways to harness a lot of forces usefully that theology didn't even try to harness, if it even knew they existed.

Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
• organize complex systems?
Two words. Emergent systems.

Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
• produce language-based information systems?
As good as answered already.

Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
• produce smart information that not only knows how to do things but then proceeds to actually do those things?
Heh. Sounds like there's conflation going on here. Either way, this is so non-specific that one can say humans are examples of this. To be clear, I'm fairly sure that most here have absolutely no issue with the concept that humans could arise solely from naturalistic processes, as an example, and you have yet to give decent reason why humans, much less their constituent parts, couldn't have done so.

Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
• result in simple things assembling themselves into complex things?
Emergent systems. Either way, this is deeply flawed, possibly largely because of its extreme vagueness.

Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
• result in the creation of intricate and elegant systems of energy production, recycling and use?
At the level that's actually being dealt with? It's been shown that it's reasonable that these can arise naturally, posturing aside.

Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
• solve complicated problems, like how to prevent a living organism from spontaneously burning up?
Within limits, of course. The death toll tends to be exceedingly high, but that's of little concern when morality doesn't apply.

Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
• create mechanisms that reverse natural physical laws?
Feel free to give actual examples of this in current scientific literature? Sounds like nothing but rhetoric to me, as it stands.

Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
• produce intricate and sophisticated electrical grids necessary to power data processing information systems?
So, you're really supporting asking this? Seriously? Well, luckily it's the last one, because calling our power grids an "accident" is an incredible insult to so very, very many people, on top of being a straw man.

Either way, seriously, understand what you're asking, first. You just end up looking foolish, arrogant, ignorant, and dishonest when you use the tactics that you've been using.

EDIT: Also, thank you Wowbagger, even if you did beat me. I think that I failed to specifically explain parts that you covered, so... good job, even if saying yes to controlling the laws of physics is something that I quite disagree that natural algorithms can do. That looks like it was put there as a cheap rhetorical trick, though, to imply that it actually happens, like the reversing laws of physics bit. Sneaking a deity in through the backdoor, as it may be.
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Old 26th January 2013, 08:06 AM   #3348
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What does ''cosmic fluid'' mean? Tippex? Chivas Regal?
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Old 26th January 2013, 08:19 AM   #3349
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Originally Posted by Wowbagger View Post
algorithms that match natural processes
could you explain what that is ?
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Old 26th January 2013, 08:33 AM   #3350
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Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
could you explain what that is ?
This article should help you understand:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life
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Old 26th January 2013, 08:57 AM   #3351
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Originally Posted by Astreja View Post
Quite frankly, Gibhor, I don't think we could to afford to live in a universe created by your god. Such an imbecilic and fractally clueless being would have tripped over its own shoelaces and fallen godhead-first into the Big Bang singularity at T=0, blowing Itself to smithereens.
I just have to quote this because it is a slice of fried gold dipped in awesome sauce.
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Old 26th January 2013, 09:49 AM   #3352
IanS
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Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
please answer some questions :

http://www.sciencepointstogod.com/re...%20Version.pdf

Do accidents ever:
• produce laws that govern development?
• produce complex things from simple things?

Do accidents ever:
• develop precise parameters that work with complex laws to
govern their own results?
• cause anything to be fine-tuned?

Do accidents ever:
• cause anything to develop with exquisite precision?
• develop highly-improbable events and inter-related conditions
that produce cooperative ventures?

Do accidents ever:
• produce complex and highly cooperative ventures?
• develop structures and organize functions that our most
brilliant scientists cannot replicate?

Do accidents ever:
• harness and control the laws of physics?
• organize complex systems?

Do accidents ever:
• produce language-based information systems?
• produce smart information that not only knows how to do
things but then proceeds to actually do those things?

Do accidents ever:
• result in simple things assembling themselves into complex
things?
• result in the creation of intricate and elegant systems of energy
production, recycling and use?
• solve complicated problems, like how to prevent a living
organism from spontaneously burning up?

Do accidents ever:
• create mechanisms that reverse natural physical laws?
• produce intricate and sophisticated electrical grids necessary
to power data processing information systems?


Please explain what has been discovered in Chemistry and Physics.
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Old 26th January 2013, 10:09 AM   #3353
IanS
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Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
please answer some questions :

http://www.sciencepointstogod.com/re...%20Version.pdf

Do accidents ever:


.... etc. etc.

....


Why are you asking about accidents?

And why are you quoting something called "SciencePointsToGod"?

Do you really think people and animals (etc) "stick" to the surface of the Earth by "accident"?

Perhaps you think people stick to the earth by an inexplicable "miracle"?

How do you think planes can be designed to remain flying in the air?

Do you think planes rise into the air because God commands them to do that via an unexplained miracle?

Can you name anything that has been proved to happen by a “miracle”.

Where is your God? Where is he living? What does he look like?

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Old 26th January 2013, 10:21 AM   #3354
Wowbagger
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Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
could you explain what that is ?
The most important one to understand is the evolutionary algorithm, and its variations:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_algorithm

These aim to closely matches the process that takes place in real life:
  • Reproduce with Variation
  • Filter with Selection
  • Repeat

Running many, many, many generations of instructions like that CAN yield fantastically complex systems! Even "irreducibly complex" ones!

Systems that, for example: produce otherwise highly improbable cooperative ventures, with exquisite precision, that control energy production, recycling and usage, without burning the whole system up... just to name a few things it can do.

We have computers that can demonstrate that, which we can then use to predict new findings in the wild. (For example: Expected parasite behaviors.) That element of prediction helps us know the algorithms are fairly accurate, even if they are approximate.

There are a few others worth mentioning, that sometimes work in conjunction with those. They mostly covered in here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_computing

See also Networking Theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_theory
A lot of natural systems tend to form into "hubs and satelites", so-to-speak.

(There are some who are claiming Natural Selection is a special case of a larger, grander idea related to networking theory. But, that actual theory has yet to be developed. At least we learn new ways in which biological entities can form, in the process of investigating this sort of thing, even if it turns out not to be as "grand" as thought. That makes it more productive than creationism, at least.)

Originally Posted by Pixel42 View Post
Conway's Game of Life is not, exactly, an algorithm that matches natural processes. We don't live in a 2 dimensional grid.

What this DOES show us is that it is POSSIBLE for complex behaviors to emerge out of very, very simple rules. And, that's worth knowing! It just does it in a way that doesn't match natural rules very well.
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Old 26th January 2013, 11:04 AM   #3355
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How come you keep skipping over my questions in post #3326 & #3335?

Here is a reminder:

Can't you just ask your god to show forth his incredible love and power to each of us individually, insuch a way that we will all be amazed and turn from our disbelief and become believers?

Isn't that what your god wants?

Then we can all proclaim what happened so we can verify the truthfulness of it all.

Does your god love his creations or does he wish to destroy them?
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Old 26th January 2013, 11:49 AM   #3356
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Originally Posted by Wowbagger View Post
What this DOES show us is that it is POSSIBLE for complex behaviors to emerge out of very, very simple rules. And, that's worth knowing! It just does it in a way that doesn't match natural rules very well.

Wolfram's "NKS" work goes much deeper into this discovery. Systems with not only simple rules but also simple starting conditions can still have very complex behaviors. And such systems do not have to be "designed;" they are scattered among the simplest possible causal (rule-based) systems, and can be found by searching or by waiting for one to arise. It is even possible (though not yet proven) that just three masses orbiting in space are capable of arbitrarily complex behavior and universal computation.

Respectfully,
Myriad
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Old 26th January 2013, 12:35 PM   #3357
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Originally Posted by GIBHOR View Post
No. Its not the watchmaker argument. Its a new argument, based on the fact that complex information is storen in the cell. That demands for a explanation. No other answer is reasonable, than to admit a intelligent mind must have created this information. Chance or physical necessity cannot produce such information .
That's off topic. This thread is about naturalism, not about religious nuttery and fantasy. Refer to your previous post where you dishonestly didn't want to answer questions that put you on the defensive.
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Old 26th January 2013, 12:40 PM   #3358
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Originally Posted by Myriad View Post
Wolfram's "NKS" work goes much deeper into this discovery.
Yes, it sure seems to do so!

Once understood, NKS is a severe, foundational blow to the concept of Intelligent Design!


...I should probably read that book, someday.
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Old 26th January 2013, 02:45 PM   #3359
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Originally Posted by Wowbagger View Post
The most important one to understand is the evolutionary algorithm, and its variations:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_algorithm

These aim to closely matches the process that takes place in real life:
  • Reproduce with Variation
  • Filter with Selection
  • Repeat

Running many, many, many generations of instructions like that CAN yield fantastically complex systems! Even "irreducibly complex" ones!.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/04...iew059041.html

Quote:
Rather, the claim is that programmers can import active information into programs in more subtle ways, using prior knowledge to fine-tune the algorithm to find the solution. While this might be a good programming strategy, it is nothing like the blind and unguided process of Darwinian evolution:
Rather, we say that success is due to prior knowledge being exploited to produce active information in the search algorithm. Although the code does not include the actual Steiner shape, it does include a tuned algorithm for how to find the Steiner shape. ... It should be emphasized that fine-tuning genetic algorithms is common practice. There is nothing unreasonable about the practice. It is in fact necessary, and very useful for producing results from genetic algorithms. Problems arise when attempting to draw inference from a fine-tuned simulation to non-finetuned biological reality. We will demonstrate that the fine-tuning is necessary to the success of the algorithm; consequently, the results cannot be used to defend the success of search algorithm in the absence of fine-tuning.
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Old 26th January 2013, 05:05 PM   #3360
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The main problem with the fine-tuning argument is the underlying assumption that our existence is an intentional outcome, an assumption that's based on a belief that the universe was created by an intelligent creator. So using the fine-tuning argument is really little more than than a mixture of circular logic and argument from incredulity.

It's like a lottery winner saying...

Think of all the variables that had to be perfectly aligned for the exact balls I picked to have come out of the machine.

If the balls hadn't been put in the machine in the same order they went in, then different balls would have come out.
If the air pressure had been slightly different, this would have affected the movement of the balls and different balls would have come out.
If the machine had run for a single millisecond longer or sooner before drawing each ball, different balls would have come out.
If the smoothness of the balls were different, this would have affected their movement and different balls would have come out.
If the machine was operated at a different speed
[...]

[and so on]

The chances of all these things being exactly as they were is less than one in a quintillion, far too unlikely to have come about by chance. Therefore some divine entity must have intervened to make the balls come out as they did.
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