We’ve posted before about the problem of atheists declaring that the design of this or that body part is sub-optimal (and therefore, isn’t designed). Electrical engineer Bill Pratt explained it this way:
Over the years, I have often heard young engineers, who did not design a particular [integrated circuit], criticize the design of that IC by saying it is sub-optimal, that they could do a better job. I have then seen these same engineers eat crow when they finally talk to the original designer and discover the constraints that original engineer was under when he designed the IC and the purposes for which he designed the IC.
It is impossible to judge a design as optimal or sub-optimal without knowing the purposes of the designer and without knowing the constraints the designer faced during the design.
Now an article posted on Science Daily reports that the “mystery of the reverse-wired eyeball” (a problem cited by atheists such as Richard Dawkins as being evidence of poor “design”) is “solved”:
From a practical standpoint, the wiring of the human eye – a product of our evolutionary baggage – doesn't make a lot of sense. In vertebrates, photoreceptors are located behind the neurons in the back of the eye – resulting in light scattering by the nervous fibers and blurring of our vision. Recently, researchers at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology have confirmed the biological purpose for this seemingly counterintuitive setup.
"The retina is not just the simple detector and neural image processor, as believed until today," said Erez Ribak, a professor at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. "Its optical structure is optimized for our vision purposes." …
Previous experiments with mice had suggested that Müller glia cells, a type of metabolic cell that crosses the retina, play an essential role in guiding and focusing light scattered throughout the retina. To test this, Ribak and his colleagues ran computer simulations and in-vitro experiments in a mouse model to determine whether colors would be concentrated in these metabolic cells. They then used confocal microscopy to produce three-dimensional views of the retinal tissue, and found that the cells were indeed concentrating light into the photoreceptors.
"For the first time, we've explained why the retina is built backwards, with the neurons in front of the photoreceptors, rather than behind them," Ribak said.
It’s funny how the writer refers to the “biological purpose” of this “evolutionary baggage.” There is no such thing as “purpose” in “evolutionary baggage”—there’s only what happens to survive. And yet, looking at things such as the eye, this science writer can’t help but use the word.
It’s also funny he would refer to the “mystery of the reverse-wired eyeball,” as if we should have assumed there was a secret to discover about why the eye is the way it is—why it ought to be the way it is. Why should anyone assume there’s a mystery to be solved here—that there’s a purpose waiting to be discovered, explaining why this setup actually is optimal? There’s no reason to assume the structure is optimal if it’s the result of random events (it certainly isn’t “built”), so there’s no “mystery.” Calling the structure of the eye a “mystery” would require an assumption of purpose and optimal design, and that’s not an assumption that can be supported by unguided evolution. Why use this kind of language?
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse (Romans 1:20).
(HT: Wintery Knight)
Mr. Reed,
My apologies.
I thought you had claimed that Man designs laptops.
I see you now call that descriptive either inaccurate or silly.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | March 19, 2015 at 09:07 AM
The paradigms - plural - of design reach far into the milieu of truth claims, of appearances, of the contingent entity we call Man, of the act(s) referred to as "design", and of the actual shape and nature of said entities. One wonders on this or that chain of IOU's finally ending and culminating in this or that paradigmatic shape which the thing we call design actually does assume.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | March 19, 2015 at 09:28 AM
So John Reed, you say a math algorithm will/could make you a believer in a theory that has no evidence?
Well, this joker can easily spot your question begging responses all along the way here. Your "only know through observation" one trick pony really should not be boasted about as proving anything. You know good and well what scblhrm has been after...demonstrate some coherent foundation before moving forward. That you cant/wont says a lot. You say you could demonstrate our folly, but first provide some starting point from your own observation is ultimate worldview .
Please do that.
Posted by: Brad B | March 19, 2015 at 10:05 AM
Irrationally conditioned bundles of blind neuronal reflexes inside our skulls reacting to cascades of stimuli and yielding cascades of this X and cascades of that Y which in summation yield the thing called *design".
The paradigmatic shape of design lays claim to ontological real estate.
Different paradigms mean different things as they employ the semantics of "This was designed". That the reach thereof should end in the psychology of the contingent as such demands the real estate of God's Psychological ontic-ends demands far more than what even the most charitable read of the Naturalist's string of hedges and equivocations in this thread can ever fund.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | March 19, 2015 at 03:56 PM
Oh, John Reed, No.
When someone says, "And unfortunately for you, evolution is the most heavily supported theory in science, pulling in from multiple disciplines"
and
"I have no need to defend it."
We know you have passed beyond simple defense of science to the realm of evolution apologist, dare I say evolution zealot.
"In fact, I want to tear it down. Because that's how science advances, as you suggest."
And yet.... and yet.... you have spent a major amount of time here defending evolution. No sign of this "wanting to tear it down".
Ok. I get you now.
Apologies to Brad B and LHRM (Man, it's hard to say that). They are on the right track with you.
And, you are very naive about the way science really works.
Goat Head 5, signing off.
Posted by: Goat Head 5 | March 19, 2015 at 05:44 PM
SO hard to say that.
so.
hard.
Sigh.
Posted by: Goat Head 5 | March 19, 2015 at 06:05 PM
The reading is getting interesting at UD on the Mathgrll challenge regarding complex specified information. If anyone wants to see a pretty early follow up discussion...about 2 months after the original that cuts to the chase, see this one and read the comments
The original is deteriorating quickly as Mathgrrl is being very coy and chippy. It makes sense though after having a prior reading of his post--the one linked by John Reed. The point of his engaging in the first place at UD was that he took personal offense--this from the description from his own page--so it looks like the guest post by Mathgrrl and the subsequent comments takes on the striking appearance of a vendetta. I suspect Mathgrrl was sufficiently exposed and the charge that CSFO/I is somehow deficient is without merit. I intend to keep reading through the 435 comments on the first and then finish the one linked above which is 296.
Ahhh, The Goat Head 5, I was thinking similarly a few days ago...you are a better man than I for actually making note of it. [I wasn't necessarily opposed to it, but just lacked motivation.]
BTW, you are correct about the "evolution apologist" observation, it has been shown to be a faith based "ism" and it is the reason I quoted Jude earlier in this thread.
Posted by: Brad B | March 19, 2015 at 11:07 PM
One can watch John Lennox talking about belief systems where he makes the distinction between theism and naturalism being faths.
Lennox comes with credentials.
Posted by: Brad B | March 19, 2015 at 11:14 PM
"Mr. Reed,
You make truth claims" then "I thought you had claimed that Man designs laptops."
I did say men design laptops. Whether you like it or not, this carries NO ONTOLOGICAL BAGGAGE. Im making no claims about reality - Im just describing a phenomenon.
@Brad "you say a math algorithm will/could make you a believer in a theory that has no evidence" - no I said it would provide some evidence for ID. Sheesh.
"demonstrate some coherent foundation before moving forward." You keep on insisting on this but the fact remains that you dont need to do this to do science.
"That you cant/wont says a lot"
Yes, it says you dont have a clue what you are talking about. You are the one that wants to use logic to demonstrate that the axioms of logic are true - need I provide more evidence than that that you are confused?
"first provide some starting point from your own observation is ultimate worldview ."
This doesnt make any sense
@sclbrownhrm again
"The paradigmatic shape of design lays claim to ontological real estate."
Yawn. Utter rubbish. I've made on ontological claims. If you think I have, then you need to go and read some philosophy that isnt on a Godist website. Alternatively, explain why I have made an ontological claim so I show why you are wrong.
@GH5
"We know you have passed beyond simple defense of science to the realm of evolution apologist, dare I say evolution zealot."
I love this comment most of all. ALl assertion, no substance. All you needed to do to demonstrate that I was wrong in my claim that evolution is the most evidentially supported theory in science, was to provide evidence that another theory is more heavily supported.
But no. You dont do that. You just claim Im wrong.
And then this!
"And yet.... and yet.... you have spent a major amount of time here defending evolution. "
No, I have. not.
What I have been doing is critiquing the claim that " biological organisms are designed" Thats all. scbrownlhrm has tried to drag me into some foundational propositions nonsense with an occasional tilt at abiogeneis (wut?) and evolution; Brad at least has engaged and provided some references to try and support ID. But this is all about that central claim. YOU brought evolution up.
But its clear you didnt pay attention in school or were badly taught. And you havent raised any substantial issues - all youve done is argued from persoanl incredulity i.e. "I cant see how evolution works, therefore it didnt work". Great job.
scbrownlhrm - PAY HEED TO THIS QUOTE "Apologies to Brad B and LHRM (Man, it's hard to say that)" - its obviously not just me that thinks you "is a bit speshal"
@BradB - "I suspect Mathgrrl was sufficiently exposed and the charge that CSFO/I is somehow deficient is without merit"
Read on. No-one can define CSFO/I. It's never been done. I read the link you posted above - its HILARIOUS the way that kairosfocus waffles arounf blustering about CSI - and never actually defines it. Alot of talk about "the concept of CSI"
Think to yourself Brad - what if Im right and CSI hasnt been defined properly? What does that do to your belief in ID?
"Lennox comes with credentials."
Who cares? That doesnt make him right. Thanks for posting video tho', will watch when I get time.
Posted by: John Reed | March 20, 2015 at 03:56 AM
Predictive power within a set of presuppositions, and belief, and atheism, and theism:
The Chi metric brings in a twin to the problem now faced by the Neo-Darwinian mechanism (Gene X mutates, Gene X gets selected by pressures) alone. That mechanism – alone in isolation – is now recognized by evolutionary biologists as underpowered to explain what we find on our planet. Whenever mechanism is raise, “Genes mutating and getting selected” is, say, “ND”, and cannot be the end of the story. Everybody knows that now. It must be ND + B + C + D… + N to the power of X. And so on. Now, that underpowered status comes in without the Chi metric – It shows up in the non-theist’s corner without any help from the theist. Then, atop such, comes various sorts of lenses such as the Chi metric.
So far so good.
Then comes, well, such lines as Dawkins and many others demonstrate, perhaps in fun – perhaps not when unpacked – that the massive improbability of X is not the *core* to belief / disbelief for, given that the very improbable has not been shown to be impossible, well then the purely naturalistic paradigm on life’s ultimate means and ends is embraced.
But the reverse is true *too*.
As in, a stunning and wide predictive power of X can be demonstrated, and yet that power is not the *core* to belief / disbelief in said X. Neither for the Naturalist nor for the Theist. That is to say, for all of us of the human genre.
Very powerful predictors of patterns fail to “just settle the case”, and, also, grossly underpowered predictors of patterns also fail to “just settle the case”.
Notice our own human genre in these patterns. Mathematical power is – alone – never the end of the story.
Not for the genre called “Human”.
As in:
Christ’s handful of words on time and physicality and man:
The universe will one day collapse upon itself, or into itself, as what was once rolled out is one day rolled back up. The machine will break down. All of it. Mankind will come to the end of himself, as the world grows dense with himself, literally unable to rescue himself from himself. And wars will become commonplace, everywhere, and all circling the drain around some epicenter in some foci or part of the world. Our antibiotics will grow ever more futile, as plagues become commonplace in a hyper-dense vector-filled world. One third of our sea-life will die. Ever more frequent earthquakes, and man’s innate tendency to destroy one another, will, perhaps, have something to do with this. Nature’s Seasons themselves, which have remained unchanged for eons, will in fact change, and winter will no longer be winter, and summer will no longer be summer, or maybe it will all be summer, as the seasons and weather themselves actually change. The love of mankind will wax cold. Something will happen to the food supply of massive areas of Man, leading to massive famines. Man will one day have something which allows, not the destruction of villages, but of continents. The phrase of, “And except those days were shortened mankind would have destroyed himself” will one day be applicable.
Those are specific enough to be proved wrong, and they pre-date such.
And so it is with Type I, or II, or type III predictions – and so on. We believe what we believe, and part of the "Why" is intellectual, and part of the "Why" are existentially felt realities.
Hence the futility of any predictive power whatsoever – to – all by itself – convince anyone of anything. We believe what we believe for far more weighty reasons. All of us. That much is obvious.
*Despite* the Chi metric + the neo-Darwinian failure….. Dawkins’ words ring true – “….but no one has shown it to be impossible…..” extricates a feature in *all* of us. Even on charity of course those two vectors land strongly in the Theist's favor, but the Theist ought not claim immunity here.
That is meant in all seriousness.
The Utility of Science is unquestionable. But, again, this is not what is in question. That "Child sold for sex" has yet to receive an answer form the Skeptic there on essence at the end of one’s metaphysics. If his existentially felt statement is "ought not" he must defend this from the purely Blind and Indifferent. If "blind and indifferent" contradicts our felt reality, then there is incoherence.
And so on.
Science, and Others, give us predictions. But we don't believe what we believe *just* because they "give us predictions that pan out to be true". Dawkins’ phraseology of “It’s not been shown to be impossible, therefore it is plausible” is telling, revealing.
1) The Skeptic offered the presence and/or the absence of various kinds of Prediction Types as a bar by which we can measure "validity" of an argument.
2) Several lists of predictive sets amid presuppositions have been given. Predictions about our Universe, our World, ourselves, and etc. Very falsifiable predictions. Naturalists and Theists alike.
3) We then offered that those predictions, though likely to be validated in the future/now etc. really don't sway us. We don't believe arguments – that is to say – we don’t adhere to this or that Metaphysical Paradigm due “simply” to the presence of this or that type of prediction.
4) The observation that that's not how our "chooser" works is apparent. We are not wholly Cerebral Beings, immune to other "discussions", just as Science is not an exhaustive end in itself, on pains of Scientism’s self-annihilation.
5) It is observed, on both sides here, that the presence of, or the absence of, type one, or two, type three predictions, or whatever, predictions, do not define what is True or False ipso facto; they do not help us at all to “finally settle” if an argument is True/False.
6) We do not believe Christ because of his predictions, though they come true. We do not believe A-T / Christian metaphysical regressions simply because they predict reaches far greater than other less robust lines.
7) We do not believe Atheism, Theism, I.D., or etc, just because of the presence of, or absence of, various types of predictions.
8) Neo-Darwinian math + Chi metric math + prophetic interfaces will never phase the philosophical naturalists.
9) None of us are immune.
In short, the Human Genre is a direct parallel to the genre of real Science in that there is not an exhaustive "singularity" in-play.
Just as Science in isolation is self-annihilating there in Scientism's absurdity, so also is Man’s Existential in isolation misleading, and so also is Man’s Finger/Eye there in physicality / appearances (in isolation) misleading.
It is unmistakable: all our beliefs, Theistic and Non-Theistic, are a two-part phenomenon – just as [Science] + [X] is by necessity itself a two-part phenomenon.
While the Naturalists, the Absolute Idealists, and the Existentialist all run from these unavoidable realities, the Christian’s metaphysical paradigm easily subsumes and casually accommodates all such contours – and in fact predicts such margins within the ground beneath our feet, within our own chests, and there within the sky above our heads.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | March 20, 2015 at 04:04 AM
The starfish sees it's own fingerprints left in the sand there on the ocean floor and all its motions there - though the products of the irrationally conditioned bundle of reflexes inside it's wad of sodium channels - are to its "eye" the very zenith of design.
Atop the land in another sort of ocean another sort of irrationally conditioned bundle of reflexes called Man too declares his Zenith as he sees his own marks left upon his own ocean's sand.
This the Naturalist cries. Day and night.
One wonders on the paradigmatic shape of the things we call design.
The Theist alone outreaches.....
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | March 20, 2015 at 04:57 AM
EXCELLENT! Jonh Moore, I couldn't agree more. One has to do some coherent logical inspection to verify if his propositions are true, anyone can do it but how well depends on how close one looks. I'm expecting the 6s method from you on him.
I'll be hard pressed to engage the technical work at UD's posts...the comments are instructive and educational. The Lennox video is very appropos for this conversation...I've seem him many times[not live], but I let the audio run while I turned in and it kept me up til the q/a so I turned it off...many topics here were addressed...nothing to do with ID.
Here is a good resource from UD for answers to FAQ. Mathgrrl was referred there a few times.
Posted by: Brad B | March 20, 2015 at 06:58 AM
After reading all of the 439 posts at UD, it seems clear to me that as Randall Terry is quoted as saying "he who frames the question wins the debate". Did Mathgrrl get the answer?
No but the post revealed quite a lot, and it was surprisingly somewhat easy to follow...most of the linked papers/articles maybe not so much
I may go back and list some of the round up type posts if someone wants to get some take aways but it'd be best to invest the time to read it and follow along.
Even though the talent in that blog post was on a high plane, there are some things that project through the language that are universal to all levels of sophistication....the link above to youtube video with John Lennox applies to what at the root.
Posted by: Brad B | March 21, 2015 at 10:03 PM