More Denton: Reply to Tony (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, August 02, 2015, 08:18 (3192 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

I have had to edit some comments to fit into the space available.-TONY: To assume that something we have never observed must have happened in order to explain something else that we have never observed for the sole purpose of getting rid of God? (i.e. one of the stated primary purposes of naturalism)
Dhw: No, no, no, that is not the purpose of the theory of evolution! ...-TONY: I did not say evolution, I said naturalism:
" [...]naturalism abandons the need for a higher power, creator, and God." 
-We were and are discussing evolution, not naturalism. Why did you bring this up if you were not trying to link the two? -DHW: As an agnostic, I find it a little sad to hear theistic pots and atheistic kettles using the same language about each other [...] 
TONY: Believe it or not, this is not a case of a pot calling the kettle black. This is a simple case of Occam's Razor. [...] But which story is simplest: That an intelligent design had an intelligent designer, or that things that defy the laws of probability (and numerous other laws of nature) not only happened, but happened hundreds of millions of times?-There is nothing simple about the concept of an intelligence that had no source (or if it did, what was the source?) but is capable of creating universes and microbes out of materials from who knows where? An atheist will tell you that such a being defies the laws of probability (and every other law of nature). Your “explanation” of life's mystery relies on and creates another mystery. Pots and kettles. -DHW: ..If we take the Cambrian as our biggest evolutionary problem, here are five hypothetical explanations, every one of which allows for the existence of God:
1) Darwin: the precursors did exist, but we haven't found them yet (common descent).
2) God created all the new species separately.
3) God preprogrammed all the new species in the first cells, and the relevant programmes were switched on during the Cambrian (common descent).
4) God individually transformed existing species into new species (common descent, a sort of evolutionary variation on 2)).
5) Organisms contain an autonomous, intelligent, inventive mechanism (designed by God?) which enables them to innovate in response to new environmental conditions (common descent).-TONY: This is where your ideas fail, because while direct observations of direct creation are impossible observe, the corollaries to that theory are not impossible to observe. 
From the very nature of creation according to kinds:
a) Organisms will appear in the fossil record without precursor.
b) Organisms will appear fully formed and fully functional.
c) There will be no observed macro evolution. 
d) There will be variation within a 'kind', but no transition between one kind and another.-My 3), 4) and 5) can tick your a), b) and c), but as regards d) I don't see why separate creation inevitably means variations, whereas my 5) certainly does.
 
TONY: From the nature of a single designer:
a) Organisms will have similar functionality
b) Similar functionality will have similar design patterns inherent to it. 
c) A careful study would show purpose behind the design.
d) Disparate systems would be designed to work together, despite having no logical evolutionary pathways to arrive at such cooperation.
e) The system would tend towards balance(random systems tend towards chaos)-Which of these contradicts my 3), 4) and 5)?-TONY: ... don't all weaver birds create extremely SIMILAR nests? Is what we are looking at inventive, or simply variation on a theme?-DAVID: Thank you for this wonderful point. If weaverbirds set out to invent their nest design in a population of birds, one would expect several different designs instead of all the same...-Once a pattern is successful, it is passed on: this applies to habitats and lifestyles and (for David, not Tony) all the innovations that led from bacteria to humans. What designed these protopatterns? On Wednesday July 29 David agreed that we can't tell if it's a 3.8-billion-year computer programme or an onboard mechanism for planning (= my autonomous inventive mechanism), and on Friday July 31 Tony speculated that God might have given the weaverbird “the abilities that make nest building possible” (= my autonomous inventive mechanism). Thank you both for your support. (Glad you joined in, David. Any chance of your informing Tony why you think he's wrong over common descent?) -TONY: It is hard to agree on classifications when you are trying to fit the data to the theory instead of the other way around. And given that funding is not granted to anti-evolutionary scientist, which paleontologist with a sense of self-preservation is going to speak out against it?-Are you claiming that all the hominid/hominin fossils are in fact modern humans, but the palaeontologists are covering this fact up in order to keep their posts?