"It's an interesting example and I get your point: you cannot calculate exact odds in any of these cases. " Let's not pretend here. Not only cant you calculate EXACT odds, you cant calculate odds AT ALL. Your inserting of the word "exact" is an attempt to muddy the very clear statistical waters. My example showed YOU giving us WILDY different probabilities, ranging from 0 all the way to 1, with only a SINGLE variable missing. The universe is infinitely more complex, and probably contains infinitely more variables, YET YOU STILL CLAIM, you can calculate odds with ANY accuracy. Your not even close to having a position Shoeshine. The real life example is FAR WORSE for you than my simple example. " But it is your conclusion that I strongly disagree with. You are doing the same old argument: you are saying we cannot calculate exact odds so we can't "prove" God. Again and again, I agree. And I don't think anyone anywhere disputes that. I'm not trying to say I can prove God stochastically. But by any standard the numbers show that these are ultra low probability events. " By any standard????? How about the mathematical one which says YOU CANT CLAIM these are low probability events, AT ALL. Period. Name ONE standard which supports the notion that these are ultra low probability events. "Besides, your example does not represent the current astronomical situation nor the Origin of Life situation. Science basically knows what is in the bag and what is on the board. " It doesnt have to. It was a LESSON in statistics to show you WHERE you are incorrectly using statistics. So now science "basically" knows whats in the bag? Funny how you trust science when it supports your position and reject it when it doesnt "science basically knows" is admitting that THERE ARE missing variables. Not only that, you have NO IDEA how many variables are missing, any one of which, could make life extremely LIKELY in the universe. "Take the Origin of Life. Scientists know they have to start with amino acids and end up with something that looks like RNA or DNA. There's not enough hidden to make this calculation so difficult that you can't estimate the probabilities are astronomically low. " There's NOT enough hidden??? Could this assertion be any more unsupported??? Are you claiming you KNOW EXACTLY how RNA/DNA works to a T??? Really?? The calculation isnt so difficult??? If that were true we wouldnt be having this conversation because science would already know exactly how this happened. "You could take a Cray computer and Monte Carlo it if you wanted to. But nobody is going to bother because everyone knows the odds are so infinitesimal! " Everyone already knows?!??!? Are you kidding me??? Shoeshine, you argument has been so thoroughly picked to pieces, and yet you cling to it. Look at all the empty assertions and false claims you just made in this SINGLE POST in an attempt to defend it after I clearly showed how incredibly flawed it is. What more can I say? It is clear that you wish to delude yourself with "fuzzy" math, empty assertions, and false assumptions, to support the conclusion you wish to draw in your mind. You simply don't have a case. Your cop out is that you are not trying to prove god exists, and yet continue to push a flawed design argument that stu and I have completely dismantled. Doesn't gel. peace axeman
1) So your admitting that Shoeshines position does not hold water statistically? 2) Applying my argument to gods design of giraffes requires that god exists first. Please prove god exists, and then I can use him as a valid variable for odds calculation So basically, the question is: What are the odds that the giraffe dropping 6 feet on it's head is a flaw, versus designed in? Is that what your asking? This begs the question of gods existence. Until YOU first PROVE god exists, the answer to the question is: ZERO. Since a non-existent god has zero probability of designing in a flaw. I might as well ask: What are the odds that a three headed purple unicorn DESIGNED the flaw into giraffe birth?? It's absolutely MEANINGLESS unless we first are aware of the 3 headed unicorns existence. I await your proof, then we can discuss odds. peace axeman ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Please apply this same argument to knowing the giraffe birth is a defect or the bus accidents Gods fault conclusions you draw. You simply do not know all the variables and yet draw a one sided conclusion. Or the same could be said of any design flaw in nature. To nearly quote you "Your house of drawing conclusions has collapsed". [/B][/QUOTE]
Shoeshine, One of your favorite fallacies is APPEALING TO AUTHORITY. You commit this same error, OVER AND OVER. Does Hawkings believe in god? No. Does that carry any weight? NO! And who gives a crap what his colleague says. SHOW US HIS PROOF of god, or drop it. You can ALWAYS find religious scientists. So what. It doesnt prove a damn thing. They are still held to the same standard of science. Their OPINIONS are worthless. Their research and evidence is not. If Einstein claimed that it is his OPINION that E=MC^2, no one would give a damn. It's his WORK, his RESEARCH, his EQUATIONS, that hold water. An opinion IS NOT A PROOF. You can appeal to authority all day long, and it doesnt help your position one bit. ITS A FALLACY. Do you understand this????????????? Why do you continue to argue in FALLACIOUS terms???? This is very frustrating. I will no longer reply to your posts if you continue to post FALLACIOUS arguments over and over and over and refuse to learn anything from previous errors. There is no point. "Do you really think that your mathematical and scientific knowledge is so superior that you need to make such disparaging remarks? I'm just not seeing it... " The above sentence is such utter bullshit. I have NEVER implied any such thing. What you fail to understand is, that being a leading researcher, or genius physicist DOES NOT, in ANYWAY, automatically place your opinions ABOVE logic or science. I could have ZERO scientific and mathematical knowledge, and STILL be FULLY CAPABLE of identifying bullshit logic, and bad arguments. peace axeman
"Do you really think that your mathematical and scientific knowledge is so superior that you need to make such disparaging remarks? I'm just not seeing it... " The above sentence is such utter bullshit. I have NEVER implied any such thing. What you fail to understand is, that being a leading researcher, or genius physicist DOES NOT, in ANYWAY, automatically place your opinions ABOVE logic or science. I'm not the one who said that belief in God is for kids. That was YOU. You don't like it when someone challenges such arrogant statments with the fact that many top scientists believe there is the possiblity of God? I can't help that. This is unfair. You deliberately taunt every Jew, deist and Christian on the board and then you expect me to just sit on my hands? You would not do the same thing if you were in my position and you know it. Even agnostic astrophyicist Robert Jastrow said, "For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has a scaled the nation of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centureis." Here is one of our greatest astrophyicists recognizing the validitity of the deistic position. Yet you mock and taunt it and expect no response?
shine boy, axeman has a profound hatred of all things spiritual. perhaps because he was let down by faith. who knows ?? best, surfer boy
No, I am not claiming it: many of the top cosmologists and physicists in our country are claiming it. They are not putting an exact # on it, but they are CLEARLY saying that the odds show there is a strong possibility of intelligent design. Arno Penzias, Nobel prize winner for physics (for COBE no less!): "Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing, one with the very delicate balance needed to provide exactly the conditions required to permit life, and one which has an underlying (one might say "supernatural" plan). Gasp! He used the "S" word! Roger Penrose, distinguished mathematician, author and colleague of Hawking, said, "I would say the universe has a purpose. It's not there just somehow by chance." I am getting frustrated because you are not even commenting on the science in this. These things are well enough understood to look at the scientific evidence without being able to calculate the exact probabilities. Thatâs what you keep missing here. Youâre the only one saying that since we donât have exact probabilistic calculations, we canât look at the scientific evidence.
Sorry - it just seems nonreciprocating. Yesterday I admitted to Stu that I made a fool out of myself with a source after he raked me. But with these guys I never even get a response, "Yeah, I can see your point..." Here's another example: I am willing to say that I see Axe's point on evolutionary design. I don't have a great response. See I admitted it! I admit there's things I don't know and that I don't have all the answers...
Think of it like this. If someone has rejected God, and has built their house on the straw of their finite mind only, it would be very frightening to think that their house is not really as safe as they feel in it. There is a reason for the bitterness, and sense of self superiority, and if you understand human psychology at all, you can easily see where the bile comes from.....a broken heart.
Thatâs my point! Science by and large knows that this didnât happen. Theyâre abandoning ship. Imo you are ignoring the science in all this: the RNA/DNA models have been directly simulated in 1000's of labs around the country for decades. The miracle self-organization that materialists were hoping for just does not exist. Nobody even needs to do the calculation because DNA/RNA research has failed. It's a scientific relic now and it's time to let it go...
The pattern continues. Your non-argument boils down to cherry picking quotes from a minority set of scientists while completely missing the bigger picture. For example... Robert Griffiths, is a member of the National Academy of sciences. He is ALSO an evangelical Christian and amateur theologian who teaches a course on christianity and science. This does NOT make him wrong, that would be poisoning the well BUT.... THE POINT IS, he represents the mere 3% of the members of the National Academy of sciences who are THEISTS. ONLY 3 percent! You are cherry picking to an extreme to make it SEEM that theology is representative of our scientists. This is simply not the case, and a blatant rejection of reality. You also consistently fail to argue your point, and instead, as stu has already pointed out, instantly SWITCH to a new position and HURL tons of new empty assertions as fast as you can, in an attempt to dodge and muddy the waters. But you have been incapable of defending a single position. You just change the subject or re-ignite some old debate you previously failed to defend, in a panicked dodged. There is no point in debating with someone who is only capable of piling empty assertions on top of other older ones, believing that if he gets this pile of unsupported claims tall enough, it will mean something. It simply DOESN'T. Your statistical design argument has been shown to be totally flawed. Your genesis argument was shredded in 100 ways by stu. Your argument that science has somehow rejected materialism, or that scientists somehow support theology is baseless and only based on unsupported quotes, opinions and cherry picking. It just doesn't work. "You don't like it when someone challenges such arrogant statments with the fact that many top scientists believe there is the possiblity of God? " Here is yet another example of how you twist the facts. MANY top scientists believe there is the possibility of god??? Possibility??? Well no kidding. So what? All scientists should believe there is a POSSIBILITY of anything. Even I think there is a POSSIBILITY for a god. There is a POSSIBILITY of 3 headed unicorns too. Big deal. The fact is, there is a STRONG correlation between NON-belief and your level scientific education. The National Academy of Sciences who Griffiths is a member of is 97% non-theistic, so STOP pretending that our brightest guys are all into god somehow. It's simply NOT the case. peace axeman