Why it is a good thing to question the materialistic anti-ID position
The following sums up the materialistic anti-ID position:
added via edit:
Over on the ARN Discussion Board Bertvan has linked to this site. A few anti-IDists have responded with babbling nonsense so I will clarify (again)-
The materialistic anti-ID position is nothing more than "sheer-dumb-luck" and that includes the laws that govern our physical realm. The Earth/ Moon system? The "scientific" explanation is that an accidental collision between the proto-Earth and a giant imapctor- sheer-dumb-luck. Also if another accidental collision didn't occur we wouldn't be here! That is because that other impact wiped out the dinosaurs which allowed mammals to further evolve. Sheer-dumb-luck at its finest.
Mutations? Genetic accidents- no goals or plans involved. Natural selection? Blind and without a purpose.
The conclusion Don Provan should draw is that his materialistic anti-ID position is a science-stopper. Relying on sheer dumb luck is un-scientific as it cannot be objectively tested. Saying something evolved without knowing whether or not any mechanism can account for the evolution is also a science stopper and also untestable.
How is CS Lewis using the word "accident"?
anything that happens by chance without an apparent cause
If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents - the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else's. But if their thoughts - i.e., of Materialism and Astronomy - are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true?
I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents.
It's like expecting that the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milk-jug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset.--CS Lewis
added via edit:
Over on the ARN Discussion Board Bertvan has linked to this site. A few anti-IDists have responded with babbling nonsense so I will clarify (again)-
The materialistic anti-ID position is nothing more than "sheer-dumb-luck" and that includes the laws that govern our physical realm. The Earth/ Moon system? The "scientific" explanation is that an accidental collision between the proto-Earth and a giant imapctor- sheer-dumb-luck. Also if another accidental collision didn't occur we wouldn't be here! That is because that other impact wiped out the dinosaurs which allowed mammals to further evolve. Sheer-dumb-luck at its finest.
Mutations? Genetic accidents- no goals or plans involved. Natural selection? Blind and without a purpose.
The conclusion Don Provan should draw is that his materialistic anti-ID position is a science-stopper. Relying on sheer dumb luck is un-scientific as it cannot be objectively tested. Saying something evolved without knowing whether or not any mechanism can account for the evolution is also a science stopper and also untestable.
How is CS Lewis using the word "accident"?
anything that happens by chance without an apparent cause
posted by Joe G @ 7:24 AM
6 Comments:
At 11:33 AM,
inunison said…
You rightly point out that Materialism cannot account for it's own existence and we are asked and sometimes forced to accept it unconditionally. Well, thanks to good old empirical science their world is falling apart and cannot be sustained anymore with proclamations and speculations. I personally thought it would not happen during my lifetime and now I am witness to its demise. Exciting times we are living in, indeed.
At 11:46 AM,
inunison said…
Science commits suicide when it adopts a creed. ~Thomas Henry Huxley
At 11:58 AM,
CJYman said…
re: science and random events ...
from my blog (http://cjyman.blogspot.com/search/label/RM%20%2B%20NS%20as%20unscientific)
"What scientific filter is used to separate an occurrence that is the result of natural laws from one that is the result of random chance occurrences? If you can’t provide this, then Random Mutations becomes a science stopper, since it is equivalent to throwing your hands up in the air and saying “I don’t know how natural laws could have done it so it must be the result of a random chance occurrence (of course filtered by the scientifically verifiable fact that things that don’t work in their respective environment, just plain don’t work and those things which do work, usually continue working -- natural selection).”
Furthermore,
I quote Professor Hasofer:
"The problem [of falsifiability of a probabilistic statement] has been dealt with in a recent book by G. Matheron, entitled Estimating and Choosing: An Essay on Probability in Practice (Springer-Verlag, 1989). He proposes that a probabilistic model be considered falsifiable if some of its consequences have zero (or in practice very low) probability. If one of these consequences is observed, the model is then rejected.
‘The fatal weakness of the monkey argument, which calculates probabilities of events “somewhere, sometime”, is that all events, no matter how unlikely they are, have probability one as long as they are logically possible, so that the suggested model can never be falsified. Accepting the validity of Huxley’s reasoning puts the whole probability theory outside the realm of verifiable science. In particular, it vitiates the whole of quantum theory and statistical mechanics, including thermodynamics, and therefore destroys the foundations of all modern science. For example, as Bertrand Russell once pointed out, if we put a kettle on a fire and the water in the kettle froze, we should argue, following Huxley, that a very unlikely event of statistical mechanics occurred, as it should “somewhere, sometime”, rather than trying to find out what went wrong with the experiment!’
At 1:08 AM,
jqb said…
"But if their thoughts - i.e., of Materialism and Astronomy - are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true?"
According to the evolutionists, our thoughts aren't "merely accidental by-products", they are products of brains that resulted in a process for which only organisms that can operate well in their environment can survive -- and in our environment, that means brains that can't reason somewhat accurately won't arise. You may think that the theory of evolution is wrong, but the notion (Alvin Plantinga's notion, which you are presenting here without attribution) that naturalism is inconsistent with natural selection is sheer horsepucky.
At 1:36 AM,
jqb said…
"of course filtered by the scientifically verifiable fact that things that don’t work in their respective environment, just plain don’t work and those things which do work, usually continue working -- natural selection"
In order to effectively criticize something, one should at least understand it well enough to accurately characterize it, but the above doesn't mention reproduction, and therefore isn't about evolution at all. Natural selection has nothing to do with things that do work continuing to work, it has to do with offspring that work better outnumbering offspring that don't work as well. It's heritable traits that are selected according to how well the resulting organism works in its environment -- where "works" means able to survive long enough to produce offspring.
At 7:47 AM,
Joe G said…
TS:
According to the evolutionists, our thoughts aren't "merely accidental by-products", they are products of brains that resulted in a process for which only organisms that can operate well in their environment can survive -- and in our environment, that means brains that can't reason somewhat accurately won't arise.
According to evolutionists are brains are the product of "culled genetic accidents". And also there isn't any scientific data that demonstrates a human brain can "evolve" from a non-human brain, via any mechanism.
TS:
You may think that the theory of evolution is wrong, but the notion (Alvin Plantinga's notion, which you are presenting here without attribution) that naturalism is inconsistent with natural selection is sheer horsepucky.
Umm I quoted CS Lewis and gave the proper credit. Also it does not and I did not sau nor imply that naturalism is inconsistent with natural selection.
It looks like your reading comprehension skills are horse puckey.
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