Comments by "nexus1g" (@nexus1g) on "TED"
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William Maddock "You see, I only said that it is intelligently arranged, and did not identify that intelligence."
Actually, you did when you aligned with the comment you quoted, "so perfectly organized a structure it was hard not to attribute divinity to it."
"It does me no good to beat you over the head with an assertion that the God of the Bible is real, if you have not even accepted the necessity of some god being real, and even that would seem to be down the road a piece for you."
It appears that you're the one jumping to conclusions. I did not identify "God" as the Semitic deity Yhvh.
"Because of that, I have only spoken to you about an intelligence having arranged and organized life."
There is no need for intelligence when we see that the entire makeup of animal life as we know it is carbon, hydrogen nitrogen calcium, phosphorous, potassium, sulfur, sodium, chlorine, magnesium and oxygen. That is everything that you and I are. Nothing more, and nothing less.
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William Maddock "I have made no such connection in conversation with you, and quoting something said in a video by a scientist does not mean that I said it."
In this thread, you did -- whether it was directly addressed to me or not. Also, when you're quoting it in support of your argument, you are aligning yourself with what's said in that comment.
"The name is not Yhvh, it is יהוה, and Semitic would not be sufficiently specific anyway, since you want to link it to a particular people group. if you're going to make that error, you might as well go the full course. The correct term would be Jewish, or Israelite. It is not a correct thing to do, though, since God does not care what people group you hail from."
Yhvh is the Romanized equivalent for the consonants in יהוה. Also, if you want to get really picky about it, "יהוה" is wrong as well since the name was originally written in Phoenician script as the Hebrew alphabet didn't come along until much later. Correcting me on that ground is just petty and pointless. Yhvh is a Semitic god and one of the Semitic pantheon including Ba'al Hadad, Molech, Dagon, Chemosh and many more.
"Then you are going to have to explain, using only physics and chemistry and nothing else, the accurate execution of the functional information written using those elements."
Actually, I don't. The fact that we are made up of only those atoms is easily verifiable and widely known. You have to prove that intelligent design is the only way life can come from those elements, because those elements, as is self-evident, combine on their own without the need for outside help. Therefore, it's up to you to prove -- through valid argument, mind you, not just "it's really complex" -- that intelligent design was involved or at least there being a requirement for intelligent design.
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William Maddock "...we arrive at intelligence as the only known cause of functional information."
Information exists whether life does or not. It's not something that's created, it simply is inherent to everything. What humans call information is nothing but the organization of occurrences into something we can understand. Unfortunately, your belief that a god created everything, makes it impossible for me to prove to you that information doesn't need a creator.
"Darwin was using selective breeding and applying it to nature, but natural selection cannot generate new, functional information, but only select from what already exists. Therefore Natural Selection cannot explain the origin of anything, but only its modification, which, ironically, means that "On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life" only explains the second half of its title, but not the first."
Darwin is talking about speciation, not the origin of life. His thesis was on how there gets to be so many different types of finches -- not how finches originally came about.
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William Maddock I understand what you're saying, but my understanding doesn't make you right.
You see, there's two cases here in this debate.
1. Nature can create "useful information," and the fact that you're here to ask that question is proof of that.
2. Nature cannot create "useful information," and the fact that you're here to ask that question is proof of intelligent design.
Now to determine which of these two scenarios is more likely, we have to first determine if there is anything in the molecular makeup of anything we are is impossible. The answer is that it is improbable (even highly improbable), but not impossible. That is what we've measured.
Now, what about the other way -- is it possible that an intelligence created everything in the universe including life on Earth? First of all, is this intelligence measurable? No, from what we've seen, it's not. As far as we know, no such intelligence exists, because we've seen no evidence of it. Also, from what we understand of intelligence, such an intelligence cannot exist. There is no incorporeal intelligence seen in the universe. All intelligence in every form we know occurs within some corporeal form, because the corporeal form is required to direct energy resulting in conclusions.
The conclusion is that at this point in time, with what we know, it is impossible that an intelligence created the Universe and life on Earth. That conclusion is in no way overridden by an ancient astrological soap opera that is the Canaanite pantheon, the Rig Veda or any number of other religious texts. Occam's Razor: The simpler solution is that molecules following physical properties to combine into complex self-replicating molecules is the simpler solution than an impossible, incorporeal intelligence which cannot be measured forced what could otherwise have occurred without that impossible intelligence.
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