Comments by "Philip Rayment" (@PJRayment) on "PragerU"
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@pope9187
Some scientists, in espousing the idea of a multiverse, have suggested that other universes could have different laws of physics. So possibly yes, they could have been otherwise, if being otherwise doesn't defy logic.
We could say that God designed evolution except for two things. 1) God told us otherwise. 2) For God-designed evolution to work, the mutations would have to be non-random. In fact some mutations aren't completely random, in that there are some mutations that are more likely than others, or that occur in specific places more than in other places. But other mutations are completely random, and randomness is the opposite of design.
I guess then next option is ones like Dawkins' Weasel computer program, where random changes (mutations) are non-randomly (intelligently) selected. However, there are two problems with this also. One is that there is no evidence of an effective non-random selection mechanism, i.e. no evidence that evolution has an end goal, and the second is that as things work now, any selection of "good" mutations would be swamped by the bad mutations. To illustrate, geneticists have discovered that each new generation of humans has around 100 additional mutations on top of the ones inherited from the previous generation. Virtually all of those mutations are negative ones (albeit most are almost-neutral). Natural selection selects entire organisms, not individual mutations. So there is no way to select the very rare slightly-"good" mutations without also selecting all the new bad mutations.
"Seems like ID could cut out a lot of this nonsense about irreducible complexity and specified complexity ... but at least it isn’t using God as a stop-gap for the incompleteness of our knowledge."
ID doesn't use God as a stop-gap. ID says that there is evidence of design, but doesn't try and identify the designer. Meyer in this video is going beyond the science of ID and saying that God is the best explanation of that design.
And, as you will see if you watch the video carefully, God is a rational conclusion, not a claim merely from lack of an alternative.
I don't accept your claim that we know from experience that minds are only associated with physical brains. We have long known about the immaterial God (the idea was not invented to explain the origin of information) and have plenty of evidence for Him. Intelligence, like information, is something immaterial, even if with humans it is tied to a physical object.
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@pope9187 God told us otherwise in Genesis.
"And why would you need genetic mutations to be non-random?"
Because, as I said, "randomness is the opposite of design." Random mutations destroy, not create.
"I mean, presumably theists believe that God personally made them,..."
No, I believe that I came about by a process that God designed. God could have intervened directly or indirectly in that process, but I don't know whether He did.
"...that specific sperm cell was no more “designed” to fertilize that oocyte any more than the millions of other sperm cells that didn’t get there in time were."
Yes, God built in a system that may be random, but which operates within designed limits. I'd say that it's analogous to a computer game that has a random component in the designed game. That is, randomness might control which adversary appears next, but only limited aspects like that. The system is not just designed for randomness, though; it's also designed for fitness, with the fastest sperm being the winner.
"... the selection process isn’t, it’s based on adaptability and that trait aiding in survival."
True, natural selection is not random, in principle. However, natural selection is a weak process. The deer that is killed by the lion may be the weakest, but it might also be the unluckiest, such as the nearest one. Further, the environment is random, in the sense that the environment could have been open grassland, forest, lake, or whatever.
"...you’re just plainly wrong to say there is no evidence of an effective non-random selection mechanism."
Then it's just as well that I didn't say that! As I've already alluded to, there are three mechanisms for why things are the way they are. 1) Design, 2) randomness, 3) laws of nature. Natural selection falls in the last category.
But I'm not sure what your concern is. Natural selection selects, it doesn't create. In order for natural selection to help evolution along, there has to be improved creatures to select from. There is no mechanism for making such improved creatures.
"…I don’t think there is any empirical evidence as of yet to support an immaterial mind independent of a physical brain."
Not directly, no. But plenty of indirect evidence that God exists.
"…issues like the Interaction Problem…"
Why is that even a problem? To paraphrase someone, I don't think that there is any empirical evidence as of yet to support that the immaterial can't interact with the material.
"…what exactly does ID think about evolution?"
I'm not an ID expert. But as I understand it, the ID adherents generally accept common descent. Whether or not that's a formal part of ID I don't know.
"I mean, from what I’ve heard from Meyer, it’s kinda just like “something, something, Cambrian explosion..? blah, blah, must be designed”…"
Again, I'm not sure, but my understanding is that it's (formally) nothing more than "there is evidence of design". How that design was incorporated into living things I think is an open question for ID (even if not for some of its adherents). But as there is formally no conclusion that God is the designer, then it can't be a god of the gaps argument.
"Like if I asked Meyer how homo sapiens came about, what would he tell me, that they were created from the dust in one spontaneous instant absent any genetic precursors?"
I don't know his personal beliefs in that regard, but I assume not.
"Because I’m pretty sure there’s no scientific evidence that would support that…"
It depends on what sort of scientific evidence you are talking about. There scientific evidence that humans didn't evolve from an ape-like creature. There are too many differences between chimp DNA and human DNA to have come about in the supposed time available. To go from the first living thing to humans is genetically impossible. Having ruled out that naturalistic view, the only alternative, special creation, is thereby supported scientifically.
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@elzoog
It may not be possible in every single case, but we have a pretty good idea of what nature can and can't do. For example, Paul Davies said that the laws of physics can't create information: "biological information is not encoded in the laws of physics and chemistry … (and it) cannot come into existence spontaneously. … There is no known law of physics able to create information from nothing."
Some things are just so unlikely that their odds are effectively zero. "[Fred Hoyle] calculated the odds against a simple functioning protein molecule originating by chance in some primordial soup as being the same as if you filled the whole solar system shoulder-to-shoulder with blind men and their Rubik’s cubes, then expected them all to get the right solution at the same time."
Entropy is also a useful guide. It tells us that things break down, or go from complex to simple. An old example is that of gas in a two-chambered container. Put gas in one compartment, and it will spread to the other (connected) compartment. Why? Simply because that's the most likely outcome. In theory, there is no reason why you couldn't put the gas in both compartments and then observe it concentrating itself all in one of the compartments, as the movements are random. But the odds of that happening are so vanishingly small that we don't even consider it a possibility. The only way it can happen is with a mechanism (e.g. a pump and valve) that makes it go that way. But that requires design.
Another example is a lottery. The winner is the result of a chance process. But if the same person kept winning week after week, we'd know that it wasn't chance, but design (i.e. somebody causing it to happen that way). The authorities, even without knowing who was rigging it, would suspend it until the cause was found, because they would be so certain that it couldn't happen by chance, i.e. naturally.
Another point is that we already do this. The lottery was one example, but another, and one touching on my first comment that it may not be possible in every single case, is that of stone tools. Archaeologists often have to determine whether the shape of the stone they found is natural or was man-made (i.e. a tool). They don't throw up their arms in horror and say "We have no way of determining if this was created (shaped) by an intelligence". No, typically, they can tell.
Yet another example of this is the SETI program. It was designed (!) to search for radio signals from an intelligent species. But how would we know if the signal came from an intelligent species? Because a random signal or noise can be explained by nature, as can a repetitive signal, such as a beep every 3.6 seconds. But a non-random, not repetitive signal must be from an intelligence. Do you know what a non-random, non-repetitive signal looks like? Well, your reading one! The letters in these sentences are not random, but neither are they repetitive.
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@pope9187
"…it’s a collection of stories from an ancient Hebrew culture from thousands of years ago before science was even an established study."
What does science have to do with it? It is (in large part) a historical record. You don't need to do science in order to accurately record things you see and hear.
"why would we take the Book of Genesis to be a reputable source of human origins though…"
Because it claims to be, is accepted by millions to be, and shows evidence of being, the testimony of God Himself. And He would know.
"…why can’t you just say the same thing about evolution, a process which is also predicated on the fittest surviving."
Because evolution has no mechanism for producing the enormous amount of new information required. You're referring to natural selection rather than evolution. Yes, natural selection (in principle) causes the fittest to survive. But where did the fittest come from? There is nothing in evolution to create ever more fitter and fitter creatures.
"And this is kinda why ID isn’t taken seriously in the scientific community, because it’s literally pseudoscience,…"
No, it's not pseudoscience, and it's not taken seriously by a large part of the scientific community (not all of it) because it points to a designer, which atheists can't stand the thought of. Not that all those scientists are atheists, but the atheists lead the charge on this, and many others follow like sheep.
"…whenever you try to pin down details of when or how a supposed intelligent designer tinkered with things and what that consisted of and how precisely humans fit into that, then it’s just this wishy washy “well, i dont really know… but like, Darwinian evolution is impossible.."
So you're arguing that because ID doesn't have all the answers, it's pseudoscience? Then I guess all of science is pseudoscience also.
"It literally adds nothing to the discourse other than to claim design,…"
Which is not a case of adding nothing! That's a very significant step. If, for example, scientists thought that living things were designed, they would not have proposed a list of over 100 (I believe) vestigial organs, i.e. evolutionary leftovers with no remaining purpose. This thinking led to doctors removing things like wisdom teeth and tonsils far too readily, until it was discovered that they weren't useless leftovers after all. (Of course there is still a case for removing them if they are causing problems.) It also wouldn't have led to the idea of 'junk DNA' (effectively another 'vestigial' component), holding back discovery of what that DNA is for, for years.
Professor John Mattick said that "the failure to recognise the implications of the non-coding DNA will go down as the biggest mistake in the history of molecular biology". A mistake that likely would not have been made if scientists didn't assume no-design.
"If you disagree, name for me one thing that would potentially disprove ID."
Showing that design is not required for the origin of living things or parts thereof.
"We can do this for evolution,…"
Pull the other one.
"…even as far back in Darwin’s day you had J.B.S. Haldane ..."
Not that it changes the argument, but Haldane was born a decade after Darwin died.
"...suggesting that if anybody could find a fossil of a rabbit in the pre-Cambrian layer, evolution would be thoroughly disproven outright,…"
He also said that we would not find wheels or magnets in living things, but we have found both, and yet evolutionists still hold to their beliefs. And, we've also found pollen in the Precambrian, but that somehow hasn't caused evolution to be discarded. No, evolution is such a flexible hypothesis that it can be changed to accommodate any finding, which means that it's NOT falsifiable.
"…evolution by natural selection is still the best scientific model for explaining the data…"
Yes, that's what the true believers in evolution believe, but the evidence says otherwise.
"I mean after all, Meyer never actually cared about the science, his entire objective is just pushing Christian conservatism into the culture,…"
The Wedge Strategy said that Meyer doesn't care about the science, does it? Where?
"Who knows if he actually even believes half of the stuff that he promotes."
Who knows if you believe half the stuff you're saying? I mean, a question like that is designed to cast doubt without a scintilla of evidence or argument.
"evolutionary theory and big bang cosmology actually have predictive capabilities which accord with data."
ID and creationism both have those as well. But evolution has often been shown to be wrong, and is just modified to fit anyway. As I said, it's unfalsifiable.
"We’ve mapped various genomic structures, which have demonstrated common ancestry in the manner which has been suspected, even prior to our knowledge of a genetic code."
Actually, genomic information has contradicted various evolutionary claims previously made.
"…as of right now it appears that our sciences must operate on methodological naturalism…"
Why? Why a priori rule out a supernatural explanation? That is a case of deliberately introducing bias, and science is surely supposed be about coming up with correct explanations, not natural explanations.
"…this isn’t to say there is no supernatural realm or no God or any of that,…"
Technically, that's correct. But having started with the assumption that the explanations must be natural, when that 'science' is used (as many people do) so say that the Bible got it wrong, they are simply making a circular argument—concluding with the premise they started with. Plus, those natural explanations never come with a caveat pointing out that they presuppose naturalism, so they are deceptive.
"…those suppositions have literally had no explanatory effect on any scientific theory or discovery."
Not true. See the article "Does Intelligent Design Help Science Generate New Knowledge?" by Casey Luskin which explains how ID can and does and has helped science.
On the other hand, how has evolution helped? Evolutionist Philip Skell wrote "Certainly, my own research with antibiotics during World War II received no guidance from insights provided by Darwinian evolution. Nor did Alexander Fleming’s discovery of bacterial inhibition by penicillin. I recently asked more than 70 eminent researchers if they would have done their work differently if they had thought Darwin’s theory was wrong. The responses were all the same: No. … I found that Darwin’s theory had provided no discernible guidance, but was brought in, after the breakthroughs, as an interesting narrative gloss. …"
A.S. Wilkins wrote "The subject of evolution occupies a special, and paradoxical, place within biology as a whole. While the great majority [of] biologists would probably agree with Theodosius Dobzhansky's dictum that ‘nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution’, most can conduct their work quite happily without particular reference to evolutionary ideas. ‘Evolution’ would appear to be the indispensible unifying idea and, at the same time, a highly superfluous one."
"As Stephen J. Gould suggested, science and questions of religion should be considered as non-overlapping magisteria,…"
He did. The problem is that they both make claims about some of the same things. So they do overlap.
"…whereas we do have models and theories which accord with the scientific data for such things as cosmology…"
Hmmm, yes, cosmology. James Gunn, co-founder of the Sloan survey, said "Cosmology may look like a science, but it isn’t a science. … A basic tenet of science is that you can do repeatable experiments, and you can’t do that in cosmology."
But of course cosmology is an "approved" science, so we don't need to be too strict about that, whereas ID is an "unapproved" science, so we have to find every shortcoming with it that we can.
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"If you believe the bible, then you don't believe the earth is spherical because the bible says so."
No, it doesn't say that it's not spherical. In fact it says that when Jesus returns there will be some in bed and some working in the field, which implies darkness on one side and light on the other. And the church never believed that it was flat. That was an atheist invention.
"I like the way he cherry picks his scientist examples to show that they were religious."
He didn't need to cherry-pick. Virtually all of the early founders of science (including Galileo) where Christians.
"But religion wasn't so nice to Galileo. They imprisoned him."
Actually, he was only placed under house arrest, and that was to do with him being offensive to the pope, not because of his ideas, which, although debated (he didn't actually supply good evidence), were taught in the (church-run) universities.
"Religion also did not recognize that the earth wasn't the center of the universe until the 20th century."
And yet there is evidence that the Milky Way IS near the centre of the universe. But atheists are out of date on that information, it seems.
"Explain the compatibility of religion and astronomy as we know it today."
Christianity provides the philosophical underpinning of science, including astronomy. That's why science was started by Christians.
"Bottom line, if you can believe in a god that you have never seen, heard and that contradicts his own principles and teachings, then of course you can believe in science as far as it agrees with your religious paradigm."
Have you ever seen electricity? Dinosaurs turning into birds? Planets forming? I'm sure that there are a lot of things you believe in that you've never seen. Yes, because (you believe) you have good evidence for them. The same applies to belief in God. There is good evidence for Him, even though I've never seen Him.
What contradictions of his own principles and teachings? I know of none.
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@ExistenceUniversity
"The universe is everything that exists."
Evidence? Yeah, you're sort of right, but really, the universe is the entire physical existence. Further, I said that " in one sense, God is outside the universe." But He is also everywhere, so is also within the universe. Not to mention that He became man and inhabited this planet for a while as a physical being. So no, you can't prove God's non-existence that way.
"You must resort to god being outside of reality in order to justify your believe in him."
I guess that depends on how you define 'reality'. I don't limit it to physical reality, so no, God is not outside reality.
So where is your demonstration that God being eternal is counter to reality, that you promised?
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@SuperSushidog
If your argument that happiness is derived from being unconditionally selfless,..."
But it doesn't, and the opening post didn't say that. It said that selflessness was an example of where joy comes from, and didn't mention it being unconditional. So your comment was based on something not said, and therefore, as I said, your comment has no relevance.
"Or perhaps happiness comes not from being selfless, but from being selfish."
I hope you're not suggesting that they are the only two options, because they are not.
"So it seems that God is selfish,..."
If you mean by that that God wants what He is entitled to (which is everything, as He created everything), then sure. But we would not normally call someone selfish for simply wanting what they are entitled to.
"Jesus said to "Love your neighbor as yourself," but He didn't say more than yourself, did He. Who is your neighbor? Why help a neighbor and not a foreign enemy..."
Jesus explained that your neighbour is anyone who you encounter. He also said to love your enemies, so your question assumes something that is not the case. But loving anyone does not mean that you give them whatever they want, if what they want is not good for them. Which also answers your point about giving everything to people who would abuse your generosity—that's not good for them.
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"It did its best to avoid the unsolved light speed problem facing Young Earth Creationists."
That might be because Meyer is not a biblical creationist (YEC).
Further, there are a number of possible solutions to that question. True, it's unsolved in that we don't yet know which is the correct solution, but then a lot of things in science are unsolved, so that's not a show-stopper.
Further, you failed to mention the Horizon Problem of the long-agers. That's like correcting someone's spelling while making a spelling mistake of your own.
"And totally failed to mention that none of those scientists were YECs."
Kepler, Boyle, and Newton were all biblical creationists.
"Yes, even Lemaître, not just a Belgian physicist but also a Catholic priest, knew full well that the universe was a lot older than 6,000 years old."
I reject that you can "know" something that is not true. Rather, you (wrongly) "believe" it.
"And if anybody wants to suggest that the speed of light has changed since the creation of the universe, Stephen Meyer explains to you why that is impossible..."
That's debatable, but then some secular scientists have claimed that. A 2002 article said "Headlines in several newspapers around the world have publicized a paper in Nature by a team of scientists (including the famous physicist Paul Davies) who (according to these reports) claim that ‘light has been slowing down since the creation of the universe’." Apparently it was only a bad idea when creationists in the past suggested that. It's okay for mainstream science.
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