The Privileged Planet

[Interplanner]

No it wasn't. You're wrong*.


*Your unsupported assertion is no better than mine.


I agree wholeheartedly. Of course the definition of life isn't an easy question.

Is your 'creator' a living thing? Is it made of cells, or does it consume energy by a chemical reaction like respiration, or does it reproduce, or does it grow, or does it require nutrition, or does it excrete waste products? If it isn't like this, then how can you say life came from life?


Genesis also tells us that there was an evening and a morning before there was a sun to mark them, that there is a solid firmament (which NASA has never crashed even a single spacecraft into), that every herb and every tree are for eating (including deadly nightshade), that snakes can talk, that people used to live for 900 years, that there used to be giants, that there was a global flood in the time of humans, that when goats copulate in sight of striped sticks they will conceive striped offspring, and that the Australian aboriginal people came to Egypt to buy corn from Joseph.

But you are sure Genesis is reliable on the invisible, inaudible creator that doesn't appear to be necessary for the existence of anything.


The most obvious conclusion (if we are basing this on evidence) is that it wasn't designed. It takes lots of extra assumptions about sky friends to conclude that there was design involved.


So how come the distance has been changing this whole time?


The appeal to authority. I can appeal to different authorities who will say the opposite.

Stuart

And if that's all you have Stuart, then you are arbitrarily selective. Or have some other interest you 'need' to protect. This quote and those at the end of Metaxas are not merely appeals to authority; they are peer scientists (I have been scolded many times by atheists and naturalists for lack of peer review materials) with solid reasons against. So here is a peer review and his conclusion is the opposite of yours.

We don't know you. We do know him. And Dawkins. And Lennox. And Meier.

Someone complained the other day that Metaxas has no business speaking. OK, then neither does the complainer!


re not necessary.
Hold on, friend. As Metaxas reports, the necessary ingredients for life has swollen from 4 to 50 and you know the # of permutations implied by that. What can 'necessary' possibly mean? We can't go around destroying our vocabulary.

 

[6days]

The problem is you reject an obvious possibility.
We lived in a universe fine tuned for life, because it was.

No it wasn't. You're wrong.

You just reinforced my point.*

A possibility you are overlooking..... and one that science seems to support is that life only comes from life.

I agree wholeheartedly. Of course the definition of life isn't an easy question.

The definition doesn't really matter if you wholeheartedly agree that life only comes from life.*

Is your 'creator' a living thing?

He creates. ..He loves... He has conciousness.... etc. Are you a living thing?

Genesis tells us about the One who is the Life giver.

Genesis also tells us that there was an evening and a morning before there was a sun

Yes...He created light, before He created the stars, sun and moon. Genesis also tells us that it is He who created life.

that there is a solid firmament

I assume you know that Genesis says no such thing.*

You seem to neglect the most obvious conclusion..... our universe and our earth was designed for life.

The most obvious conclusion (if we are basing this on evidence) is that it wasn't designed. It takes lots of extra assumptions about sky friends to conclude that there was design involved.

We live on a privileged planet... that is the evidence, and in fact the title of your thread. You can just say "It's just because".... or we can ask why we live on such a privileged planet in such a privileged position in the cosmos. I believe we find the answers in God's Word.

Or.... our earth was positioned the exact distance necessary to sustain life in the oceans and to provide a awesome night light.

So how come the distance has been changing this whole time?

The recession rate of the moon is an evidence for the truth of God's Word. *Our universe is winding down, as well as it's evidence of a young earth. *The distance between the earth and the moon for the past several thousand years is an evidence of our privileged place in the universe...evidence of our Designer. *

Fred Hoyle (British astrophysicist): "A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question".

The appeal to authority. I can appeal to different authorities who will say the opposite.

Haha.... I suppose we should toss our all the journals who cite other scientists?*

Appeal to authority is a fallacy if you quote someone who is not a qualified authority....or if I would say 'you should believe this because this authority does' . Hoyle is definetly qualified to make statements about our universe appearing as if it had been designed by a super intellect.*

But Hoyle is certainly not alone in marvelling at our fine tuned universe. Here is another British astrophysicist, Paul Davies "There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all....It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature’s numbers to make the Universe....The impression of design is overwhelming".*

 

[Stuu]

And if that's all you have Stuart, then you are arbitrarily selective.

Huh?

Or have some other interest you 'need' to protect.

If you can disprove me, I will be delighted by the opportunity for new learning.

This quote and those at the end of Metaxas are not merely appeals to authority; they are peer scientists (I have been scolded many times by atheists and naturalists for lack of peer review materials) with solid reasons against. So here is a peer review and his conclusion is the opposite of yours.

What the hell are you talking about?

We don't know you. We do know him. And Dawkins. And Lennox. And Meier.

The point is that it is irrelevant who I am, and it is irrelevant who Dawkins, Lennox and Meier are.

Someone complained the other day that Metaxas has no business speaking. OK, then neither does the complainer!

Anyone can speak, surely. It is a matter of what they say, and how they justify it.

re not necessary.
Hold on, friend. As Metaxas reports, the necessary ingredients for life has swollen from 4 to 50 and you know the # of permutations implied by that. What can 'necessary' possibly mean? We can't go around destroying our vocabulary.

Don't forget that Gonzales and Richards have been whining on about complex life. There is single-celled life living in some of the most extreme conditions of pH, temperature and oxygen deprivation that you might imagine. That takes out many of your '50' if we are talking about any kind of life.

But nowhere have you said what these 50 magical conditions are, or justified how life is impossible without them. Actually, how the hell would you know, or any of this shower of idiots? There could be something we call life in open space. After all, many of the component molecules of life have been found stuck to the outside of meteorite fragments.

The Prager video is full of amateur mistakes of the creation / evolution 'debate' (there is no debate actually, except for the whining from a tiny minority of history-deniers who call themselves creationists).

It appears to me that Jay Richards is well out of his depth talking about scientific concepts, and Gonzales is a kind of sweet guy who looks like he has been paid to say some nice things about 'the creator' but is actually pretty ineffectual.

Is that all you have? Do we not even get a mention Michael Behe, William Dembski or any of that truckload of comedians anymore?

Stuart

 

[PureX]

The Privileged Planet is video based on the book of the same name by Jay Richards, a philosopher, and Guillermo Gonzales, an astronomer both associates of the Discovery Institute. Interplanner has been referring to the book in many of his recent posts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmIc42oRjm8

The video asserts an intelligent design view of the universe and the concluding remarks summarise what appears to be the Discovery Institute's philosophy, that the universe has been designed with human discovery of the cosmos as one of our 'intended' activities. It looks a bit like the Discovery Institute's attempt at a response to Carl Sagan's Cosmos series.

I haven't decided in my own mind whether videos like this are a good thing. One the one hand they can lead religious people with little science to a greater understanding of cosmology. On the other hand this video may present some science factually but it grossly misrepresents science by asserting a non-evidence based conspiracy theory as a reasonable scientific conclusion. At the moment I am inclined to think 'bad' rather than 'good'. After all, there are many really good sources out there that don't misrepresent science, Carl Sagan's Cosmos, for example!

Below I will outline what I mean by misrepresentation of science by pointing out some examples of scientific mistakes and wild conclusions from the video. Of course I welcome any response that can show I am making the kind of mistakes.

Stuart

I think you're over-emphasizing science because it's at the heart of your own bias. There are other ways of "discovering the universe" besides science. And there are other ways of conceptualizing the universe besides it being a mindless, godless, collection of inter-related facts. Science is an excellent tool and should not be disregarded. But it's not the be-all and end-all of all human understanding and truth, either. If this group wants to explore and illuminate some other ways of perceiving the universe, while keeping to the facts of science as a part of that exploration, I think you should applaud it as a relatively reasonable expression of intellectual diversity.

 

[Stuu]

You just reinforced my point.

No, I just refuted your point completely. It is as well to learn to recognise when this has happened.

The definition doesn't really matter if you wholeheartedly agree that life only comes from life.

Yes it does matter. You have ignored the important point of how you justify your 'creator' as being 'life'. Can you justify it?

Yes...He created light, before He created the stars, sun and moon. Genesis also tells us that it is He who created life.

You know what they said about Hitler's massively long speeches? He would just assert and assert and assert. He would never justify any of his assertions. There was no intelligence apparent behind the wall of dogmas.

Not that I am comparing you to Hitler, of course. That would be to play fast and loose with Godwin's Law.

Stuu: that there is a solid firmament

I assume you know that Genesis says no such thing.

Genesis 1:6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
1:7 And God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
1:8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

'Firmament' is a translation of the biblical Hebrew raqiya, to beat out as in hammering out a metal dish.

We live on a privileged planet... that is the evidence,

No, that is not evidence, it is a conclusion. But it is based on no unambiguous evidence, and if you read the beginning of the thread you will see me discredit the 'evidence' presented there.

and in fact the title of your thread. You can just say "It's just because".... or we can ask why we live on such a privileged planet in such a privileged position in the cosmos. I believe we find the answers in God's Word.

That's because you start with that premise then tell lies about everything else to try and make it fit.

The recession rate of the moon is an evidence for the truth of God's Word. *Our universe is winding down, as well as it's evidence of a young earth. *The distance between the earth and the moon for the past several thousand years is an evidence of our privileged place in the universe...evidence of our Designer.

Assert, assert, mindlessly assert, you don't have to justify anything you say, or even make any sense mein Fuhrer, er I mean dear creationist.

Haha.... I suppose we should toss our all the journals who cite other scientists?

If you are speaking about the journals produced by creationist organisations, then yes.

Appeal to authority is a fallacy if you quote someone who is not a qualified authority....or if I would say 'you should believe this because this authority does' . Hoyle is definetly qualified to make statements about our universe appearing as if it had been designed by a super intellect.

No, Fred Hoyle was qualified to make statements about astrophysics. Is the appearance of a super intellect a branch of astrophysics? No, this is just Fred Hoyle using his fame to promote an amateur opinion.

But Hoyle is certainly not alone in marvelling at our fine tuned universe. Here is another British astrophysicist, Paul Davies "There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all....It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature’s numbers to make the Universe....The impression of design is overwhelming".

Another amateur opinion from a well-known scientist. Richard Dawkins would agree entirely that the impression of design is overwhelming. But it is a wrong impression. Darwin explained why 156 years ago, and he hasn't been proved wrong since.

Stuart

 

[Jose Fly]

The video asserts an intelligent design view of the universe and the concluding remarks summarise what appears to be the Discovery Institute's philosophy, that the universe has been designed with human discovery of the cosmos as one of our 'intended' activities.

"Intelligent design" is dead...has been for some time now. It was originally crafted as a way to subvert court rulings and get creationist talking points into public school science classes, but the Dover ruling put an end to that. And it never accomplished a single thing scientifically either.

It's dead as a legal strategy and was stillborn as a science. It's long past time to just let it go. :rip:

 

[Stuu]

I think you're over-emphasizing science because it's at the heart of your own bias. There are other ways of "discovering the universe" besides science. And there are other ways of conceptualizing the universe besides it being a mindless, godless, collection of inter-related facts. Science is an excellent tool and should not be disregarded. But it's not the be-all and end-all of all human understanding and truth, either. If this group wants to explore and illuminate some other ways of perceiving the universe, while keeping to the facts of science as a part of that exploration, I think you should applaud it as a relatively reasonable expression of intellectual diversity.

Don't get me wrong here. I think Beethoven and Shakespeare have an enormous amount to say about the human condition that doesn't necessarily have to conform strictly to the scientific method (although science could have a decent go at explaining why it appeals to the human mind).

But would you say that misrepresenting science is a reasonable expression of intellectual diversity that I should applaud?

Stuart

 

[Right Divider]

Another amateur opinion from a well-known scientist. Richard Dawkins would agree entirely that the impression of design is overwhelming. But it is a wrong impression. Darwin explained why 156 years ago, and he hasn't been proved wrong since.

Stuart

Such classic double-talk.

Your last statement is so complete wrong that it's amazing that you cling to it like a toddler with his favorite blanket.

I guess that you don't know that old-school Darwinism is long since dead and has been replaced by a Neo-Darwinism that only contains the "Darwin" for old times sake.

 

[Stuu]

I guess that you don't know that old-school Darwinism is long since dead and has been replaced by a Neo-Darwinism that only contains the "Darwin" for old times sake.

Please, do explain for me the difference.

I'll bet you can't.

Stuart

 

[Interplanner]

"Intelligent design" is dead...has been for some time now. It was originally crafted as a way to subvert court rulings and get creationist talking points into public school science classes, but the Dover ruling put an end to that. And it never accomplished a single thing scientifically either.

It's dead as a legal strategy and was stillborn as a science. It's long past time to just let it go. :rip:

I guess you haven't heard the 5 quotes by scientists (Sagan, Dawkins, Lennox) at the end of Metaxas video. Your metaphors are merely that.

 

[Interplanner]

Such classic double-talk.

Your last statement is so complete wrong that it's amazing that you cling to it like a toddler with his favorite blanket.

I guess that you don't know that old-school Darwinism is long since dead and has been replaced by a Neo-Darwinism that only contains the "Darwin" for old times sake.

Stuart,
I can't find your 'wrong impression' comment original, but macht nicht; was Darwin just referring to biology? What body or entity or church said it was the 'wrong impression'? If it was just the Linneans, that's all T. Huxley, who was a toxic authoritarian who emotionally abused Darwin into finishing the book. Swell guy.

 

[Jose Fly]

I guess you haven't heard the 5 quotes by scientists (Sagan, Dawkins, Lennox) at the end of Metaxas video. Your metaphors are merely that.

Huh? Are you saying quotes mean ID creationism isn't dead?

Like I said, Dover killed ID creationism as a legal ploy (its primary purpose) and it hasn't contributed a single thing to science. If all you have in response is "But....quotes!!!", I'll just let that speak for itself.

 

[PureX]

Don't get me wrong here. I think Beethoven and Shakespeare have an enormous amount to say about the human condition that doesn't necessarily have to conform strictly to the scientific method (although science could have a decent go at explaining why it appeals to the human mind).

But would you say that misrepresenting science is a reasonable expression of intellectual diversity that I should applaud?

Stuart

If they are deliberately misrepresenting science so as to disregard it, then they are being dishonest. And I do believe that dishonesty is a very poor tool of discovery, indeed.

However, I think that because you are biased in favor of science, you may be inclined to perceive such deliberate dishonesty where it's not necessarily being manifested, simply because you have already made up your mind that "intelligent design" is a lie, and nothing more.

I will agree with you that many of the proponents of what has been labeled "intelligent design" in recent years have shown themselves to deliberately dishonest, and if this group you mentioned is another one of those, I'll agree with your assessment, yet again. But there are a significant number of people around who hold to the idea of intelligent design philosophically, based on a perfectly reasonable assessment of our observations of reality, who are not being dishonest or disingenuous about it. And who science has not proven to be wrong. Many of these people are in fact, themselves, scientists.

I'm hoping that this group may perhaps be more akin to those people, and if so, should be welcomed to the discussion, and to the amazing task of discovering the universe.

 

[Stuu]

Stuart,
I can't find your 'wrong impression' comment original, but macht nicht; was Darwin just referring to biology? What body or entity or church said it was the 'wrong impression'? If it was just the Linneans, that's all T. Huxley, who was a toxic authoritarian who emotionally abused Darwin into finishing the book. Swell guy.

Pretty much all biologists / naturalists were creationists until Darwin. The hegemony of christianity plus their inability to explain the diversity of life on the planet led them to put it in one of the "Too Hard" or "God" baskets.

And of course Darwin wasn't the first to consider evolution. But he was the first to publish and he was the most insightful and brilliant one to put his mind to the problem.

Darwinian natural selection explains how complexity and diversity arises in living species, although it doesn't explain how life began.

The human brain is a pattern-seeking machine. Watch Michael Shermer's TED talk on how the human brain sees things that aren't really there: https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_shermer_on_believing_strange_things

The illusion of design in biology is powerful to us humans because we have a strong tendency to see design in everything. Complexity and diversity in biology have actually arisen through natural selection. That is a fact that hasn't been disproved in 156 years. You haven't disproved it, all you have done is state that the impression of design is a strong one. I agree. But it's a wrong impression.

Stuart

 

[Stuu]

If they are deliberately misrepresenting science so as to disregard it, then they are being dishonest. And I do believe that dishonesty is a very poor tool of discovery, indeed.

However, I think that because you are biased in favor of science, you may be inclined to perceive such deliberate dishonesty where it's not necessarily being manifested, simply because you have already made up your mind that "intelligent design" is a lie, and nothing more.

I will agree with you that many of the proponents of what has been labeled "intelligent design" in recent years have shown themselves to deliberately dishonest, and if this group you mentioned is another one of those, I'll agree with your assessment, yet again. But there are a significant number of people around who hold to the idea of intelligent design philosophically, based on a perfectly reasonable assessment of our observations of reality, who are not being dishonest or disingenuous about it. And who science has not proven to be wrong. Many of these people are in fact, themselves, scientists.

I'm hoping that this group may perhaps be more akin to those people, and if so, should be welcomed to the discussion, and to the amazing task of discovering the universe.

The 'science' has been proved wrong. As Jose Fly put it, they have contributed nothing to science, and in fact some biochemists must have set aside their normal work to demonstrate that the examples of intelligent design presented at the Dover trial were actually examples of natural selection in action. So they wasted the time of some real scientists. Of course I am sure those real biochemists were delighted to work on disproving ID, so maybe we can see ID bringing joy to some people!

It's all very well embracing a diversity of opinion but there is actually no fruitful discussion to be had with creationists. They are either unwitting liars or out and out liars. If unwitting liars have closed ears to being shown how they are wrong then really they are in the out and out category.

I don't know about you but I would rather base my spiritual outlook on things that could at least be reasonably said to be true. Since Darwin there have been no excuses for wondering about how life has become so amazingly diverse. The explanation itself is an achievement alongside those of Beethoven and Shakespeare. They compliment one another beautifully in exploring the human condition.

Creationism isn't beautiful at all. It is a conspiracy theory built on deception: the deception of humans by their own brains and their deception of those who exploit the respectability of science dishonestly. And outside the delusion believed by a rump of a few diehards, ID is dead. Is there anything more to be said for it?

When it comes to the fluffier 'philosophical' concept of things being designed intelligently, there is no good reason to believe that is a valid model of what is going on in the universe, aside from the intelligent design we know animals can do on this planet. Wishful thinking is about the only excuse that comes to mind.

Stuart

 

[6days]

creationism... hasn't contributed a single thing to science.

Evolutionism ...hasn't contributed a single thing to science, and in some cases has harmed medical progress with its faulty assumptions.

"Darwinian assumptions are not needed for the day-to-day work of science. If you look at the biochemical literature for scientific papers that try to explain how biochemical systems developed step-by-step in Darwinian fashion, there aren’t any. It’s startling. Most biologists completely ignore evolution in their work, and the ones that think about it simply look for relationships and don’t bother with Darwinism. My University of Georgia colleague in biochemistry, Professor Russell Carlson, has expressed the same sentiment to me privately"
H. F. Schaefer, Graham-Purdue Professor of Chemistry /Director of the Center for Computational Chemistry at the University of Georgia
(2004. Science and Christianity: Conflict or coherence?)

or,
"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 indispensable unifying idea and, at the same time, a highly superfluous one.
Adam S. Wilkins’ in BioEssays .

Contrary to Richard Dawkins, Biblical creation is the cornerstone to modern science with strong connections to technology and medical advancements with things like computers, cell phones, cars, airplanes, medicine, food and even space travel.

 

[6days]

Darwinian natural selection explains how complexity and diversity arises in living species, although it doesn't explain how life began.

God's Word explains how life began..... and the diversity, beauty and "apparent" design we see in the world around us.

Stuu, I know you want to believe that natural selection explains complexity and diversity, and it sort of does but only in a way that is consistent with God's Word. We live in a world where genetic diseases increase and genetic burden leads to extinction. Natural selection leads to the loss of pre-existing genetic information.

 

[Interplanner]

I've read where Darwin was merely trying to demonstrate the phrase "after their kind" from Gen. 1, but it was T. Huxley who emotionally abused him into saying much more, into "killing God," and did all that while Darwin was still grieving the premature death of his oldest daughter. Just the kind of icon to head up the Linneans!

 

[Jose Fly]

Evolutionism ...hasn't contributed a single thing to science, and in some cases has harmed medical progress with its faulty assumptions.

Still repeating that lie, eh, even though you know for a fact that I've shown you specific examples (e.g., discerning genetic function)?

Once again we see how it's impossible to advocate creationism honestly.

 

[Ktoyou]

Render unto goofballs!