Darwin's Doubt, Intelligent Design And Evolution.

[Khandro]

Has anyone watched this film, an interview with Stephen Meyer?

I found it rather compelling, and I thought he answered well the critics who have wished to steer him into the religious standpoint which is not what it's about at all.

[jomifl]

Just got back from a weekend in Paris to see that this discussion is following the usual course.The original question by khandro was about Meyer's support for intelligent design. When he saw that this argument was flawed and indefensible he shifted from that to the the origin of life and so on, a now familiar behaviour pattern..It all begs the question that life exists and evolution even back to 'proto-life' is still the most plausible explanation. There almost certainly wasn't a defining moment when life 'began', it was just a painfully slow increase in complexity. The idea of a 'beginning' of life is a concept based on religious/theistic notions and exists only to confuse clear thinking on the subject. Once the idea of life having a defineable beginning is abandoned it becomes much easier to explain how it may have come about. It is not necessary to have a degree to think scientifically, just as one can become a saint just by being a neurotic pubescent novitiate nun with dreams fuelled by rampant hormones and very little theological training.

[Khandro]

'Some of the more famous laws of nature are found in Isaac Newton's theories of (now) classical mechanics, presented in his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, and in Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. Other examples of laws of nature include Boyle's law of gases, conservation laws, the four laws of thermodynamics, etc.'

[Hypognosis]

@Khandro

That's eight, not one! ;-)

And why the quote marks? Who is speaking, there?

[grasscarp]

Jomifl, it was not a religious gathering but at a meeting of scientists – titled “State of the Universe” – convened  at Cambridge University to honor Stephen Hawking’s 70th birthday, that cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin of Tufts University in Boston presented evidence that the universe is not eternal after all, leaving scientists at a loss to explain how the cosmos got started without a supernatural creator. The meeting was reported in New Scientist magazine (Why physicists can’t avoid a creation event, 11 January 2012). 
There is much about it online if it interests you.
There has to be a start point.

[Hypognosis]

@grasscarp

//There has to be a start point.//

Yes but that's for the "what happened before the big bang?" thread. This one is (was) about "intelligent design". As jomifl pointed out, the focus was shifted onto abiogenesis.

It has now shifted again, onto the laws of physics/nature. The answer I was planning to give, previously, was that the various physical constants - the gravitational constant, the charge on the electron/proton etcetera - could have arbitrary settings, at the big bang but the fact we exist to observe the universe in its current form means that everything just happened to be set 'right'. Too much gravity, for instance and the universe would have collapsed back on itself by now and this conversation could not even arise.

That said, "It just is", in reply to "Why?" is one of those terribly unsatisfactory answers which everyone hates. I don't blame anyone for introducing spurious causative agents to explain it to themselves; it is when they try to palm off the same thinking to other people that I take objection. I get by happily without needing to resort to a creator to explain the existence of the universe and the sole 'purpose' of life is reproduction, as far as I can tell.

When the sun expands into a red giant, the planet will be toast and all its life, seemingly, futile. Let's just enjoy ourselves and nature's diversity while we can, eh? Creators are just a thing to disagree over or beat one another up about. Or worse.

[grasscarp]

Hypogenisis. I don't need to be on a different thread. My observation was about something Jomifl said on this page.
In a debate we can all say what we think but you call this trying to palm off one's opinion on others! As if such a thing were possible!

[naomi24]

I believe that nothing comes from nothing. However, the notion that we ‘know’ what is responsible for the creation of the universe and moreover that it cares about human beings and interacts with them on a personal level is stretching it more than a bit.

[Khandro]

jomifl; May I remind you that my "original question" was simply, "has anyone watched this film?"
For someone accusing me of 'shifting the argument', to bring into the forum "neurotic pubescent novitiate nuns" is a bit rich!
Paris! - no wonder you have returned in such a bad temper, it's an awful place, you should have known that no one goes there anymore. :0)

[jim360]

I think you might have misrepresented Vilenkin's argument, grasscarp. Something can have a beginning, but not an active beginner. All Vilenkin did was to show that "new" physics will be needed to describe events "before" the Universe began. Again, it says nothing about the nature of those events, and drawing the conclusion that he's talking about a creator is unjustified.

[grasscarp]

So how does the beginning begin? Cant be by itself because it was not there just prior to that?

[naomi24]

No one knows.

[jim360]

Short answer, what Naomi said. Indeed, by the very point that if there was something before the Universe then said something is not part of it, it's not even clear that anyone can ever know.

[grasscarp]

Quite. Only God knows! (runs for cover)

[jomifl]

Khandro, my answer to your question is 'yes'.

[naomi24]

Grasscarp, If no one knows, but an unknown God is inexplicably and unjustifiably credited, by virtue of the fact that 'no one knows', it follows that this God must be a figment of the imagination.

[Khandro]

"Beginning" may be a human construct, there may be no such thing as a beginning or an end, like the line describing a circle, or the circumnavigation of a sphere.

[vetuste_ennemi]

"Paris! - no wonder you have returned in such a bad temper, it's an awful place, you should have known that no one goes there anymore. "
How very Clovis Sangrail of you, Khandro.

[jomifl]

VE, I think that is an interesting insight....Freud would be proud of you :0)

[vetuste_ennemi]

Re abiogenesis: Human Universe 3 (last night) mentions the eukaryotic cell and the hypothesis that it was created through the symbiotic merging of two simpler single cells. Second time I've come across this idea recently.

[mibn2cweus]

naomi24
No one knows.
09:20 Wed 22nd Oct 2014

I wouldn't go so far as to say that.

But if there is someone who actually does know, (as opposed to attempting to elevate their guess to the status of fact) there not saying either. That would be like blurting out in the middle of the love scene, "I've seen this movie . . . the butler did it!"