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.

[jim360]

You're moving the goalposts, though, Khandro. The Cambrian Explosion -- which is the issue at the heart of this video -- has nothing to do with commencement of life, which happened some three billion years previously or even more. Your Intelligent Designer took an awful long time to get going, didn't he?

The crux of your argument seems to be that ID is somehow the mainstream theory and we're the ones challenging it, but this is just a not-so-subtle sleight of hand. You are the one, on Meyer's behalf, making the challenge to the mainstream and the onus is therefore rather more on you to put the case. You have, so far, not managed convincingly to do so. I don't have to explain why the mainstream is the mainstream, in excruciating detail, to attempt to deconstruct Meyer's arguments point-by-point. It seems to suffice to point out that you don't seem to understand what they are yourself, since you keep changing your mind about what part of the theory is in question.

[Hypognosis]

//For the last time; please give a sensible substantiated proposal to the commencement of life, not what happened next. //

The scientists haven't got that far yet. They have more immediately useful things to do like curing cancer, stopping ebola etc than to fathom the mysteries of a billion years ago. (Sorry if I'm repeating myself from the primordial soup thread if a few months ago).

If you can get access to a University library, start with any periodical with Biophysics or Biochemistry in the title and see if you can find recent ongoing research. This is where it will appear first.
Periodicals like Nature might contain theory-styke papers, which are a synthesis of lab-level papers by others.

After that, you'll find them in digest form, in New Scientist. or similar and, eventually it will be in the papers.

It's Nobel Prize material. You cannot possibly miss the announcement.

Are you under 50?

[Khandro]

Every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe-a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.

The scientists’ religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.

- Albert Einstein

[jim360]

Ah, and now we have an appeal to authority. From nearly 100 years ago. That settles it, then.

[jomifl]

So god dunnit after all..why didn't I see that coming...one can hope.

[jomifl]

Where do you think evolution started Khandro?

[naomi24]

Khandro, that 'quote' comes in various formats and is the subject of much debate. It cannot be assumed to be authentic.

[Khandro]

naomi; // that 'quote' comes in various formats// Yes, and do you know why?
It is because he wrote almost exclusively in German and translators have difficulty reproducing his sentences faithfully because they inevitably need to move the words around. Einstein, as is the case with most writers, is best read in his mother tongue.

[jomifl]

Darwin also wrote in his mother tongue, is that why so many Americans fail to understand the theory of evolution?

[Khandro]

"Meine Religiosität besteht in einer demütigen Bewunderung für den unendlich höheren Geist, der sich in dem wenigen offenbart, das wir - mit unserem schwachen, flüchtigen Verständnis - von der Wirklichkeit erfassen können. Der Forscher aber ist von der Kausalität alles Geschehens durchdrungen ... Seine Religiosität liegt im verzückten Staunen über die Harmonie der Naturgesetzlichkeit, in der sich eine so überlegene Vernunft offenbart, daß alles Sinnvolle menschlichen Denkens und Anordnens ein gänzlich nichtiger Abglanz ist."

Albert Einstein

[jomifl]

"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the infinitely superior mind, that in the few revealed that we - with our weak, volatile understanding -. Grasp of reality can the researcher but is imbued with the causality of all events ... his religiosity is in rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, in which such a superior rationality reveals that everything meaningful human thought and arranging is an entirely trivial reflection.
Albert Einstein......
courtesy of Google Translate :-)

[naomi24]

Khandro, //It is because he wrote almost exclusively in German and translators have difficulty reproducing his sentences faithfully because they inevitably need to move the words around.//

Depending on their particular agenda, I think his translators make very selective use of poetic licence.

[Khandro]

naomi; You have 'my' translation you have the original German and you even have 'jomifl's'. None of which satisfy you, and you still think its all a conspiracy, why not give it a rest?

[mibn2cweus]

Believing that "God did it!" does not absolve one from asking the question of "How, allegedly, did 'He' do it?" the answers to date which have invariably demonstrated there never was a 'Who?' but rather only a 'what?' involved.

An alleged intelligence apart from a commensurate understanding proves only an absense of both.

[naomi24]

Khandro. “why not give it a rest?” What are you talking about? You asked me a question – I answered it. Perhaps you can’t see the subtle differences in the translations offered – and in the several others you’ll find on the internet - or perhaps you don’t want to.

[Old_Geezer]

I'm unsure what counts as life, and understand there are some things, such as viruses, which can be contentious regarding whether it counts: but surely the start is going to be when a 'bunch of stuff', proteins or whatever, suddenly mutated such that it was able to replicate itself ? Once it can do that its on its way to further mutations, refining the 'bunch of stuff' until it reaches our present lifeforms, and beyond into the future ? What more likely scenario could there be.

[jim360]

Quite apart from all the subtleties of translation, does it really matter what Einstein said? Bearing in mind that he was wrong (probably) about quite a few things in Science despite his genius, at the very least it's clear that his word isn't the last word. Things have moved on since, and people's perspectives have changed.

The broad point that Einstein was making -- that human endeavour has barely scratched the surface of what there is to know about the Universe -- remains almost true, but this is a truth entirely independent of there existing a rational mind behind it.

And besides which, you've moved the goalposts again. We started off with intelligent interference at a single phase of life on this planet, very late in the story of life here overall; you since moved that to the origins of all life some three billion years previously; and citing Einstein's quote takes us back to the origins of not just life, and not just on Earth, but of the entire Universe. Make up your mind which of these three ideas (someone created the Universe; someone created life on Earth; someone interfered with life to get the Cambrian Explosion going) you'd like to argue and stick to it; mixing the arguments together does everyone a disservice, including Stephen Meyer.

[jomifl]

Einstein was not a biologist so never had to seriously address the question of creation/evolution..

[Khandro]

//Einstein was not a biologist...//
Good, so that rules his opinion out then!

[Khandro]

........bloody upstart, not being a biologist and having views on the universe, who the hell did he think he was?