One of the most vomiting inducing phrases in my history of debate with theists was "Non-Overlapping Magisteria" , a praise coined by Gould.

(March 2, 2021 at 5:52 am)Brian37 Wrote: One of the most vomiting inducing phrases in my history of debate with theists was "Non-Overlapping Magisteria" , a praise coined by Gould.

Why? I mean, yeah, it was kind of naïve of Gould, but the idea has some merit.

Boru

Both the watch and the watch maker are products of a natural environment.

Nature produces raw materials (elements) and the physics through which they exist and move. Gravity produces stars which in turn make heavier elements. Those stars explode and when planets form, those elements are found in and on the planet.

Through biogenesis on a planet we get self replication of molecules and over a great deal of time we get single cells, then multicellular creatures and billions of years later, if we are lucky, we get an intelligent evolved species capable of making a watch from the existing raw materials on the planet.

All of this happens within the boundaries of nature.
Nature is the base.

Intelligence is a product of nature.
Raw materials are a product of nature.
The idea of gods themselves are products of an intelligent mind, which again is a product of nature.

Nature exists.
As you go back in time, the energy of the universe doesn't wink out of existence. Where would it go ?
As far as we can determine, energy cannot be destroyed.

The watch maker argument fails at what it wants to accomplish because it wants to create intelligence from nothing.

They want an eternal intelligence that has infinite eternal energy at it's disposal but cannot accept eternal energy alone by itself.

This this the same rationale used for lightning.
A god must be casting lightning bolts from the sky.

If there is lightning, there must be a lightning maker.
False.
It's a natural process.

(February 27, 2021 at 2:30 pm)Five Wrote: I actually really like to hear discussions of the Watchmaker argument and picking it apart. So, it's an appeal to the irreducible complexity argument in biology, where there are some things in nature that are so complex they must have an intelligent designer. Yet the analogy doesn't work at all. 

Because in the example, you're walking along a beach and find a watch. Based on your prior knowledge of watches and comparing it to the simplicity of the sand around it, supposedly, you can assume the watch was created by an intelligent designer. But that's a contrast that hinges on "things made by a human" and "things not made by a human". So, when making the analogy fit with "things created by God" the answer is "everything." 

 The complexity of a thing doesn't actually matter.

I have never seen this as proving anything other than the existence of evolution.

How did the watch end up on the beach? Thousands of years ago a stoneage man discovered fire, then he discovered molten rocks turned into metals in that fire and through thousands to millions of further steps from that point, such as a discovery of time, the watch evolved.

To use the watch scenario as a comparison to man you need to think that the watch just appeared on the beach without thousands of years of progress to it's manufacture but everyone knows it didn't. Similarly, if you find a man lying on the beach you have two options: He just appeared or he evolved, just like a watch.

Maybe we should use finding a man on the beach (and saying this must have evolved) as an example of how a watch had to evolve.

(March 1, 2021 at 10:06 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: The medical literature is full of examples (genetic or otherwise) of failed reductions in complexity. Mutations often result in loss of proper functioning rather than alterations. That is why there are many vestigial organs.

Yes we know. And evolution as a theory has accounted for that from day one. Plus, what you state is another nail in the coffin for design, because if all things were designed by an intelligent being (never mind the all knowing fantasy you believe in) we wouldn't have obvious and silly bodges like having our breathing tube and our eating tube be the same thing, or the appendix which has no function but can lead to severe health complications, or, even more fundamentally, a DNA structure that is so prone to mutations that it can lead to rampant and excruciating cancers over the short course of a few years and be caused by many different (and even quite) small changes in a person's environment.

You see, evolution acknowledges that we are imperfect beings, creationism can not.

(March 2, 2021 at 12:04 am)John 6IX Breezy Wrote:

(March 1, 2021 at 11:21 pm)Fake Messiah Wrote: Nature is full of living beings who have organs on different levels of development, as the eye: with some animals having eyes reduced (missing components) compared to other animals.

Since evolution seeks to explain this diversity, the diversity itself cannot be evidence of evolution. A different argument needs to be made. One that addresses irreducibility directly.

Give an example of irreducibility, please. It doesn't need to be addressed directly unless it can be demonstrated that it exists.

Quote:Since evolution seeks to explain this diversity, the diversity itself cannot be evidence of evolution. A different argument needs to be made. One that addresses irreducibility directly.

Irreducibility is bullshit like all other made-up ID concepts.

(March 5, 2021 at 10:48 am)Mister Agenda Wrote: Give an example of irreducibility, please. It doesn't need to be addressed directly unless it can be demonstrated that it exists.

I did, namely, I argued that the medical field exists because of failures in reduction. Meaning any medical example you choose is a demonstration of a function that is irreducible via a given method (genetic disorders, infection, trauma).

Human eyes, for example, are heavily integrated within the visual system. Our eyes exist at a delicate crossroads between sensory outputs to the brain and motor inputs from the brainstem―which means a lot can go wrong. Strabismus, for example, is a disorder of the extraocular muscles. Improper functioning of these muscles lead to misalignment of the eyes, producing double vision, and impairments in depth perception. Strabismus can lead to amblyopia, in which the misalignment leads to neural signals being suppressed and vision not developing properly in that eye (Kleinstein, 1984).

Strabismus is arguably an auxiliary problem. And yet its indirect effects on vision are devastating. When a system is heavily integrated it is antagonistic to change.

Reference: Kleinstein, R. N. (1984). Vision disorders in public health. Annual Review of Public Health, 5, 369– 384.

(March 5, 2021 at 10:02 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: Human eyes, for example, are heavily integrated within the visual system. Our eyes exist at a delicate crossroads between sensory outputs to the brain and motor inputs from the brainstem―which means a lot can go wrong. Strabismus, for example, is a disorder of the extraocular muscles. Improper functioning of these muscles lead to misalignment of the eyes, producing double vision, and impairments in depth perception. Strabismus can lead to amblyopia, in which the misalignment leads to neural signals being suppressed and vision not developing properly in that eye (Kleinstein, 1984).

That's where natural selection comes in. If some being loses its eyesight it's bad unless that being is living in the dark, then it can be an advantage because it can use that energy and part of the brain for something else that will make it thrive.

Same with other changes: if some being gets to have very small limbs it's bad if it lives on land and will probably get caught by the predator, but if it lives in water then it's an advantage--like with dolphins.

(March 5, 2021 at 10:02 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: Strabismus is arguably an auxiliary problem. And yet its indirect effects on vision are devastating. When a system is heavily integrated it is sensitive to change.

Yeah, no better way to prove intelligent design than with the flaw in the design.