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RE: Detecting design or intent in nature
January 10, 2015 at 5:35 am
(This post was last modified: January 10, 2015 at 5:44 am by BlackMason.)
(January 4, 2015 at 9:23 am)watchamadoodle Wrote: (January 4, 2015 at 8:11 am)BlackMason Wrote: Someone here gave us a Matt Dillahunty explanation about the necessity of contrasting nature to determine design. So I'm not gonna write on that. Instead I want to make an argument against the teleology of nature.
1) Nature has goals or nature does not have goals.
2) There have been many creatures that have come into existence.
3) There have been many creatures that have since become extinct.
4) Extinction has no purpose.
Therefore nature has no goals.
(January 4, 2015 at 9:23 am)watchamadoodle Wrote: I'm not sure about that argument.
Sometimes we design special tools, jigs, scaffolds, etc. when building something. Those things get discarded after we are done just like species of life go extinct, but that doesn't mean they weren't serving a goal.
Can you come up with an actual counter example? What I mean is what goal did dinosaurs have? Were they able to achieve that goal rendering them redundant justifying the extinction? Further, what goal do we humans have? Are we achieving that goal? Knowing this can possibly help us determine our species' useful life. Are we nearing our extinction based on our goal progress?
(January 4, 2015 at 9:23 am)watchamadoodle Wrote: Also look at airplane designs. Cloth and canvas biplanes are extinct, but they were a stepping stone that served a goal. Or sometimes we build prototype airplanes that are not practical, but they allow us to test an idea.
These examples are poor. You are using circular reasoning. All these examples are inherently designed with the purpose of achieving a goal. I think I can leave it at that.
(January 4, 2015 at 9:42 am)robvalue Wrote: If everything needs a cause, what caused the first cause?
The need for a cause caused the first cause. 
8000 years before Jesus, the Egyptian god Horus said, "I am the way, the truth, the life."
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RE: Detecting design or intent in nature
January 10, 2015 at 5:57 am
Spoilsport
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RE: Detecting design or intent in nature
January 10, 2015 at 9:50 am
(This post was last modified: January 10, 2015 at 9:51 am by BlackMason.)
Here's another point against goal driven nature:
1) Women have nipples for the purpose of breast feeding.
2) Unlike women, men have nipples for no reason.
3) Nipples come from nature.
C) It is not the case that nature is purpose driven.
8000 years before Jesus, the Egyptian god Horus said, "I am the way, the truth, the life."
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RE: Detecting design or intent in nature
January 10, 2015 at 10:34 am
(January 9, 2015 at 10:42 pm)Chili Wrote: (January 9, 2015 at 10:33 pm)Tonus Wrote: I do enjoy these reminders that the Bible is so open to interpretation that after 2,000 years and 40,000+ denominations, we can still find people whipping up a whole new mythos around it. It is like a recipe book and therefore not for Catholics to read on their own. So you're saying that Catholics are so dumb that they can't follow something as simple as a recipe?
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
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RE: Detecting design or intent in nature
January 10, 2015 at 10:58 am
(January 10, 2015 at 4:11 am)Chili Wrote: And don't forget that these myth-makes are not like televangelists today. Yeah, they were. They told a story then rattled their cup.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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RE: Detecting design or intent in nature
January 10, 2015 at 11:05 am
(January 10, 2015 at 2:44 am)Chili Wrote: Speculation? What I write is simple language and is easy to follow. It may be difficult for you to accept, but that really is not my problem.
Clearly written unjustified assertions are still unjustified assertions, whether you write them in ketchup on the back of a napkin, or carve them in marble on a church roof.
"YOU take the hard look in the mirror. You are everything that is wrong with this world. The only thing important to you, is you." - ronedee
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RE: Detecting design or intent in nature
January 10, 2015 at 11:49 am
(January 10, 2015 at 10:34 am)Tonus Wrote: (January 9, 2015 at 10:42 pm)Chili Wrote: It is like a recipe book and therefore not for Catholics to read on their own. So you're saying that Catholics are so dumb that they can't follow something as simple as a recipe?
Correct, not for Catholics to read as that would make them protestant too. And of them it is said that they have already 20.000 different salvation recipe's on the go, with not even one insight to show for or there would not be 20.000 of them.
Even the savages saw this as true and that is why they put them in the brew pot as half-baked and kind of like lukewarm on their own.
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RE: Detecting design or intent in nature
January 10, 2015 at 12:16 pm
@BlackMason:
Men's nipples do serve a purpose.
Practice.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
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RE: Detecting design or intent in nature
January 11, 2015 at 7:42 am
(January 10, 2015 at 10:34 am)Tonus Wrote: (January 9, 2015 at 10:42 pm)Chili Wrote: It is like a recipe book and therefore not for Catholics to read on their own. So you're saying that Catholics are so dumb that they can't follow something as simple as a recipe?
To be fair to catholics for centuries everything was in latin which no-one but the priests spoke so their faith was whatever their particular priest told them it was.
It's only recently that they all knew what the hell the bible said.
You can fix ignorance, you can't fix stupid.
Tinkety Tonk and down with the Nazis.
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RE: Detecting design or intent in nature
January 11, 2015 at 8:16 am
(January 10, 2015 at 9:50 am)BlackMason Wrote: Here's another point against goal driven nature:
1) Women have nipples for the purpose of breast feeding.
2) Unlike women, men have nipples for no reason.
3) Nipples come from nature.
C) It is not the case that nature is purpose driven.
I don't think that makes sense. It's true that men don't make milk, but a) it could have been that some early mammals' males DID make milk; b) there may be added efficiency in not differentiating body parts. For example, many parts of the penis and vagina are actually shared structures, and they differentiate as the fetus develops; this saves energy during the crucial early development of the fetus.
It's just that evolutionary purpose is one about statistical persistence-- not necessarily the apparent outer "purpose" of an adult organisim.
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