The absurd need for logical proofs for God

[The Grand Nudger]

I'm not sure I understand the question, what's teleological about the evolutionary connection to dna?

It has a purpose, and can be explained by or by reference to that purpose. Teleology is an explanation for a thing by the purpose it serves rather than the cause by which it may arise. A natural teleology explains things by the natural purpose they serve - and design is no exception.

Nor, for that matter, are our own designs. They're conceptually and qualitatively equivalent. We're not designing stuff, ourselves, some non natural non biological way. If we can do teleology, that's evolutionary biology doing teleology. The connection to ourselves is explicit. Evolutionary biology conferred an ability to us that the processes which create rocks simply don't confer to them. Or, at least..not that we know of..yet. Always crossing my fingers that the first alien who pops in and asks to see our leader seems, for all the world, like a lifeless rock to us.

[Spongebob]

I'm not sure I understand the question, what's teleological about the evolutionary connection to dna?

It has a purpose, and can be explained by or by reference to that purpose.  Teleology is an explanation for a thing by the purpose it serves rather than the cause by which it may arise.  A natural teleology explains things by the natural purpose they serve - and design is no exception.

Nor, for that matter, are our own designs.  They're conceptually and qualitatively equivalent.  We're not designing stuff, ourselves, some non natural non biological way.  If we can do teleology, that's evolutionary biology doing teleology.  The connection to ourselves is explicit.  Evolutionary biology conferred an ability to us that the processes which create rocks simply don't confer to them.  Or, at least..not that we know of..yet.  Always crossing my fingers that the first alien who pops in and asks to see our leader seems, for all the world, like a lifeless rock to us.

I'm talking about the clues left in DNA that demonstrate common ancestry between various species, such as specific retrovirus DNA in humans and apes but not in dogs, or damaged genes appearing in both species at the same location but not in other species.  Or how about protein forms that perform the exact function in various species, but more closely related specie using the same form while others use a different form, for the same purpose.  None of this can remotely be classified as teleological unless you drastically change the meaning of the word.

[The Grand Nudger]

This was staked out long before we discovered evolutionary biology, ofc. Famously, long ago, with the statement that the purpose of an acorn is to become a tree. That's the explanation for acorns. That's why they exist - to become a tree. That is the natural teleology of acorns. An explanation for a thing by it's purpose.

What we've discovered about genetics and evolutionary biology doesn't seem to contradict that or make it an incomprehensible or obviously false statement in any way. More than that, it makes it more comprehensible - it gives a framework for understanding the mechanics of how that came to be so.

That we see purpose in the products of evolutionary biology should not be surprising, as the underlying premise of evolutionary biology (and common descent, obvs) is the effect of heritable utility on the survival and reproduction of a population. The observation of natural teleology leads only to the conclusion that some process at work in the world is capable of limiting outcomes by some set of relevant criteria. There is, so why shouldn't there be natural teleology, and why would (or how could?) the explanation for that teleology prove that there were no teleology?

[Mister Agenda]

Why cars and buildings?  Rocks are just as designed as they are.  Swirling the same drain so often.  If someone is asking us to look at design and insisting that by seeing design we can know that there is a god - they have to contend with how wrong our observations of design must be to think cars instead of rocks.

How is an observational capacity so clearly in error, in that case, supposed to be an indicator of anything...?  We've already impugned the credibility of the witness.

Right, the very thing at hand that makes it so easy to distinguish between a rock as natural and a car as designed and manufactured demonstrates that attributing similar origins for cars and rocks is not equivalent at all. Natural things are very different from things we know to have been designed by minds.

[The Grand Nudger]

Does your mind know what or how it's doing what it does any better than evolutionary processes do? Ask it, see what it says.

Nature designed minds, and now the minds think that their designs are..somehow...fundamentally different. Well, that may be so - but it doesn't endanger natural teleology in any way. The purpose we design for is extrinsic. The purpose nature designs for is intrinsic. Not all purpose is equivalent so we shouldn't expect all agents of purpose to be equivalent or for all of the products of purpose to be equivalent.

They aren't even equivalent between our conceptually equivalent agents of purpose. One potter uses a different clay, another a novel glaze, and each of them have varying levels of ability. Most of what we've done so far is to imitate nature, an ability which was given to us by the very thing we imitate. Human beings insist that we're very different from nature, somehow... but we would say that, wouldn't we. Just like minds think minds are super awesome designers.

[Apollo]

I am afraid there is a bit of anthropomorphism goes on when we talk about evolution by natural selection as if “natural selection “ has sort of mind or intent or purpose—“purpose “ in itself is a post-hoc concept to explain things by taking a point of view standing in the past.

Nature selects not because it has some kinda mind, it’s just that gene that offer some benefits in ability to survive (through sex, adaptations etc) are likely to be passed on to next generation, where if they continue to be useful, they’ll actively continue to be passed on but if due to changes in environment their use is muted the they become useless, still passed on but over a period of time may become dead genes that our body may still carry but they don’t get expressed anymore. Our body is graveyard of many such genes.

[The Grand Nudger]

There it is, it's not teleology that people are objecting to, but a mind.

For clarity, teleology is an explanation for a thing by it's purpose - not an ad hoc reference to a mind. It's not clear that there has to be a mind at play for a thing to have purpose, and it's not clear what sort of fundamental difference exists between purpose from minds and purpose not-from them. The terms we use to distinguish between the two, conceptually.... extrinsic and intrinsic, only make reference to that difference, and no other.

Ironically if evolutionary biology were a meaningfully intentional agent - a mind (and assuming that our minds are meaningfully intentional agents so that it's a valid concern and difference), we'd have to concede that the purpose it confers or imposes is extrinsic, like ours..but it isn't..and that doesn't make the purpose non-purpose, it merely sets it aside as intrinsic purpose. The question of a natural teleology is not whether evolution has a mind, but whether or not a things existence can be explained by it's purpose. I agree with you that we tend to talk about evolutionary biology in human terms...maybe that's because it does something like what we do (though I'd put that the other way around, myself). There's more than one way to skin a cat, right..but what we're wondering when we consider teleology is whether there's a skinned cat - not whether any particular agent or kind of agent skinned it.

Incidentally, that's why the notion that design or teleology in life implies a god fails. It implies an agent of purpose, and there's no shortage of those in the natural world, every single example of which is a product of evolutionary biology or very literally -is- evolutionary biology. Even if the only purpose we could all see and agree to were the maintenance and spread of life, that's still a purpose, and it's very natural. A natural teleology. If we assert that evolutionary biology purpose and mindful purpose are different..we're only adding even more teleology - not taking away from the smaller set conferred by a less competent agent.

[R00tKiT]

You have that exactly backwards - populations of organisms evolve biological processes to suit their environment (this is why the Negev Desert doesn’t have a population of polar bears).

What you’ve done is presumed that environments were deliberately designed to be fit for predetermined groups of organisms. That’s not how it works.

Formally, this is what you’ve done:

1. If God designed the universe, then human beings would exist.
2. Human beings exist.
3. Therefore, God designed the universe.

See the problem?

Boru

No,pal. The first premise is unsound, by the way. The second premise is unprovable in the atheist's worldview - only he, one human being, can say of himself he exists. I am afraid I will insist on the problem of other minds, since it clearly undermines the atheist's tendency to demand the kind of evidence for god he wouldn't demand in other situations of equal importance.

Ther agument actually goes like this:
1. One is certain other minds exists, despite the latter being subject to debate and cannot be formally proven.
2. It can be shown that the existence of God is based on the same analogy, however weak it is, that leads to the existence of other minds.
3. Therefore, if one rejects the existence of god, one rejects other minds. Otherwise, he will have a fundamentally dishonest position.

For the design part, it can be put this way:
1. We can see clear aspects of adaptation of means to end -i.e. design-, regardless of the process that led to it.
2. Design, as defined in 1., is more probably that not the product of a conscious, deliberate decision.
3. Therefore, our universe is more probably than not the design of a conscious agent.

If one defines design as manufactured things, then he's the one who is affirming the consequent. Since by his own narrow, discriminatory definition, nature is undesigned. The atheist simply asigns an ad hoc meaning to design to undermine an otherwise valid argument.

So, here's what the atheist does, formally:

1. I am afraid the universe really does look fine-tuned. My position is screwed.
2. I have an idea though, I am going to define design as human design only.
3. Therefore the universe is not designed.

See the problem ?

H, Klorophyll.  There are a lot of ways to respond to this, but my first intuition is to just as the most simple question that this line of thinking begs.  If I accept your argument as valid, this still leaves me with an incredibly profound problem.  Which god do I now choose?  And upon what basis do I make this choice?

If you accept the argument, and therefore think a god exists. Then it follows that he couldn't have let his creatures -us, without guidance. The most tenable candidates for that would be abrahamic religions, other known religions either self-affirm their godlessness or are by definition a collection of nebullous, and often contradictory wisdoms, christianity runs into the fatal logical problem of trinity. You're left with Judaism and Islam, the only strictly monotheist beliefs today.

If you agree with all what's above, we'll assess together which of the two remaining religions closely fits what would one expect from an all powerful god.

From the abstract of your linked article:

"We also report on studies that associate HERVs with human diseases of the brain and CNS. There is little doubt of an association between HERVs and a number of CNS diseases."

Thank you for proving my point. Worse than useless.

From the same article :

Another intriguing finding in human brain cells and mouse models was that endogenous retrovirus HERV-K appears to be protective against neurotoxins.

I told you, you're desperately trying to argue from ignorance

Horseshit. Any fool can show that a broken part is useless. The pseudogene that fails to produce vitamin C in primates for example. Useless. Worse than useless in fact, since it takes resources to reproduce.

No, liar. Parts of the gene are literally missing, not broken.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14703305/

We read : Only five exons, as compared to 12 exons constituting the functional rat GULO gene, remain in the human genome. A comparison of these exons with those of their functional counterparts in rat showed that there are two single nucleotide deletions, one triple nucleotide deletion, and one single nucleotide insertion in the human sequence.

It's another matter entirely if the entire gene was there and wasn't able to function nonetheless.

Even more, the mutation that made the gene stop being able to synthetize vitamin C may have been of beneft to early primates.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2917125/
Vitamin C partially blocks the effects of fructose, namely stimulation of fat storage, which provides means for survival during periods of food shortage.

Point of order! Which side of this debate are you arguing? I ask because you're arguing that humans give things function, utility, and purpose, not god. I mean, thanks and all that, but I really wasn't expecting you to argue both sides of this debate. Why don't I just leave you to it.

You're not that stupid, pal. Read your posts again : you're arguing that some gene somewhere is "useless", and therefore not designed. My point is that this logical implication is invalid. Because we have abundant counterexamples to your assertion. And I gave the example of chemical elements out there in nature who stayed "useless" for centuries, then became useful when we figure out out more about chemistry.

In short: the terms "useless" are "useful" are entirely related to our condition, our science, our culture, etc. And one shouldn't blame the creator when he thinks that something is really useless.

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@Klorophyll

Because I’m not quoting that text wall:

You’re the one that brings up silly analogies like cars and buildings and other man-made objects to compare to all of extant nature, lol. Unless you’re asserting that god hand-designs every individual snowflake; a claim you would have to demonstrate, by the way; then yeah, you’re equivocating. Own it.

Sure, you can run. I have one definition of design, I will restate mine (and yours) in bold, if that helps :

Design (my definition) = adaptation of means to ends.

Design (according to LadyForCamus) = ........... human design

Your definition is circular, biased, and wrong too. And you're accusing me of equivocation ?

[Mister Agenda]

No,pal. The first premise is unsound, by the way. The second premise is unprovable in the atheist's worldview - only he, one human being, can say of himself he exists. I am afraid I will insist on the problem of other minds, since it clearly undermines the atheist's tendency to demand the kind of evidence for god he wouldn't demand in other situations of equal importance.

Ther agument actually goes like this:
1. One is certain other minds exists, despite the latter being subject to debate and cannot be formally proven.
2. It can be shown that the existence of God is based on the same analogy, however weak it is, that leads to the existence of other minds.
3. Therefore, if one rejects the existence of god, one rejects other minds. Otherwise, he will have a fundamentally dishonest position.

Let me get this straight: You claim that the hypothesis that God exists is based on the agreement that other minds exist, that it's an analogy, that it may be weak; and your conclusion it that if someone doesn't think a disembodied mind exists they must think embodied minds don't exist either; and not only that but it's fundamentally dishonest to accept that embodied minds exist if you don't also accept that at least one disembodied mind that designed and created the universe also exists?

Are you sure you want to stick with that?

[R00tKiT]

Let me get this straight: You claim that the hypothesis that God exists is based on the agreement that other minds exist, that it's an analogy, that it may be weak; and your conclusion it that if someone doesn't think a disembodied mind exists they must think embodied minds don't exist either; and not only that but it's fundamentally dishonest to accept that embodied minds exist if you don't also accept that at least one disembodied mind that designed and created the universe also exists?

Are you sure you want to stick with that?

I am not sure how you reach the additional fact that all these minds out there are embodied. That's what your senses are telling you, but they're not proof. The existence of God is not really "based" on the existence of other minds. It's just the observation that our reasons to believe in the latter should lead us to the former, if we are honest and coherent, that is.