An Accident? Convince Me...

@TurboLung,

TurboLung;146502 wrote:

...
If the appendix wasn't useful and benefit humans moreso than hinder them, then evolution would not have led to the appendix. The appendix helped in getting humans to this point. Fail. Unconvinced.

...

Evolution has deemed the lack of synthesizing vitamin C more beneficial than the ability to do so. Perhaps the energy used to produce this system was outweighed by other more beneficial functions. Perhaps we did not require the function as vitamin c is easily available to most human beings. If the system required it, then evolution would have led us towards it. Fail. Unconvinced.

You obviously do not understand genetics. When a gene is altered, it can affect more than one aspect of the animal in question. It may be that one of those aspects is for the better, and another for the worse, as far as survival is concerned. So changes can and do occur that are worse for the animal than before.

Likewise, a genetic mutation may occur that is only bad, and it can still be passed on, just so long as it is not bad enough to kill the animal before it reproduces.

Additionally, species can and do die out from time to time. So you are also wrong when you state: "If the system required it, then evolution would have led us towards it." Evolution does not save every species from extinction, so it obviously does not give every species whatever it needs to survive.

TurboLung;146502 wrote:

...
It appears that the human body is only there to pass on genes. Fair enough, but why? Why would an accident without design want to pass on genes? Fail. Unconvinced.
. Fail. Unconvinced.

No, the human body does not want to pass on genes. It often does this, but it has no such desire.

Imagine, if you will, two species of animals. One is such that the animals are motivated to do things that pass on genes (generally, the desire to mate, which requires no knowledge of genetics at all, and consequently cannot be about desiring genes to be passed on). Suppose another species lacks the desire to do things that pass on genes (for the sake of keeping it simple, let us say that they have no desire to mate). Now, what do you think would happen to these two species if left alone? The ones that did not want to mate would most likely die out very quickly. Likewise, those animals that are not motivated to eat are likely to die out very quickly. Intention and design have nothing to do with this. It is simply the case that certain sorts of things will not pass on their genes, and certain other things will (in a given environment). The ones that don't pass on their genes die out. So we are only going to be left with the ones that do things that pass on their genes. There is no design in that; it is merely the difference between what happens and what does not happen.

@Amperage,

Amperage;146696 wrote:

Pyrrho;146652 wrote:
We don't need to look at design specifications to know that an extremely unreliable car is crap. If the design specs involved intending for it to be crap, then it was fulfilling the design, but it is still crap.

If something is exactly what it is supposed to be it's crap?

The whole point I'm trying to make is that to determine if a car is unreliable one must have a standard by which they are judging. Is a car unreliable since I'm forced to change the oil every 3 months? Is it unreliable because it can't withstand a grenade blast? Is it unreliable because it only lasts X amount of miles?

I was not writing about cars generally; I specifically mentioned extremely unreliable cars. You surely know that some cars break down more than others. Think of a car that breaks down every 1000 miles (or every month, whichever comes first) and you will have an exaggeration of what I have in mind, but something close enough for my present purposes. A car that breaks down every 1000 miles (or every month, whichever comes first) is a crap car, even if it was willfully designed to do that. (If it were willfully designed to be that unreliable, then the manufacturer would be evil, as it causes people problems on purpose. If it were a mistake, then it would show the incompetence of the design. Either way, it tells us something bad about the manufacturer.)

We know that a car breaking down every 1000 miles (or every month, whichever comes first) is a crap car because most cars are more reliable than that. If we knew nothing about cars, then we would have no idea what was and what was not possible. But we know that far better than that is possible because many cars are better than that.

Amperage;146696 wrote:

Pyrrho;146652 wrote:
So, you think the eye is designed for something other than seeing well? If so, you have a very unusual take on the subject. And if not, then if the eye is designed, it is a very poor design, because it is extremely unreliable. Hence the need that most people have for glasses, contact lenses, eye surgery and drugs, to correct the errors of "design".

The point I'm trying to draw, and I hope you at least kind of started to see it with the toothpick analogy I gave previously, is that to say something is "unreliable" or a "poor design" is not enough. Compared to what? Your image of what an eye ought to be? Why ought an eye be that? Is an eye poorly designed on the basis that I don't have infrared vision? Or X-ray vision? Is it unreliable because clarity goes down in low light conditions? Is it unreliable because an eye, like all material things, is corruptible? Are you seeing the pattern here?....get it seeing the pattern

The human eye is unreliable at seeing at the level of a well-functioning human eye. If we take the standard of 20/20 (which is inferior to what some human eyes are), most humans have uncorrected vision inferior to that.

But we can tell absolutely that the human eye is unreliable because some eyes see better than others. If the design is such that they are supposed to fail, then that, too, shows imperfection in the design, as not all of them do fail. And the failures that do occur are of different types (e.g., nearsighted versus farsighted which is the opposite problem, etc.), and occur at different times. So we know absolutely that if they were designed to be bad at a certain age in a certain way, then there is a failure of the design to achieve that goal with many of them. The lack of consistency shows poor design, no matter what they are "supposed" to be. Pick anything you want for what the eye is supposed to be, and it will necessarily be the case that many of them fail to be that, because they are different from each other. Consequently, if they were designed, we know absolutely that it is a poor design, as there is no specific way that they all, or even most, are.

In other words, contrary to what you claim, if it is designed, one need not have any conception whatsoever for what it is supposed to be, because they vary in what they are (curiously, as if by some random chance...), so it must be the case that some of them fail to be whatever they are supposed to be. Again, that is if they are supposed to be something, and are not simply the result of unintelligent causes.

@Pyrrho,

Pyrrho;146932 wrote:

The human eye is unreliable at seeing at the level of a well-functioning human eye. If we take the standard of 20/20 (which is inferior to what some human eyes are), most humans have uncorrected vision inferior to that.

But we can tell absolutely that the human eye is unreliable because some eyes see better than others. If the design is such that they are supposed to fail, then that, too, shows imperfection in the design, as not all of them do fail. And the failures that do occur are of different types (e.g., nearsighted versus farsighted which is the opposite problem, etc.), and occur at different times. So we know absolutely that if they were designed to be bad at a certain age in a certain way, then there is a failure of the design to achieve that goal with many of them. The lack of consistency shows poor design, no matter what they are "supposed" to be. Pick anything you want for what the eye is supposed to be, and it will necessarily be the case that many of them fail to be that, because they are different from each other. Consequently, if they were designed, we know absolutely that it is a poor design, as there is no specific way that they all, or even most, are.

In other words, contrary to what you claim, if it is designed, one need not have any conception whatsoever for what it is supposed to be, because they vary in what they are (curiously, as if by some random chance...), so it must be the case that some of them fail to be whatever they are supposed to be. Again, that is if they are supposed to be something, and are not simply the result of unintelligent causes.

I'm just going to address the second part because the first part is basically addressing the same topics.

OK lets imagine we have a design for a fork.....got it?

Next we have a piece of plastic laying around....we have a piece of metal....we have a piece of wood.

Given these different materials do you think all the forks will fail in exactly the same way?

Why should one expect all human eyes to fail the exact same way when not all human eyes are "built from the same stock" so to speak(genetics). Nor are each put through the same rigors. I may design a fork that upon being subjected to cold will become brittle and weak and another subjected to extreme heat that melts and becomes too malleable.

The design is such that they are material things....All material things are subject to corruptibility.

lol at the random chance....I don't think that's the case. I mean we can try to conceive what they are supposed to be but the reality is that you seem to be maintaining that it's flawed based on it's corruptibility, be it the starting materials or be it through environmental exposure.

Anything you or I can name(that is a material thing) which we deem as "well designed", I can give reasons why it's not and so can you. Outside of something being tri-omni it has no way to be maximally perfect.

@TurboLung,

The view that 'if the world was designed by Deity, then the fact that bad things happen shows that Deity is malignant/negligent/incompetent' is a specious argument.

It presumes to hold Deity to human standards and ideas of what constitutes a satisfactory outcome. This presumes that we understand what purpose Deity intends in the act of creation. For all we know, imperfection, illness, and suffering might all be part of the plan. The logical conclusion to this line of argument ought to be that life should be completely devoid of suffering, imperfection or illness. But the place in the traditional cosmology that exhibits these attributes is not Earth, but Heaven. According to the traditional view, we only suffer 'the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune' because we have 'fallen' into terrestrial existence, from which the various religions and philosophies offer a means of escape or transcendence.

The other question I will raise with regards to all 'design' arguments is: does this mean that 'design' is only something that a conscious agent can be responsible for? In other words, does it make no sense to speak of 'the grand design' or 'nature's designs'? Because if this is the case, it seems to amount to a radical discontinuity between the human and natural worlds.

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;146953 wrote:

The view that 'if the world was designed by Deity, then the fact that bad things happen shows that Deity is malignant/negligent/incompetent' is a specious argument.

It presumes to hold Deity to human standards and ideas of what constitutes a satisfactory outcome.

But isn't the motivation for design arguments that things do appear to be marvelously well designed? It would be inconsistent to claim both wonderful and obviously flawed design, in my opinion.

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;146953 wrote:

The other question I will raise with regards to all 'design' arguments is: does this mean that 'design' is only something that a conscious agent can be responsible for? In other words, does it make no sense to speak of 'the grand design' or 'nature's designs'? Because if this is the case, it seems to amount to a radical discontinuity between the human and natural worlds.

Apparently there was a turtle with a really amazing design on its back. But that's another thread. :rolleyes:

I think people fix on different things.

A whitish moth took up residence in a town that burned coal. So the white moths changed to black. The birds ate the bright ones and left the dark ones. Not knowing that, would someone think: wow! obviously there someone put a lot of thought into how to protect these moths... they were made black so they could hide.

But we saw them change to black, and we imagine it wasn't by intentional design, exactly. We're only seeing the ones that survived.

Another person watches a cell divide, watching each of the... what is it, seven steps? And intuition hits them like a brick. There is a god.

@TurboLung,

I think the only real argument for design is that things exist at all.

The rest of the arguments backfire badly. The whole enterprise of 'proving God exists' actually began in the early part of the Scientific Revolution with the likes of Newton, and several others, who regarded the heavens as magnificent testimony to the handiwork of God, etc. The problem with this whole way of thinking is that the more you understand of the actual principles, the less there is for God to do - this is 'the God of the gaps' problem, resulting in the Deist conception of the handyman God and the clockwork universe. Most Dawkinsian-style atheism is built around this concept, so it could be argued that it is based on a misconception of the very meaning of 'creation'. Of course, creationists fan the flames unceasingly by clinging to their literalist dogmatics. It is salutary that both Origen (1st C) and Augustine (5th C) condemned creationism.

But by the time you have reached this point, you have already conscripted God as an uber-architect, uber-designer, and, in short, a Player in the Great Drama. It's all downhill from there.

---------- Post added 04-01-2010 at 02:49 PM ----------

Quote:

Both atheists and fundamentalists take God to be an essentially human sort of figure, a giant Father in the sky who watches over us, punishes the guilty, intervenes directly in our affairs and is entirely comprehensible to our minds. "We regularly ask God to bless our nation, save our queen, cure our sickness or give us a fine day for a picnic." Fundamentalists commit...the grave error of presuming to know God's mind and also of enlisting God on their side against their enemies. Unsurprisingly, ...atheists observe this reductive vision of God and in turn slam religion as a child-like description of the world that cannot compare with the subtlety and practical powers of science.

The Case for God is shaped as a response to these two distortions. Armstrong wishes to remind us of the mystery of God. Her sympathy is with the great Jewish, Christian and Muslim theologians who have denied that any human attempt to put the divine into words will be accurate. We are simply too limited to be able to know God; our apprehension must hence be suffused with an awareness of our provisional and potentially faulty natures. She writes: "He is not good, divine, powerful or intelligent in any way that we can understand. We could not even say that God 'exists', because our concept of existence is too limited."

Review: The Case for God by Karen Armstrong | Books | The Observer

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;146969 wrote:

It is salutary that both Origen (1st C) and Augustine (5th C) condemned creationism.

I want to know more about that. It's true, though. It think it was the Enlightenment when some images in Christianity started looking like fairy tales. The image of the Antichrist is one. It was a vibrant part of the culture.

Post Enlightenment, maybe people struggled to disconnect from that fairytale character. In the 19th century, Christianity came to be identified with the ego... the upper level of consciousness. People longed to dig deeper.. imagining that below the surface a better kind of spirituality existed. I think there was delight and fascination with the unconscious... like an unexplored territory. In the process, though, Christianity was cast as dry, intellectual, and generally unworthy.

That's how the story of the Holy Grail came to be considered a pre-Christian story. There's no evidence that it is, in fact all evidence points to it originating from a Christian world. People just couldn't believe that Christianity might have deep roots.

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;146953 wrote:

It presumes to hold Deity to human standards and ideas of what constitutes a satisfactory outcome.

Then to what standards should we hold the Deity? We hold Him to human standards when He is praised for doing good [or, indeed, He praises Himself for doing good ("and then He saw that it was good")]. So why should we not blame Him for doing bad, according to human standards? Why can we do the former, but not the latter? Or should we neither praise nor blame Him? But then, if He is not praiseworthy, then why should He be worshiped?

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;146290 wrote:

Well who believes that life is a random event? Every event has a cause. But I have a feeling that you and Turbolung think that life is an accident if it does not have a special kind of cause. Am I right?

What life ? On a personal level life might be called an accident. Global Warming might be an accident happening. Use of nucleair weapens was no accident but a Crime to Life Herself.

Pepijn Sweep
Desert of Belgium

@Amperage,

Amperage;146942 wrote:

I'm just going to address the second part because the first part is basically addressing the same topics.

OK lets imagine we have a design for a fork.....got it?

Next we have a piece of plastic laying around....we have a piece of metal....we have a piece of wood.

Given these different materials do you think all the forks will fail in exactly the same way?

Why should one expect all human eyes to fail the exact same way when not all human eyes are "built from the same stock" so to speak(genetics).

But in this case the stock is allegedly created by and selected by the designer (i.e., God). So any bad choice there reflects upon the designer, and any imperfections in the materials reflects on their maker.

In the case of your fork example, a full design will specify the materials from which the item is to be made. Any poor choice of materials reflects upon the designer.

Amperage;146942 wrote:

Nor are each put through the same rigors. I may design a fork that upon being subjected to cold will become brittle and weak and another subjected to extreme heat that melts and becomes too malleable.

In the case of human eyes, they do not fail simply from improper use or abuse, nor do they fail equally from equal use. Most humans have different vision in each eye, and yet they are generally subjected to virtually the same conditions.

Amperage;146942 wrote:

The design is such that they are material things....All material things are subject to corruptibility.

And that is the fault of the creator of the materials (if there is one).

Amperage;146942 wrote:

lol at the random chance....I don't think that's the case. I mean we can try to conceive what they are supposed to be but the reality is that you seem to be maintaining that it's flawed based on it's corruptibility, be it the starting materials or be it through environmental exposure.

Anything you or I can name(that is a material thing) which we deem as "well designed", I can give reasons why it's not and so can you. Outside of something being tri-omni it has no way to be maximally perfect.

If there is a creator tri-omni god, it is capable of making perfect things. The imperfections in things that humans create is a result of the fact that humans are imperfect, and are only able to build with the available materials. With a creator god (if there is one), it is responsible for the corruptibility of what it created. If it were perfect, it would only make perfect things. Making bad things is a sign of it being bad in some way, either through maliciousness, or through incompetence.

---------- Post added 04-01-2010 at 09:20 AM ----------

jeeprs;146953 wrote:

The view that 'if the world was designed by Deity, then the fact that bad things happen shows that Deity is malignant/negligent/incompetent' is a specious argument.

It presumes to hold Deity to human standards and ideas of what constitutes a satisfactory outcome. This presumes that we understand what purpose Deity intends in the act of creation. For all we know, imperfection, illness, and suffering might all be part of the plan. The logical conclusion to this line of argument ought to be that life should be completely devoid of suffering, imperfection or illness. But the place in the traditional cosmology that exhibits these attributes is not Earth, but Heaven. According to the traditional view, we only suffer 'the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune' because we have 'fallen' into terrestrial existence, from which the various religions and philosophies offer a means of escape or transcendence.

In that case, the world does not show evidence of design at all. That, in fact, is what I believe. The reason to bring up what you call my "specious" argument is to show the absurdity of the argument of those who pretend that the universe shows "order" and "design" that indicates that it was created for some great purpose of a divine creator. That idea is ridiculous, which is shown by arguments such as the one I presented above. Yet people still are suckered by such poor thinking.

jeeprs;146953 wrote:

The other question I will raise with regards to all 'design' arguments is: does this mean that 'design' is only something that a conscious agent can be responsible for? In other words, does it make no sense to speak of 'the grand design' or 'nature's designs'? Because if this is the case, it seems to amount to a radical discontinuity between the human and natural worlds.

It makes no sense to speak literally of "the grand design" or "nature's designs". And there is a sort of discontinuity between human action and much of what occurs in nature. To deny this would require us to imagine that rocks and such act in a manner like humans, which they clearly do not. They are all subject to the same physical laws, but inanimate objects do not have intentions or actions*. The main distinction is between animate and inanimate things. The universe, as a whole, is inanimate, though it contains animate things in it (much like a rock is not alive, but within the rock there may be tiny organisms that are alive), according to the best available evidence.

______________________
*"Actions" in the sense of "an act that one consciously wills and that may be characterized by physical or mental activity".

@Pepijn Sweep,

Pepijn Sweep;147051 wrote:

What life ? On a personal level life might be called an accident. Global Warming might be an accident happening. Use of nucleair weapens was no accident but a Crime to Life Herself.

Pepijn Sweep
Desert of Belgium

What is, "a personal level"? How can it be an accident if it has a cause?

---------- Post added 04-01-2010 at 09:26 AM ----------

Pyrrho;147053 wrote:

It makes no sense to speak literally of "the grand design" or "nature's designs".

______________________
.

Aristotle held just such a teleological view of the world. He believed that everything that happened has some "telos". Of course, the fact that Aristotle held such a view is not proof it is not nonsense. But it makes one hesitate to think so.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;147056 wrote:

...

Aristotle held just such a teleological view of the world. He believed that everything that happened has some "telos". Of course, the fact that Aristotle held such a view is not proof it is not nonsense. But it makes one hesitate to think so.

It does not make me hesitate. He also thought that men and women had different numbers of teeth, so he cannot be regarded as always having been very careful in his observations and thoughts.

(Aristotle says this in History of Animals, Book 2, Part 3. I realize, of course, that not everyone has the same number of teeth, and some people lose teeth over time for various reasons, but this still shows a certain carelessness that is not admirable, even if it might possibly be excused.)

I think a teleological view of the world is nonsensical, and is simply the result of personifying nature.

@Pyrrho,

Pyrrho;147061 wrote:

(Aristotle says this in History of Animals, Book 2, Part 3. I realize, of course, that not everyone has the same number of teeth, and some people lose teeth over time for various reasons

yeah teeth are poorly designed like that and mouths too...and air....and come to think of...everything

/sarcasm

---------- Post added 04-01-2010 at 11:22 AM ----------

Pyrrho;147053 wrote:

If there is a creator tri-omni god, it is capable of making perfect things. The imperfections in things that humans create is a result of the fact that humans are imperfect, and are only able to build with the available materials. With a creator god (if there is one), it is responsible for the corruptibility of what it created. If it were perfect, it would only make perfect things. Making bad things is a sign of it being bad in some way, either through maliciousness, or through incompetence.

How does this follow at all? Maybe the perfection is the imperfection...wabi-sabi and all that(come to think of it wabi-sabi is quite a beautiful concept and word). The plan may not be for it to last(in fact I think it can be argued that the fragile nature of life actually makes the moments more precious).

What I'm saying is that that argument seems invalid(to me) because if a perfect being created something maximally perfect in every way, He would no longer be maximally perfect Himself which is a contradiction in terms.

There's perfect as in maximal attributes in all categories and then there is perfect as in exactly what was being intended

God would be the fist kind of perfect described and all else can only be the second.

@Amperage,

Amperage;147100 wrote:

How does this follow at all? Maybe the perfection is the imperfection...wabi-sabi and all that(come to think of it wabi-sabi is quite a beautiful concept and word).

Couldn't enjoy sushi without it.

@Dave Allen,

Dave Allen;147149 wrote:

Couldn't enjoy sushi without it.

What U spice with Horse Radish ?

Pepijn Sweep
Magister
Herbal:bigsmile:

@Amperage,

Amperage;147100 wrote:

...
What I'm saying is that that argument seems invalid(to me) because if a perfect being created something maximally perfect in every way, He would no longer be maximally perfect Himself

Why? How would the creation of a perfect thing make god less perfect?

And who said anything about something being perfect in every way? An eye that sees reliably at 20/20 cannot see infrared or ultraviolet or leap over tall buildings in a single bound, but if that is what one is striving to achieve, it would be good to actually achieve it.

Amperage;147100 wrote:

which is a contradiction in terms.

There's perfect as in maximal attributes in all categories and then there is perfect as in exactly what was being intended

God would be the fist kind of perfect described and all else can only be the second.

And do you not see a problem with what you are saying? Is the intention to create evil, even if one perfectly achieves the goal, a good thing?

@TurboLung,

Nature is alive with purpose, purpose operates at every level of the organism and the environment. The ego doesn't see it, it suits ego to see what purposes it chooses. There is no point in presenting arguments about this, it is an attitude to life.

---------- Post added 04-02-2010 at 09:08 AM ----------

Arjuna;147045 wrote:

I want to know more about that. It's true, though. It think it was the Enlightenment when some images in Christianity started looking like fairy tales. The image of the Antichrist is one. It was a vibrant part of the culture.

Post Enlightenment, maybe people struggled to disconnect from that fairytale character. In the 19th century, Christianity came to be identified with the ego... the upper level of consciousness. People longed to dig deeper.. imagining that below the surface a better kind of spirituality existed. I think there was delight and fascination with the unconscious... like an unexplored territory. In the process, though, Christianity was cast as dry, intellectual, and generally unworthy.

The book I quoted from, Case for God, is very good on that question. Origen was a radical Christian thinker and contemporary of Plotinus. He was subsequently condemned by orthodoxy for suggesting the reality of metemphyschosis (=reincarnation.) He distinguished different levels or layers of meaning in scripture and thought literalism was contemptible.

kennethamy;147049 wrote:

Then to what standards should we hold the Deity? We hold Him to human standards when He is praised for doing good [or, indeed, He praises Himself for doing good ("and then He saw that it was good")]. So why should we not blame Him for doing bad, according to human standards? Why can we do the former, but not the latter? Or should we neither praise nor blame Him? But then, if He is not praiseworthy, then why should He be worshiped?

It is difficult for me to respond to that. But I think we don't have any say in the matter whatever. Isn't that the message of the Book of Job? My personal approach is wholly apophatic - I have no positive conception of God and don't engage in worship or religious ceremonies. But I still feel that kind of primitive sense of 'wonder at Nature', along with a sense of the kinship of all that lives. This kind of feeling has to be very simple. If you try and intellectualise it, it has gone.

@Amperage,

Amperage;147100 wrote:

(come to think of it wabi-sabi is quite a beautiful concept and word)

Wabishii means loneliness and misery, sabishii means loneliness and alienation. What's the beauty?

@ughaibu,

[quote]You obviously do not understand genetics. When a gene is altered, it can affect more than one aspect of the animal in question. It may be that one of those aspects is for the better, and another for the worse, as far as survival is concerned. So changes can and do occur that are worse for the animal than before.[/quote] When the change is for the "worse", then that species is likely to be overtaken by a close species without that "crutch" and so eventually is weeded out by natural selection. There is a mechanism through natural selection to fine tune a species to the environment they live in. Natural selection appears too clever to be an accident. Fail. Unconvinced.

[quote]Additionally, species can and do die out from time to time. So you are also wrong when you state: "If the system required it, then evolution would have led us towards it." Evolution does not save every species from extinction, so it obviously does not give every species whatever it needs to survive.[/quote] Extinction is part of natural selection. A species that does not adapt is cast aside for other species.
[quote]

No, the human body does not want to pass on genes. It often does this, but it has no such desire.[/quote]

Incorrect, the human body DOES want to pass on genes. This is the only function of the human body. It appears to me that this is designed into us. Have you read "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins? I believe his book actually weighs more towards a design in evolution than a n accident. Fail. Unconvinced.

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