Answering an evolutionist argument.

by hooberus 39 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • hooberus
    hooberus

    The world is full of complex biological systems (for one example see below):

    Here is a brief overview of the biochemistry of vision. When light first strikes the retina, a photon interacts with a molecule called 11-cis-retinal, which rearranges within picoseconds to trans-retinal. The change in the shape of retinal forces a change in the shape of the protein, rhodopsin, to which the retinal is tightly bound. The protein's metamorphosis alters its behavior, making it stick to another protein called transducin. Before bumping into activated rhodopsin, transducin had tightly bound a small molecule called GDP. But when transducin interacts with activated rhodopsin, the GDP falls off and a molecule called GTP binds to transducin. (GTP is closely related to, but critically different from, GDP.)

    GTP-transducin-activated rhodopsin now binds to a protein called phosphodiesterase, located in the inner membrane of the cell. When attached to activated rhodopsin and its entourage, the phosphodiesterase acquires the ability to chemically cut a molecule called cGMP (a chemical relative of both GDP and GTP). Initially there are a lot of cGMP molecules in the cell, but the phosphodiesterase lowers its concentration, like a pulled plug lowers the water level in a bathtub.

    Another membrane protein that binds cGMP is called an ion channel. It acts as a gateway that regulates the number of sodium ions in the cell. Normally the ion channel allows sodium ions to flow into the cell, while a separate protein actively pumps them out again. The dual action of the ion channel and pump keeps the level of sodium ions in the cell within a narrow range. When the amount of cGMP is reduced because of cleavage by the phosphodiesterase, the ion channel closes, causing the cellular concentration of positively charged sodium ions to be reduced. This causes an imbalance of charge across the cell membrane which, finally, causes a current to be transmitted down the optic nerve to the brain. The result, when interpreted by the brain, is vision.

    http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=51

    Creationists believers, scientists (and ID proponets) point to the origin of such complex machinery (composed of many interworking componet parts) as evidence of /and or best explained as being the result of intelligent design. (Specific scientific arguments -such as probablity studies have also been provided for the origin of various biological items.)

    Some evolutionists however claim that such an argument is logically invalid because for example "if design requires a designer -then the the designer himself would also require an even more complex designer ad infinitum, thus requiring an infinite regression of designers."

    The problem with such an evolutionist argument is that it based on a misunderstanding/ misrepresentation of the design argument.

    What they fail to take into account is that the design argument has always meant to deal specifically with directly observable items that 1.) are believed to have an origin and 2.) specific types of complexity (for example -machine like complexity-composed of componet parts- such as the vision system example provided above).

    Since there is nothing in the design argument that requires the designer (wich creationists acknowledge to be God) to 1.) have an origin and/or 2.) an analogious type of complexity )such as machine like complexity composed of componet parts), there therefore is nothing in such argument that necessitates an infinite regression of designers.

    Nor is it "special pleading" to "exempt" an eternal God (with no origin-who is also not believed to be composed of mechanical componet parts) from a such "design argument"- since the "design" requirement/and or "evidence of design" argument was only meant to deal with with observable items that have certain characteristics (such as an origin, ect.), and was never meant to even begin to deal with other types of entities that don't have such characteristics (such as non-mechanical existence).

    The following (from a review of Dawkins) gives the same points:

    http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/4900/

    The fact that Dawkins’ critiques of many carefully argued and long-standing arguments for God’s existence are dealt with in very few pages tells us more about the power of his own self-belief than the soundness of his refutations. For instance, arguments that invoke Thomas Aquinas’ ‘Unmoved Mover’ and ‘Uncaused Cause’ (or similar) are plain wrong, he says in a blatant ipse dixit, 7 because the implied/explicit infinite regress must also apply to God himself (p. 77–78) (although philosophers argue cogently that only that which has a beginning needs a cause).

    Chapter 4 ‘contains the central argument of my book’, says Dawkins, and he gives a useful six-point summary of it (pp. 157–158). To précis this yet further: It is tempting to explain design using the watchmaker analogy but this is false because the Designer then needs an explanation (again misconstruing the designer as having a beginning in the first place, as well as explaining away the fact that God is not composed of different parts). Ergo, natural selection is the only option and we ‘can now safely say’ design is merely an illusion. An ultimate origin (i.e. of the universe itself) awaits a better explanation but the multiverse theory is favoured by Dawkins, even though the alleged other universes are not observable even in principle, so it is hardly a scientific theory. ‘We should not give up hope’ of finding ‘something as powerful as Darwinism is for biology’ to explain cosmology. That is basically all there is to the book’s central argument and anyone conversant with Dawkins’ previous writings (e.g. Climbing Mount Improbable) will find nothing novel here. 8

    He does engage with Behe’s concept of irreducible complexity 9 —though very weakly indeed. After quoting from Darwin, he concedes,

    ‘The creationists are right that, if genuine irreducible complexity could be properly demonstrated, it would wreck Darwin’s theory. … But I can find no such case. … Many candidates for this holy grail of creationism have been proposed. None has stood up to analysis.’ (p. 125)

    One wonders how thoroughly Dawkins has explored each case of claimed irreducible complexity. For instance, his attempt at a refutation of the bacterial flagellum motor is straight out of Kenneth Miller’s discredited book Finding Darwin’s God, an argument that is as fallacious as it is audacious. 10 Surprisingly he even gets his facts wrong, claiming that:

    ‘The flagellar motor of bacteria… drives the only known example, outside of human technology, of a freely rotating axle.’ (p. 130)
    ‘It has been happily described as a tiny outboard motor (although by engineering standards—and unusually for a biological mechanism—it is a spectacularly inefficient one.’ (pp. 130–131)

    On the contrary, Dawkins is apparently ignorant of the F1 ATPase motor, 11 direct observations of the rotation of which were published in Nature in 1997; that same year, several scientists shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for this discovery. Also, the bacterial flagellum motor is 100% efficient at cruising speed. 12 Such errors hardly inspire confidence.

    It’s notable that Dawkins says he recommends Miller’s book to Christians—showing clearly how he treats theistic evolutionists as ‘useful idiots’ who undermine their own faith.

    In fact, his insinuation of a ‘god of the gaps’ mentality grossly misrepresents the argument for irreducible complexity. Far from being an intellectual cop-out (‘we can’t imagine how this complexity was produced so God must have done it’), design is the only credible scientific explanation for certain data based on what we do know—it is precisely for this reason that non-theists and agnostics have joined the ID movement.

    However, no matter how powerfully a case can be made for irreducible complexity, Dawkins will then appeal to his final ‘clincher’ argument:

    ‘…the designer himself (/herself/itself) immediately raises the bigger problem of his own origin. …Far from terminating the vicious regress, God aggravates it with a vengeance.’ (p. 120)

    Aside from the fallacy pointed out already, Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga has pointed out that his argument also begs the question by presupposing materialism. In other words, it presupposes that God is composed of the same sort of matter/energy as the universe, and subject to the same laws. Such an approach a priori rules out the notion that God is spirit, is the uncaused First Cause, is eternal, etc. It thus seeks to discredit God’s own claims about Himself without engaging them on their own terms, ruling them inadmissible by default.

    See also the following from this forum:

    http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/12/122765/1.ashx

  • AlmostAtheist
    AlmostAtheist

    >>Specific scientific arguments -such as probablity studies have also been provided for the origin of various biological items.

    Aren't these types of calculations based on figuring out the chances of a specific thing occuring? e.g., the eye and all of the various chemical whats-its you described happening just the way they do?

    One problem with that sort of thing is the idea that the way things are now is the only way they could have possibly been and still produced a result. The eye may have worked out completely differently, or not at all, and life could still abound. So figuring up the chances for this specific outcome isn't very useful, considering that it has already happened.

    As an example, go out in your driveway and locate a rock. Considering the trillions of positions that rock could be in, and all of the places it could have wound up, it's RIGHT THERE. What are the odds? Regardless of how unlikely it was to happen, it did. Did it require a Rock-Placer? Or could it have happened by natural, undirected forces? The complexity of life and the complexity of rock-placement are a matter of scale.

    Dave

  • stillajwexelder
    stillajwexelder

    Dawkins tackles this in Climbing Mount Improbable

  • DanTheMan
    DanTheMan
    Nor is it "special pleading" to "exempt" an eternal God (with no origin-who is also not believed to be composed of mechanical componet parts) from a such "design argument"- since the "design" requirement/and or "evidence of design" argument was only meant to deal with with observable items that have certain characteristics (such as an origin, ect.), and was never meant to even begin to deal with other types of entities that don't have such characteristics (such as non-mechanical existence).

    You resolve your special pleading by resorting to an unproveable assertion - that there's some non-mechanical, unobserved, unobserveable something out there.

    Perhaps such reasoning is an answer. Is it a good one? Not even close.

  • dawg
    dawg

    Your argument is a straw man... when you state that "some evolutionists" give the ad finium argument.. sorry about the spelling I'm slightly dislexic. Anyway, your argument is with those that make this claim not all evolutionist. There are those that have teken on the complexities of the eye and do not argue about who "created God". They just argue about the evolution of the eye; so your argument isn't with evolution it's with those who say someone had to create God.

  • PrimateDave
    PrimateDave

    I generally accept the Theory of Evolution. In its many varied aspects I think it does a good job of explaining what happened in the past.

    "Thought and behavior in people are rendered far less mysterious when we realize that choice and sensitivity are already exquisitely developed in the microbial cells that became our ancestors." - Lynn Margulis, evolutionary biologist.

    I've read Behe's book. He presents a mechanized and reductionist approach to life. For him the only solution that makes sense is that life originates from an exterior creative source. It is basically a sophisticated way for him to say that he doesn't know how life got here or how it evolved. His non answer is popular with promoters of an omnipotent male deity that was made up by ancient tribal groups.

    Dawkins is also reductionist and "materialistic". But, he takes his assertion one step further. Since he can find no external creative source, then it does not exist.

    I recently read in David C. Korten's book, The Great Turning..., that life is planetary exuberance, physical matter that has the ability to choose. Consider for a moment the words of Lynn Margulis that I quoted above. What if every microbe has a fundamental intelligence to it? What if that same intelligence is to be found in every single cell in existence? And what if those cells decide to cooperate to form multicellular lifeforms? What if, after nearly four billion years of life, Gaia gave birth to a being that could reflect on its own history and look to the future as well? No, it is not "reductionist" or "materialistic". Instead of a universe where an Omniscient Being made everything "just so", consider a universe with an emerging consciousness in the process of self discovery. We could be a part of that.

    One final stab at Creationists: Let's say that there really is an Intelligent Designer as Behe and others suggest? What makes you think that It has anything whatsoever to do with the Bible or Christianity? Just because you say so?

    Dave

  • TopHat
    TopHat

    A 9 year old could could have a debate with Dawkins and Win...His book is written for a 3rd grader.

  • greendawn
    greendawn

    Creationists always find it surprising that anyone could believe the immensely complex biological systems came about by sheer chance, it just happened that way by very good luck. To us creationists that is a myth just like any other, things simply don't happen that way on such infinitesimally small probabilities. Anything can happen in theory but nothing does happen when the probabilities are so tiny. In the year 2007 we know life is incredibly complex something that wasn't known by Darwin.

  • ithinkisee
    ithinkisee

    ::Creationists always find it surprising that anyone
    ::could believe the immensely complex biological systems
    ::came about by sheer chance ... To us creationists that is a myth just like any other

    You're 100% right. That is a myth. Because that is not what evolutionists believe. But I bet that is what your Church tells their people evolution is.

    -ithinkisee

  • hooberus
    hooberus
    Nor is it "special pleading" to "exempt" an eternal God (with no origin-who is also not believed to be composed of mechanical componet parts) from a such "design argument"- since the "design" requirement/and or "evidence of design" argument was only meant to deal with with observable items that have certain characteristics (such as an origin, ect.), and was never meant to even begin to deal with other types of entities that don't have such characteristics (such as non-mechanical existence).

    You resolve your special pleading by resorting to an unproveable assertion - that there's some non-mechanical, unobserved, unobserveable something out there.

    Perhaps such reasoning is an answer. Is it a good one? Not even close.

    I engaged in no "special pleading" at all. Special pleading is trying exempt something from an argument by using an irrevelant excuse.

    "The fallacy of Special Pleading occurs when someone argues that a case is an exception to a rule based upon an irrelevant characteristic that does not define an exception." http://www.fallacyfiles.org/specplea.html

    For example if someone makes a hypothetical argument such as: "all mechanically complex systems that have a begining require an intelligent designer", and then tries to exempt a mechanically complex system that has a beginning from requiring a designer because it is "blue in color", then they have committed special pleading [color =irrevelant characteristic]. Thus the exemption was unjustified.

    However, they would not be committing special pleading by exempting anything from the hypothetical argument if a revelant difference exists. For example (since the above hypothetical argument was specifically dealing with things that have a beginning), anything eternal [having no beginning] would not fall under it- and would thus not be an unjustified exemption.

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