Inherent Function or Intelligent Design?

Looks to me like he had his ears open dude.

 

Hmmmm. Is that the best you can do? You and your previous video indicated that you know how life began. I offered a reasonably detailed response saying you don't. And you sigh, ask why I don't stick my fingers in my ears and hum a soothing tune, and provide a song without much to say about abiogenesis. Seems to me you've already taken your own advice.

 

... they shook, and lurched all over the church floor...




When are you defenders of faith going to bring ANYTHING AT ALL to the table?


"ugh but explain this, ugh but explain that, ugh but, ugh but... I don't understand infinity... I subscribe to the school of unreasoning and ignorance called faith and religion. I don't have to give any evidence at all for anything - just nitpick and ignore, nitpick and ignore, convolute and deplore... "

 

Interesting that YOU are the one avoiding responding to okiefreaks direct and informed rebuttal, yet Christians are the ones that subscribe to the school of unreasoning and ignorance?

Okie actually did site research and work to support his position. All you provided was a meandering anti-christian diatribe.

You got a mirror anywhere, Relaxxx? I think maybe you need to go take a look in it.

 

BS! I was asked to explain self replication and I did. On top of that I said that was as deep as I was going to get. Did anyone even acknowledge that I explained it? No, I got an idiotic dismissal and on with the next convoluted ignoramus objections, as if I've got nothing better to do.

I've said what I wanted to say and you can attack it with ignorance and illogic for the next 100 pages for all I care, have at it, rape and mangle every word of it... go on like you know better than thousands of scientific geniuses who think this is how life started.

God shuffled his feet,
and morons believed it!

 

With atheists like this, who needs Christian apologetics?!

 

I said I appreciated your effort.

 

I'm having a problem with the term "function". To me, it refers to what something does as part of its role in some larger system. For example, the pancreas functions in the digestive and endocrine systems to secrete insulin, etc. What functions do living organisms serve? Lots. Reproduction would be a biggie, a function which I'm fully capable of performing. Those functions might be explained by natural selection. There are also lots of things in the universe which are hard to describe in terms of "function". What is the function of comets or asteroids, or planets for that matter? So I'd tend to agree with you that the mere fact something seems to have a function or is doing its job isn't a good reason to assume that an intelligence is responsible for it.

But your friend might just not be careful with his words. If he means that there seems to be pervasive integrated complexity in the universe and this leads him to suspect that a higher intelligence is responsible, I'd tend to agree with him, as would lots of well-respected scientists like Paul Davies, Francis Collins, Freeman Dyson, Bernard Haisch, etc. I agree with you that we've been able to find naturalistic explanations for lots of things we used to attribute to supernatural causes. There's certainly a lot that remains unexplained. Since I believe that the laws of physics are divinely authored, I'd expect that it would be possible to find naturalistic explanations for most or all of these, as well. It's important to realize that this is an article of faith, since as Bertrand Russell has told us, the fully rational person doesn't expect the sun to come up tomorrow, even though it always has before. (It's a metaphor; I know the sun doesn't "come up".)

 

I think the perception of function is necessarily indicative of intelligence.

 

And that perception would be ours. I could be wrong, but to my knowledge, other intelligent species, like whales, dolphins, and chimps, don't have a concept of "function". An interesting feature of human intelligence is that it seems to be far greater than necessary for our survival as a species. Physicist and priest John Polkinghorne argues: "Human powers of rational comprehension vastly exceed anything that could be simply an evolutionary necessity for survival, or plausible construed as some sort of collateral spin-off from such a necessity." We can debate the significance of inherent functions, intelligent design, etc. Why is that?

Evolutionary biology has been a major influence on my faith. Stephen Jay Gould, eminent evolutionist and agnostic, maintains that human existence is a fluke. At many critical crossroads on the path to us, choice of a path not taken would have led to our not being here having this conversation. Gould says we exist because Pikaia survived the Burgess decimation. For those not into evolutionary geneology, Pikaia is a prehistoric fish that some believe is the common ancestor of all living vertebrates. To evolutionists like Gould, if Pikaia hadn't survived, no big deal. We wouldn't be here to worry about it. Nor, to our knowledge, would any intelligent life form that is into contemplating the nature of the universe be here to apprecuiate the wonder of it all. All that cool stuff out there, and nobody to be aware of it. Is that significant? Gould would say no, but I'm betting otherwise. Either our existence is a remarkably lucky fluke, or it somehow had to be. Either way, it seems like a miracle.

 

And that perception would be ours. To my knowledge, whales, dolphins and chips aren't into such concepts. Human intelligence has evolved far beyond what is needed for our survival. Physicist and priest John Polkinghorne notes; "Human powers of rational comprehension vastly exceed anything that could be simply an evolutionary necessity for survival, or plausibly construed as some sort of collateral spin-off from such a necessity." Why is that?

I owe my faith in part to evolutionary biology. The great evolutionist and agnostic Stephen Jay Gould argues that human existence is a fluke--the result of a fortuitous series of turns at a number of critical forks in the evolutionary pathway. He credits our existence to the fact that Pikia survived the Burgess decimation. For those not into geneology, Pikia is the little prehistoric fish that is regarded as the ancestor of all living vertebrates. If Pikia hadn't made it, we wouldn't be having this conversation, nor would anybody realize what a remarkable universe we live in. All this cool stuff and nobody to appreciate it. Yet here we are. Is that significant? Gould would say "So what?" I intuitively think it's a big deal, and more than accidental. I think that's what separates the brute empiricists from the starry eyed mystics like me.

 

the problem with intelligent design, is that many of the designs aren't that intelligent.

but they are just exactly what you would expect to see arrived at by ad hoc circumstance.