Intelligent Design and String Theory

The real difference between String Theory and ID is this: the Stringers are on a constant search for an experiment that can test their theory, while the IDers resist any attempts to find such an experiment for their theory.

Good point. But then again, there is no theory of ID to test :-)

There is also other historical precedent for the type of work going on in string theory that the ID crowd doesn't understand. Mach hounded Boltzmann into depression over Boltzmann's work on statistical mechanics because atoms could not be observed even in principle, or so thought Mach. Nevertheless, due to the work by Boltzmann, Maxwell, Gibbs, Einstein, Bose and others, the macroscopic behaviors of gases, then solids, then plasmas finally began to be explained accurately in terms of the behaviors of the underlying microscopic behaviors of atoms and molecules and the laws of classical and quantum mechanics.

Now we can "see" and manipulate atoms using scanning tunneling microscopes and their derivatives. But all along the path, there were experimental checks that verified the validity of the theory. Even with string theory there remains the possibility that someone will find a clever experiment within the range of technology that will check consequences of the theory. It has happened many times before because there are clear links to experiments, even if these are gedanken experiments for the moment.

Where are the string theorists lobbying for their idea to be taught in schools? Where is the PR offensive? Where is the theory's Dembski, where its Behe, where its Fleischmann and Pons?

Surely no new scientific theory can be taken seriously unless we teach the controversy to teenagers first.

R

You unfairly malign Fleischmann and Pons. They were (and AFASIK still are) experimentalists. Yes, the results do appear to have been in error. But there were results that could be replicated (or not). Pons might have done poor calorimetric measurements, but that does not make him a Dembski.

[Full disclosure: I was in the Chemistry Dept. at the University of Utah when Pons, Fleischmann and the unnamed grad student published the Cold Fusion paper.]

The maligning is even worse than that - IIRC it wasn't even their decision to hold the infamous press conference that caused so much trouble, it was the university's decision. And this was with results that were not only gained by valid scientific (if ultimately mistaken) approaches, but with an hypothesis as to causation that was actually broadly consistent with the rest of science. There have even been tantalising hints over the years that maybe they were actually onto something.

And they still got torn apart by the academic community over it. Real scientists, respectable individuals working inside their field of expertise, got minced for not going through the proper steps. And that's pretty much as it should be. But it does rather kill the IDiots' claims of persecution.

[Full disclosure: my dad worked for Dr Fleischmann as a grad student. No, he wasn't that grad student.]

Thanks for the article. The way you explained the dimensions was a big help to me. Just a question.

Sorry. Question. Gribbon explains in his book "Schroedinger's kittens" than ST (String Theory) will do away with the CC. He fails to mention in what way. It is because ST will explain the CC or that ST does not need any CC in it's equations?

Comment #78460 Posted by RupertG on February 9, 2006 04:31 AM (e) Where are the string theorists lobbying for their idea to be taught in schools? Where is the PR offensive? Where is the theory's Dembski, where its Behe, where its Fleischmann and Pons? Surely no new scientific theory can be taken seriously unless we teach the controversy to teenagers first. R

Corkscrew and DaryL:
Wow, it's a small world, innit?

About P&F, I know close to nothing about nuclear physics, but I thought their results were NOT consistent with current theories, and in fact one of the things that immediately suggested that something was wrong with their conclusions was that, if their measurements were correct, the experimenters would have been practically incinerated by the radiation emitted by their system.

Also, apart from the press conference (which clearly they should have refused to participate in, regardless of who set it up), I think the reason they were "chewed up" was that they hung on to their conclusions well past the moment they were shown to be extremely fishy, in part abetted in this by spurious results obtained in other labs, as well as by cheer-leading from outsiders and other self-proclaimed "iconoclasts". (I think that's where the similarity with ID is, not in their methods, which were indeed scientific.)

A long time ago I read what seemed a pretty good book (if rather negative about P&F) about the whole story, "Bad Science" by Gary Taubes.

Back to string theory now.

You forgot one item in your list of differences between string theory and ID:

4. If experiments show that string theory does not correctly explain observable phenomena in the universe, then string theory will be discarded. That is, scientists working on string theory will acknowledge it if their theory cannot be reconciled with experimental data. ID proponents will not change their minds, no matter what experimental data shows.

Renier, my understanding is that string theory would explain the CC. The CC is the vacuum energy density, which is related to quantum gravity, which string theory seeks to describe.

I would like to go off in another direction: astronomy. It is well-known that Newton could not explain the relative motion of the planets Jupiter and Saturn. I have read, although I have no reference, that as a kind of explanation he postulated "the intermittent action of a deity".

About a hundred years later Laplace did the calculation with the newly invented technique of perturbation theory to the 3rd order. Newton is said to have done his calculation only to the 2nd order. - Laplace had thus good reasons for answering Napoleon that he had no need for a hypothetical god in his scientific work.

How can a believer in ID creationism be sure that he does not make the same mistake as Newton?

At every string throry seminar I ever attended, at the end an HEP experimentalist would always ask "Is any of this testable ?". The reply was walways along the lines of "Yes, but you dimwit experimentalists haven't been able to build a big enough particle accelerator yet"

Good Times.

It would be nice if there was just one proposed falsifiable ID experiment out there, but I haven't hread one.

It's simpler than that, really. One may readily come up with a testable model of intelligent design of organisms, it's just that when one does this one finds that ID has already been falsified.

Once evolution began to make its predictions, life was found to show the marks of evolution, while intelligent claims that life was designed evaporated in the face of vestigial organs and rather unlikely "designs" which are predicted by evolution, and which are actually predicted not to exist by any rational/empirical concept of design. That is, ID is falsifiable, if one simply brings normal design expectations to judge if organisms have been designed or not. When this is done we find that organisms haven't been designed, rather they are well explained via evolution.

The resurrected concept of ID avoids the problem that it has been falsified by denying the meaningfulness of every reasonable test that we bring to it. While current ID isn't falsifiable, this is simply because it refuses to accept expected tests of ID because these refute the concept. Therefore, it isn't due to the nature of ID that it cannot be tested (the designer doesn't need to be known per se, however this posited designer must follow fairly normal expectations that we have for a designer, or we would have no means to evaluate the design claim), it is merely the denial of reasonable testing criteria which makes ID untestable in its current form. IDists refuse any criterion that will allow ID to be falsified.

We really shouldn't allow anyone to confuse the issue, since confusion of standards is what ID feeds off of. IDists cannot subject their idea to testing because they already know that normal tests do not find design in organisms. Thus they oppose science itself, and demand that an unknown designer with unknown design criteria, unknown capabilities, and unknown purposes (even in principle) for its designs, be considered to be "science". They deliberately demand that their ideas must be accommodated within science (or at least science education) after modifying the old claims so that they can no longer be tested, as Paley's claims were able to be tested. This is why ID is the most malign form of creationism yet.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm

Please read the nature article:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v439/n7072/full/439010a.html

String theory is not more scientific than intelligent design. At least with intelligent design, there are many tangible artifacts one can analyze and infer conclusions from. String theory postulates ideas that are outside the observable universe. At least that's the feeling that I'm getting from the article I linked to above.

First, responding to Renier: The cosmological constant has been a puzzle in physics for years, and no theory has ever made a reasonable prediction for its value.

For a long time, every experiment showed that its value was zero to within the experimental uncertainty. At that time, most physicists expected that there must be some physical principle (as yet unknown) that required it to be zero exactly. So people expected that a "theory of everything" like string theory would imply such a principle... but nobody could find it. I'm guessing that the book you mention was written in that era.

More recently, more precise experiments have discovered that the cosmological constant is non-zero, but very, very small. So now, physicists working on string theory have stopped looking for a principle that sets it to zero exactly, and are instead looking for mechanisms that could lead to such a small value. (Some of my own work has been on that topic.) Some still hope that string theory will eventually predict the exact value, while others now suspect that different values might be allowed in different (and very distant!) regions of the universe.

Next, "yellow fatty bean": In most of the string theory seminars that I've been to (or given), the speaker has responded to the question of experimental tests by stating that both the theorists and the experimentalists would need to do better for predictions to be testable. Personally, I figure that we theorists have the farthest to go in bridging that gap: experiment has been making great progress for decades, while we're still trying to figure out the underlying structure of the theory. But that's the fun! So I agree: Good Times.

Finally, just as a personal plug, I've got slides from my own "Introduction to String Theory" talk on line for those who are interested; it's aimed at people who took some physics years ago but may not have done a lot with it since. I like to think that I've described string theory's extra dimensions and some of its differences from traditional particle physics reasonably well (at that level). The address is:
http://theory.uchicago.edu/~sjensen/research/MITClub2004/.

Here is perhaps a more simplistic explanation for "non" scientist who are interested
String Theory
In String Theory, the myriad of particle types is replaced by a single fundamental building block, a `string'. These strings can be closed, like loops, or open, like a hair. As the string moves through time it traces out a tube or a sheet, according to whether it is closed or open. Furthermore, the string is free to vibrate, and different vibrational modes of the string represent the different particle types, since different modes are seen as different masses or spins.
M-theory
Apart from the fact that instead of one there are five different, healthy theories of strings (three superstrings and two heterotic strings) there was another difficulty in studying these theories: we did not have tools to explore the theory over all possible values of the parameters in the theory. Each theory was like a large planet of which we only knew a small island somewhere on the planet. But over the last four years, techniques were developed to explore the theories more thoroughly, in other words, to travel around the seas in each of those planets and find new islands. And only then it was realized that those five string theories are actually islands on the same planet, not different ones! Thus there is an underlying theory of which all string theories are only different aspects. This was called M-theory. The M might stand for Mother of all theories or Mystery, because the planet we call M-theory is still largely unexplored.
M-theory
Apart from the fact that instead of one there are five different, healthy theories of strings (three superstrings and two heterotic strings) there was another difficulty in studying these theories: we did not have tools to explore the theory over all possible values of the parameters in the theory. Each theory was like a large planet of which we only knew a small island somewhere on the planet. But over the last four years, techniques were developed to explore the theories more thoroughly, in other words, to travel around the seas in each of those planets and find new islands. And only then it was realized that those five string theories are actually islands on the same planet, not different ones! Thus there is an underlying theory of which all string theories are only different aspects. This was called M-theory. The M might stand for Mother of all theories or Mystery, because the planet we call M-theory is still largely unexplored.

String theory is not more scientific than intelligent design. At least with intelligent design, there are many tangible artifacts one can analyze and infer conclusions from. String theory postulates ideas that are outside the observable universe. At least that's the feeling that I'm getting from the article I linked to above.

— Anteater

It's good to see people who understand string theory much better than I do contribute to this thread. Steuard your webpages are very helpful to me. My understanding of physics is enough to get me into trouble, your pages are enough to get me out of trouble again :-)

Exploring M Theory and strings is quite interesting since for a long time I had a limited grasp of what it was really all about. My goal was to show that ID and string theory are only superficially 'similar'

Very sorry for the double post, the last part should have read.

There is still a third possibility for the M in M-theory. One of the islands that was found on the M-theory planet corresponds to a theory that lives not in 10 but in 11 dimensions. This seems to be telling us that M-theory should be viewed as an 11 dimensional theory that looks 10 dimensional at some points in its space of parameters. Such a theory could have as a fundamental object a Membrane, as opposed to a string. Like a drinking straw seen at a distance, the membranes would look like strings when we curl the 11th dimension into a small circle

Hello PvM,

Thanks for the response. I agree String Theory may be a beautiful theory. But some may say ID is also elegant.

I personally see no difference between String Theory and ID in terms of metaphysics. Both are on the same footing.

As the nature article suggested, if one can postulate a theory that deals outside of the observable universe, then what prevents one from saying that the universe was the product of intelligent design?

You make a good point by saying that we can potentially observe the effects of String Theory; however, ID claims almost the same point -- they're observing the effects ('artifacts') of design.

Hope I am making a little sense. Thanks.

PvM wrote:

"1. ID is an ad hoc argument to explain something we do not understand. String theory or multiverses follow logically or mathematically from observations.

2. ID is in principle unfalsifiable, string theory and mutliverses are just hard to falsify

3. String theory and multiverses fall into a category which is best described as...."

All the fine distinctions between ID and ST discussed here are stretched and convoluted.

(1) ID proponents also argue that ID theory follows "logically from observations."

(2) Both theories cannot be falsified right now but can "in principle" be falsified, if that counts. If we could duplicate the conditions on the early earth, either in a lab on earth or find another identical planet, and life evolved in exactly the same way, that would come very close to falsifying ID.

(3) ID proponents argue that ID theory provides a powerful framework that explains various mysteries.

The fact is that working scientists are not philosophers. They don't go walking around with a checklist in their heads pertaining to what constitutes science. There are no official rules that a paper needs to satisfy in order to qualify as science. The various steps of the so called "scientific method" exist primarily in story books, not the real world.

In the real world scientists propose theories that they feel in their gut advances knowledge or understanding about the behavior of nature. As long as a theory is not contradicted by data, it gets to live another day. The ID proponents believe ID does that. The real reason ID is automatically disqualified by the established scientific community is that it contains a fatal flaw - it implies God. They prefer to artifically restrict the domain of science to so called "natural" explantions, the truth be damned.

The real reason ID is automatically disqualified by the established scientific community is that it contains a fatal flaw - it implies God.

No, it can't.

They prefer to artifically restrict the domain of science to so called "natural" explantions, the truth be damned.

No, there is no such thing as "artifically restricting the domain of science" because there is no evidence for anything that isn't natural.

You have some proof that a supernatural anything exists?

Figures that post made it straight through, but my first one got moderated hours ago.

The fact is that working scientists are not philosophers. They don't go walking around with a checklist in their heads pertaining to what constitutes science. There are no official rules that a paper needs to satisfy in order to qualify as science. The various steps of the so called "scientific method" exist primarily in story books, not the real world.

lol... now THAT is funny.

(1) ID proponents also argue that ID theory follows "logically from observations."

— Carol

(2) Both theories cannot be falsified right now but can "in principle" be falsified, if that counts. If we could duplicate the conditions on the early earth, either in a lab on earth or find another identical planet, and life evolved in exactly the same way, that would come very close to falsifying ID.

(3) ID proponents argue that ID theory provides a powerful framework that explains various mysteries.

The fact is that working scientists are not philosophers. They don't go walking around with a checklist in their heads pertaining to what constitutes science. There are no official rules that a paper needs to satisfy in order to qualify as science. The various steps of the so called "scientific method" exist primarily in story books, not the real world.

In the real world scientists propose theories that they feel in their gut advances knowledge or understanding about the behavior of nature. As long as a theory is not contradicted by data, it gets to live another day.

The ID proponents believe ID does that.

The real reason ID is automatically disqualified by the established scientific community is that it contains a fatal flaw - it implies God.

They prefer to artifically restrict the domain of science to so called "natural" explantions, the truth be damned.

That ID is scientifically vacuous is once again beautifully exposed:

The theory of intelligent design is not only not falsifiable; there is simply no way to test it. But that is not the main reason it is not science. The main reason is, that ID does not actually explain anything. When we ask, "Why is the world the way it is?" it answers, "Because it was designed that way." The world is the way it is because it is that way. That might be the furthest from a useful, satisfactory explanation you can get.

Incorrect. ID proponents claim that ID follows from observation. They do not 'argue' it. In addition, there is no theory of ID. If you believe otherwise, articulate that theory. Please include all hypotheses, falsification tests, research, corroboration from other disciplines, etc.

If you buy into the hype that intelligent design can be "inferred" from evidence that we're not here by accident, then it is inferred by the anthropic principle if the multiverse doesn't exist, if, as the co-founder of string theory, Leonard Susskind, says... "the appearance of intelligent design is undeniable".

His is a scientific interpretation that only fails to support ID because he is confident that he can lose the so-called, "implication" in the multiverse, but he'll have both feet in his mouth if string theory doesn't pan out, which I don't believe that it will.

He's wrong, but not for the reasons that most believe.

The real reason ID is automatically disqualified by the established scientific community is that it contains a fatal flaw - it implies God. They prefer to artifically restrict the domain of science to so called "natural" explantions, the truth be damned.

Claim CA301.1: If the correct explanation for a phenomenon happens to be supernatural, the naturalistic method of science will miss it. "With creationist explanations disqualified at the outset, it follows that the evidence will always support the naturalistic alternative." Source: Johnson, Phillip E., 1990. Evolution as dogma: The establishment of naturalism. First Things (Oct.), 15-22. http://www.arn.org/docs/johnson/pjdogma1.htm

PvM wrote:

1. ID is an ad hoc argument to explain something we do not understand. String theory or multiverses follow logically or mathematically from observations. 2. ID is in principle unfalsifiable, string theory and mutliverses are just hard to falsify 3. String theory and multiverses fall into a category which is best described as...."

— Carol Clouser

All the fine distinctions between ID and ST discussed here are stretched and convoluted. (1) ID proponents also argue that ID theory follows "logically from observations."

(2) Both theories cannot be falsified right now but can "in principle" be falsified, if that counts. If we could duplicate the conditions on the early earth, either in a lab on earth or find another identical planet, and life evolved in exactly the same way, that would come very close to falsifying ID.

— Clouser

(3) ID proponents argue that ID theory provides a powerful framework that explains various mysteries. The fact is that working scientists are not philosophers. They don't go walking around with a checklist in their heads pertaining to what constitutes science. There are no official rules that a paper needs to satisfy in order to qualify as science. The various steps of the so called "scientific method" exist primarily in story books, not the real world.

— Clouser

In the real world scientists propose theories that they feel in their gut advances knowledge or understanding about the behavior of nature. As long as a theory is not contradicted by data, it gets to live another day. The ID proponents believe ID does that. The real reason ID is automatically disqualified by the established scientific community is that it contains a fatal flaw - it implies God. They prefer to artifically restrict the domain of science to so called "natural" explantions, the truth be damned.

— Clouser

No, there is no such thing as "artifically restricting the domain of science"...

... because there is no evidence for anything that isn't natural.

You mean there isn't anything you take to be evidence of anything non-natural, which is a very different thing

Let's have it.

"Why is the world the way it is" isn't even a scientific question; it is a philosophical one. Therefore, using it as an example that demonstrates that ID is "scientifically vacuous" is misleading. Answering the question by saying "because chance and necessity and their combination made it that way" isn't very satisfying either --- philosophically or scientifically!

— Donald

If you buy into the hype that intelligent design can be "inferred" from evidence that we're not here by accident, then it is inferred by the anthropic principle if the multiverse doesn't exist, if, as the co-founder of string theory, Leonard Susskind, says... "the appearance of intelligent design is undeniable". His is a scientific interpretation that only fails to support ID because he is confident that he can lose the so-called, "implication" in the multiverse, but he'll have both feet in his mouth if string theory doesn't pan out, which I don't believe that it will. He's wrong, but not for the reasons that most believe.

— island

Yes there is. It's called 'methodological naturalism', an artificial restriction if ever there was one.

— Donald M

Yes there is. It's called 'methodological naturalism', an artificial restriction if ever there was one.

— Donald M

Even if string theory doesn't pan out, he's still wrong. 'Design' is in the eye of the beholder; it's not a quantifiable property of the universe.

No, design is simply sum of expressed bias for satisfying some relevant need.

And the anthropic principle is a non-starter; given that we're here, the odds that the universe is suitable to our arrival is... 1.

LOL... if that's all that there was to the anthropic principle, then yeah, but you've intentionally downplayed the significance by about a million orders of magnitude, by neglecting information that Lenny does not.

The ID advocates are making an emotional argument, generally informed by religion. Nothing more.

No, there are scientific interpretations of the anthropic principle that note that there is evidence that we're not here by accident.

Here's a physics lecture about all of them:

http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/ast123/lectures/lec19.html

Yes there is. It's called 'methodological naturalism', an artificial restriction if ever there was one.

— Donald M

Q. Then we've got slow design, and there we have no mechanism at all, no description of a mechanism? A. We have no description of a mechanism. We do infer design though from the purposeful arrangement of parts. Q. Now yesterday, I asked you some questions about the designer's abilities. And you said, all we know about its abilities is that it was capable of making whatever we have determined is design. That's the only statement we can make about the designer's abilities? ... Q. And the only thing we know scientifically about the designer's motives or desires or needs is that, according to your argument, the only thing we would know scientifically about that is that it must have wanted to make what we have concluded as design? A. Yes, that's right

Q. Now you, in fact, have stated that intelligent design can never be ruled out, correct? A. Yes, that's right.

Even if string theory doesn't pan out, he's still wrong. 'Design' is in the eye of the beholder; it's not a quantifiable property of the universe.

No, design is simply the sum of expressed bias toward satisfying whatever relevant need. You think humans are above nature.

And the anthropic principle is a non-starter; given that we're here, the odds that the universe is suitable to our arrival is... 1.

LOL... if that was all that there was to the AP, then yeah, but you've willfully downplayed the significance of evidence by about a million orders of magnitude, which at least Lenny doesn't do.

The ID advocates are making an emotional argument, generally informed by religion. Nothing more.

No, there are valid scientific interpretations of the anthropic principle which note that there is evidence that we are not here by accident.

Here is a physics lecture that includes most of them, including the one that I mentioned, and you will be in willful denial of the facts if you fail to recognize mine:

http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/ast123/lectures/lec19.html

Carol Clouser said "There are no official rules that a paper needs to satisfy in order to qualify as science. The various steps of the so called "scientific method" exist primarily in story books, not the real world" It continues to amaze me how many "educated" people do not understand what Science* is or what is meant by the term "scientific method,let me jog your memory Carol.In my opinion
one of the best descriptions and explanations of the current concept of scientific method is this.
Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.
Formulation of a hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation.
Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations.
Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments.
So Carol, are we to assume by your comments that you are accusing all scientist of being disingenuous,surely not?

No, there are valid scientific interpretations of the anthropic principle which note that there is evidence that we are not here by accident.

— island

Unless I have missed something in the ID literature, I have not been able to find anywhere in their writings a program of genuine research that they themselves have carried out or propose to carry out. At best, they seem to want others do it (whatever "it" is). If these ardent believers in ID can't come up with anything, why are they complaining that everyone is against them? It sounds like the paranoia characteristic of hucksters to me. The less they demonstrate, the more they babble. Pretty wimpy science if it is science at all.

Here is a physics lecture that includes most of them, including the one that I mentioned, and you will be in willful denial of the facts if you fail to recognize mine:

— island

What can't be inferred from design is "intelligence", without direct proof, since any satisfied physical need will derive the same results.

This is not commonly understood, because everybody is afraid of the implications for specialness that are inherent to the physics of the anthropic principle.

Because they buy into the creationists hype and they *believe* that evidence that we're not here by accident constitutes evidence for god.

Soooooo... they invent rationale that downplays the whole reason that it was named the anthropic principle, instead of acting like real scientists, and trying to find some good reason for why it might be true... WHICH BI-PASSES THE NORMAL SCIENTIFIC METHOD ROUTE!!!

No, design is simply the sum of expressed bias toward satisfying whatever relevant need. You think humans are above nature.

— island

What can't be inferred from design is "intelligence", without direct proof, since any satisfied physical need will derive the same results.

— island

This is not commonly understood, because everybody is afraid of the implications for specialness that are inherent to the physics of the anthropic principle.

Because they buy into the creationists hype and they *believe* that evidence that we're not here by accident constitutes evidence for god. Soooooo... they invent rationale that downplays the whole reason that it was named the anthropic principle, instead of acting like real scientists, and trying to find some good reason for why it might be true... WHICH BI-PASSES THE NORMAL SCIENTIFIC METHOD ROUTE!!!

PvM: Next time please preview before you post Island.. I cannot correct all the XML errors

I am quite familiar with all these lines of argument. The basic point remains: the anthropic principle is meaningful only if we violate the basic principle of "nothing special here."

Consider: how could tell the difference between a sole universe where life occured to ask the question of how life occured; and a multiverse situation? You can't. It would look the same.

You forgot to first look for a good physical reason why it might be true... Why is that?

The AP falls from the observed universe not theoretical speculation about fairys and unproven universes... sorry, those don't fly against the implications for specialnees that fall from the observed universe, unless you can prove that a multiverse is necessary to the one true theory of everything... but that ain't gonna happen, so give it up and find a good reason why we might be special to the process.

Even your physics lecture only points out that the basic meaninglessness of the AP is only "mildly unsatisfying". In other words, we don't find it emotionally satisfying. That doesn't make the AP an actual philosophical or logical problem.

The anthropic/cosmic coincidences note that life only appears balanced between diametrically opposing runaway tendencies... I should think that Evobiologists could make good use of that information if they we're pre-prejudiced against the AP.

But... the AP is incomplete, because it was taken from a flawed large numbers hypothesis. Fix the flaw and you necessarily complete the principle.

Ahhhhhh... denial of evidence, at it's finest.

A true neodarwinian antifanatic.

Consider: how could tell the difference between a sole universe where life occured to ask the question of how life occured; and a multiverse situation? You can't. It would look the same. You forgot to first look for a good physical reason why it might be true... Why is that?

— Island

Nope. That's the whole point: I don't think humans are above nature. In fact, the AP is a problem only if you think that we are.

Nope... you're arrogantly separating us from the process. The metric is defined during the initial conditions... and the impetus is entropic, so the frog is naturally designed to efficiently increase entropy.

http://www.intothecool.com/

Yes there may be a variety of physical reasons to explain the anthropic principle such as multiverses, selection, chance and even necessity (this universe is the only possible one). None of these makes us necessarily 'special' just lucky...

No, necessity should be first before reaching for non-causally oriented mechanisms, and don't even pretend that you ever really do consider this option seriously... or you're lying.

Nope. That's the whole point: I don't think humans are above nature. In fact, the AP is a problem only if you think that we are. Nope... you're arrogantly separating us from the process. The metric is defined during the initial conditions... and the impetus is entropic, so the frog is naturally designed to efficiently increase entropy. http://www.intothecool.com/

— Island

What happens to specialness when a real scientist points out that the anthopic principle readily extends and cannot be restricted from every last banded spiral galaxy that exists on the same evolutionary "plane" as we do with respect to the requirement of the principle that we occupy a special "location" and time in the history of the universe?

Why don't people point this out?

Because they are reacting... not thinking like scientists.

Yes there may be a variety of physical reasons to explain the anthropic principle such as multiverses, selection, chance and even necessity (this universe is the only possible one). None of these makes us necessarily 'special' just lucky... No, necessity should be first before reaching for non-causally oriented mechanisms, and don't even pretend that you ever really do consider this option seriously... or you're lying

— Island

Aha, an ad hominem followed by an unsupported claim...

Wow... you must have missed the link to the scientists that support the claim, or you're in willful denial... hmmmmmmmm...

Here, try this one, but don't forget that it is a magazine popularization.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2004/09/30/2003204990

50 bucks says he forgets and brings up the part about... ;)

island. you continue to offer no argument to support your claim. behave like a grown-up: demonstrate that the current values of the physical parameters of the universe IMPLY that we are special.
Hint: you can't.

Aha, an ad hominem...

OHHHH... I'm sorry, I was meaning to quote Lynn Margulis when she called them "neodarwinian bullies"... for the same reason.

*waiting for the rationale that's guaranteed to follow*

island. you continue to offer no argument to support your claim. behave like a grown-up: demonstrate that the current values of the physical parameters of the universe IMPLY that we are special.
Hint: you can't.

I have no idea what you're talking about, I gave a bunch of evidence that you're in denial of, so there's no use continuing with you other than to tell you what I think of your non-scientific mentality.

in short. island. you need to demonstrate that this is. in fact. a case of necessity... which neither you. nor your 'pop-science' links have done.

in short. island. you need to demonstrate that this is. in fact. a case of necessity... which neither you. nor your 'pop-science' links have done.

Eric Schneider is one of the scientists that the evowiki references as a viable source for proof that creationists abuse the second law of thermodymics.

Dorion Sagan is Carl Sagan and Lynn Margulis' son.

James Kay was another, and together with Eric, they wrote many of these:

Schneider, Eric D. and James J. Kay, 1994. "Life as a manifestation of the second law of thermodynamics." Mathematical and Computer Modelling 19(6-8): 25-48. http://www.fes.uwaterloo.ca/u/jjkay/pubs/Life_as/lifeas.pdf

Schneider, E.D, Kay, J.J., 1994 "Complexity and Thermodynamics: Towards a New Ecology", Futures 24 (6) pp.626-647, August 1994

Schneider, E.D, Kay, J.J., 1995, "Order from Disorder: The Thermodynamics of Complexity in Biology", in Michael P. Murphy, Luke A.J. O'Neill (ed), "What is Life: The Next Fifty Years. Reflections on the Future of Biology", Cambridge University Press, pp. 161-172

Kay. J. 2000. "Ecosystems as Self-organizing Holarchic Open Systems : Narratives and the Second Law of Thermodynamics" in Sven Erik Jorgensen, Felix Muller (eds), Handbook of Ecosystems Theories and Management, CRC Press - Lewis Publishers. pp 135-160

Fraser, R., Kay, J.J., 2002. "Exergy Analysis of Eco-Systems: Establishing a Role for the Thermal Remote Sensing" in D. Quattrochi and J. Luvall (eds) Thermal Remote sensing in Land Surface Processes, Taylor & Francis Publishers (UPDATED 1 August 2001)

Kay, J.J., 1991. "A Non-equilibrium Thermodynamic Framework for Discussing Ecosystem Integrity", Environmental Management, Vol 15, No.4, pp.483-495

Kay, J.J., Schneider, E.D., 1992. "Thermodynamics and Measures of Ecosystem Integrity" in Ecological Indicators, Volume 1, D.H. McKenzie, D.E. Hyatt, V.J. Mc Donald (eds.), Proceedings of the International Symposium on Ecological Indicators, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Elsevier, pp.159-182.

Kay. J., Regier, H., 1999. "An Ecosystem Approach to Erie's Ecology" in M. Munawar, T.Edsall, I.F. Munawar, (eds), International Symposium. The State of Lake Erie (SOLE) - Past, Present and Future. A tribute to Drs. Joe Leach & Henry Regier, Backhuys Academic Publishers, Netherlands, pp.511-533

Kay, J, Allen, T., Fraser, R., Luvall, J., Ulanowicz, R., 2001. "Can we use energy based indicators to characterize and measure the status of ecosystems, human, disturbed and natural?" in in Ulgiati, S., Brown, M.T., Giampietro, M., Herendeen, R., Mayumi, K., (eds) Proceedings of the international workshop: Advances in Energy Studies: exploring supplies, constraints and strategies, Porto Venere, Italy, 23-27 May, 2000 pp 121-133.

Kay, J., 2002, "On Complexity Theory, Exergy and Industrial Ecology: Some Implications for Construction Ecology" in Kibert, C., Sendzimir, J. (eds), Guy, B., Construction Ecology: Nature as a Basis for Green Buildings, Spon Press, pp.72-107.

Kay, J.J., 1984 Self-Organization in Living systems, Ph.D. Thesis, Systems Design Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 458p.

The Physics Behind the Large Number Coincidences
Scott Funkhouser; arxiv.org/abs/physics/0502049

Anthropic interpretation of quantum theory (2004)
Brandon Carter; arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0403008

Big Bang riddles and their revelations
Joao Magueijo, Kim Baskerville; arxiv.org/astro-ph/9905393, published in the millennium issue of Phil.Trans. of the Royal Society

The Anthropic Cosmological Principle John D. Barrow,Frank J. Tipler; Oxford University Press - ISBN: 0192821474

Eliminating the `flatness problem' with the use of Type Ia supernova data Arthur D. Chernin; arxiv.org/astro-ph/0112158

If the only way we'll ever create in the lab anything we can (mostly) agree on is 'life' is if the Designer uses us as His agents, then I can only pray that He get up off His duff and get cracking.

Meanwhile, we're stuck with the Clauser Conundrum: if we DO create life in the lab, that shows the Designer did it. If we can't, it STILL shows the Designer did it, only long ago. And if we can't agree whether what we produce is 'life', that only shows the Designer is playing with us.

As for ID explaining mysteries, I have to agree that it does so reliably. Why do we argue? The Designer wills it. When will we stop? When the Designer wills it. Is there such a thing as absolute truth? The Designer tells some of us yes, tells others no. All our questions are answered.

What the Designer NEVER does is tells us our opinion is wrong.

poor island: more ad-homs when you can't understand something. followed by an appeal to authority. It looks very much like you don't UNDERSTAND the AP to begin with. Try this: IF humans NECESSARILY exist, the the 'constants' of the universe require explanation. Hence. the AP. Now all you have to do is show that humans NECESSARILY exist.
Oh. and a word of advice: ad-homs make you look petulant and without intellectual resource. Thought you might like to know.

Well, if that was what passes for an "argument", I think that the next major post on this blog might need to be something on basic rhetoric.

Let me propose a method if this is to continue:

1) Both sides post a positive argument for their viewpoint, along with supporting sources.

2) Commentary is allowed from outside sources regarding veracity of sources to ascertain if anyone is, essentially, using a completely bogus source.

3) Both sides post a rebuttal to the other sides argument.

4) We stop and let everyone else judge for themselves.

Thus, by necessity, you're either going to need to both have a positive argument for your position, or you're going to get railed. Also, if the other side is wrong, it should be self-evident to a reader.

Enjoy.

poor island: more ad-homs when you can't understand something. followed by an appeal to authority. It looks very much like you don't UNDERSTAND the AP to begin with. Try this: IF humans NECESSARILY exist, the the 'constants' of the universe require explanation. Hence. the AP. Now all you have to do is show that humans NECESSARILY exist.
Oh. and a word of advice: ad-homs make you look petulant and without intellectual resource. Thought you might like to know.

I did give evidence that we necessarily exist...

Where have yu ben?

Lovely. More argument from authority. Can't you actually discuss this on your own?

What a pity. I was so hoping for a meaningful discussion.

And these 'authorities' all use the same starting assumption: privileged observers. Necessary observers.

But citations can't make an argument for you. Only you can.

When are you going to start?

OHHHH... I'm sorry, I was meaning to quote Lynn Margulis when she called them "neodarwinian bullies"... for the same reason. *waiting for the rationale that's guaranteed to follow*

— Island

"The problem with neo-Darwinism is that Random changes in DNA alone do not lead to speciation. It was like confessing a murder when I discovered I was not a neo-Darwinist. I am definitely a Darwinist though. I think we are missing important information about the origins of variation. I differ from the neo-Darwinian bullies on this point." -Lynn Margulis

in short. island. you need to demonstrate that this is. in fact. a case of necessity... which neither you. nor your 'pop-science' links have done. Eric Schneider is one of the scientists that the evowiki references as a viable source for proof that creationists abuse the second law of thermodymics.

— Island

Well, if that was what passes for an "argument", I think that the next major post on this blog might need to be something on basic rhetoric.

Let me propose a method if this is to continue:

1) Both sides post a positive argument for their viewpoint, along with supporting sources.

2) Commentary is allowed from outside sources regarding veracity of sources to ascertain if anyone is, essentially, using a completely bogus source.

3) Both sides post a rebuttal to the other sides argument.

4) We stop and let everyone else judge for themselves.

Thus, by necessity, you're either going to need to both have a positive argument for your position, or you're going to get railed. Also, if the other side is wrong, it should be self-evident to a reader.

Enjoy.

This is where it fell apart for me, with the denial of the fact that we should first look for evidence why we might be special to the process.

I'm not going to try too hard to prove anything, until somebody admits that, or I can know that I'm guaranteed denial of the following quoted from the physics lecture:

In the past 20 years our understanding of physics and biology has noted a peculiar specialness to our Universe, a specialness with regard to the existence of intelligent life. This sends up warning signs from the Copernican Principle, the idea that no scientific theory should invoke a special place or aspect to humans.

Why might this be true is the first question that should be asked before that other lame lists of crap gets rationalized.

There is only one reason why it never is...

That creationsists abuse the SLOT is hardly news.

No, that wasn't the point.

Lovely. More argument from authority

No those are real scientific papers, thanks for willfully ignoring that this is all citable stuff.

You really are gone.

Sorry. island. but you've posted no evidence that humans are 'necessary'. Perhaps you forgot or put it in another thread. But feel free to give it a shot. We're waiting.

What strikes me about the "we are special" premise that goes into the anthropic principles, as well as into ID, is that it seems to be born from the actual lack of any obvious specialness. Lightning happily blasts our brains out, volcanoes smother cities with their inhabitants (and just wait for the supervolcano), the wonderful solar system built just for us targets us with mighty big rocks and chunks of metal, and we may yet be destroyed by a supernova. What do purpose-desiring humans often do in the face of this callous destruction of life? Seek meaning, find the bare minimum of conditions for the existence of life, and then baptize those conditions as "special" (usually in a religious vein, but not necessarily).

It's kind of touching in its primate longings, of course, and if we "neo-darwinists" had nothing else to cling to in order to make us special, it might be our primate response as well.

However, most myths and legends from the past have included not only the primate sense of our being "special", but also told of why life is mean, harsh, uncertain, and fated toward death. Paradise was given once, however it is lost and we have the mythic reason why the gods have turned their backs on us, or perhaps are even destroying us for their sport. I like the Babylonian myths in particular, since they tell us that the gods wanted some slaves to do their bidding, producing the smoke of meat for them, making temples for their egos, etc.

The universe is amazingly unsuited to life in the vast majority of its space, and apparently even in the systems of matter that we find. It is probably safe for us to conclude that not many stellar systems in the Milky Way have evolved intelligent life, and even the ones that have are going to become hostile to life eventually (we might escape for some time by moving to other systems, but we can't run ahead of entropy's destruction forever). The whole universe will wind down eventually, and as far as we can see, life will vanish and be like it never was. I really don't know how such an end to the universe is to be understood as existing in some special relationship to life, rather the indifference of the universe and any possible creator of the universe appears to dominate throughout the existence of the universe.

We're always trying to escape death, as a species and even more so as individuals. And why not? However, everything we have learned points toward our eventual demise, as both species (or whatever taxonomic category we might choose) and as individuals. Perhaps the death of all life is what the universe and its creator is the real goal of the universe?

Well, I doubt it. We're just a warm little spot of consciousness appearing momentarily out of the clash between life-destroying heat and violence and the cold stillness of ever-expanding space. We have reason to enjoy it and to think our world as special in relation to our own lives and values, but we have yet to find anything that suggests that the universe is made to do anything except to evolve to the state at which life can no longer exist.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm

Admit that we should look there first for the reasons that I've given, and I will, but I hope one of the physicists is handy.

Well, if that was what passes for an "argument", I think that the next major post on this blog might need to be something on basic rhetoric. Let me propose a method if this is to continue: 1) Both sides post a positive argument for their viewpoint, along with supporting sources.

— Island

2) Commentary is allowed from outside sources regarding veracity of sources to ascertain if anyone is, essentially, using a completely bogus source.

— Island

3) Both sides post a rebuttal to the other sides argument. 4) We stop and let everyone else judge for themselves.

I'm not going to try too hard to prove anything, until somebody admits that, or I can know that I'm guaranteed denial of the following quoted from the physics lecture: In the past 20 years our understanding of physics and biology has noted a peculiar specialness to our Universe, a specialness with regard to the existence of intelligent life. This sends up warning signs from the Copernican Principle, the idea that no scientific theory should invoke a special place or aspect to humans. Why might this be true is the first question that should be asked before that other lame lists of crap gets rationalized. There is only one reason why it never is...

There are three possible alternatives from the anthropic principle; 1. There exists one possible Universe `designed' with the goal of generating and sustaining `observers' (theological universe). Or... 2. Observers are necessary to bring the Universe into being (participatory universe). Or... 3. An ensemble of other different universes is necessary for the existence of our Universe (multiple universes)

That creationsists abuse the SLOT is hardly news. No, that wasn't the point.

— Island

What strikes me about the "we are special" premise that goes into the anthropic principles, as well as into ID, is that it seems to be born from the actual lack of any obvious specialness.

Dude... our Sun can't even make particle/antiparticle pairs, only black holes, supernova, and us can do that. You don't see anything unusual about that?

Did you know that this directly affects the symmetry, (flatness), of our universe. Did you know that this is the most significant of all the the anthropic coincidences?... Do you see anything but black?

I can give physics that very simply and intuitively resolves all of the following:

http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~imamura/209/mar31/anthropic.html

Has anyone read the pertinent Nature article on this topic that I linked to above?

Also, if I understand correctly:

P(fine-tuning | life) = 1 ?

But aren't people really wondering if:
P(fine-tuning | no intelligence) = low
P(fine-tuning | intelligence) = high

Thanks.

I'm the new king of the mismatched tag... ;)

The argument by Schneider and Kay seems to be along the lines of the work of Prigogine that life exists far from equilibrium. By moving away from equilibrium, gradients arise which can be used to increase complexity. While this may explain why life may have been inevitable in this universe it does not answer the larger question of specialness. Entropy can decrease locally at the expense of increased entropy elsewhere. Dissipative structures and complexity are nothing much new though. Until Island explains his arguments in more detail I am not sure what the relevance is of his statements. I am somewhat confused how he moved from an attempt at discourse, to ad hominems when hardly provoked...

PvM

You misattributed some quotes to Island that were mine. Be careful with that. I'm also not launching an ad hominem at anyone, because my objections are:

1) Not statements of character or personality.

2) Directly relevant to the issue at hand.

It's not an ad hominem to point out someone is a child abuser if they are applying for a job at a daycare. Likewise, it's not an ad hominem to point out that multiple people in this thread are arguing with one-liners instead of having a legitimate debate based on information when, of course, the point of the threads is to discuss ideas and debate.

Or maybe I'm wrong and it is to flame with one-liners, in which case I would withdraw my objection.

Luckily, talk origins has that paper on file, too, I was talking about the fact that "Into the Cool" is no less scientific that Lenny's book:

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CF/CF001.html

Several scientists have proposed that evolution and the origin of life is driven by entropy (McShea 1998). Some see the information content of organisms subject to diversification according to the second law (Brooks and Wiley 1988), so organisms diversify to fill empty niches much as a gas expands to fill an empty container. Others propose that highly ordered complex systems emerge and evolve to dissipate energy (and increase overall entropy) more efficiently (Schneider and Kay 1994).

ID is not a positive argument.

I never argue for ID.

As far as I can understand Island's arguments, it is that there is a purpose in the universe but not one which points to intelligent design but rather to

"If, for example, I say that our work-efficient predisposition is evidence that the second law of thermodynamics is the reason why we are here here, and that the flatness of the universe points toward the underlying reason why humans have the inherent predispostition to design stuff that efficiently increases entropy, like; nuclear reactors, high-energy lazers, particle accelerators, etc."

combined with

"... and that this also serves as hard empirical evidence that there exists an entropic preference toward intelligent life that no other life-form enjoys."

I find the word purpose somewhat confusing here since as with Behe, it refers to functional. In order to extract energy, in order to 'survive' life has to exist away from equilibrium. By existing away from thermodynamical equilibrium, complexity arises inevitably, thus life inevitably will increase in complexity.
However to call that 'purpose' seems to strain the meaning of this term.

I do agree though that ID may conflate the different meanings of the word purpose, something which can be resolved far simpler by showing that all they are talking about is function.

The SLOT generates new complexity (variation), selection culls that which works and life 'evolves' towards increasing 'complexity'. Although it does not have to. Most life on this earth has remained relatively non-complex and in many ways seems to be far more succesful that humans. Heck some bacteria thrive on plutonium or in high temperaturs, or high acidity. Us poor humans are forced to maintain a comfort zone which is relatively narrow.

Dude... our Sun can't even make particle/antiparticle pairs, only black holes, supernova, and us can do that. You don't see anything unusual about that?

This is where it fell apart for me, with the denial of the fact that we should first look for evidence why we might be special to the process.

I don't think that PvM misquoted me, he just included more than I said, and I understood what he meant.

You misattributed some quotes to Island that were mine. Be careful with that. I'm also not launching an ad hominem at anyone, because my objections are:

— Island

FYI... All that is required for this to be a valid hypothesis:

I pose the assertion that we are here to *efficiently* increase entropy.

As macroscopic evidence for this, I offer that the human evolution has enable us to *progressively* accomplish this from the moment that we harnessed fire to the fact that intelligence has without any doubt proven to enable us to tap into energy sources that we would otherwise not been able to touch.

I don't have to proof this theory yet, for this to be a valid scientific question that merrits further study.

FYI... All that is required for this to be a valid hypothesis: I pose the assertion that we are here to *efficiently* increase entropy.

I find the word purpose somewhat confusing here since as with Behe, it refers to functional

Nah... but what isn't assumed is that human "purpose" isn't a teleological manifestion.

I pose the assertion that we are here because we efficiently increase entropy.

I'll buy that, but it's in the cards when the matter field is layed down, so...

As macroscopic evidence for this, I offer that the human evolution has enable us to *progressively* accomplish this from the moment that we harnessed fire to the fact that intelligence has without any doubt proven to enable us to tap into energy sources that we would otherwise not been able to touch.

Dude, the sky is blue and grass is green (except maybe in parts of Kentucky). You don't see anything unusual about that? How about them Steelers? Weird, man.

This clown thinks that blue sky directly affect the physics of the universe in the same manner that particle creation does.

I pose the assertion that we are here because we efficiently increase entropy. I'll buy that, but it's in the cards when the matter field is layed down, so... As macroscopic evidence for this, I offer that the human evolution has enable us to *progressively* accomplish this from the moment that we harnessed fire to the fact that intelligence has without any doubt proven to enable us to tap into energy sources that we would otherwise not been able to touch.

Thus, goes the argument, the second law of thermodynamics is not contrary to the existence of life; rather, it is the cause of life. That law drives evolution to higher levels of complexity and to more sophisticated societies and technologies for the sole purpose of disseminating energy gradients. So life, at long last, has a higher meaning in the eyes of science -- even if serving the second law of thermodynamics is not exactly what the religiously faithful had in mind.

It is a fact that random non-uniformities in the expanding universe are not sufficient to allow the formation of galaxies given the rapid rate expansion, since the gravitational attraction is too weak for galaxies to form in any practical model of turbulence that is created by the expansion itself, so the entropy of the universe is less than it should be unless far-from-eqilibrium dissipative structures, like us and black holes, (which most definitely do arise via the formation of large scale "sites that are conducive to life"), serve to balance this *most-apparent* entropic debt via high-energy contributions to the entropic process.

First principles supercede ill-conceived anti-anthropic rationale, every time, and the anthropic principle is the difference between an expanding universe with structure, and one that has none.

Not to mention what they do to inflationary crackpottiness, stringy theories, and uncertainly derived falacies that lack causal meaning.

The second law of thermodynamics in an expanding universe says that entropy always increases... but that's all that it really tells us, so be careful what you project to before figuring out how biocentric structuring might actually make it perpetually so.

SLOT by itself may not be sufficient but yes, variation is a requirement for evolution to act upon. You seem to see this as a ToE, I see it as a consequence rather than a cause.

Actually, I believe that I have good reason to believe that the TOE, is the ToE.

It is a fact that random non-uniformities in the expanding universe are not sufficient to allow the formation of galaxies given the rapid rate expansion, since the gravitational attraction is too weak for galaxies to form in any practical model of turbulence that is created by the expansion itself, so the entropy of the universe is less than it should be unless far-from-eqilibrium dissipative structures, like us and black holes, (which most definitely do arise via the formation of large scale "sites that are conducive to life"), serve to balance this *most-apparent* entropic debt via high-energy contributions to the entropic process. First principles supercede ill-conceived anti-anthropic rationale, every time, and the anthropic principle is the difference between an expanding universe with structure, and one that has none. Not to mention what they do to inflationary crackpottiness, stringy theories, and uncertainly derived falacies that lack causal meaning.

The second law of thermodynamics in an expanding universe says that entropy always increases... but that's all that it really tells us, so be careful what you project to before figuring out how biocentric structuring might actually make it perpetually so.

It never hurts to call well established and well supported theories as crack pottiness.

All theories become cracpottiness until proven beyond doubt when new information, weird physics, or unprovability are at play. I'm sorry that you don't know anything about science.

While I can appreciate the role of black holes, I doubt that our influence on the universe has been in any form 'measurable' or relevant.

Do you also believe that Black Holes can collide matter/antimatter at high relativistic speeds?

Do you also believe that Black Holes can collide matter/antimatter at high relativistic speeds?

Do you know that this simulates the big bang in the lab?

Are you positive that your "well established" but known-to-be fundamenatlly flawed theories will protect you if tension between matter and the vacuum increases as the vacuum expands?

Have you ever seen what a tiny little needle will do to an inflated balloon?

Do you really want to take that chance, given the amount of discourse that exists between LQG theorists and String theorists over this whole mess?

Or maybe we should just stop denying and ignoring valid points?

I would like to know if anybody knows of any hard scientific information about the following mechanism. Papers that I could read on asymmetric transition principles on the self-organizing systems?

http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASYMTRANS.html

Thank yu for yer time.

It never hurts to call well established and well supported theories as crack pottiness. All theories become cracpottiness until proven beyond doubt when new information, weird physics, or unprovability are at play. I'm sorry that you don't know anything about science.

While I can appreciate the role of black holes, I doubt that our influence on the universe has been in any form 'measurable' or relevant. Do you also believe that Black Holes can collide matter/antimatter at high relativistic speeds?

The real reason ID is automatically disqualified by the established scientific community is that it contains a fatal flaw - it implies God.

Carol, would you mind explaining to us (1) why your religious opinions are any more authoritative than anyone else's (other than your say-so) and (2) why science should give a flying fig about your religious opinions (or anyone else's)? Do you think that science should consdier your religious opinions as evidence? If so, why, and how?

Thanks in advance for not answering either of those simple questions.

They prefer to artifically restrict the domain of science to so called "natural" explantions, the truth be damned.

Yes there is. It's called 'methodological naturalism', an artificial restriction if ever there was one.

PvM,

Your being so ready and willing to dispose of certain questions, such as "why are we here" by just declaring "we do not know" and merrily walk away from the issue, in contrast to other questions where theories are called upon to explain phenomena, betrays the artifical restriction on science I spoke of.

If Darwin would have applied the same attitude to the issue of the origin of the species, he would have just declared "they are just here" and "we do not know" and moved on to other things. The point of science is not to walk away from issues by shrugging our shoulders and declaring that we just do not know.

So why the selective application of this approach on the part the scientific community? I claim it is due to the big elephant lurking behind certain issues, a monster many prefer not to face.

Yawn. You have become a boring insult. Next postings that are not on topic will be removed.

I responded to you and you say that I was off topic.

What a LOSER!

PLEASE DELETE ALL RECORD THAT I WAS EVER HERE!

PvM, Your being so ready and willing to dispose of certain questions, such as "why are we here" by just declaring "we do not know" and merrily walk away from the issue, in contrast to other questions where theories are called upon to explain phenomena, betrays the artifical restriction on science I spoke of. If Darwin would have applied the same attitude to the issue of the origin of the species, he would have just declared "they are just here" and "we do not know" and moved on to other things. The point of science is not to walk away from issues by shrugging our shoulders and declaring that we just do not know. So why the selective application of this approach on the part the scientific community? I claim it is due to the big elephant lurking behind certain issues, a monster many prefer not to face.

Yawn. You have become a boring insult. Next postings that are not on topic will be removed. I responded to you and you say that I was off topic. What a LOSER! PLEASE DELETE ALL RECORD THAT I WAS EVER HERE!

I had picked up the entropic philosophy years before I had ever heard about the anthropic principle, but I knew exactly where it belonged as soon as I discovered the principle. Everything that I've said in this group is archived also recorded in the cornell archives but I'm writing a paper that may never get done to the degree that it should be done, because I don't have the math either, and the science is supposed to stand-alone without need for appeals to authority anyway. I use the net to try to spur interested physicists to use the new physics to unify QM and GR, since I can't even touch the Dirac equation, in terms of anything useful. I use the moderated research group as a sounding board, since they don't allow "unsubstantiated speculation" in that forum, which doesn't mean that they catch every crackpot post that comes through, and they make no guarantees, but I've been talking about this in that group for a number of years now, so it should qualify as "substantiated speculation" at the very least. One would hope anyway, that they'd catch up to me after the hundredth try if I didn't have something valid to say.

Your being so ready and willing to dispose of certain questions, such as "why are we here" by just declaring "we do not know" and merrily walk away from the issue, in contrast to other questions where theories are called upon to explain phenomena, betrays the artifical restriction on science I spoke of.

Your being so ready and willing to dispose of certain questions, such as "why are we here" by just declaring "we do not know" and merrily walk away from the issue, in contrast to other questions where theories are called upon to explain phenomena, betrays the artifical restriction on science I spoke of.

I made the statement that String Theory and Intelligent Design are on the same metaphysical footing. Is this a true statement?

Thanks in advance.

No.

You're welcome. Read the article in the link if you want to know why.

Check the Bathroom wall for off topic postings

Ah, thanks, PvM, I see that attempts to make sense of Island's word salad are entirely unnecessary.

You have my permission in advance to delete this one too! And I won't strain your patience, or Island's comprehension skills, further.

All clouds have silver linings and the combination of the Beckwith thread where I showed how Specification or Purpose mean function according to Dembski and Behe respectively with this thread on SLOT will result in a separate posting where I explore the concept of purpose (function), Intelligent Design the SLOT and attempt to show why Dembski's argument about displacement is wrong.

Fully speculative but I hope to start a discussion based on some interesting ideas.

Final suggestion. Ever tried to get it published? Or a book?

Thanks, AD, for your input. It just seems that the Nature article that I linked to gives me the opposite feeling. Here's a quote from that article:

Susskind, too, finds it "deeply, deeply troubling" that there's no way to test the principle. But he is not yet ready to rule it out completely. "It would be very foolish to throw away the right answer on the basis that it doesn't conform to some criteria for what is or isn't science," he says.

Dude... our Sun can't even make particle/antiparticle pairs, only black holes, supernova, and us can do that. You don't see anything unusual about that?

Anteater,

String theory is testable in principle (we lack current methods to do so, but that can well change - this situation has occurred before in other theories).

ID is not.

I fail to see what is confusing about this.

Comment #78558 Posted by Donald M on February 9, 2006 03:22 PM (e) island writes: No, there is no such thing as "artifically restricting the domain of science"...

Carol, Lenny said "Carol, would you mind explaining to us (1) why your religious opinions are any more authoritative than anyone else's (other than your say-so) and (2) why science should give a flying fig about your religious opinions (or anyone else's)? Do you think that science should consider your religious opinions as evidence? If so, why, and how? and Would you mind giving us an example of how science can utilize super-natural or non-natural explanations? How would one test it, other than someone's say-so?"
So Carol, why don't you prove Lenny's statements are erroneous? give us an answer,I for one, am waiting with bated breath

Recent update on this topic here

http://www.physorg.com/printnews.php?newsid=10682 or
http://www.nobeliefs.com/

Under Certain Conditions
String theory solves many of the questions wracking the minds of physicists, but until recently it had one major flaw --- it could not be tested. SLAC (Stanford Linear Accelerator Center) scientists have found a way to test this revolutionary theory, which posits that there are 10 or 11 dimensions in our universe.

Jonboy that second link has a Christopher Hitchens article that somehow with hindsight seems to have an uncanny parallel WRT this whole ID problem. How and why it has been given permission right from the top.

The article in the first link; a test for string theory, has this line

"The computations were so massive, we had to make extreme use of the Babar UNIX farm," said Rizzo.

I'm just wondering if this is the elephant Carol keeps going on about.
Babar.
er .....probably not .....one of them is a fantasy and the other is a children's story.

Carol did you know Babar was an expert in Hypnosis and ran a cult for "Mystical" Physics, Cult Physics, Quack Physics, and Bogus Physics

Only joking but all religions rely on these techniques.

Why is this artificial? It's based on reality that this is what science can address. What alternatives do you suggest? Explain how this alternative serves science. MN is a proven and workable restriction to what science can address. The supernatural is just not very open to scientific inquiry. Which is why ID is scientifically vacuous. Why should we let our ignorance lead us to conclude 'ID'? Past examples show that God does not really sling lightning bolts... And yet..

"People are, of course, perfectly free to stipulate such definitions [of science] if they wish. What no one is free to do, however, is to make such stipulations, erect on those stipulations various prohibitions concerning what science can and cannot consider, then claim that what science produces under those prohibitions is truth, rational belief, accurate mirrors of reality, self-correctiveness, or anything of the sort. The character of the results will be constrained by the legitimacy (or lack thereof) of the original stipulations. If nature does not ignore design and if design factors into relevant empirical structures, then any science built on proscriptions against design will inevitably fall into one of two difficulties. Either it will be forever incomplete (the...promissory note being forever passed along but never paid), or it will eventually get off track, with no prospect of getting back on track (key elements of the track having been placed beyond permissible bounds of discussion), thereby turning science from a correlate of nature into a humanly contrived artifact."

Even if string theory were untestable directly, there are many scientific theories that are not. Why are they scientific and ID not? Consilience and fruitfulness. Some of these general theories are even useful to investigate what I have mentioned previously - the metaphysics of science. (Cf., for example, automata theory.)

....Ah yes ......Donald M the boohoohoo school of sophistic philosophy ...all is suffering.
Ratzsch OPINES
...thereby turning science from a correlate of nature into a humanly contrived artifact."
SUPPORTED BY EVIDENCE available to the senses.

Strange how a tautology doesn't play well in labs and peer review. Pour a little acid on something and there are no words to describe it ...not.
Maybe you Ratzsch, Beckwith and all the other Pseudoscientists would like to sit inside the SLAC before they power it up and test that piece of nonsense.

Total BS Donald, how about answering Lenny's questions while you are here. I noticed Beckky babe has run a mile.

Thanks for your response, Pim. You make a subtle but important shift of meaning when you say "MN is a proven and workable restriction to what science can address." MN doesn't just deal with what science can address, if by 'address' you mean 'investigate'. MN also deals with what science can consider as explanatory resources, and in that vein, MN says that, essentially, all natural phenomenon (the "what science can address" part) MUST have a natural cause (the "what science can consider as explanatory resources" part). No one I know of, myself included, disputes the first past. It is the second part that causes problems, because it does place an arbitrary restriction on what science can consider as explanation for an observed phenomenon. Unless we know a priori that cosmos and everything in it is a closed system of natural cause and effect, which we don't, then claiming that science requires only natural explanations for anything we observe comes pretty darn close to importing full blown philosophical natrualism into the heart of science. In other words, MN is predicated upon shakey philosophical presuppositions.

— Donald M

Sorry, Donald M., but Ratzsch is trivially easy to refute, even if one were to grant that his argument is formally correct.
Your use of Ratzsch engages in a nasty equivocation, up to the level of begging the question.
The so-called prescription of methodological naturalism falls to Ratzsch's argument, or your abuse of it, only with the shift to an alleged proscription of design.
But that's really the question isn't it? Is all design natural? Some of us would say yes, although exemplars such as Dembski, Cordova, Behe, and Fafarman, in all his myriad pseudonyms, might lead us to suggest they were the products of unnatural design. Or at least unnatural acts.
If you want to rely on Ratzsch's argument, you have to show that the prescription of methodological naturalism entails a proscription of design. Since we have countless examples which would refute this, your efforts are doomed from the start.
Sort of like teaching ID in schools, but for reasons of natural law rather than reasons of human law.

hugs,
Shirley Knott

Why is this artificial? It's based on reality that this is what science can address. What alternatives do you suggest? Explain how this alternative serves science. MN is a proven and workable restriction to what science can address. The supernatural is just not very open to scientific inquiry. Which is why ID is scientifically vacuous. Why should we let our ignorance lead us to conclude 'ID'? Past examples show that God does not really sling lightning bolts... And yet..

— Donald M

Thanks for your response, Pim. You make a subtle but important shift of meaning when you say "MN is a proven and workable restriction to what science can address." MN doesn't just deal with what science can address, if by 'address' you mean 'investigate'. MN also deals with what science can consider as explanatory resources, and in that vein, MN says that, essentially, all natural phenomenon (the "what science can address" part) MUST have a natural cause (the "what science can consider as explanatory resources" part). No one I know of, myself included, disputes the first past. It is the second part that causes problems, because it does place an arbitrary restriction on what science can consider as explanation for an observed phenomenon.

Unless we know a priori that cosmos and everything in it is a closed system of natural cause and effect, which we don't, then claiming that science requires only natural explanations for anything we observe comes pretty darn close to importing full blown philosophical natrualism into the heart of science. In other words, MN is predicated upon shakey philosophical presuppositions.

Perhaps you are familiar with this quote from "Nature, Design and Science" by Del Ratzsch (State University of New York Press: 2001) pg 146.

"People are, of course, perfectly free to stipulate such definitions [of science] if they wish. What no one is free to do, however, is to make such stipulations, erect on those stipulations various prohibitions concerning what science can and cannot consider, then claim that what science produces under those prohibitions is truth, rational belief, accurate mirrors of reality, self-correctiveness, or anything of the sort. The character of the results will be constrained by the legitimacy (or lack thereof) of the original stipulations. If nature does not ignore design and if design factors into relevant empirical structures, then any science built on proscriptions against design will inevitably fall into one of two difficulties. Either it will be forever incomplete (the...promissory note being forever passed along but never paid), or it will eventually get off track, with no prospect of getting back on track (key elements of the track having been placed beyond permissible bounds of discussion), thereby turning science from a correlate of nature into a humanly contrived artifact."

— Del Ratzsch

As I've told you before, Ratzsch has it exactly right. I've yet to see anyone refute this argument.

"I do not wish to play down or denigrate what Dembski has done. There is much of value in the Design Inference. But I think that some aspects of even the limited task Dembski set for himself still remains to be tamed." "That Dembski is not employing the robust, standard, agency-derived conception of design that most of his supporters and many of his critics have assumed seems clear."

— Del Ratsch

Hey Donald, are you gonna answer my questions this time before you run away? Or aren't you.

This is, of course, utterly false, and represents a mish-mash of badly digested nonsense peddled by such folks as Johnson. MN is NOT predicated on PN - which you would know if you knew anything about science or scientists. MN is a purely pragmatic rule of thumb - a necessity of the very fact of investigation.

Troll, devil's advocate or sarcasm? I always have a hard time with this kind of absurd statemnt.

artificial in what sense then Donald M? In that it makes science workable?

Good. I'm glad to know its just a rule of thumb that can be set aside when not not needed. As to its being a "necesity of the very fact of the investigation", that would only be the case if your knew a priori that only natural causes were operational to bring about a certain phenomenon. In other words, claiming MN is necessary to investigation begs the question. Thanks, RG, for making that much crystal clear.

— Donald M

Good. I'm glad to know its just a rule of thumb that can be set aside when not not needed. As to its being a "necesity of the very fact of the investigation", that would only be the case if your knew a priori that only natural causes were operational to bring about a certain phenomenon. In other words, claiming MN is necessary to investigation begs the question

Operationalize, please.

Please show (do not tell) how this can be done. As it is, you argue circularly.

What configuration of strings leads to each of the known particles? (electron, neutrino, up and down quarks, also the 2nd and 3rd generations of those, and the antiparticle of all of them, and also force carrying "particles".)

Henry

ID so far does not seem to be the answer to address your concerns. Perhaps Donald could explain how he would include the supernatural in a manner that can be scientific?

hello all

To dismiss intelligent design as being science because it is untestable is correct. At best it is a logical reasoning, more like a mathematical proof. If you accept its underlying postulates then you can build a case for it. However, to dismiss it as being nonscientific because it is an ad hoc explanation of observation is completely incorrect. The history of science is full of ad hoc explanations for phenomena. Ptolemy's epicycles, the alphabet soup of subatomic particles prior to Gell-Mann's work, Planck's work on quantum mechanics, Fraunhofer's work on stellar spectra, and the heterotroph hypothesis just to name a few. Ptolemy's cosmology was the definition of ad hoc, but it was science because it was testable, if ultimately incorrect. Planck didn't believe a word coming out of his own mouth. For him, Planck's constant was a giant fudge to make the calculations work. Indeed you can argue that Punctuated Equilibrium is nothing more than an observation of the fossil record. People make a big deal about how it is an alternative to natural selection, yet there is no new "theory" to explain it. Did the study of subatomic particle or atomic spectra miraculously become science on the day Einstein proposed a theory for the photoelectric effect, or Bohr produced moving electrons? No. The only criteria that applies to science is its falsifiability. Can it be proved wrong or not. On that basis ID is not science. However, when a respected Nobel Laureate such as Sheldon Glashow points out that string theory is a completely safe theory and can never be tested, you must say the same about string theory. What this debate really shows is the deep prejudice academia has against people of faith. String theory meets approval because it is a secular philosophy. ID meets scorn because the people who propose it are people of faith. No one in the scientific community bats an eye when Francis Crick proposes that life on earth began from extraterrestrial infection, an equally untestable theory and about on par with an intelligent force guiding the evolution of life. If we find life on another planet, it doesn't mean that it was the source of life on earth. If we don't find life on another planet, you can always fall back on the "we haven't found it yet" or "we don't know how to look for it" excuses (rather like the we haven't built a particle accelerator big enough to test string theory argument). A completely safe "theory" that still merits the odd biology textbook quote. I contend that Crick's musings are tacitly accepted, as is string theory, more because of who says it rather than what is said. For a community that requires, and largely achieves rigorous objectivity, its treatment of intelligent design shows a great deal of bias.