The goal of the Intelligent Design movement is the dismantling of modern science

[rogue06]

Resurrection is not a detected miracle is a religious undocumented claim, and not relevant to the discussion.

I don't think that it is correct to say it is "undocumented"

[rogue06]

But a reference to God can be scant, and still profound.

Like Collins' remarks that "The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome," and "He can be worshipped in the cathedral or in the laboratory."?

The point you seem dead set on avoiding at all costs is that one can be a thoroughly devoted Christian and still seek to understand how things work without resorting to supernatural explanations.

Medieval Christians, who were the ones who started insisting that we look for the natural cause for various events and phenomena in the first place, believed that God had chosen to act in predictable ways, even if He could occasionally work miracles. So theses early scientists (natural philosophers) focused on the predictable ways in which God works because they realized that in no way threatened the fact that God occasionally works miracles.

This is not, as the clowns at the Discovery Institute pretend, some modern atheistic conspiracy. It is something developed by Christians to help explore the might and majesty of God.

My view is that God does intervene.

By estimating the probability that natural processes, or human intervention, produced a result.

To paraphrase the immortal words of in The Princess Bride:

You keep using that phrase -- I do not think it means what you think it means.

Please enlighten us on how exactly does one do that calculation. Without it your declaration is no more helpful or constructive than that mindless slogan "just do it."

[shunyadragon]

But a reference to God can be scant, and still profound.

. . . but not relevant.

My view is that God does intervene.

Not relevant to the thread.

By estimating the probability that natural processes, or human intervention, produced a result. As in the resurrection, which is a detected miracle.

Blessings,
Lee

Resurrection is not a detected miracle is a religious undocumented claim, and not relevant to the discussion.

[lee_merrill]

III- Newton wrote on a wide range of subjects, including a good number of scientific works as well as more than a few religious tracts and musings^[1]. And when you get to those scientific works such as Philosophić Naturalis Principia Mathematica ("Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy"), Opticks ("Optics"), or any of his writings as he formulated calculus and you'll find scant reference to God much less references to a miracle being proposed as the solution to a question vexing him.

But a reference to God can be scant, and still profound.

Are you saying that God cannot intervene?

My view is that God does intervene.

It does not mean that God could not have directly intervened but how do you propose that we test for that?

By estimating the probability that natural processes, or human intervention, produced a result. As in the resurrection, which is a detected miracle.

Blessings,
Lee

[TheLurch]

No, but gene duplications might indicate the genome duplications are possible, too.

Gee, it would be such an amazing things if scientists understood the mechanisms that bring about whole genome duplications, and understood what species it can take place in. Or knew how to determine when one had taken place by looking at the gene content of organisms descended from one of these events. Then we wouldn't have to rely on Lee guessing what's possible.

Newsflash: we know this stuff. Unlike you, I wouldn't make things up this if we didn't.

[lee_merrill]

Do you honestly think gene duplications and genome duplications are the same thing?

No, but gene duplications might indicate the genome duplications are possible, too.

Blessings,
Lee

[rogue06]

But Behe again puts the edge at the number of unselected steps, so a speciation event that required, say, four unselected mutations would be beyond Behe's edge of evolution.

He places his imagined edge well above the species level. And AFAICT it usually only takes one mutation and I'm not familiar (though no expert) with any requiring four -- but that wasn't the point. The point is that Behe has no problem with and fully accepts speciation as a result of evolution.

And as I commented on previously, speciation is, BY DEFINITION, a form of macroevolution (evolution at or above the species level).

You're ignoring the point that "[Newton] also developed several compelling (at least, at the time) arguments for natural theology—that is, arguments for the existence of God based upon observations of complex systems in the natural world." Which is what ID is interested in doing.

Three separate reactions to this bit...
1. As the OP and several other posts in this thread have already made clear, that is not all what those promoting ID are in interested in are trying to accomplish

b) Am I? Have I not repeatedly pointed out he was extremely devout (although heretical) and that his belief helped shaped his research? But in the same way that Francis Collins, who said "The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome," and "He can be worshipped in the cathedral or in the laboratory."

And both of them held to the concept that, in Newton's own words

That religion & Philosophy are to be preserved distinct. We are not to introduce divine revelations into Philosophy, nor philosophical opinions into religion

III- Newton wrote on a wide range of subjects, including a good number of scientific works as well as more than a few religious tracts and musings^[1]. And when you get to those scientific works such as Philosophić Naturalis Principia Mathematica ("Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy"), Opticks ("Optics"), or any of his writings as he formulated calculus and you'll find scant reference to God much less references to a miracle being proposed as the solution to a question vexing him.

Why pray for rain, then, if the rain is entirely dependent on natural processes, and God will not interfere directly?

Are you saying that God cannot intervene? My what a mighty small God you envision.

"Then Samuel called on the LORD, and that same day the LORD sent thunder and rain. So all the people stood in awe of the LORD and of Samuel." (1 Sam. 12:18)

Again. It does not mean that God could not have directly intervened but how do you propose that we test for that?

That is the crux of the problem and in spite of their constant caterwauling about it, a solution for which the Discovery Institute has displayed not a scintilla of interest in solving.




1. For instance

[rogue06]

or is that "sciency"?

[rogue06]

Do you honestly think gene duplications and genome duplications are the same thing?

Gene duplications. Genome duplications.

Astronomy. Astrology.

They're all pretty much one and the same in the wild and wacky mixed up muddled up world of the Discovery Institute and their myrmidons.

They're all "sciencey"

[TheLurch]

But E. Coli for one, does undergo gene duplications to some degree.

Blessings,
Lee

Do you honestly think gene duplications and genome duplications are the same thing?

[lee_merrill]

In case you've forgotten, we are specifically talking about Behe having no problem with speciation. In his 2007 screed, The Edge of Evolution Behe made it clear that he completely accepted speciation (one species dividing into two or more species). There were no weasel words or conditions like you are trying to shoehorn in here. The entire point of his book was that while evolution can produce changes within species leading to the formation of new species, he believes (erroneously I might add) that evolution is limited in just how much diversity that it can produce and places this limit (his so-called "edge of evolution") somewhere past the taxonomic level of species but before orders.

But Behe again puts the edge at the number of unselected steps, so a speciation event that required, say, four unselected mutations would be beyond Behe's edge of evolution.

For another example, in a letter to a Richard Bentley, while maintaining his absolute certainty that God was ultimately responsible for gravity, Newton argued that if God chose to produce gravity mechanically, then a mechanical cause should besought. IOW, for Newton God would always be the First Cause regardless of whether or not Newton could grasp its Secondary Cause.

You're ignoring the point that "[Newton] also developed several compelling (at least, at the time) arguments for natural theology—that is, arguments for the existence of God based upon observations of complex systems in the natural world." Which is what ID is interested in doing.

This is the difference between First Cause (God) and Second Cause (the means that He established to accomplish it). So one can say that God sends the rain and then explain the rain cycle, without contradiction.

Why pray for rain, then, if the rain is entirely dependent on natural processes, and God will not interfere directly?

"Then Samuel called on the LORD, and that same day the LORD sent thunder and rain. So all the people stood in awe of the LORD and of Samuel." (1 Sam. 12:18)

Blessings,
Lee

[lee_merrill]

Then why did you explicitly say genome duplications? And list organisms that do not undergo genome duplications?

But E. Coli for one, does undergo gene duplications to some degree.

Blessings,
Lee

[rogue06]

Well, fine, if you want to define macroevolutionary change that way.

See post #146

It matters a lot, since each unselected, sequential step makes it exponentially more unlikely for it to happen by natural processes.

In case you've forgotten, we are specifically talking about Behe having no problem with speciation. In his 2007 screed, The Edge of Evolution Behe made it clear that he completely accepted speciation (one species dividing into two or more species). There were no weasel words or conditions like you are trying to shoehorn in here. The entire point of his book was that while evolution can produce changes within species leading to the formation of new species, he believes (erroneously I might add) that evolution is limited in just how much diversity that it can produce and places this limit (his so-called "edge of evolution") somewhere past the taxonomic level of species but before orders.

IIRC, elsewhere he tends to also accept evolution's role in producing different genus (the taxonomic rank immediately above species) so it appears Behe's edge is likely at the Family level but has been careful to avoid being any more precise than that.

You must know by now that I disagree with that assessment.

The correctness of that assessment does not hinge upon your acceptance.

Source: Stephen Meyer, the Return of the God Hypothesis

As one of my supervisors put it to me, “If you miss Newton’s theism, you’ve missed everything.” Newton not only had a profoundly theistic philosophy of nature, but he also developed several compelling (at least, at the time) arguments for natural theology—that is, arguments for the existence of God based upon observations of complex systems in the natural world.

© Copyright Original Source

For some reason Meyer appears determined to ignore the irrefutable fact that while Newton was inspired by his faith (which included practicing "witchcraft" for decades, rejecting the Trinity and subordinating Christ) he still made a point to separate that faith from his work.

So while Newton drew inspiration from his faith in the pursuit of his inquiries into nature and often discussed the role of God in nature he also made it clear, as he explained,

That religion & Philosophy are to be preserved distinct. We are not to introduce divine revelations into Philosophy, nor philosophical opinions into religion

In the preface to his magnum opus the Philosophić Naturalis Principia Mathematica ("Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy"), or more commonly, Principia, Newton took pains to make it clear that he wanted nothing to do with "occult qualities" when he was conducting his research and experiments. And in the second edition of the book, Newton included a rebuttal of Leibniz and Huygens claim that he had appealed to supernatural qualities for explanations.

For another example, in a letter to a Richard Bentley, while maintaining his absolute certainty that God was ultimately responsible for gravity, Newton argued that if God chose to produce gravity mechanically, then a mechanical cause should besought. IOW, for Newton God would always be the First Cause regardless of whether or not Newton could grasp its Secondary Cause.

As the biographer and historian of science Richard Westfall, widely known for his study of Isaac Newton, noted in the concluding statement of Construction of Modern Science, that Newton was willing to admit that the internal side of nature is mysterious, but simultaneously, he demanded that what we investigate be based upon exact descriptions of phenomena and lead to an exact treatment.

So while folks like Newton and Boyle acknowledged a creator ultimately responsible for everything, they set that aside when they searched for secondary causes for various phenomena.

Finally, as philosopher of science and devout Christian Ronald Osborn has observed in his Death Before the Fall: Biblical Literalism and the Problem of Animal Suffering it was Isaac Newton and Robert Boyle who sought to separate their Christian beliefs from their scientific work^[1] because they

...saw that the metaphysical mixing of modern empirical methods with religious teleology resulted not only in bad science but also in a corruption of true faith. God’s transcendence theologically requires a radical distinction between God as Creator and the operations of the universe through secondary causes that can be empirically observed and tested through inductive and deductive methods

One could not be faulted for thinking that Meyer was trying to conceal Newton's commitment to the concept of methodological naturalism because it contradicts the narrative he is trying to sell.

Which would be why people don't try and take pictures of ghosts. Or count the baskets-full of food after a feeding of 5,000.

"After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive." (Acts 1:3)

Scientific observation and verification!

"He said to them, 'Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.' When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, 'Do you have anything here to eat?' They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence." (Luke 24:38-43)

I've long argued that Christian faith is largely evidence-based and nothing like "blind faith." You can take a look at a post of mine from last month on that topic if you are interested.

Certainly, but God is intimately involved in the world, in control of everything.

"When a trumpet sounds in a city,
do not the people tremble?
When disaster comes to a city,
has not the LORD caused it?" (Amos 3:6)

So this is a mystery, known to the Biblical writers, even, but nonetheless the truth.

Blessings,
Lee

No argument from me that God created everything and is in charge of His creation.

But just like we can read in Job, Nahum, Psalms and Zechariah that God directly controls meteorological phenomena such as frost, rain, snowfall, drought, clouds that does not mean He didn't establish mechanisms and processes that operate it. And we have an excellent understanding of how the rain cycle works. How clouds form. How and why droughts take place. The "mechanics" behind these phenomena.

This is the difference between First Cause (God) and Second Cause (the means that He established to accomplish it). So one can say that God sends the rain and then explain the rain cycle, without contradiction.

The same with the description of God knitting each person together in their mother's womb (Psalm 139:13), while modern medicine, particularly embryology, provides us with a detailed look into how this is done through natural means.

In conclusion I will again note that it was Christian natural philosophers who sought to take the supernatural out of their research. And this was happening well before Newton and Boyle. It has its genesis well before Bacon and Descartes as well. Medieval philosophers such as Duns Scotus, Adelard of Bath, William of Ockham, Thomas Aquinas, Siger of Brabant, Nicole Oresme, Boethius of Dacia and John Buridan all explicitly repudiated supernatural epistemic methods in natural philosophy because they viewed natural philosophy as limited to the study of the "common course of nature" (communis cursus naturae) by appeal to reason and sense experience.

Adelard of Bath, 1080? to c. 1142-1152?, wrote

I will take nothing away from God: for whatever exists is from Him and because of Him. But the natural order does not exist confused and without rational arrangement, and human reason should be listened to concerning those things it treats to

1. Something that you criticized Francis Collins for doing. In order to maintain some consistency then you must hold the same view wrt some of those you've been holding for as exemplars of the proper scientific approach, since what Collins is doing the same as Newton, who could unblushingly attribute the perfections of the Solar System to "the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being" while simultaneously musing about how God might have used natural laws in the making of the Solar System from a "common Chaos" as well as writing that God typically used them "as instruments in his works."

[TheLurch]

No, I meant Behe examined what evolution had done, where evolution had the opportunity of the full range of mutations at its disposal, including the opportunity for gene duplications.

Then why did you explicitly say genome duplications? And list organisms that do not undergo genome duplications?

You said something that was blatantly false - it's there for everyone to see. And now you're denying it.

[shunyadragon]

No, I meant Behe examined what evolution had done, where evolution had the opportunity of the full range of mutations at its disposal, including the opportunity for gene duplications.

Blessings,
Lee

The Lurch is correct Behe only selectively and unethically used references to support his agenda, and no full range was considered.