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The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 2)

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Comments

  • #5702
    Leroy42
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,100 ✭✭✭✭Leroy42


    But in the card example isn't it that the cards are simply placed one after the other, no intelligence is involved, or am I missing something?

    If intelligence is involved, ie the dealer can effect the outcome, then surely the probability of getting the deal you want increases massively. If not then the intelligence plays no part I would have thought?


  • #5703
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    Leroy42 wrote: »
    But in the card example isn't it that the cards are simply placed one after the other, no intelligence is involved, or am I missing something?
    If the cards are shuffled and dealt this is a spontaneous process ... that doesn't require the applicance of intelligence ...
    ... however, the situation where you find the cards ordered in a specific sequence involves the opposite ... the deliberate choosing and placing of each card in say, increasing order from aces to Kings, for example.
    Wherever you would see that, you can defintively conclude that the cards weren't shuffled and spontaneously dealt ... but they were deliberately ordered by an intelligent input ... because the odds against this being achieved by spontaneous shuffling and dealing, are approx 10^165 to one.
    Leroy42 wrote: »
    If intelligence is involved, ie the dealer can effect the outcome, then surely the probability of getting the deal you want increases massively. If not then the intelligence plays no part I would have thought?
    That's precisely my point ... if intelligence is applied exact specific sequences of cards can be produced with certainty every time exactly where and when needed ... but this is impossible for spontaneous processes ... like shuffling and 'blind' dealing from the top.

    ... and BTW, all this proves scientifically is that an intelligence/intelligences unknown created life ... who this / these intelligences was/were we cannot determine scientifically.


  • #5704
    Leroy42
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,100 ✭✭✭✭Leroy42


    Ah ok, get you now.

    But it could happen without intelligence, given enough time and enough goes at it. And then that is trying to replicate a specific hand rather than just dealing out any hand at all.

    But in terms of the universe we don't know the numbers of cards or how many types of hands can result in life so surely that reduces the level of non-probability (not the real term I know!).

    And then, if you are sitting in a casino, and two hands come out exactly the same one after the other no one thinks it was god that did it, its just luck. You would have to exhaust ever other possible reason before claiming it was casino fairies


  • #5705
    Pherekydes
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,251 ✭✭✭✭Pherekydes


    J C wrote: »
    Probabilities are very important ... they are the very basis of science ... where hypotheses are assessed for validity, in general, where they are found to be beyond 97% probability ... and probabilities are invariably done after the event ... because that's when the stats become available...

    I think you're confusing (perhaps deliberately) the collection of statistics after events to the calculation of probabilities of future events.
    Where you see a 'hand', dealt like you describe, with a specific sequence...

    You keep waffling on about specific hands, but the probability of any hand (dealt by anyone, even a baboon, if you like) is 1 in 10^165. The point of this calculation is to show that calculating probabilities of past events is pointless and a little intellectually dishonest. It implies absolutely nothing about the event, because the event has already taken place.



    Incidentally, a probability of 1 in 10^130 is not a statistical impossibility. Can you see why?


  • #5706
    Absolam
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,913 ✭✭✭Absolam


    Pherekydes wrote: »
    Incidentally, a probability of 1 in 10^130 is not a statistical impossibility. Can you see why?
    I think J C is using the term statistical impossibility which refers to a very low probability, and allowing that readers might take it as a functional impossibility.


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  • #5707
    Safehands
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,348 ✭✭✭Safehands


    J C wrote: »
    BTW, all this proves scientifically is that an intelligence/intelligences unknown created life ... who this / these intelligences was/were we cannot determine scientifically.

    BTW, It doesn't!


  • #5708
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    Leroy42 wrote: »
    Ah ok, get you now.

    But it could happen without intelligence, given enough time and enough goes at it. And then that is trying to replicate a specific hand rather than just dealing out any hand at all.
    It couldn't happen with intelligence ... that's what the maths proves.
    The chance of getting the specific sequences for one specific 116 chain biomolecule required to form part of a functional biosystem, to happen at the one time and place, exceeds the Universal Probability Bound (10^150).
    Leroy42 wrote: »
    But in terms of the universe we don't know the numbers of cards or how many types of hands can result in life so surely that reduces the level of non-probability (not the real term I know!).
    We know what life on Earth is like ... and based on what we observe of it we know that it is impossible without an original application of intelligence.
    Leroy42 wrote: »
    And then, if you are sitting in a casino, and two hands come out exactly the same one after the other no one thinks it was god that did it, its just luck. You would have to exhaust ever other possible reason before claiming it was casino fairies
    ... it all depends on the probability you are dealing with ... if it in the millions, it might happen ... but if it is beyond the Universal Probability Bound ... then you need to have a word with the dealer !!!!!:)


  • #5709
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    Pherekydes wrote: »
    I think you're confusing (perhaps deliberately) the collection of statistics after events to the calculation of probabilities of future events.
    No mix up ... this is real.

    Pherekydes wrote: »
    You keep waffling on about specific hands, but the probability of any hand (dealt by anyone, even a baboon, if you like) is 1 in 10^165. The point of this calculation is to show that calculating probabilities of past events is pointless and a little intellectually dishonest. It implies absolutely nothing about the event, because the event has already taken place.
    The probability can determine whether the event was caused by intelligent or spontaneous processes definitively.


    Pherekydes wrote: »
    Incidentally, a probability of 1 in 10^130 is not a statistical impossibility. Can you see why?
    1:10^150 is the Universal Probability Bound ... but it becomes a functional and statisitical impossiblity well before that.


  • #5710
    Absolam
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,913 ✭✭✭Absolam


    It should be noted that a Universal Probability Bound isn't a mathematical or statistical concept, insofar as you will not find any mathematicians or statisticians using it to describe anything in maths or statistics. It's a concept created by intelligent design advocates to describe their feelings about single statistical low probability events.

    Spontaneous formation of amino acid chains is orders of magnitude away from a functional impossibility; we've already observed under lab conditions more spontaneous formations than we think were needed to create life on our planet, so it's fair to say that given the right conditions such things are actually likely, rather than universally improbable...


  • #5711
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    Absolam wrote: »
    It should be noted that a Universal Probability Bound isn't a mathematical or statistical concept, insofar as you will not find any mathematicians or statisticians using it to describe anything in maths or statistics. It's a concept created by intelligent design advocates to describe their feelings about single statistical low probability events.
    Its the objective absolute limit for the total number of possible chemical reactions, using all of the matter and time in the known Universe.

    Quote:-
    " ... the universal probability bound is 1 in 10^150, derived as the inverse of the product of the following approximate quantities:

    10^80, the number of elementary particles in the observable universe.
    10^45, the maximum rate per second at which transitions in physical states can occur (i.e., the inverse of the Planck time).
    10^25, a billion times longer than the typical estimated age of the universe in seconds.
    Thus, 10^150 = 10^80 × 10^45 × 10^25. Hence, this value corresponds to an upper limit on the number of physical events that could possibly have occurred in the observable part of the universe since the big bang."
    Absolam wrote: »
    Spontaneous formation of amino acid chains is orders of magnitude away from a functional impossibility; we've already observed under lab conditions more spontaneous formations than we think were needed to create life on our planet, so it's fair to say that given the right conditions such things are actually likely, rather than universally improbable...
    Spontaneous formation of simple amino acid chains is possible ... but the thing at issue here is how the highly specified and functional amino acid chains found in biomolecules were formed.

    Look guys ... this is going mainstream ... only the other day I was talking with one of the most eminent Professors in Ireland ... a man involved at the very top of his profession ... and he started using the Design word ... and told me that I should take a look at the design approach to the life sciences.
    I said I would consider his advice carefully !!!:pac: :eek:

    ... I didn't tell him that ... I was, where he is now (on design in life) ... over twenty years ago !!!:D

    He did caution, that even though the design approach works ... that we are still dealing with the 'reality' that it was via the modern synthesis theory of evolution that the design came about.

    ... old habits die hard.:D


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  • #5712
    Pherekydes
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,251 ✭✭✭✭Pherekydes


    J C wrote: »
    The probability can determine whether the event was caused by intelligent or spontaneous processes definitively.

    Utter rubbish.
    1:10^150 is the Universal Probability Bound ... but it becomes a functional and statisitical impossiblity well before that.

    As Absolam stated above, there's really no such thing as the UPB.

    Further, if the probability of an event is not equal to zero then that event is not impossible.


  • #5713
    Pherekydes
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,251 ✭✭✭✭Pherekydes


    J C wrote: »
    ...only the other day I was talking with one of the most eminent Professors in Ireland...

    Was he a Professor of Theology, by any chance?

    Name and shame... :rolleyes:


  • #5714
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    Pherekydes wrote: »
    Utter rubbish.
    Could you please venture a reason for this unfounded opinion?:)
    Pherekydes wrote: »
    As Absolam stated above, there's really no such thing as the UPB.

    Further, if the probability of an event is not equal to zero then that event is not impossible.
    ... its certainly impossible if its less than the reciprocal of the UPB?


  • #5715
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    Pherekydes wrote: »
    Was he a Professor of Theology, by any chance?
    Not at all ... Theologians are not my scene ... and they are very weak on the sciences ... and generally are Theistic Evolutionists because they think its the fashionable way to go!!
    He is in the life sciences ... and that is all I am going to say, out of respect for the man.

    ... he is still wedded to the old evolutionist ways ... but slowly letting the truth of the obvious design in life sink in !!!

    ... I though it was great gas altogether when he told me, of all people, to start looking into the merits of the design hypothesis !!!:)

    He even made me promise to do it ... strange days indeed.:)

    ... so can anybody help me by telling me the merits of the design hypothesis in life (from an evolutionist POV)?
    Pherekydes wrote: »
    Was he a Professor of Theology, by any chance?

    Name and shame... :rolleyes:
    Why should it be shameful for an eminent Professor in the life sciences to examine different ways of looking at how life came to be ?
    The fact that you (and many others) think that it is shameful ... is the real shame of modern conventional science IMO, with all of its pretensions to an open mind ... when it is anything but, on the origins issue .

    Its also a (very effective) tactic to suppress any objective examination of the evidence for the action of intelligence in the creation of life.


  • #5716
    Absolam
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,913 ✭✭✭Absolam


    J C wrote: »
    Its the objective absolute limit for the total number of possible chemical reactions, using all of the matter and time in the known Universe.
    I can't agree it's the anything; it's a term coined by someone who wants to give the appearance of mathemathical/statistical gravitas to a notion not founded on maths or statistics. You won't find a decent mathematician or statistician in the world prepared to agree that there is any universal bound on probability other than zero; a number entirely dissimilar from that put forward by those propounding the notion of a 'universal probability bound'.
    J C wrote: »
    Spontaneous formation of simple amino acid chains is possible ... but the thing at issue here is how the highly specified and functional amino acid chains found in biomolecules were formed.
    Actually, the issue you put forward initially was the formation of simple amino acid chains. Knowing that they're possible, each of the steps from there to complex organisms is simply a matter of time and chance, of which the universe has a painful extravagance.


  • #5717
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    Absolam wrote: »
    I can't agree it's the anything; it's a term coined by someone who wants to give the appearance of mathemathical/statistical gravitas to a notion not founded on maths or statistics. You won't find a decent mathematician or statistician in the world prepared to agree that there is any universal bound on probability other than zero; a number entirely dissimilar from that put forward by those propounding the notion of a 'universal probability bound'.
    Not only is the UPB based on maths ... it's also based on the vital statistics of the Big Bang Universe ... and nobody has been able to argue with the figures used ... just the uncomfortable result ... for somebody who wants to continue denying that God exists despite the evidence.:pac:
    Absolam wrote: »
    Actually, the issue you put forward initially was the formation of simple amino acid chains. Knowing that they're possible, each of the steps from there to complex organisms is simply a matter of time and chance, of which the universe has a painful extravagance.
    ... and all this 'painful extravagance', as you call it ... can't produce even one specific 100 chain sequence needed for just one functional bio-chemical process ... such is the size of the painful non-functional combinatorial space for such molecules.:)

    What your're saying about amino acids spontaneously joining up, is the equivalent of pouring molten metal on the ground ... and arguing that given enough time and repetition that this would produce a car !!!
    Hint :- It will always spontaneously produce a dirty blob of metal !!!:)

    ... and it requires the application of intelligence to produce a car.


  • #5718
    Absolam
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,913 ✭✭✭Absolam


    J C wrote: »
    Not only is the UPB based on maths ... it's also based on the vital statistics of the Big Bang Universe ... and nobody has been able to argue with the figures used ... just the uncomfortable result ... for somebody who wants to continue denying that God exists despite the evidence.:pac:
    Why would anyone argue with it? Any mathematician need only read what he called it to know it's not a mathematical concept, so not worth considering...
    J C wrote: »
    ... and this 'painful extravagance' ... can't produce even one specific 100 chain sequence needed for just one functional bio-chemical process ... such is the size of the painful non-functional combinatorial space for such molecules.:)
    I very much doubt you know what sequences the universe has produced (actually, I know you don't know) so far, but certainly we can see we have 33,000 long chains on earth. So far your only evidence for it not having happened spontaneously is that you think it's so unlikely that something else must have done it.
    J C wrote: »
    What your're saying aboout amino acids spontaneously joining up, is the equivalent of pouring molten metal on the ground ... and arguing that given enough time and repetition that this would produce a car !!!
    Not really; but we could maybe stretch as far as a living rod with the characteristics of an axle? Are we going to have to air out the well worn debunkings of irreducible complexity as well, or do you think we could skip that bit?


  • #5719
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    Absolam wrote: »
    Why would anyone argue with it? Any mathematician need only read what he called it to know it's not a mathematical concept, so not worth considering...
    ... and you dismiss it with a wave of your hand ... but not with any objective reasoning.
    ... that used be the line adopted by church dogmatists, when they had no objective evidence, to support their position.:eek:
    Absolam wrote: »
    I very much doubt you know what sequences the universe has produced (actually, I know you don't know) so far, but certainly we can see we have 33,000 long chains on earth. So far your only evidence for it not having happened spontaneously is that you think it's so unlikely that something else must have done it.
    Not really; but we could maybe stretch as far as a living rod with the characteristics of an axle? Are we going to have to air out the well worn debunkings of irreducible complexity as well, or do you think we could skip that bit?
    ... the well worn out debunkings of irreducible complexity, is right !!!:)


  • #5720
    Absolam
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,913 ✭✭✭Absolam


    J C wrote: »
    ... and you dismiss it with a wave of your hand ... but not with any objective reasoning. ... that used be the line adopted by church dogmatists, when they had no objective evidence, to support their position.:eek:
    But I gave you the objective reasoning? The only universal bound on probability is zero, and that's not the number put forward as being the Universal Probability Bound.
    J C wrote: »
    ... the well worn out debunkings of irreducible complexity, is right !!!:)
    There's certainly no doubt that they need to keep being pointed out over and over, it's true!


  • #5721
    Leroy42
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,100 ✭✭✭✭Leroy42


    Hold on, I'm a bit lost here.

    JC is claiming that UPB is well estabhisled and Absolam is saying it's not. Should be easy enough for JC to put forward some evidence from accepted peer reviewed papers on the viability on acceptance of it. I have no idea which is right (and if honest don't really understand it).

    In terms of the building blocks of life, JC has been posted for ages about the proof the intelligence is required to start the building of life due the massive improbability of the building blocks coming together to come together in the required way.

    Absolam seems to suggesting that amino acids have been created in the lab showing that it is possible, just that we haven't found the trick to getting the specific ones we need for the life a we know it. Doesn't that seems to suggest that the arguement that life couldn't be created without intelligence is on very shaky ground.


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  • #5722
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    Absolam wrote: »
    But I gave you the objective reasoning? The only universal bound on probability is zero, and that's not the number put forward as being the Universal Probability Bound.
    Statisticians also validly use probabilities that are so tiny that they are effectively zero as statistical impossibilities ... and one probability that is effectively zero is one beyond the reciprocal of the UPB.
    Absolam wrote: »
    There's certainly no doubt that they need to keep being pointed out over and over, it's true!
    Promises ... promises ... but nothing forthcoming.:)


  • #5723
    Timberrrrrrrr
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 25,890 ✭✭✭✭Timberrrrrrrr


    J C wrote: »
    Statisticians also validly use probabilities that are so tiny that they are effectively zero as statistical impossibilities ... and one probability that is effectively zero is one beyond the reciprocal of the UPB.
    Promises ... promises ... but nothing forthcoming.:)

    A bit like your "god"


  • #5724
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    Leroy42 wrote: »
    Hold on, I'm a bit lost here.

    JC is claiming that UPB is well estabhisled and Absolam is saying it's not. Should be easy enough for JC to put forward some evidence from accepted peer reviewed papers on the viability on acceptance of it. I have no idea which is right (and if honest don't really understand it).
    It is peer reviewed within Creation Science ... but hostility towards it and career risk from evaluating it, means that it cannot be peer reviewed within conventional science currently.
    ... but here is the basis for it:-
    Quote:-
    " ... the universal probability bound is 1 in 10^150, derived as the inverse of the product of the following approximate quantities:

    10^80, the number of elementary particles in the observable universe.
    10^45, the maximum rate per second at which transitions in physical states can occur (i.e., the inverse of the Planck time).
    10^25, a billion times longer than the typical estimated age of the universe in seconds.
    Thus, 10^150 = 10^80 × 10^45 × 10^25. Hence, this value corresponds to an upper limit on the number of physical events that could possibly have occurred in the observable part of the universe since the big bang."
    Leroy42 wrote: »
    In terms of the building blocks of life, JC has been posted for ages about the proof the intelligence is required to start the building of life due the massive improbability of the building blocks coming together to come together in the required way.

    Absolam seems to suggesting that amino acids have been created in the lab showing that it is possible, just that we haven't found the trick to getting the specific ones we need for the life a we know it. Doesn't that seems to suggest that the arguement that life couldn't be created without intelligence is on very shaky ground.
    ... it actually proves that intelligence is required.

    Observing about amino acids spontaneously joining up, and concluding that this proves that life could arise spontaneously is the equivalent of pouring molten metal on the ground ... and arguing that given enough time and repetition that this would produce a car !!!
    It will always spontaneously produce a dirty blob of metal !!!

    ... and it requires the appliance of intelligence to produce a car.:)


  • #5725
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »
    A bit like your "god"
    God has done all He needed to do ... and now it's up to us ... to love Him or hate Him ... to be Saved or lost.


  • #5726
    looksee
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 29,915 ✭✭✭✭looksee


    Ah, when you said you were a scientist JC, you were referring to being a creation scientist?


  • #5727
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    looksee wrote: »
    Ah, when you said you were a scientist JC, you were referring to being a creation scientist?
    I'm both a working conventional scientist, in my day job ... and a Creation Scientist, in my spare time ... like many other Creation Scientists.

    Creation Science is a love that dare not speak its name in the halls of secular academia ... and secular academia is all the poorer for it ... but there you go.

    However, the greatest secular nation on Earth seems to be having a change of heart about this ...
    https://www.engadget.com/2017/02/02/who-is-jerry-falwell-jr-and-why-is-he-reforming-higher-educatio/


  • #5728
    indioblack
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,954 ✭✭✭indioblack


    J C wrote: »
    God has done all He needed to do ... and now it's up to us ... to love Him or hate Him ... to be Saved or lost.

    If only life were as black and white as this. Tell me, in your own life do you hate the people you don't love? I doubt it - there's probably a whole grey area of general indifference in between.
    For disbelievers, it's impossible to either love or hate something you think doesn't exist.
    For believers, of course god has done all he needed to do - to expect more would, in effect, be a denial of god.
    I suspect that the most that can be achieved by travelling down this route of scientific debate would be the thinking that god is some sort of giant super computer.


  • #5729
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    indioblack wrote: »
    If only life were as black and white as this. Tell me, in your own life do you hate the people you don't love? I doubt it - there's probably a whole grey area of general indifference in between.
    For disbelievers, it's impossible to either love or hate something you think doesn't exist.
    For believers, of course god has done all he needed to do - to expect more would, in effect, be a denial of god.
    I suspect that the most that can be achieved by travelling down this route of scientific debate would be the thinking that god is some sort of giant super computer.
    Much more than a super-computer ... a loving, just, merciful, conscious and intelligent Being ... as well.


  • #5730
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    Fascinating programme on BBC 4 now ... Sir David Attenborough revisits Madagascar 50 years after his original visit in 1961.
    Very moving programme ... by a giant amongst Naturalists.


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  • #5731
    Pherekydes
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,251 ✭✭✭✭Pherekydes


    J C wrote: »
    Much more than a super-computer ... a loving, just, merciful, conscious and intelligent Being ... as well.

    What loving, just and merciful God would condemn innocent babies to hell for all eternity just because they were born Jewish?

    What kind of loving, just and merciful God would send down a copy of himself to save his chosen people only to deliver them into the hands of the Nazis two thousand years later?


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