Monday, 08 February 2010
-
The twelve basic arguments for god #3: Argument to Design
This argument usually claims that life on Earth or some other aspect of nature is too well designed for evolution or natural processes to explain it (either evolution would work too slowly or not as well, or life would have to have begun too complex for chance to explain it, and so on).
A popular type argument for god's existence is the god of the gaps argument. It's an extension of the argument from ignorance. Such arguments begin by pointing out something science has not explained and saying that is where god is. A popular iteration is "Science can't explain why I love my daughter/wife/etc!" Of course, this specific argument is patently wrong. We do understand the science of love and attraction - it comes down to simple, mindless chemicals. Although even if we couldn't explain love or anything else, that does not mean that religious people can. The proper answer is simply "I don't know," not "I don't know, therefore I DO know!"
But god of the gaps arguments are losing space as science explains more and more things. The other way they'll try and get around science infringing on claims their religion had previously tried to secure with god of the gaps arguments is to claim that science and religion are not in conflict.Science and religion are in conflict, and religion has been getting its ass kicked
We so often hear the faithful claiming that science and religion address different questions. It is frequently specified that religion is the best means of explaining the who and why to the universe while science best explains the what and how. However, while religion makes assertions of explanatory power, I think it's quite a leap to say that religion/faith explains anything. Take a moment and ask yourself the following questions:- Think of one thing for which we once had a religious answer, but for which we now have a scientific answer (this one should not be difficult).
- Think of one thing for which we had a scientific answer, but for which we now have a religious answer (don't waste too much of your time).
If religion did explain things or if it truly claimed mastery over a sphere of knowledge that science is not fit to handle, then the claims of religion would not be continually being replaced by scientific explanations. Order of the stars? Miracle. (Crap, turns out it was gravity) Disease? The devil. (Nope, just germs) Lightning? God's wrath. (Nope, just friction and heat)
The question "Did a man rise from the dead 2000 years ago?" is a question of biology. And the question "Did Jesus walk on water or transmute water into wine?" is a question about physics. The Christian faith makes a magnificent glory of how these propositions fly in the face of science, which is why they're called "miracles". But science has the (obvious) answer to both of these questions, and religions have no sound evidence for why the natural order was abrogated in the ways they claim. The entire Christian religion is based on the truth of Jesus' resurrection, which could not conflict with science more.
A look at the universe reveals it to be the work of a fairly incompetent engineer at best, as it took billions of years of trial and painful error to reach its current state. A perfect designer would not require such a system. It is also still riddled with a host of simple errors that are just what we would expect to see in a universe that operates on a series of mindless rules, but that are just bizarre if a god created anything. These are things like the existence of the appendix, babies heads being bigger than the birth canal, and the clunky nature of DNA. Did you know that cancer and a whole host of other maladies are the result of a flaw in DNA replication? What intelligent designer, let alone a competent one, would use a system that contains basic flaws perceptible to even a moderately informed mortal? Additionally, why would god saturate the DNA chain with junk DNA or place markers on the DNA chain that help us monitor the evolution of DNA which inevitably leads us to the conclusion that we have evolved?Order from disorder and the Law of Entropy
An argument that often comes up in an effort to disprove evolution is the Law of Entropy Argument (they'll often refer to it as the Second Law of Thermodynamics argument). It will be advanced that the second law states that all interactions produce more disorder than order, so for things to be ordered we would need interference from a designer of some sort. However, this is not at all what the second law says. What the law really says is that when a reaction occurs within a closed system (a system in which energy/mass remain fixed) then the disordered energy will always be greater than the ordered energy. During such reactions, the disordered energy is emitted into what's called dissipative systems. As long as the ordered energy is less than the disordered energy, the second law is conserved.
A good example of this would be our atmosphere. It's pretty ordered - it's been there for millions of years. However, the friction of the molecules contained therein creates heat that is then radiated into space as disordered energy, giving us order in a closed system. Our solar system is another example. If you get a giant cloud of hydrogen such that it hits a critical mass for gravity to take effect on it, it will compress into a young star and possibly a new solar system (see the Jeans instability).
Religious people often, and understandably, infer that where there is order, there must be design. However, this is not necessarily true. The universe produces order all by itself. Take water as another example. What is the natural state of water? It's actually ice. If you thought it was water, you only thought that because we live in an area of abundant energy. Energy is required to keep water in a higher state of disorder, rather than greater order.If you were to take almost all the energy out of the equation in dealing with water you would get ice (specifically, ice crystals), the most complex form of water. Ice crystals are highly ordered, and we know precisely what natural mechanisms create them. Nobody feels the need to invoke a crystal-making god to explain them because we already have a complete understanding of the process; mindless forces operating upon inanimate objects do the job just fine on their own.
Order out of chaos is easy to observe, and it is responsible for virtually every instance of complexity in the universe. This is why if we were to find ourselves in a disordered universe, in which things were observed to exist in a state of greater disorder rather than forming complex systems, we could conclude that something, like a designer, was fiddling about. This is not what we observe.
Because we know that the universe produces order on its own, there is no need to appeal to god to explain it since we know that complexity gets produced without intention all the time. Therefore design cannot be an answer without evidence to support it. Without such evidence, it's just a lack of imagination.Abiogenesis
Abiogenesis is the science surrounding the origin of life. It is important that we are very specific on what we mean when we say "life" in this context. Often religious people will assert that the odds of an operable strand of DNA assembling on its own are so astronomical that we my as well consider it impossible (or more probable that a god had a hand in it). However, this is not the question that should be asked. As we shall see, we only need to be interested in the origin of a self-replicating molecule, which is highly probable in an early Earth.
The first DNA strand would not have held much information, but instead it would have held just enough to get it started so it could evolve. It would need only an array of polypeptides. ‘Lo and behold, what do biochemists think were abundantly present on our planet in the beginning? You got it – polypeptides. Of course, you’d also need a little luck (however, spread out over a vast planet of similar events, such a lucky event would become probable: go here and run a text search for "lottery fallacy"): you would need fluctuations of temperature sufficient to remove portions of the pools from thermal equilibrium, and these occur in just the same way that organized convection cycles arise naturally when water is heated. With these things in place, as they likely were in the beginning stages of our planet 3.8 to 4.4 billion years ago, the existence of a self-replicating molecule becomes very, very likely.
Once the first self-replicating molecule gets started, it only needs evolution to take care of the rest. My post defending the validity of evolution can be found here.
Outro
Contrary to what many creationists advance, the universe does not need a who or a why - it appears to be chugging along just fine with its mindless processes and inanimate objects. Also, note how differently science and religion work. In science it is never noble to pretend to know things you do not. Yet, this is precisely what the argument to design is: pointing to a piece of complexity we've yet to explain (or have already explained and the creationist just doesn't know it) and claiming that because we currently lack an explanation supported by evidence that the believer does know how that little piece of order came to be - and don't you know, it was god. In doing so, they are claiming to have knowledge about the cosmos that the collective battery of science lacks. Only in faith could such imaginative pretension be praised.
Next up: The Fine-Tuning Argument.
-
recommend
- recs 9
-
email
- sent 0
- like
Related Posts
Post a Comment
- Back to Zerowing21's Xanga Site!
- Note: your comment will appear in Zerowing21's local time zone: GMT -05:00 (Eastern Standard - US, Canada)
Comments (28)
I don't think that we can prove that there is a god or not....I think it all comes down to personal experience. In the long run, we have faith in something.....whether is be creationism or whatever else....we have to have faith that it's real. For example, no one was there when abogenesis occured....Scientists or Christians.
I guess I just believe that every worldview is on the same level....based on a system that we hope works.....because no one was really there when life formed on the surface of the earth. We can definitely try to formulate theories, test, observe, read religious literature, and form opinions (it's good and excellent to do that)...but in the long run...all we have are opinions because we weren't there.
@t_sheffield - Every world view is on the same level? I think it's patently clear that not all belief sets are equally likely to be true. Consider portions of two differing world views:
1. In this world view, you open the refrigerator by pulling on the handle.
2. In this world view, you open the refrigerator by stabbing yourself in the face.
You can't possibly think that both of them are on the same level. In world views that produce testable results, we must give those world views credence over lesser ones. Faith is not required for truth claims supported by reasons. In fact, if you must accept something on faith alone, you are admitting that the claim cannot stand on its own merits.
Also, for the argument that none of us were there when abiogenesis occurred, click here.
JT
@t_sheffield - so the old...uhhh... was it Mayan? Incan? Creation myth that the world was originally on the back of a giant space tortoise, should be held in equal regard? See, that's the thing... everybody wants "worldviews held in equal regard"... well, as long as it's their worldview. Differering ones need not apply.
As I recently told a fundamentalist Muslim, who commented the "girl with no vagina gets 'mysteriously pregnant'" post with something like "Allah akhbar! This shows how much greatness is Allah and his return is forthcoming!!!" or something like that... I told him: "'Admiral Akbar!!!' indeed, for "We cannot repel coincidences of this magnitude!!!'" laff. Still no death threats, I am vaguely disappointed. I figured at least some Star Wars fangeek would threaten me with a thermal detonator for misappropriating the name of such a great war hero...
laff.
Yeah...I do think that every worldview should be upheld equally..(even the Mayan one)....but maybe I'm one of the very few people who thinks that. But hey, logic only goes so far...
Or maybe that's just postmodernism.
@Zerowing21 - I'm not quite sure I agree with you on that one. The only way that I can make a universal claim about something.....with testable results.....is if I can test it universally.
The example you gave::
"1. In this world view, you open the refrigerator by pulling on the handle.
2. In this world view, you open the refrigerator by stabbing yourself in the face."
It makes sense...yes, obviously we open the door by pulling on the handle...but even then...maybe a door did open when a person stabbed herself in the face. Just because it wasn't tested doesn't mean it's false. I think it's huge claim to say that something is ALWAYS universally true when we can't really know unless we have knowledge of the entire universe....
Also, I think it's dangerous to say that the universe has always worked a certain way....and always will....
We just don't know. We don't know.
@t_sheffield - On the universality of beliefs: they're not absolute, which they must be for your system to work.
You're also using the argument from ignorance. For your system to work, somewhere the refrigerator door MUST open by stabbing ones self in the face...otherwise you have no supporting evidence, I have a crap ton, thus my belief set is more likely to be true.
For a more in-depth explanation, go here and read the section "on the nature of knowledge."
JT
@t_sheffield - I think the primary difference that must be highlighted is that a scientific, reasoning perspective on the world is useful for navigating and manipulating it. It is the only system which has produced any results whatsoever; let alone repeatable, testable results.
@ElliottStrange - I agree...the scientific worldview is highly valuable! However, I don't think we should rule everything else out because it's not as valuable.
I agree though:)
@t_sheffield - If you want to value what has no value, go right ahead - just don't expect the rest of us to take you seriously.
@t_sheffield - be sure to sacrifice your blood to keep the sun rising.
The only thing that science doesn't explain to me is why we have these chemicals that make us feel certain ways. What's the point of feelings? Why do all these chemicals that compose a body that wants to stay alive, that can be sad, that has feelings of self-worth, that wants to know the reasons behind its own existence? I guess evolutionarily, the chemicals that would, for some reason or another, "want" to propagate would be the only ones to continue to exist, but I just find it the rest of it a tad odd, since I can imagine most of what seems to consume humanity as being not all that conducive to just making more chemical beings.
I can't say I'm real big into God these days, mostly because quite a lot of things in the Bible just never sat well with me (bottom line: God seems like kind of a jerk a lot of the time), but I still can't understand some things simply through science.
For instance, if we're all just chemicals and all our thoughts, feelings, and selves have no other significance other than the interplay of chemicals, I don't understand why morals would have a need to exist. If it's all just a bunch of 'mindless chemicals,' there's no reason not to let them play out as they will and the chemicals that "want" (or are designed) to survive and propagate more by whatever means, well, there's no reason to stop them. A guy wants to rape every woman he sees? Well, there's the ultimate propagation of that specific genome.
And you can't get angry with him for it. Not if you're a logical person: If everything's just a product of chemicals in the brain that are caused by the stimulus received, you can never blame anyone for anything. You can't get mad at the man who runs over your dog because he's a jackass and he thought it'd be funny; it's just the way his chemicals worked. You can't get mad at people for doing horrible things in the name of religion; unfortunately their brain wasn't wired in the way that our brains would consider "good" or "correct." And if anyone was killed, they probably didn't need to propagate their genes anyway if they weren't strong enough to resist. Survival of the fittest, really.
Everything being caused by the interplay of chemicals always seems to suggest to me that there is no such thing as free will, something I don't like the idea of at all. That's my main hangup with the idea that /everything/ is explained by science.
* * *
Also, I have a slew of problems with this paragraph:
"These
are things like the existence of the appendix, babies heads being
bigger than the birth canal, and the clunky nature of DNA. Did you
know that cancer and a whole host of other maladies are the result of a
flaw in DNA replication? What intelligent designer, let alone a
competent one, would use a system that contains basic flaws perceptible
to even a moderately informed mortal? Additionally, why would god
saturate the DNA chain with junk DNA or place markers on the DNA chain that help us monitor the evolution of DNA which inevitably leads us to the conclusion that we have evolved? "
1. The appendix has a use (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071008102334.htm among other sources, if you think this one unreliable).
2. Most babies' heads are indeed bigger than the birth canal, it's just that mothers are usually capable of physically tolerating it (http://weber.ucsd.edu/~dkjordan/resources/clarifications/HumanBirth.html). With the variation that comes of having different DNA and being able to mate with anyone of the same species, regardless of typical baby-size, the mother may simply not be equipped for such large baby genes.
3. DNA replicates trillions of times throughout a lifespan correctly (How dare it screw up once! It's not like it's an incredibly precise procedure or anything...). There are numerous ways that DNA tries to keep itself in check. And "[t]he development of cancer requires the accumulation of mutations in a
number of key genes. Different tissues and types of cells will require
different combinations of genes to be mutated in order to become
cancerous." (http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/cancerstats/causes/genes/cancergenes/cancer-genes) There's actually a lot in play to fight off cancers. Unfortunately, some people more or less cause it themselves by smoking or over-tanning or just doing things that they know aren't healthy for them. (NOTE: I am NOT saying that all people with cancer have only themselves to blame.)
4. Junk DNA is still virgin soil for science, in a lot of ways, and there are many things to suggest that it also has a use (http://www.psrast.org/junkdna.htm or just Google more, I'm in a hurry).
I believe we've had the discussion about whether the universe is a work of competency or not previously.
Does it work? Has it self destructed yet? Does it need fixing? =) Right.
Haha, priceless. As Dawkins says, just because science can't explain a phenomenon does not automatically make religion correct by default.
I'm stealing your cartoon, by the way. It sums up the discussion I just had with mtgirlsouth, who claimed that I was "blind to it" (Christianity and Jesus) because I didn't have the "sixth sense." Then she compared the lack of proof to nobody being able to prove the existence of color to a blind man. She got upset when I showed her articles about using gene therapy to restore vision and enable monkeys to see color.
The explanation of order is great. I usually reference the "invisible hand" concept of economics.
Just a quick thought in response to Ghostwriter above. We understand what makes the brain work...it is a series of chemical and electrochemical reactions. However, it is those reactions working in concert that give us our identities, and give us the ability to define a belief system. The chemicals don't force us to do anything, they are simply the hardware used by the body. In this sense our brains are similar to computers and our consciousness to software.
On a slightly different note, the human eye is one of the best examples of a poorly designed organ.
Light enters through a lens, is inverted, travels through a fluid that becomes more contaminated with detached pieces of the early (in utero) eye structures, goes through a layer of material that filters out certain colors of light, and (finally) hits the retina upside down and backward. From there, the image must be sent to the brain via electrical impulses, all while being inverted (again) and reconstructed in the brain.
Each step in the process is a potential failure. Why such a complex eye? Because it likely started only as a group of light sensitive cells, with each successive mutation adding complexity in a random (and sometimes spectacularly inefficient) fashion.
Am I a bad person for reading through this whole thing and only being able to think "I want t_sheffield to prove that refrigerators can be opened by stabbing herself in the face -- AND I want the video of it on YouTube"??
@gene546 - Again, the chemical reactions in our brain don't know anything, they are simply the hardware used by the human body. We understand the vast majority of them (dopamine and dopamine receptors with movement, serotonin with respect to sleep, neurological functions etcetera), and we know how they work and what body systems they affect.
No scientist claims to be able to explain everything in the universe (at least none that I've ever heard of or read about), in distinct contrast to numerous religious figures who claim to know all about the universe because their god created it.
The number of misconceptions in your short post is remarkable.
1. We (humanity) did not start in a singularity. We arose from an ape ancestor sometime in the last 1 million years. The universe, by the best currently understood and documented theory (which is the highest level of scientific certainty, unlike a hypothesis), points to all matter in this universe originating from a single point (hence the term singularity).
2. 'Catastrophic explosions given millions of years' are not required to create life. Experiments by Miller and Urey (1961) and subsequent experiments by numerous others show that all that is necessary to create amino acids and self-replicating organic molecules are ammonia, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, water, and some source of energy (usually thought to be lightning, although recent research is pointing to heat at mid-ocean ridges as a potential source) to drive the reaction. After amino acids form any number of reactions can occur depending on the physical conditions in the proximity of the amino acids. Life likely originated about 3.5 billion years ago, with macroscopic, multi-cellular organisms becoming common between 600 and 1100 million years ago.
3. Darwin didn't say Eureaka!, Archimedes did, supposedly while running naked in the street. The Darwinian Theory of Evolution is considered by many to be supported by more evidence than any other scientific theory, include Gravitational Theory. Our immediate ancestors are apes, not single-celled organisms.
4. Arguing that humans are state-of-the-art is tenuous at best. State-of-the-art for what purpose? In terms of hunting and killing prey, one could argue that humans are far inferior to sharks, large cats, bears, etcetera. In terms of eyesight? Our eyes are good but not great. Birds are superior. In terms of smell? Dogs beat us by miles. As a successful organism? The horseshoe crab has existed for at least 500 million years in a form that is unchanged. By contrast, in our most generous paleontologic classification humans have been around for less than 0.5% of that time frame. This argument is difficult to quantify.
5. Humans are the sole god of everything that is? Hardly. Humans are not gods no matter how much we might want to be. We function within the physical laws that govern our reality, and to date we have not been able to change those laws. I would argue that the ascent to "Godhood" would require the ability to construct a universe in which new physical laws govern behaviors or to be able to suspend the application of physical laws to one's self. I would argue that neither of those options appears likely.
Humans are another animal, one with a more highly developed brain, that arose by the same evolutionary process that provided the stunning diversity of life we see today. We possess numerous vestigial organs (tailbones, male nipples, gill slits in embryos, etcetra) that give clues as to our evolutionary lineage, and we live and die as part of the same Earth system as all of those ancestral organisms.
@agnosticswitch - Not at all. I'd pay $100 for a ticket to see that show.
@RockDoctorJ - "Just a quick thought in response to
Ghostwriter above. We understand what makes the brain work...it is a
series of chemical and electrochemical reactions. [...] The chemicals don't force us to
do anything, they are simply the hardware used by the body."
See, that's just the thing. Our brains are composed of chemicals. Every cell in our body can be simplified into chemicals. Chemicals which have no choice about the way they react when exposed to the chemicals created by the stimuli we receive. Can iron choose /not/ to react with oxygen and form rust? 'Fraid not. The same follows for our cells.
If we boil ourselves down to just chemicals, everything we do is mandated by the molecular reactions that we have no personal control over. That's my problem. I realize that the brain works as a "series of chemical and electrochemical reactions," but that in itself implies I have no control over them. My mind would just be a mass of chemicals reacting with the chemicals that get put or released into it by the stimuli I receive.
Sorry if I'm talking in circles; I find it hard to put this into words.
@agnosticswitch - thanks.
The last panel of the Jesus and Mo cartoon really says it all.
I mostly read and blog on xanga for entertainment. But I always find deeper material on your site. You should collect all of your writings into a book and publish them...
@Alyxandri - I've always said I would write a book after I graduate, but I think I'm going to begin work on one this Summer. Thank you for the encouragement.
JT
@agnosticswitch - your not the only one, im quite intrigued by this statement.