Evidence for design

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David Killens's picture
@ Someone

@ Someone

I can describe red as being 620–750 nm wavelength, 400–484 THz frequency, and 1.65–2.00 eV photon energy. Even if the observer was blind, I could describe "red" in a very specific manner devoid of personal interpretation or "experience".

That is evidence. You are attempting to conflate evidence with experience, and they do not mix.

Sheldon's picture
"For scientific evidence to

"For scientific evidence to be evidence to anyone that experiences, either the evidence would have to be experienced, or the report of it being experienced report would have to be experienced."

Nonsense, something is objectively true independent of what anyone thinks about it. Science is simply a method of objectively gathering testing and validating evidence, that evidence can lend weight to falsifiable conclusions which also have to objectively tested. Why do theists think a good way to avoid their inability to objectively evidence their deity is to attack the best method we have for objectively validating things - science? The sheer desperation of this should have alarm bells ringing in anyone who is remotely objective.

"experience is the only evidence that we have"

No it's not, this is absurdly wrong. I don't understand calculus, are you saying this means it's results are not objectively valid?

As David says you are using the same tired old theist trick and pony show of reversing the burden of proof.

Sheldon's picture
"It does not matter whether

"It does not matter whether some personal experience can be demonstrated to be objectively false. "

of course it does, in the post I'd responded you made repeated claims for "evidence". If you can demonstrate no objective evidence to support your claims then they're meaningless, as of course I pointed out in my response, and you have no admitted is the case. Worse still you seem now to be claiming objective evidence doesn't exist? So you're either being extremely dishonest in the hope no one will notice, or you don't even understand what objective evidence is. Since you admit you can demonstrate no objective evidence for your beliefs, there is no rational reason for holding them.
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" And not only is, as I already spoon fed those atheists in the forum in the first post, personal experience the ONLY evidence each of us ever has, I also provided an example of a truth that it is evidence for. The truth being that "reality is not one in which no one experiences"."

I've read that three times, and it's still meaningless gibberish? Is it even English?
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"Amazing that one that doesn't even seem to comprehend basic logic, or comprehend simple truths "

How can anyting be a truth simple or otherwise if there is no such thing as objective evidence? You're contradicting yourself and don't even seem to know it. Since I have never claimed to understand logic, basic or otherwise, you're also making up straw man arguments now. However what basic logic are you claiming has been misunderstood, and how is it salient to your "unevidenced" claims that the universe is designed? Also If as you are implying here, you do understand logic then why do your posts contain more than one common logical fallacy? Your posts seem very confused, and contradictory, but nothing you have offered amounts to anything beyond a string of bare assertions.

Someone's picture
Do you not understand that in

Do you not understand that in a logical argument in order to draw a conclusion from the premises the conclusion must be correct in all circumstances.

So for example. Consider the following argument:

(1) When it rains the ground is wet.
(2) the ground is wet.

Therefore
(3) It has been raining.

The conclusion (3) does not follow from the premises. The premises can be true, but it can be shown by provision of a counter example that it does not follow. The example could be wet for other reasons.

Likewise in the argument I developed from David Killens argument, the conclusion did not follow from the experience examples, illustrated by me giving a counter example to the conclusion.

I will reword the counter example for you, as you seemed not to understand it.

"At least some of what exists experiences"

Presumably you can understand that. Is it that you disagree that it is true? If you don't disagree with it, then what evidence have you for it being true?

Sheldon's picture
The problem is that you are

Something of a non-sequitur, what does any of that have to do with my post?

The problem is that you are claiming to understand logic, whilst using informal logical fallacies like argumentum ad ignorantiam, and special pleading fallacies.

Now, what objective evidence can you demonstrate for any deity or deities?

Someone's picture
I explained the evidence of

I explained the evidence of design in the first post, and I thought that you had agree with an argument placed by someone that had claimed that they had shown that experience was not evidence. Was I mistaken?

Sheldon's picture
" I explained the evidence of

" I explained the evidence of design in the first post, and I thought that you had agree with an argument placed by someone that had claimed that they had shown that experience was not evidence. Was I mistaken?"

I have never claimed experience isn't evidence, merely that it is not enough on it's own to be objective evidence. I even explained that our senses are easily deceived, even when we can anticipate they will be deceived as in a magic show for example. Personal experience can't be cited as evidence because it is not always objective, thus we have created methods that help to objectively validate claims and ideas, the best of which is axiomatically the scientific method.

Your first post did not evidence design it merely asserted it using argument ad ignorantiam to assert the need for a deity based on our incomplete knowledge of how organic life originated. You are also implying evolution couldn't evolve sentient conscious beings from simple single celled organisms, despite the overwhelming evidence for species evolution. Lastly you are trying to suggest science is useless as it can only be understood by individual subjective experience, and this just shows you understand neither the scientific method or objective truth.

The scientific theories that explain the natural phenomenon of gravity were just as true even when no human being knew anything about them. So it is axiomatic that objective facts exist independent of any human experience of them. In fact that's what objective fact means, that it remains true no matter what any anyone thinks about it. It is an objective fact that world is not the centre of the universe, this was just as true when most humans believed it was.

Best of all is that you are making these fallacious and erroneous claims to try and validate belief in a bronze age superstition, for which no one can demonstrate any objective evidence. How desperate does someone have to be to maintain a faith based belief, if they have to try call into question the validity of all scientific knowledge, and imply that objective truth is not even possible?

At what point would someone (irony intended) see the one thing they are determined to believe in with no real evidence to support is, is motivating them to deny or call into question just about every objective fact humans have ever acquired?

TheBlindWatchmaker's picture
Incorrect, I may have spilt

Incorrect, I may have spilt my cup of tea, just one of many possible causes.

Here is a similar scenario:

Person A is on trial
Person A is found NOT guilty

That does not mean Person A is innocent.

Old man shouts at clouds's picture
@ TBW

@ TBW
Exactly which is why the very sensible Scots have had a third verdict "Not Proven" in the court system.

Tin-Man's picture
So, first of all, Nobody

So, first of all, Nobody claims there is proof of god's existence. Then, suddenly, Someone comes along and claims there is proof of god's existence. Naturally, this baffles Everybody, especially when Someone obviously seems to agree with Nobody. If Anybody is able to figure this out, it would be nice to let Somebody know, so he can tell Everybody. Then maybe Everybody can pass the word along to Someone who agrees with Nobody. I hope I haven't confused Anybody., otherwise Someone will learn nothing from this, and Nobody will benefit.

NewSkeptic's picture
@Tin-Man

@Tin-Man

Okay, when you're not writing comedy screenplays, you can fill in for Abbott and Costello. Who's on First?

Sheldon's picture
"With physicalist theories

"With physicalist theories there is no reason to have favoured the expectation of any particular physical activity to have correlated with experience over any other physical activity, or to have favoured what the experience that correlated with physical activity would be like."

Complete gibberish, wtf does it even mean?

Sheldon's picture
"Those that believe reality

"Those that believe reality is one without deities asking where is the evidence for design? Because the evidence is: all the evidence! As all evidence is that which is experienced, and it is what is experienced that is the evidence."

Seriously, this has to be a piss take?

algebe's picture
@Somebody:

@Somebody:
Before I attempt to respond to your arguments, I'll need to be clear exactly what they mean. For a start, could you translate the following sentence into coherent English?

The theist can therefore explain how it is that my form can express that the person experiencing having it is infallible when it comes to the statement that "reality is not one in which none experience", for example. [/cite]

Someone's picture
@Algebe

@Algebe

Hi, there may be a problem for you here because of the ontological differences from a physicalist that I am expecting the theist to hold. Whether a dualist theist, or a monist theist, I would expect the theist to differentiate themselves from the form that they experience having. I happen to be a monist but in case you (or others) struggle to comprehend that perspective, I will explain the quoted part from a dualist perspective.

[cite]The theist can therefore explain how it is that my form can express that the person experiencing having it is infallible...[/cite]

For the dualist each of us (usually at least) is a spiritual being which has a physical form. The spiritual and physical being two different types of substance. So in their perspective, I would be a spiritual being which is connected somehow to a physical form. They can explain how it is that my physical form can express that I (the person experiencing having it in this case) is infallible with regards to the truth of certain statements. Infallible is different to a simple belief. I could believe that you experience for example and not doubt my belief, but I do not know that you do, for all I know I could be wrong. Being infallible about something is when the person cannot be wrong, so it is more than a belief that a person does not doubt.

[cite]...infallible when it comes to the statement that "reality is not one in which none experience", for example.[/cite]

This is an example of a statement whose sentiment I am infallible about. The statement is effectively that of what exists at least some existence experiences. Though on reflection I think that it would be better to have written the statement as "At least some of what exists experiences" as it is simpler and leaves less room for debate about what is meant by it. Does this rewording of the statement help?

If there is anything else you do not understand about the statement, then it might be useful if you highlighted your confusion rather than expecting me to guess.

algebe's picture
@Somebody: reality is not one

@Somebody: reality is not one in which none experience

That all adds up a prolix paraphrase of "cogito ergo sum", and none of it provides evidence for design, which was the title of your original post. I agree that "reality is not one in which none experience", but what does that prove beyond the fact that I exist?

A person may be infallible (assuming that they're not lying) if they claim to be experiencing a so-called duality of physical and spiritual being, but that doesn't make it real outside of their own consciousness.

Someone's picture
It shows that experience is

It shows that experience is evidence: The person experiencing is basing the claim on the fact that they are experiencing. Otherwise what other evidence did they have regarding the claim? And the point of the second argument was how can we react to the experience in a physicalist account?

I do not know what you mean by them experiencing a so-called duality of physical and spiritual being. Do you just mean that they experiencing having a form or something else?

Sheldon's picture
You understand our senses are

You understand our senses are easily deceived don't you? Have you never seen a "magic" show? You know your experience of such an event is wrong, and they're not really doing magic right?

If only we had some way to separate valid experiences from invalid ones. Some method of evidence gathering, and testing that could falsify claims and ideas that are false, and lend weight to claims and ideas that are objectively valid?

Oh wait a minute...it's not religion is it, it's science.

Someone's picture
Doesn't science rely on the

Doesn't science rely on the scientists' experience?

Sheldon's picture
Yes, but the objective facts

Yes, but the objective facts they discover were objective facts before they experienced them, that's axiomatic. This is where you are going awry. The sun never travelled around the earth, the earth always orbited the sun, the difference between the experience of the scientist and the religions that claimed we lived in a geocentric universe is that the scientist used the scientific method to objectively evidence their idea. Experience alone is not enough, that's why those whose experience was that they looked up and saw the sun moving around the earth based their belief solely on that experience. The fact that supposedly "infallible" divinely inspired texts incorporated these errors before humans understood how to use the scientific method just shows they are almost certainly human in origin.

Infallible omniscient deities would know the chronology in which our solar system formed, it would know that we evolved slowly over time like all other living things on earth, it would know that humans in their current form have existed for no more than 200 000 years, whilst dinosaurs existed for hundreds of millions.

So if the bible is inspired by an omniscient deity then why is so much of it demonstrably wrong? Also what the fuck did this deity get from tinkering with dinosaur evolution for all that time if humans are supposedly the main event?

It only makes rational sense if we live an insentient and random universe. This explanation removes all the cognitive dissonance and fits what evidence we have, without the need to cherry pick science and deny well evidenced scientific facts. When you let go of irrational superstitious beliefs, it sudden makes sense to view Yahweh, Jesus and Allah as no different in any real sense than Zeus, Thor, or Apollo. et al.

David Killens's picture
One scientist's (or a team)

One scientist's (or a team) experience is just the beginning of the scientific journey. The scientist publishes the data, and then others attempt to examine, and definitely try to destroy that observation. Only when it has been examined and tested multiple times by many teams, does it begin to attain validity.

Any theory or concept that reaches the public domain has been through a long journey that involves rigorous examination.

A few weeks ago I was sitting in on an online lecture hosted by Dr Jason Steffen, and he remarked that most of his scientist colleagues considered their jobs as trying to destroy theories. In the scientific community, everything is critically examined and tested for validity or flaws.

This is where Einstein's famous theory of relativity was born. Einstein critically examined Newton's theories, latched onto a weak point, and from that he developed his theory of relativity.

chimp3's picture
@someone: There was 90

@someone: There was 90 seconds of my life I won't get back! What a bunch of gibberish!

Nyarlathotep's picture
Someone - Whereas theist

Someone - Whereas theist theorists can explain why...

God did it isn't much of an explanation, and it is certainly not a theory.

Sapporo's picture
Things that are good at

Things that are good at prospering prosper - but that is not proof of design.

TheBlindWatchmaker's picture
It would ironically support

It would ironically support evolution

Tin-Man's picture
Personally, I find it

Personally, I find it fascinating that Someone actually has so much in common with Nobody, as Anybody can plainly see Nobody really agrees with Someone who obviously likes nothing Everybody says.....*loud metallic clank noise*....*hands to each side of my head*.... Ooooow..... I think a gear just came loose.... MECHANIC!!!

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