Complexity? Really?

[Sheldon]

@Sherlock-Holmes

Not “knowing” is rather different from not “possible” Sheldon.

@Sheldon

Thanks for the heads up, but you’re the one making the claim something is not possible though, not me.

@Sherlock-Holmes

Do you know what the term “proof” means? It seems not based on your responses recently. One can prove that the presence of the universe cannot be scientifically explained, if you dispute that then explain please.

Ok I’ll try bullet points:

1. You made an absolute claim that a material origin of the physical universe is not possible.
2. I point out you don’t know this, else you’d likely be world famous with a Nobel prize in physics at the very least…
3. You then bizarrely tell me that “not knowing is different from not possible”, even though I never claimed otherwise?
4. When I point out this odd non sequitur, you make another bizarre non sequitur, implying that I don’t know what the word proof means, even though I never mentioned that either?

I have to ask, are you self medicating?

@Sherlock-Holmes

@Sheldon

Gotacha, you think unevidenced appeals to mystery magic and superstition are sound, but scientific rigour is absurd. Very convenient when the astonishing successes of the latter in helping understand reality fails to evidence your magic man in the sky, but I’m afraid that claim is what is utterly absurd.

please prove that I wrote “scientific rigor is absurd”,

I didn’t say you’d written it? I claimed your assertions implied you thought it, you do understand the fundamental difference there right?

@Sherlock-Holmes

I neve used the term “magic man” either,

Where did I ever claim you had?

@Sherlock-Holmes

you are interpreting what I write in the only way you know, a biased devotion to scientism - that’s your religion.

I’d suggest you look religion up in the dictionary, and the meaning of scientism, but I sense it’d be pearls before swine so to speak.

@Sheldon

I could care less what any scientist subjectively believes. However if there were scientific evidence to support theism as you claimed, then it’s reasonable to infer belief would be higher among scientists who better understood that evidence than the hoi polloi. Yet the fact remains atheism is far higher among scientists than in the general population, and even more so among elite bodies of scientists, like the National Academy of Science in the US, where atheism mirrors theism in the general population, and this rather destroys your claim.

@Sherlock-Holmes

How can you be so certain that there’s no scientific evidence to support theism? surely this just a belief?

Go on, share here with us the line of reasoning that leads to the conclusion “therefore there’s no scientific evidence for theism”, of course you won’t because you can’t.

You could try looking at any global news network? I just checked CNN the BBC, Sky, and even Al Jazeera and the Vatican News sites, not one of them is running the banner headline that there’s been scientific evidence for a deity as you claimed. So I can only infer your claim was pure hubris, and of course not remotely true. However please do link the peer reviewed worthy scientific publications that is breaking this “scientific evidence” you claim exists? I suspect your just making an unevidenced and subjective assumption and trying to lend it gravitas by pretending it’s supported by some some scientific fact, oddly though when you cite science it’s to claim absolutes, the very thing you have dishonestly falsely accused me of doing.

@Sherlock-Holmes

The popularity of a belief is not evidence that the belief is true or false.

Correct, again thanks for the heads up, but I already know what an argumentum ad populum fallacy is. The dearth of religiosity among elite scientists was offered as rebuttal to your lie that there was scientific evidence for a deity, not as any comment on theism per se.

@Sherlock-Holmes

Please don’t cite the AAAS as a reference either, leading members of the AAAS were staunch advocates of eugenics once.

What does this irrelevant (and unevidenced) claim about the history of the National Academy of Sciences, and your poisoning of the well fallacy, have to do with the fact they are overwhelming atheist destroying your lie that there is scientific evidence for a deity? Are you being deliberately dishonest with this irrelevant goal post shifting?

@Sherlock-Holmes

Just because some assumption doesn’t sit well with your own deeply held beliefs about reality isn’t relevant.

I made no assumption, and I have no religion? You seem to trolling now, so tread carefully is the only advice I can give you.

here is your assertion, and it is you who made the assumption not me.

@Sherlock-Holmes

I assume the presence of the universe has a rational (not scientific) explanation.

A rational explanation would not negate a scientific one, quite the contrary. Scientific explanations cannot violate the principles of logic.

[Sherlock-Holmes]

@Sheldon

Perhaps stupid is another word you have an arbitrary definition for, but that claim is correct? In a scientific context an hypothesis is very different from a theory, it’s quite startling how many theists come here who don’t know this most basic fact about the methods and language of science.

Well as a trained scientist I don’t fit that category.

@Sheldon

If we seem a little jaded or less than patient it’s because we’ve encountered every single claim and argument you’re making over and over again before, some of them almost verbatim. It sometimes becomes tiring to rehash the same explanations and refutations. Oh and we do understand it’s hard when you’re addressing multiple posters largely on your own.

Yes, one can lead a horse to water and all that…

@Sheldon

That said it surprises me always when theists come here, and it’s as if they think we haven’t paid due diligence to religious claims and apologetics. Hell I’d swear some of them think we will just roll over, and let them tickle our belly at the first anecdotal claim or platitude.

You’re starting to digress from the subject, was this intentional?

[CyberLN]

@Sherlock-Holmes

Well as a trained scientist I don’t fit that category.

Very curious. In which area of science have you been trained? How much training? Have you received credentials for this training?

[Sheldon]

@Sherlock-Holmes

Well as a trained scientist I don’t fit that category.

Well that would depend how well you were trained I imagine, but the obvious response then is why you offered the assertion an " A hypothesis is not a theory." as an example of something stupid? A trained scientist would know this very basic fact to be true?

@Sherlock-Holmes

@Sheldon

If we seem a little jaded or less than patient it’s because we’ve encountered every single claim and argument you’re making over and over again before, some of them almost verbatim. It sometimes becomes tiring to rehash the same explanations and refutations. Oh and we do understand it’s hard when you’re addressing multiple posters largely on your own.

Yes, one can lead a horse to water and all that…

Well we try our best, it seems the charitable thing to do.

@Sherlock-Holmes

You’re starting to digress from the subject, was this intentional?

I imagine that depends how much autonomy one thinks we have as evolved apes. I was minded to make the comment as it seemed apropos at that moment. A post or mall part of one may digress form the main topic, as long as someone isn’t deliberately trying to derail a topic, the moderators will cut most people a good deal of slack in my experience, especially if they have been here a while and shown a willingness to debate in good faith. One of the things I like about this site, is the moderation, it’s not overbearing and treats people like adults.

[MrDawn]

@Sherlock-Holmes

Well as a trained scientist I don’t fit that category.

I didn’t peg you for a scientist. What did you major in?

[Nyarlathotep]

@Sherlock-Holmes

One can prove that the presence of the universe cannot be scientifically explained, if you dispute that then explain please.

I’m extremely confident that you are lying. Presumably you could easily show I’m wrong; all you have to do is copy/paste the proof here. It seems you still have not done this (you made this claim before and I asked then too).

I’m sticking my neck out here and assuming you don’t have the proof. Would be a great time to make me look stupid by posting it…

[WhoAreYou]

@Cognostic

This guys whole argument is to take everything back to a place where we don’t know and then insert his ‘Intelligent creator.’ Stop playing his game. Just get to the basics. If you want to know this shit, go talk to a biochemist and not a bunch of atheists. Here are the facts, we know what we know and we don’t know shit beyond that. The fact that we do not know something does not mean 1. The universe is complex. 2. There is a creative intelligence behind everything. 3. A god exists.

W. the one making the claim, where is the evidence for the claim? He has been running a ‘God of the Gaps’ argument for pages and pages now… It’s really boring.

How can we trivialize the fact that millions of dollars and brilliant minds can’t build the building blocks of the building blocks? And somehow we are to use sound logic to say mindless unguided processes made these very things stumping great minds. But then you ask for objective evidence. Why don’t you define what objective evidence is and what that implies?

[Nyarlathotep]

@WhoAreYou

How can we trivialize the fact that millions of dollars and brilliant minds can’t build the building blocks of the building blocks?

I don’t believe that is accurate.

[WhoAreYou]

@Old_man_shouts_at_cl

@WhoAreYou

Was it a prebiotic relevant synthesis?

Was it a relay synthesis?

here’s a very simple link for you. It may be too advanced, and I cannot be held responsible for the crow you will have to eat, or the blinding headaches that might ensue, but I tried.
https://studyfinds.org/rna-evolves-origins-of-life/#:~:text=Scientists%20in%20Japan%20have%20become,eventually%20transform%20into%20complex%20lifeforms .

This is a relay synthesis they didn’t make the RNA from scratch.

[CyberLN]

@CyberLN

@Sherlock-Holmes

Well as a trained scientist I don’t fit that category.

Very curious. In which area of science have you been trained? How much training? Have you received credentials for this training?

Well? That no answers are forthcoming certainly props up suspicions that you have embellished juuuussssttt a wee bit.

[Sheldon]

@WhoAreYou

How can we trivialize the fact that millions of dollars and brilliant minds can’t build the building blocks of the building blocks? And somehow we are to use sound logic to say mindless unguided processes made these very things stumping great minds.

Evolution has had billions of years, humans have had a few decades of genetics, so that’s a glaring false equivalence right there.

@WhoAreYou

But then you ask for objective evidence. Why don’t you define what objective evidence is and what that implies?

Both words are in the dictionary? It implies that sufficient objective evidence is our criteria for belief, what else would it imply?

Oh and at least one poster linked the research of a scientific team that is in fact doing what you say humans cannot.

@WhoAreYou

This is a relay synthesis they didn’t make the RNA from scratch.

I get you think this isn’t going fast enough, what’s unclear is why? Science has increased our understanding of the natural physical world and universe exponentially in just a few hundred years, Genetics is only decades old, your objections make no sense, and none of this remotely evidences any deity. Why didn’t your deity give a detailed account of DNA or RNA in the bible or koran? Why use DNA at all, the varying amounts of DNA between all living things is very compelling and objective evidence for species shared ancestry, wouldn’t a deity be keen to avoid such confusion? What happens if science does replicate RNA, would you abandon your theistic belief, if not then why bring it up at all?

[Whitefire13]

@Sherlock-Holmes

Well as a trained scientist I don’t fit that category.

Uh, just for clarification…
ARE you claiming you are a “trained scientist”?

[Sherlock-Holmes]

@Sheldon

Well that would depend how well you were trained I imagine, but the obvious response then is why you offered the assertion an " A hypothesis is not a theory." as an example of something stupid? A trained scientist would know this very basic fact to be true?

I’ll remind you then, here is the context in which I said that:

I asked for a theory and was handed a hypothesis.

[Sherlock-Holmes]

@Nyarlathotep

I’m extremely confident that you are lying. Presumably you could easily show I’m wrong; all you have to do is copy/paste the proof here. It seems you still have not done this (you made this claim before and I asked then too).

I’m sticking my neck out here and assuming you don’t have the proof. Would be a great time to make me look stupid by posting it…

I already have, several times. If the presence of the universe had a scientific explanation then that would mean the universe existed before it existed. The explanation for it (like all scientific explanations) would be in terms of matter, laws, energy, fields - yet the presence of these are what we seek to explain!

Basically science offers no prospect of explaining the origin of a material system, it can only ever describe how an already existing system changes. We must seek a non-scientific explanation or we must conclude that it has always existed and had no start, no beginning, take your pick.

[SodaAnt]

@Sherlock-Holmes

I think I asked you earlier, what measure of complexity are you using, Kolmogorov? Rademacher? what?

Why are you talking about computers?

I’m basing it on my 40 years of experience working with computer architecture, including designing and implementing several of them.

I’m talking about computers because I was originally replying to WhoAreYou’s comment: “The device used to send you this message does not even begin to compare to DNA.”

[Sherlock-Holmes]

@SodaAnt

I’m basing it on my 40 years of experience working with computer architecture, including designing and implementing several of them.

But that isn’t an answer. The “complexity” of some data can be measured or described in different ways.

The information inherent in a DNA molecule - you said (if I recall) that it was “simple” tell me how you reach that view.

[Sherlock-Holmes]

@Whitefire13

Uh, just for clarification…
ARE you claiming you are a “trained scientist”?

Yes, I do so with the hop of reducing the insinuations that I don’t know what “science” means or that I don’t understand the “scientific method” and so on. Frankly in a discussion like this we should be focusing on the strength of our opponents argument not their education, their job, their personality.

Read this, a comment made by Noam Chomsky once:

In my own professional work I have touched on a variety of different fields. I’ve done my work in mathematical linguistics, for example, without any professional credentials in mathematics; in this subject I am completely self-taught, and not very well taught. But I’ve often been invited by universities to speak on mathematical linguistics at mathematics seminars and colloquia. No one has ever asked me whether I have the appropriate credentials to speak on these subjects; the mathematicians couldn’t care less. What they want to know is what I have to say. No one has ever objected to my right to speak, asking whether I have a doctor’s degree in mathematics, or whether I have taken advanced courses in the subject. That would never have entered their minds. They want to know whether I am right or wrong, whether the subject is interesting or not, whether better approaches are possible—the discussion dealt with the subject, not with my right to discuss it.

[CyberLN]

@Sherlock-Holmes, please answer this honestly. Have you ever posted in the Atheist Republic forums under a different name?

[MrDawn]

lol he does remind me of 3 different users that had the very same arguments.

[Sherlock-Holmes]

@CyberLN

@Sherlock-Holmes, please answer this honestly. Have you ever posted in the Atheist Republic forums under a different name?

No. I have never even seen the site until a few days ago when searching on this subject.