Author:
Wade A. Tisthammer
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Date Posted: 02/ 6/02 10:01am
In reply to:
Damoclese
's message, "Getting on out there again" on 02/ 6/02 9:21am
>>So what if the fossil record is in a particular order?
>> Maybe this is just the way nature is. So what if
>>there are similarities? Maybe this is just the way
>>nature is etc. You see, I can play that game too.
>>You can put forth any data you wish that evolution
>>explains, and I can explain it away just as easily.
>>But the point is that theism explains the data (nature
>>consistently operating in mathematical patterns)
>>better than atheism, because there is no a
>>priori reason to expect it from atheism, whereas
>>that's not the case for theism.
>>
>
>Let's assume that a card player is given a deck of
>cards and his game is poker. This card player would
>like very much to draw a royal flush, but he knows
>that is going to be rather difficult. In fact, there
>is no a priori reason to assume that our card player
>will draw a royal flush, other than the fact that our
>constiuent elements that make up a royal flush are
>already in place; here they would be the cards. Our
>deck isn't stacked, and the shuffle is totally random,
>yet, much to our card player's surprise, he draws a
>royal flush. How'd that happen?
>
>Well, it was because the random elements that
>comprised a royal flush were there, and the mechanism
>of random processes (here drawing cards) brought about
>order.
>
>Implicit in Wade's argument seems to be that random
>causes cannot bring about order; yet, Wade would seem
>to deny the formation of snowflakes, or the draw of a
>Royal Flush in poker.
This was not implicit in my argument at all. I was simply claiming that theism is the inference to the best explanation for the fact of nature consistently operating in mathematical patterns. There is no a priori reason to expect this from atheism, whereas there is reason to expect the patterns under theism. Hence, I think theism is the most rational, straightforward explanation of this data relative to atheism.
As for drawing a royal flush in poker when five cards are randomly dealt out, you would be correct in applying my reasoning in thinking that the cards would probably not be a royal flush. Let me explain why. The odds of getting a royal flush when five cards are randomly chosen is 650,000 to one. So there’s not a whole lot of a priori reason to expect to get a royal flush, whereas there is good reason to suspect that the five cards will not come up to a royal flush. But suppose it happens anyway. Was my reasoning incorrect? Not quite. I had rational reason to suspect that the person would not get a royal flush, but just because a theory is rational doesn’t necessarily means it is actually right. The rational theory may intuitively seem more probable, but we still don’t have absolute certainty and thus it is fallible, but this sort of method is the best we can do when choosing explanatory theories.
As far as the snowflake, you are simply wrong. I don’t deny the formation of snowflakes. The properties of molecules direct ordering processes, though there is some randomness in choosing what the precise pattern will be (hence, it is rare that two snowflakes get the same crystalline pattern). Thus, we do have sufficient a priori reason to expect snowflakes to appear in reality.
>So, let us assume that there is no God, but there is
>this mechanism of chance and random processes
>constantly shuffling the elements that are already
>here for whatever reason. Maybe they always existed,
>maybe not, but that question isn't really what's being
>addressed here. Our random friend produces a single
>microbial organism, who in turn, interacts with other
>things and chemicals around it, and as our microbe
>changes and increases in number, the less random
>forces play a part in our organizisms life, because
>the chemicals and biological processes it uses are
>such that there is a much narrower scope of events
>that can happen to it. In the end, our microbe through
>manipulations and chemical interactions, produces
>order on a high scale within a period of about three
>or four billion years.
I wasn’t discussing the origins of life at all, but since you brought it up…
The problem with pointing out snowflakes to counter intelligent design is that the basis of the theory is the kind of order, not order per se. There are some kinds of order that the currents of nature are not reasonably capable of producing, such as computers. Similarly, some scientists argue that life has the kind of order that nature is not reasonably capable of evolving from non-life.
>As a final point, Wade also seems to assume that God
>would make nature with order if he were to make it.
Under the current theistic philosophy I’m referring to, I think the answer is yes. If I were a rationally orderly God creating the universe, I would indeed create a universe that consistently operates in mathematical patterns for my inhabitants to satisfactorily participate in it, just as in creating any sophisticated computer program with dynamic variables I would use quite a bit of math. (Indeed, math is so crucial to a computer science degree that I could practically minor in math automatically just by taking the courses I need to major in computer science.) I’m sorry if you don’t see the reasoning here, but it seems rather straightforward to me. Relative to atheism (as I explained before) theism seems to be a better, more rational, more straightforward explanation for this data. But like I explained before, you can use the underdetermination of theories to your advantage and believe whatever you want to believe. (Even if it’s not the most rational approach.)
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