Can you post this evidence? I would say dwindling numbers of believers are evidence that we are evolving past the need for "faith".

I used the word 'requires' because it's an implied premise of the watchmaker argument argument, otherwise what use is the argument?

If the argument had, as a premise something like, 'but there are other ways complexity can arise without needing a designer', it would defeat itself.

Let's approach this from a different angle. I have two questions:

1) If we accept that there can be both the Natural, and the Supernatural, that there is both a physical, material universe, and also something that isn't physical or material but that in some way can interact with the physical such as an intercessory god (or anything that shows that the supernatural can influence the natural in a detectable way), then that has obvious implications.

The first problem it poses for Naturalism is that any explanation developed from the assumption that there are only natural causes is ignoring that there may be an alternate supernatural explanation for the phenomenon being studied, (or an explanation that includes some combination of elements of both the natural and supernatural). So a hypothesis that has been supported sufficiently by evidence such that is called a Theory, like Gravity, but that has been developed from a purely naturalistic PoV, must be treated as unreliable since it entirely rules out another source of explanations for what it is and how it works.

So my question is (somewhat multi-faceted), how do you understand Gravity, do think that there may a supernatural explanation for it, and if so, why do the majority of scientists not think that also, and how do you apply the scientific criteria to Gravity?

2) Why do we need criteria like being Corrective, Falsifiable, Repeatable, Predictive, Useful, Internally and Externally Consistent, Parsimonious, and Testable, when those things cannot be applied to the supernatural? In my viewpoint, those criteria exist specifically to prevent an explanation from containing anything that can't be 'physical' i.e. natural, but how they fit into your viewpoint, what purpose do they serve?

My current view is that it is your understanding that is internally logically inconsistent both with itself and what you believe about things like Gravity (although I await your detailed explanation of your view on Gravity), not externally consistent with what we see in the world or the scientific method that supplies those explanations, and fails to answer obvious questions like the ones above.

Of course there is. Suppose that I see a man running down a road with a women's purse grasped in his hand. Is it reasonable (Rational) of me to conclude that he has stolen it? There are in fact multiple reasonable explanations (inferences to the best explanation) that could replace what I concluded. Perhaps he's running after a women who hasn't realized that she dropped it, to give it back to her, or he's running to his girlfriends to give her her purse after she left it at his place as it contains something she needs .....

Do you still think that it's not possible to 'go beyond the available evidence'?

I was talking about in this particular case.

So you don't think that you can come to a 'sensible' conclusion about the evidence for the existence of god? Maybe you should clarify what you mean by 'sensible'.

You need to stop pretending like this is what science is.

Mutual dependency is not what you think it is.

If you can't read your sentence and a dictionary definition, and then match those two things together, then there's not much more for me to do than to shrug you off on the basis of a failure of reading comprehension.

If the two clauses represent the exact same intellectual content, they're redundant. That's just a literal fact of language and logic.

This is the wrong goalpost. That shows that your basic misunderstanding is still present. This is like challenging an atheist (not holding a belief in God) to present evidence for God's non-existence.

There's a difference between responding to a criticism and responding to a criticism in a meaningful manner. You've not done the latter.

Do you think science is the only means to knowledge about the universe? If so, then you'll have trouble proving that God doesn't exist.

There are explanations as to why you're wrong, such as pointing out definitions of words, failure in your logic, problems with your presuppositions, actual scientists and scientific perspectives, and other forms of reasoning.

In order for you to accept that you're wrong, you will need to abandon your wrong notions of science.

Nope. You're failing at logic here. You're trying to force inductive reasoning into a strict deduction, which is not how things work.

But just as an example, there are ways for things to arise naturally out of design. Or designed to arise naturally. These aren't even incompatible categories of descriptions of objects.

We are in the right forum for such concepts applied dogmatically.

Please stop randomly capitalizing words.

I understand gravity as the force of attraction between two massive objects. And it doesn't matter whether that force of attraction is due to supernatural or natural causes, because those labels don't matter. All that matters is that gravity is the force of attraction between two massive objects.

We don't "need" them in the sense that you're thinking we need them. You keep throwing those words around as if they "define" science. They don't. These are useful tools to help us do science.

I'm not assuming that faith in a higher power is either good or bad, it is just simply a part of what we are. You are the one assigning "bad" simply because we can't explain what its actual function is.

As to the scope of this conversation. You can't seperate the two, they are intrinsically linked. How can you make any judgements without seeing how different parts of our evolution is implemented? Love, fear, procreation and on down the line can be good or bad depending on how they manifest themselves. Their mere existence is neither good or bad.

I find it odd that you want me to ignore the manifestaton side of things but then want me to look into cognitive biases. All it does is further solidify my point. The existence of cognitive bias is neither good or bad. How we implement those biases are what determine their value, not it's existence.

Well there are tons of articles and papers. If you are truly interested, just Google "evolutionary psychology on faith" or "religion as an evolutionary apadtation". Then you can make your own judgements.

As for faith going the way of the dinosaur. Unlikely, at least anytime soon. Something like 85% of the world still believes in some kind of higher power. You don't evolve out of that in a few generations, assuming it would be good to do so. What would be nice is continuing to move away from the savage way that faith, in some religions, is implemented.

No. That's the point, sensible is a matter of opinion.

I'll have a look. Possibly true, but I'd bet the strength of that religious belief of that 85% is weaker as well. I didn't make any claims about how fast it was happening.

The words 'natural' and 'supernatural' are not just 'labels'. The 'Physical' universe is that which can be detected using the senses and the scientific criteria that you describe as 'useful tools', are far far more than that, they are concepts that can only be applied to that which can be detected using the senses, and the Theory of Gravity is based entirely on those concepts. The explanation of gravity, accepted by the the entire scientific world, is developed from an assumption of entirely natural causes and satisfies all the scientific concepts, or it wouldn't be taken seriously as a scientific Theory. For this reason ID,for example, will never be considered scientific, even though it claims to be.

Even in the US, a very religious country, the scientists that think as you do are in a minority. I've previously mentioned but haven't, until now, really relied on the fact that the majority of scientists use a strict version of MN, but you've mentioned the scientists that don't so many times that now I'm wondering if the best counter is just to say 'more do'.. If you think a minority of scientists not doing science as I'm describing it proves anything, then more doing it as I'm describing it should prove something too.

No, I don't, and this statement is perplexing too. I'm pointing out why the scientific paradigm is different as a means of acquiring and understanding information, from paradigms that include the supernatural such as Theism, and I've been doing that for the whole thread. I obviously don't think that science is the only means to knowledge about the universe, so why are you asking me that at this point in the conversation?

And do you think that 'rational' is a matter of opinion?

No, I'm not, but do me a favour, provide the watchmaker argument as a syllogism. I'm curious to see your premises.

Same problem. We can prove that simple things can give rise to complex things, but your claim that somethings might be "designed to arise naturally" is just doing what theism always does in the face of scientific explanations (that reject the supernatural) and backtracking a step or two.

First the claim is that the things were designed to be complex, then we show that they could have naturally become complex without a designer, so then the claim becomes 'they were designed to become complex'. Do you really find this adequate?

Yes, they are. If you can't understand this, then you're never going to grow in your understanding.

If I set up a detector (say, a force meter), and it registers something, there's no reason to label the detection is being either natural or supernatural. The only data we have is that the detector detected something.

If we have a set of detections that all fit a certain pattern, there's still no reason to declare with absolute certainty that this a "natural" event we're detecting. It's philosophically possible that there's a demon that is causing the detections to occur to trick us. It doesn't matter. We don't need to declare one way or the other. All we do is infer from the consistency of the pattern that we expect the pattern to continue until we detect something to indicate that the pattern won't continue, or until we detect some sort of deviation in the pattern.

That's it. Once we feel confident with the pattern, we slap a label on it (call it "gravity") and then move on to the next question. But merely labeling it as something like "gravity" doesn't tell us anything ontologically (what "gravity" is). It only tells us how it behaves.

Because you've defined science a certain way and are using that as a means of answering a specific question.

1) We observe that there are lots of complex objects that have been designed.
2) We see a complex object.
3) We conclude that the object could plausibly have been designed.

There are all sorts of sub-observations about the concept of design that aren't worth going into detail at this time. But that's the basic underlying logic. It's not complicated. As far as I know, nobody rejects the watchmaker argument as being utterly illogical, which is what you seem to be arguing here.

Yes. Have you ever seen praxeologists declare something is rational?

Have you noticed how I never say things like that to you? Do you know why?


Yes there is a reason and it's that those all important 'useful tools' cannot be applied to the supernatural because the supernatural is not part of the physical universe and can't be detected with the senses. The supernatural is not useful, it's nothing more than guess work. This is why MN is such a useful methodology, it provides information that we can actually use about the universe that we can actually detect with the sense that we have.


If the demon is detectable then it's part of the 'natural'...

I've defined it a certain way because that's what distinguishes it from other paradigms.

Given I was discussing a specified definition with Aaron, which included the word sensibly in it, yes. The reason I included sensibly, is that I don't think it's rational to look at some evidence, come up with every possible plausible scenario and then randomly select one. A rational person would select the most likely one. Therefore I think the bar here is higher than saying god's existence is plausible.

Because you don't gain as much enjoyment as Aaron does from being a patronising arse.