The results are not necessary to determine if an intellect is involved in the coin flip. If someone tells me an intellect played no part in a coin flip I will laugh at them. Why? Because every coin I have observed was created by an intellect. While it may be logically possible that thru happenstance a bit a metal formed into a flat circular shape with a meaningful obverse and reverse....I have yet to see one.

Also the whole system of flipping coins was designed by an intellect to deliver one of two outcomes...each of which happens 50% of the time.

I don't know Stu...I am sympathetic towards your position, but frankly, I don't see how we could ever assign probabilities to metaphysical phenomena (God, Cosmic Intelligence etc.) about which we know absolutely nothing. The issue here, I think, is not about probabilities at all. I guess I prefer to remain silent about these issues.

Evolutionary systems, like the one identified by Darwin, are not metaphysical phenomena nor is intellect. I don't think it is out of the realm of science to explore these two phenomena and how they relate to each other. For instance consider the following hypothesis:

If I observe the inception of an evolutionary system I will also observe the involvement of an intellect in that inception.

Now if you and I can agree on what exactly is an evolutionary system and what exactly is an intellect then we can go out and test this hypothesis. If we go out and observe the inceptions of evolutionary systems and find that in some cases an intellect is not involved then we have falsified our hypothesis. However if we go out and observe that in each case, the inception of an evolutionary system required the involvement of an intellect, then we can make a conclusion about evolutionary systems. The conclusion would be that all evolutionary systems require an intellect in their inception. The more observations we made, the more confidence we would have in our conclusion.

So although my belief that God had a hand in our evolution is metaphysical, my belief that all evolutionary systems require an intellect is not. The latter is belief is scientific.

Nope. And this is not even remotely close to being right. Are you sure you know what "metaphysical" means?

Maybe you should start by thinking through the claim that "God created matter with the property of gravitational attraction." If you think that this is the same type of claim, then you have no idea what you're talking about. But if you consent that this is a metaphysical claim, then you would see that "God caused evolution to happen in a particular manner" is NOT the same type of claim as "the earth is 6,000 years old."

This is not very enlightening. What you call "all evolutionary systems" are in effect "all man-made simplistic pictures" of an infinitely more complex process. It is not at all clear to me whether they are good representations of this process or not (I highly suspect not).

They are all creations of human intellect, we agree on that.

The problem is this: What we call human intellect is itself the product of cosmic evolution.

How can we claim with a straight face that intellect (and the only type of intellect that we really know is the human intellect, so it is rather easy to dispute your claim that we clearly know what an "intellect" as such is) which clearly comes as a "result of cosmic evolution" must also come before it?

I do not know what the intellect of a rat is for example. Do you know what it is? I suspect not. I also do not know what a cosmic intellect is. I have zero ideas about its existence, let alone its properties, for example. I similarly have no idea how I can say that such a thing (the properties of which I have no idea at all, let me remind you) must necessarily come before the cosmic evolution and cause it.

The alternative is that the evolutionary system identified by Darwin...which you claim is "infinitely more complex" originated via happenstance. If this is true then it begs the question of why didn't even less complex evolutionary systems happen via happenstance. Why do we have just this super complex one and not a whole range of evolutionary systems of varying complexity?

We have one example of an evolutionary system, no reason to believe it is the only example of one, and it appears to be the product of natural selection, which is why the theory of evolution by natural selection is one of the most established scientific theories.

You are simply asserting that you see intellect in the product and shifting the burden of proof.

You are substituting a creation claim, on which science is silent or almost silent, for a claim about evolution, where science fully explains what happened through totally naturalistic processes.

This is just a fancy version of the Discovery Institute's irreducible complexity argument, which is just the argument from design.

Darwin answered this himself, and the fossil record is consistent with his explanations of how purely natural processes produce supposedly complex adaptations.

At any rate, more generally, the characterization is wrong. Evolution is not complex at all. It is simple and straightforward and accurately accounts for the physical evidence. Let it play out over a long period and some complex life forms, like humans, might result. But that's not because there's anything complex about evolution; it's just a function of time.

It seems to me that if multiple evolutionary systems are possible (which they are), the first one would be at such a tremendous predatory advantage the others would never develop to the point of observation.

I know about the handwavy explainations of why there is only one system of biological evolution(predatory advantage, oxidation, etc). I was referring to why we don't see other non-biological evolutionary systems.

Yup. You don't see it at all.

You should also go back and reconsider the language of "naturalistic process." It shows that you're missing the entire conversation.

we do... but you will probably claim it is not evolutionary system...

would you call formation of galaxies and solar systems an evolutionary system?

evolution - "any process of formation or growth"

Actually, you are missing the entire conversation, and not explaining your arguments while pretending to be smarter than anyone else, as usual.

Um, because something akin to a gene pool and reproduction is necessary for evolution to take place?

Really, this is like arguing with someone on an LSD trip about what color the imaginary flowers are.

a) "God created matter with the property of gravitational attraction."
b) "God created life to advance via natural selection."
c) "The universe is 6,000 years old."

Do you really think that a is the one that's not like the others?

We know pretty well what the universe is going to be like when it is twice it current age. YodaChoda would probably say this doesn't qualify since evolution is totally unpredictable and what the universe has been, is now, and will be in the future is extremely predictable.

What heritable characteristics change from one generation of stars to another?

I think this is a very good point.

No it is not. Just becuase it is emergent complex does not mean it is evolutionary.

There is no fitness paradigm which determines which stars and/or galaxies survive long enough to "reproduce" and which don't(I put that in quotes because stars and galaxies do not replicate themselves).

Why would it be necessary to prove non-biological evolution? Evolution is a survival mechanism. Furthermore, why would having not seen it to this point be any argument against biological evolution?

Nobody is arguing that evolution isn't happening so I'm not sure what your point is.

As as natural process evolution is unique in that we have only seen it manifest itself once where are other natural processes manifest themselves independently in different locations etc. You can claim that evolution is a happening all over the world and that is true but it is only one lineage that is evolving.

This is peculiar and people try to hand wave it away by saying things like this lineage emerged first, had a head start, and out competed the others which started the race late. I don't buy such arguments. Its not like there isn't plenty of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon available....these arn't exactly scarce resources.

Just what are you arguing, then? Are you saying there are currently multiple lines of biological evolution? This would completely disrupt phylogeny. We also don't know the exact cause of abiogenisis, so to claim multiple current evolutionary lines in conflict with phylogeny seems far fetched. I apologize if I'm putting words in your mouth.

I find your dismissal of predatory advantage as 'hand waving' to be utterly ridiculous.

Stu, you are talking as if we have a complete theory of evolution whereas clearly we do not have it. We do not know how organic life arises out of inorganic matter (in other words we do not have a theory of abiogenesis).

We do not know whether the process of evolution we observe on earth is unique or not. It is clearly the only one we observe, but I do not see how it should necessarily be unique as such. Isn't the entire history of modern science, in a sense, a demonstration of the mistakes associated with human fallacies regarding "uniqueness"?

You are making a lot of implicit assumptions about the only "intelligence" we know about (that is human intelligence) which clearly arises relatively late in the process of evolution, arguing that something like this intelligence must be the "cause" of evolution as such. This intelligence seems clearly an "effect" of evolution, yet you argue that it must somehow be the "cause" of evolution as well. I do not think that your position makes any scientific sense whatsoever. At best, it seems to be a sort of metaphysical speculation to me.

I do not think that we have enough scientific knowledge to either accept or reject this speculation at this point in history. I guess that would be the summary of my thoughts on this subject.
Cheers

1. Random activity is not intrinsically intelligible.
2. The evolution of life is random activity.
3. Therefore, the evolution of life is not intrinsically intelligible.
   
   
4. Random activity is extrinsically intelligible.
5. The evolution of life is random activity.
6. Therefore, the evolution of life is extrinsically intelligible.

So are we imposing (extrinsically) intelligibility on the evolution of life or have we discovered an intelligibility intrinsic to the evolution of life?

I do not know.

Here is what I think: Such concepts tossed around in the thread as "Intelligibility", "Intellect" etc. are incredibly nebulous concepts. We know very little about these things, let alone evolution as a cosmic phenomenon. Instead of accepting this, people are making things up in the thread, arguing passionately about the number of angels which could dance on the tip of a needle.

It is mildly interesting, I guess.