[Pyrotex]

Originally Posted by ughaibu

But you have never shown any connection between your phenomena and your explanation, so it is not evidence.

When playing Devil's Advocate in subjects having to do with the "reality" of such-and-such, it is always possible to say, "but you have only demonstrated the affect of such-and-such, not the existence of such-and-such itself"

On the surface, this may sound reasonable, but it is a con. It is a non-sequitor, a non-rational fiddling of rhetorical trickery, a red herring. It leaves the listener in a state of frustrated confusion, attempting even hard to "prove" the existence of such-and-such.

By demonstrating the affect of such-and-such on whatever, you ARE providing evidence for the existence of such-and-such, unless that affect can be obviously attributed to some more common entity. This is how we "prove" the existence of atoms, genetics, chemicals, cosmic rays, and a multitude of other physical phenomena.

[ughaibu]

Questor has given what he calls his "evidence", this consists of:
the observable fact of the existence of
1) the universe
2) order
3) planning
4) intelligence
5) "physical and natural law and math"
6) energy, matter and the relation between the two
First I'm going to throw out 1) because it amounts to no more than "we are here", second I will throw out 3) because it's an assumption and third I'll throw out 5) because they are human inventions. That leaves us with the fact that we perceive ourselves to live in an orderly universe composed of energy and matter, and containing what we call intelligent life. From this fact, Questor has decided that there must be an intelligently designing creator and in accordance with this decision, believes that to be the case. Of course it's up to Questor to believe whatever he likes, the question here is whether or not his facts are evidence for the conclusion upon which he bases his belief and whether or not those who do not share his belief, need evidence that his conclusion is false.
One of the most common uses of the term evidence is in forensics. Imagine that the police discover the corpse of someone mortally beaten. They search around for things like fingerprints, hairs, fibres from clothes, footprints, etc, things that can definitely be matched with a certain suspect, this is hard evidence and can provide grounds for a conviction beyond reaonable doubt.
Imagine, in this case, that there is no such evidence. The police might then proceed using statistics, they could take the average shoe size of all murderers, the average street number of their addresses, the average number of beers they drink a week, etc, and from analysing these statistics they could arrive at their culprit. This method is less likely to identify the actual murderer than is the first, yet it is still based on statistics related to known murderers, there are no statistics of any nature relating to intelligently designing creators, so the police would still be operating at a higher level of reliability than Questor.
The police have a third possible approach. Imagine that they inexplicably find the door of the victim's fridge is open. They could then conclude that the crime must have been commited by a yeti. The conclusion of intelligent design is at this level. In their summing up, the prosecution might say something like this: I call upon you to find the yeti guilty of this crime. Although no yeti has been apprehended, and indeed, no yeti has even been observed in the locality, county, country, continent, planet, solar system, galaxy or anywhere else in the known universe, I'm sure you will all agree that the open fridge door allows of no other explanation. You must be familiar with the concept of reasonable doubt, however, this case is of such a special nature that I want you to abandon that notion, unless all of you have conclusive evidence that this crime was not commited by the assumed yeti, for example if you have independently verifiable alibis for all possible yetis, I call for a verdict of guilty.
This, essentially, is what Questor is demanding.

Looking again at example of my wife, who I didn't see or hear from between Wednesday and Sunday, last week. As I wrote in an earlier post, I could have made the guess, Questor style, that she had been kidnapped by North Koreans. No matter how unlikely this might seem, it must be admitted that North Koreans are known to exist (intelligently designing creators are not known to exist), North Koreans have also been known to kidnap Japanese women (intelligent designers have not been known to create universes), North Koreans are not logically unstable in the light of Pyrotex' infinite regress (intelligent creators are logically unstable). So despite being highly unlikely, the kidnap guess, as one of an extensive number of possible guesses based on historical example, is infinitely more likely to be correct than is the guess of creation by intelligent design. On top of this, there is an infinite number of purely imaginary guesses available, eg my wife is a tree and every May returns to the forest to flower, my wife had a new idea for physical laws so resumed her infinite shape and is off creating universes, etc, as just one of these, creation by intelligent design is again infinitely improbable.
Does a person need evidence against every specific case of all possible imagination based guesses (an infinite number)? Of course not, the existence of such an armoury of evidence is impossible. Because of this, human beings adopt the system of burden of proof, if Questor has neither evidence nor argument, only an infinitely improbable guess, nobody needs any evidence that the universe was not created by a designing intelligence.

[Southtown]

So what's the difference between discovery and invention?

[FRIPRO]

Originally Posted by ughaibu

Questor has given what he calls his "evidence", this consists of:
the observable fact of the existence of
1) the universe
2) order
3) planning
4) intelligence
5) "physical and natural law and math"
6) energy, matter and the relation between the two
First I'm going to throw out 1) because it amounts to no more than "we are here", second I will throw out 3) because it's an assumption and third I'll throw out 5) because they are human inventions. That leaves us with the fact that we perceive ourselves to live in an orderly universe composed of energy and matter, and containing what we call intelligent life. From this fact, Questor has decided that there must be an intelligently designing creator and in accordance with this decision, believes that to be the case. Of course it's up to Questor to believe whatever he likes, the question here is whether or not his facts are evidence for the conclusion upon which he bases his belief and whether or not those who do not share his belief, need evidence that his conclusion is false.
One of the most common uses of the term evidence is in forensics. Imagine that the police discover the corpse of someone mortally beaten. They search around for things like fingerprints, hairs, fibres from clothes, footprints, etc, things that can definitely be matched with a certain suspect, this is hard evidence and can provide grounds for a conviction beyond reaonable doubt.
Imagine, in this case, that there is no such evidence. The police might then proceed using statistics, they could take the average shoe size of all murderers, the average street number of their addresses, the average number of beers they drink a week, etc, and from analysing these statistics they could arrive at their culprit. This method is less likely to identify the actual murderer than is the first, yet it is still based on statistics related to known murderers, there are no statistics of any nature relating to intelligently designing creators, so the police would still be operating at a higher level of reliability than Questor.
The police have a third possible approach. Imagine that they inexplicably find the door of the victim's fridge is open. They could then conclude that the crime must have been commited by a yeti. The conclusion of intelligent design is at this level. In their summing up, the prosecution might say something like this: I call upon you to find the yeti guilty of this crime. Although no yeti has been apprehended, and indeed, no yeti has even been observed in the locality, county, country, continent, planet, solar system, galaxy or anywhere else in the known universe, I'm sure you will all agree that the open fridge door allows of no other explanation. You must be familiar with the concept of reasonable doubt, however, this case is of such a special nature that I want you to abandon that notion, unless all of you have conclusive evidence that this crime was not commited by the assumed yeti, for example if you have independently verifiable alibis for all possible yetis, I call for a verdict of guilty.
This, essentially, is what Questor is demanding.

Looking again at example of my wife, who I didn't see or hear from between Wednesday and Sunday, last week. As I wrote in an earlier post, I could have made the guess, Questor style, that she had been kidnapped by North Koreans. No matter how unlikely this might seem, it must be admitted that North Koreans are known to exist (intelligently designing creators are not known to exist), North Koreans have also been known to kidnap Japanese women (intelligent designers have not been known to create universes), North Koreans are not logically unstable in the light of Pyrotex' infinite regress (intelligent creators are logically unstable). So despite being highly unlikely, the kidnap guess, as one of an extensive number of possible guesses based on historical example, is infinitely more likely to be correct than is the guess of creation by intelligent design. On top of this, there is an infinite number of purely imaginary guesses available, eg my wife is a tree and every May returns to the forest to flower, my wife had a new idea for physical laws so resumed her infinite shape and is off creating universes, etc, as just one of these, creation by intelligent design is again infinitely improbable.
Does a person need evidence against every specific case of all possible imagination based guesses (an infinite number)? Of course not, the existence of such an armoury of evidence is impossible. Because of this, human beings adopt the system of burden of proof, if Questor has neither evidence nor argument, only an infinitely improbable guess, nobody needs any evidence that the universe was not created by a designing intelligence.

THIS WAS A LONG ANSWER FOR THE FACT THAT YOU BELIEVE THAT "
creation by intelligent design is again infinitely improbable." I also believe this-- but with a new twist! Perhaps you might take a long long look at my "on line" manuscript that explains this concept! at: http://www.fripro.com/AIDE.html FRIPRO

[FRIPRO]

Originally Posted by questor

Ugh, i see you're back for another round. if you are saying you believe in Pyrotex's theory as a reason for disbelieving in ID, that's ok by me. i personally see little sense or truth in what he said. instead of falling back on someone else's words, why not just post your own belief based on your own observations of the real world in simple terms? could you do that for me? if you do, you will be the first person to do so.

-------------------------
[quote=FRIPRO]

HERE IS ONE in my own words as you reuested:
No one statement will give you the proof that ID (as a religious creator)is wrong or right!

Earthmen can not solve beyond all doubt, ID yes or no!

Columbus believed the world was round --every one else believed you would fall off the Earths edge! The only way he really found out was he traveled to its ends, and did not fall off!

The reference being (covering the whole issue of ID) is at:

http://www.fripro.com/AIDE.html