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Monday, 31 July 2023

Further evidence that ID is already mainstream science.

 Explanations Reported by Mainstream Science, Design Inference Continues to Factor


Intelligent design continues to make news, even if not by that name. Mainstream academic journals continue to disparage ID while, at the same time, finding it useful. This is not to say they are entertaining the God Hypothesis, at least so far. But the Design Filter does not require theology, revealed or natural. It simply tries to distinguish among purposeful activity, natural law, and chance. ID is a rigorous application of the intuition we all engage in daily whenever we try to figure out if a phenomenon was intentional or if it just happened. Here I will update several categories I’ve reported on before.

SETI

The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) does not require atheism, but in practice, many of its adherents are fervent in their philosophical naturalism and their embrace of Darwinian evolution. If life evolved here, they reason, it must have happened in many other locations throughout the universe where conditions are suitable for advanced life. 

We should distinguish SETI from astrobiology and UFOlogy, because SETI is concerned with intelligent life. And despite all the news about UAPs (“unidentified anomalous phenomena” — the new term for UFOs), most SETI advocates discount the notion that space aliens have traveled from the stars to Earth in physical craft. Sociologist Barry Markovsky from the University of South Carolina discounts the “UFO buzz” as due to psychological traits among believers. At The Conversation July 17, he urged readers to trust the real scientists.

For a scientist familiar with the issues, skepticism that UFOs carry alien beings is wholly separate from the prospect of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. Scientists engaged in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence have a number of ongoing research projects designed to detect signs of extraterrestrial life. If intelligent life is out there, they’ll likely be the first to know. 

Any being that could build vehicles that do what they are alleged to do, violating laws of physics as we understand them, would certainly pass the design filter if verified. But since UFOlogy remains outside the mainstream, we will focus only on serious SETI that looks for signals or artifacts indicating purposeful activity by intelligent minds. At its basis, SETI relies on the design inference, even though its leading advocates would denounce intelligent design for philosophical reasons.

At Universe Today, Brian Koberlein declared, “Now SETI Researchers can be Sure” that signals came from space, not from Earth. The design inference can be seen in his intuitive discrimination of natural and artificial signals.

In radio astronomy, there are lots of natural radio signals to observe. The glow of hydrogen gas, the swirl of electrons along a magnetic field, or the pop-pop-pop of pulsars. These signals usually have a very naturalcharacter to them, so astronomers can distinguish them from the artificial chirps and chatters of terrestrial sources. But when you’re looking for the signals of alien civilizations, things can get more tricky. They should have an artificial character similar to the radio signals of humans. So how can astronomers distinguish between the distant artificial signal and the local ones?

It’s not an easy challenge. Even natural signals can be confused with artificial ones.

He reported on a new method determined by the Breakthrough Listen project to rule out interference from our home planet. The ability depends on discerning signals with which we are familiar: those intentionally sent by the activity of minds.

Robert Sanders at UC Berkeley engaged in the same “discriminatory” thoughts, “distinguishing a signal from ET” so that we are not “spoofed” by a one-off event. As principal investigator for Breakthrough Listen, Andrew Siemion came up with a technique called scintillation to identify signals emanating from the interstellar medium (ISM) far from Earth. Some local sources of radio interference have fooled SETI researchers before.

Siemion and his colleagues realized, however, that real signals from extraterrestrial civilizations should exhibit features caused by passage through the ISM that could help discriminate between Earth- and space-based radio signals. Thanks to past research describing how the cold plasma in the interstellar medium, primarily free electrons, affect signals from radio sources such as pulsars, astronomers now have a good idea how the ISM affects narrowband radio signals. Such signals tend to rise and fall in amplitude over time — that is, they scintillate. This is because the signals are slightly refracted, or bent, by the intervening cold plasma, so that when the radio waves eventually reach Earth by different paths, the waves interfere, both positively and negatively. 

At  Live Science, David Delgado Shorter worried that contact could result in genocide against earthlings. That inference came from the history of human conquest. It depends on ascribing similar “ethics” to other minds.

Hexagons Update

Last Year I evaluated whether hexagons in nature imply intelligent design. The answer was, “sometimes.” When bees make hexagonal lattices out of beeswax, I said, that had to be driven by coded information. This becomes even more apparent when scientists observe the ability of honeybees and wasps to adjust the diameter of the hexagons, and join them together, to accommodate size differences from one side to the other. Based on findings from Auburn University, Science Daily says,

Theresearchers found that wasps and bees used similar building techniques at the transition between small and large cells: if the size difference was minor, the insects built intermediate-sized hexagonal cells in between, but when the size difference was more pronounced, they built pairs of five- and seven-sided cells at the join. A mathematical model of the hexagonal comb structure generated a similar pattern of intermediate-sized and pentagonal/heptagonal cells at the transition between different cell sizes, indicating that the observed structure is based on fundamental geometric rules.

Whether one wishes to accept the “convergent evolution” tale to explain this is another matter. The authors of the scientific paper in PLOS Biology, though evolutionists, agree that the insects’ “architectural tricks” look like amazing “architectural solutions to nest-building problems.” 

Fairy Circles Update

Causation is important in science. Instead of chalking up phenomena to chance, scientists seek to understand the causes behind them. For over four decades, scientists have been trying to figure out what created equally spaced circles in the Namib desert. Intelligent design was unlikely; one would have to invoke the aforementioned space aliens to explain that and the debunked crop circle craze. Two leading theories have competed: natural self-organization (here), or the work of termites (here). 

Score another win for the termite theory. This month, researchers at the University of Hamburg claim to have “confirmed” that termites are the cause of the fairy circles in the Namib Desert. After observing sand termites in 1,700 fairy circles in Africa, Norbert Jürgens and Alexander Gröngröft “now refute the central arguments” of the self-organization theory, showing that the termites organize the sand grains to hold water for long-term storage. 

“The horizontal water transports over metres in a few days assumed by the representatives of self-regulation are physically impossible according to current knowledge. The debate about opposing interpretations of a biological phenomenon is thus surprisingly decided by physics, in this case soil physics,” says Jürgens. “The soil moisture measurements on the fairy circles and the soil hydraulic properties of the sand found in the laboratory thus rule out the self-regulation hypothesis as an explanation for the fairy circles. The cause for the formation of the fairy circles is thus clear – it is the sand termites that secure a considerable survival advantage through soil moisture storage.”

No response from the opposition has been seen yet, so it’s not known if they will call their bluff or acquiesce to the new causal explanation. If the termite theory wins, then ID still has a role — not to allege that termites are capable of conscious thought — but as Eric Cassell argues in Animal Algorithms, instincts that show purposeful activity for function imply programming just as much as robotic activity does. These termites may not be thinking about organizing sand grains for water storage. Their collective behavior, though, shows them acting with foresight and intention as if programmed to do so.

Speaking of regularly spaced circles, I observed something similar in southern Utah from a helicopter in 2019 (see the photo at the top). If any aspiring ID researcher wishes to practice the design inference and determine if they are natural or artificial, the coordinates are 37° 0’55.92″N, 112°20’2.67″W.

Saying we don't know in more than so many words.

 In Some Science Contexts, “Emergence” Really Means “We Don’t Know How”


For some purposes, “emergence” is just another word in the dictionary. For example, ”caterpillar emergence” (emphasis added) means just that: Caterpillars exiting their eggs.

But there is a sneakier way the word is sometimes used in science contexts: It’s a way of pretending we know something we don’t or that something can happen in a certain way — but we have no evidence for that.

Consider Three Illustrations

First:

Abiotic emergence of ordered information stored in the form of RNA is an important unresolved problem concerning the origin of life.

TOTANI, T. EMERGENCE OF LIFE IN AN INFLATIONARY UNIVERSE. SCI REP 10, 1671 (2020).

When used with respect to the origin of life, emergence is intended to convey the idea that life simply started to form without any intelligence in the universe directing it. The author is willing to admit that this is “an important unresolved problem” but the word “emergence” encourages us to think of it as like the caterpillar bursting out of the egg — forgetting that, in this case, the origin of the egg and other life forms is precisely what we wish to account for.

The study of human evolution has become particularly focussed on the emergence of language and human consciousness with respect to the social behaviour and mental capacities of our closest relatives: the apes.

JONKER, A. THE ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN MIND A SPECULATION ON THE EMERGENCE OF LANGUAGE AND HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS. ACTA BIOTHEOR 36, 129–177 (1987).

 this example, “emergence” encourages us to consider the gradual origin of human language and consciousness from the social and mental capacities of apes as both plausible and scientific. It fuzzes over the fact that we have no idea how these things emerged and enables speculation to sound like a sort of fact.

And the third illustration?

Meanwhile, the categorization of types of religion (e.g., as polytheism, henotheism, or other) continued to stimulate attempts at a deeper understanding of the emergence of monotheism.

NINIAN SMART, THE EDITORS OF ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANICA, “HISTORY OF THE STUDY OF RELIGION” – BRITANNICA

Emergence here subtly encourages us to adopt biological evolutionary theory as a model for understanding monotheism. That is, we are not supposed to see monotheism as an initiative from the outside, suddenly appearing, as in: “When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before me faithfully and be blameless.’” (Genesis17:1) The choice of emergence is not a question of evidence but of what is permitted to count as an explanation.

In that sense, emergence permits the improbable to be considered probable for the purposes of sounding like science without providing any actual science.

These types of uses of the word and the underlying concepts that enable them have attracted criticism from varying perspectives. Here are two:

Emergence” Is a Prayer Trying to Be an Explanation

Yervant Kulbashian, who leads an applied AI team at a robotics company, doesn’t like the term, especially as applied to artificial intelligence:

Emergence can only be ascribed to a phenomenon in retrospect, once you already know what has “emerged”. The higher-level properties that emerge are qualitatively different from those at the lower-level — otherwise it wouldn’t be “emergence”. So by necessity they could not have been predicted from the lower-level ones. The properties of “intelligence” could not have been logically foreseen from the properties of neurons unless you had already observed that property emerge in a similar substrate. And even then it’s just a guess that is likely to be wrong given the complexity of the interactions involved; small differences can easily invalidate the hypothesis. In both cases emergence gives no new information: when explaining existing examples it gives you no new insights about the processes except that they happen; and when predicting unknown behaviours it gives very poor guarantees that anything you expect to happen will do so.

Emergence is only really valid as a general metaphysical classification of certain phenomena. It’s a metaphysical category, like “cause”, “effect” or “change”. Using the word when explaining cognition is not wrong per se, it just has no real meaning or explanatory force. It’s like having a theory of “thing-happened-ness” — it’s correct, but void of content.

Y. KULBASHIAN, “EMERGENCE” ISN’T AN EXPLANATION, IT’S A PRAYER,” MEDIUM, JULY 15, 2023 

He adds that the term is used in AI development “whenever someone encounters a phenomenon in the human mind and has no idea how to even start explaining it (e.g. art, socialization, empathy, transcendental aesthetics, DnD, etc).”
              Emergence has nothing to do with the whole being more than its parts. Instead, it calls our attention to behavioural outcomes that reveal themselves at the level of the whole rather than at the level of the parts, but this is not the same as the creation of an inequality of wholes and parts. Don’t fall prey to the lure of mystical interpretations, fanciful explanations, or hand-waving. Instead, see emergence for what it truly is — the system’s behaviour emerging from the interactions of its constituent elements.

DEREK CABRERA, “THE ABSURDITY OF EMERGENCE,” IAI.TV, JULY 26, 2023. 

No. That ship sailed a long time ago. For example, the people who talk about the emergence of human consciousness and language would be only too happy to show how they arose from ape behavior. Trouble is, they can’t. “Emergence” is a way around admitting a reality that mocks their devoutly held promissory materialism.

Promissory materialism is the future facts that must turn out to be the case if materialism is true. We should, on that view, find materialist explanations for the origin of life, mind, and religion any day now. No day that we recognize that we can’t do so can even be contemplated. 

And that is where emergence stands bravely in the gap.

Against Anonymous re Christ resurrection.

Anonymous: Watchtower Objections To A Bodily Resurrection

1. He would be taking His body off the altar, thus removing the ransom sacrifice.

Answer: It was the blood of Jesus which was shed for our redemption.

In the Old Testament sacrifices which typified Christ it was the blood which was carried into the Holy of Holies, not the body. Likewise it is Jesus' blood which paid the debt for our sins, (Hebrews 9:22)."

AservantofJEHOVAH Was it though only the blood 

Hebrews ch.13:11ESV,"For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp.

All sin offerings are to be completely destroyed on the altar

John ch.6:51NIV"I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give(not lend) for the life of the world.”"

Anonymous:Would not the taking back of his life be equally disastrous according to this Watchtower logic? But Jesus said he had power to lay down His life and take it again, (John 10:17-18).

Reclaiming His human life would violate the prophetic pattern set by the Law Jesus said I came not to remove but to fulfill Matthew 5:17 

Matthew ch.20:28 NIV"just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give(Not lend) his life(psyche) as a ransom for many.”

If Jesus had his human life restored to him he could not be said to have fulfilled the Law only by exchanging his human life for a superhuman one ,one not sustained by blood could the pattern set by the law be fulfilled 

The wages of sin is a permanent end to our human life if Christ is a substitute for us then he must under go the same punishment

Isaiah ch.53:8NIV"He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken."

The only way for a substitutionary atonement to fulfill the law was for Christ to permanently lose his human life.

Anonymous:(2. "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God," (1 Corinthians 15:50

Answer: The expression "flesh and blood" occurs only five times in the New Testament. We must derive our definition of its meaning from these occurrences. Webster's Dictionary is of no use here.

Examine the following references and see if the writers are not just as often speaking of "flesh and blood" as "fallen man" as they are of the physical body.

Matt. 16:13-17: "Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father who is in heaven." Is this speaking of the physical flesh, or corrupt, sinful man not revealing Christ's identity to Peter?"

The presupposition is that the two are mutually exclusive man is made of flesh whether he is sinful or not certainly Jesus flesh and blood was not sinful. Nor was the flesh and blood of the first Adam

All of Paul's declarations re:the resurrection are to be understood as applying first to Jesus and only afterward to those born again through him. Also they are justified prior to being born again so their flesh and blood is considered sinless just like their Lord's

Romans ch.8:30NIV"And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified."

So they are justified while in the flesh legally they are on the same level as the two Adams.

So flesh and blood here has nothing to do with sin.

Anonymous:-Eph. 6:12: "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood..." A case can be made either way in the interpretation of this text.

For instance, because Christians do not physically wrestle with their opposition, Paul may not be referring to the physical body, but rather that Christians wrestle against sinful corruption of man and the spiritual forces of evil influencing him.

Heb. 2:14: "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same...."

Here the text does refer to the physical flesh because Jesus did not take on Himself a sinful nature.

And Jesus flesh and blood is the primary issue he is the forerunner and the pattern for all others 

Hebrews ch.6:19,20"We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek."



I Cor. 15:50: "...flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God...."

Paul is answering the question of what kind of body believers will have in the resurrection (vs. 35). It will be a "spiritual body" (vs. 44).

A "spiritual body" must be defined by the ONLY example we have of one, the body of Jesus.

So given that this first resurrection is only for those Justified in the flesh including Jesus ,it must be concluded that "flesh and blood" has nothing to do with sin

Hebrews ch.2:14-16NIV"Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— 15and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. 16For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants.

So the distinction is not between the sinful and the sinless but between the human and the superhuman just as to legally be considered a substitute for humans he had to exchange is his superhuman perfection for human perfection so too for his substitutionary offering to conform to law he had to exchange his human perfection for superhuman perfection.

Who outranks whom?

Daniel ch.10:5,6NIV"I looked up and there before me was a man dressed in linen, with a belt of fine gold from Uphaz around his waist. 6His body was like topaz, his face like lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and his voice like the sound of a multitude."

Some are claiming that this man that Daniel saw in vision is JEHOVAH himself. Does the context support such an opinion.

Daniel ch.10:12-14NIV"12Then he continued, “Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them. 13But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia. "

So how could anyone imagine that almighty God would be detained by a demon prince and then need to be rescued by one of his creations

Daniel ch.10:21NIV"but first I will tell you what is written in the Book of Truth. (No one supports me against them except Michael, your prince."

Some claim that the fact that this Holy angel list Michael as his only helper proves that he outranks Michael THE(Not a) prince of Daniel's people at Daniel ch.12:1 he is called THE( Not a) great prince.

Again we have to wonder as to how consistently are they prepared to adhere to this line of reasoning.

Psalms ch.54:4ASV"Behold, God is my helper: The Lord is of them that uphold my soul."

Where as the angel said that Michael was his only help the psalmist list God among those helping him. Was the psalmist trying to promulgate the Idea that he outranked God by his statement or the reverse.

Michael is one of the Chief princes thus he can't be the logos.

Why not, the title sar(prince) is also given to JEHOVAH in the book of Daniel.

Daniel ch.8:11KJV"Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down. "

Compared to the demon princes that Govern the nations JEHOVAH and his archangel are the foremost princes.

In calling Michael the prince of JEHOVAH'S People see Daniel ch.10:21 the Angel links Michael to the angel at 

exodus ch.23:20,21ASV"“Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. Pay careful attention to him and obey his voice; do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him."

Later when Israel got into the land the prophet Joshua encountered an angel claiming to be the prince of JEHOVAH'S Army doubtless that same angel that bears JEHOVAH'S Name at exodus ch.23:20,21

Joshua ch.5:13-15NIV,"And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? 14And he said, Nay; but as prince of the host of Jehovah am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my lord unto his servant? 15And the prince of Jehovah's host said unto Joshua, Put off thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so."

Many commentators claim that is a manifestation of the pre-human Christ we agree .