Argument from Poor Design

[beefstuinit]

Ah OK, I see now. The contradiction in determining the optimality is key here. Good point.

Since this whole thing started with evolution, i want to point out that there is no such thing as optimal in evolution.

Thats called the fallacy of orthogenesis, believing that evolution has some kind of end goal. That more complex is more better etc.

Wrong. Evolution is a mechanism, there is no end goal. If tomorrow food became incredibly scarce on the earth and the incredible carbohydrate requirement of a huge brain became a disadvantage, most likely selection pressure would favor those with lower metabolic requirements... smaller brains.

Small brains would be "optimal" under a world with no carbs to feed nervous tissue.

Optimality is a purely human construction rooted in our ego and desire to feel special. Whatever, grow up, intelligence was a happy accident of our large social groups and tool use, the rest of this is a crazy coincidence.


The other thing is that people like to think complex is better. Really? The vast majority of the biomass on this planet is composed of bacteria and insects. Whose more successful and fitter on a purely evolutionary and objective criteria? As far as evolution is concerned, ocean bacteria have got us beat by a mile, 150x the mass.

[ONtop888]

So let's get this settled.

The desire is perfect. This is a statement which in and of itself I feel has no meaning, because there is no value judgment attached to desire. But for the sake of argument, I'll grant it, because it really isn't quite related to the original purpose of this thread.

Key statement #1: The desire to create the universe was perfect.

So the desire is perfect. And yet the universe is not optimally designed. This means that the perfect desire was to create a non-optimally designed universe. This leads us to the inescapable conclusion, stated below:

Key statement #2: The universe cannot be optimally designed, if the perfect desire was for a non-optimal universe.

Based on the above, again it leads us to another unarguable conclusion:

Conclusion: If the universe cannot be optimally designed, then the argument that the optimal design of the universe (fine tuning, etc) is null and void from the outset, and cannot be used to argue for the existence of God.


Although I find this line of thinking contradictory to begin with, because argumentation from design would follow this pattern:

1. Theist: Argue for the existence of God via the argument from design (good design).
2. Atheist: Counter by pointing to examples of poor design.
3. Theist: Counter by arguing that the poor design of the universe is intended from a perfect desire.
4. #3 contradicts #1. Inherent contradiction ensues.

great post, you've really got me thinking with this one. My hands are tied up at the moment,but I def will respond.

[beefstuinit]

Oh and I'm still waiting to hear how intelligent design, creationists, and even better, young earth creationists if there any floating around, resolve solar nucleosynthesis with their "scientific" beliefs.

[JBDW]

great post, you've really got me thinking with this one. My hands are tied up at the moment,but I def will respond.

Looking forward to it.

[Boffman]

I'm basing it off OnTop88's assertion that the universe was not 'meant' for an optimal design.

In any other circumstance, I would still use my original argument in this thread: the claim that we don't know for certain if the design is sub-optimal works against the theist, because this entire 'argument from poor design' is meant to be a counter-argument against the 'argument from good design', which inherently assumes that optimality can be determined by us. If we cannot determine optimality, then the original theistic argument falls through, and the counter-argument of 'argument from poor design' isn't even necessary to begin with.

Either way, I don't see a way out for the 'argument from good design'.

I noticed you mentioned fine-tuning in there as well. Fine-tuning relies purely on the probability of life existing, so I'm not sure what you said really refutes that specific argument.

[beefstuinit]

great post, you've really got me thinking with this one. My hands are tied up at the moment,but I def will respond.

we dont care about poor design! There is no such thing as good or bad! Is a cat better than a dog? A dog better than a cat?

The cats better suited to its niche than a dog and a dogs better suited to its niche than a cat.

The word "design" is not involved in objective scientific analysis of the slow and occasionally faster adaptation of organisms to a plethora of varied and changing environmental pressures.

[JBDW]

I noticed you mentioned fine-tuning in there as well. Fine-tuning relies purely on the probability of life existing, so I'm not sure what you said really refutes that specific argument.

Would you care to elaborate? My original argument might have been vague, so if you could clarify where it could be improved/modified, that might be helpful.

[beefstuinit]

If you guys want to actually debate people who do not subscribe to a theological explanation of anything scientific, you have to argue with science, since science is backed up by evidence.

Anything that comes from a book written by people a long time ago, before science, is by default completely irrelevant to a debate based on evidence. At least if you want to be listened to.

Unfourtantly the "scientific" arguments that theists use are anecdotal and usually commit at least several argumentative fallacies.

An objective scientist has already been presented with the entire body of knowledge that has been reviewed and tested rigorously by incredibly brilliant people for over a hundred years. Presenting random anecdotes that confirm your beliefs is in complete contradiction to the scientific method. Like it nor scientists have brought you 99% of the **** you use on a daily basis so they are taken more seriously than you these days, it might be worth your time to counter this disadvantage with at least arguing from a scientific basis.

Therefore presenting anecdotes will also get you laughed of the stage.

If you people want to seriously debate this, develop a real theory, and intelligent design isnt one, since it's whole premise is anecdotal itself. Theories start with evidence and work their way up, you cant start with someone elses theory and then present anecdotes in certain ways and call that a theory.

[JBDW]

we dont care about poor design! There is no such thing as good or bad! Is a cat better than a dog? A dog better than a cat?

The cats better suited to its niche than a dog and a dogs better suited to its niche than a cat.

The word "design" is not involved in objective scientific analysis of the slow and occasionally faster adaptation of organisms to a plethora of varied and changing environmental pressures.

That's another way to argue against 'the argument from design'. As it stands though, my argument is one that assumes the theist perspective, and I believe that it is still possible to demonstrate the weakness of that position while using the theist paradigm, simply by virtue of the logical structure of the argument.

[Boffman]

Would you care to elaborate? My original argument might have been vague, so if you could clarify where it could be improved/modified, that might be helpful.

Optimal vs. sub-optimal is irrelevant with fine-tuning. Most fine-tuning arguments will give you actual number probabilities showing the unlikelihood of a universe that can contain life.

[JBDW]

Optimal vs. sub-optimal is irrelevant with fine-tuning. Most fine-tuning arguments will give you actual number probabilities showing the unlikelihood of a universe that can contain life.

I don't agree that it's irrelevant. 'Optimal' might well be defined as 'the ability of the universe to sustain life', in which case my argument would still hold. I've seen many arguments from good design that contain fine-tuning as evidence that the universe was optimally designed to support life.

Optimality can be defined in a number of ways, after all.

[beefstuinit]

How exactly is the universe fine tuned to support life? That's a good one, considering the that the predominant view is that universe is by nature chaotic and incredibly hostile, of course hostile is a relative term to a human being whose body requires certain conditions.

An asteroid has no sense of hostile, if it smashes into the planet, does it have a good day or a bad day? Bad for us to be sure.

[JBDW]

How exactly is the universe fine tuned to support life? That's a good one, considering the that the predominant view is that universe is by nature chaotic and incredibly hostile, of course hostile is a relative term to a human being whose body requires certain conditions.

An asteroid has no sense of hostile, if it smashes into the planet, does it have a good day or a bad day? Bad for us to be sure.

You haven't heard the standard argument? It has to do with the constants of the universe, and how if the constants were off by just a tiny bit, we wouldn't be here today...something like that.

[Boffman]

I don't agree that it's irrelevant. 'Optimal' might well be defined as 'the ability of the universe to sustain life', in which case my argument would still hold. I've seen many arguments from good design that contain fine-tuning as evidence that the universe was optimally designed to support life.

Optimality can be defined in a number of ways, after all.

Watch me insert fine tuning into your own post.

1. Theist: Argue for the existence of God via the probability of life existing without God fine-tuning the universe.
2. Atheist: Counter by pointing to examples of poor design.
3. Theist: The probability of life existing is the same regardless of bad design.

Poor design like what the OP mentions doesn't refute fine-tuning at all. It doesn't work.

[Boffman]

How exactly is the universe fine tuned to support life? That's a good one, considering the that the predominant view is that universe is by nature chaotic and incredibly hostile, of course hostile is a relative term to a human being whose body requires certain conditions.

An asteroid has no sense of hostile, if it smashes into the planet, does it have a good day or a bad day? Bad for us to be sure.

I'm not saying it is, I'm only playing Devils Advocate. It's what people do when they help people make their arguments better. But, since you asked their actually is plenty of legitimate scientific work showing that life is improbable.

[beefstuinit]

You haven't heard the standard argument? It has to do with the constants of the universe, and how if the constants were off by just a tiny bit, we wouldn't be here today...something like that.

I've read the theory.

ID theories always baffle me because they feel like reading a book backwards. The fine tuned universe seems to assume that life is some kind of goal, that it is an end objective. It is assuming that life should be here, now how did we get here. That is backwards.

Objective scientific examination, at least when it comes to things on the scale of the universe, must be completely unbiased. We remove ourselves from the observation. We do not care why we are here, we care only about how the universe got here. Thus we do not care if it was fine tuned or not, or whether it is conducive to life or not (not to be confused with the efforts to locate life in other areas of the universe, this is a different field of study.)

[beefstuinit]

I'm not saying it is, I'm only playing Devils Advocate. It's what people do when they help people make their arguments better. But, since you asked their actually is plenty of legitimate scientific work showing that life is improbable.

Lol I know what playing Devils Advocate is, but I didn't read the entire discussion.

Of course life is improbable... in a given part of the unviverse Most of the universe isn't even made out of the same class of matter we are and even more isn't even matter at all, and the matter that is out there is overall incredibly sparse, incredibly hot, or incredibly cold. So sure it's improbable.

However the universe is very very very big. There are trillions upon trillions of stars out there. Statistics hardly say that it is impossible. Life seems like it couldnt possibly occur in our solar system, but there are at least 100 billion other stars in our galaxy, and at least 500 billion galaxies...... at some point, statistically its almost CERTAIN to happen.

[Kmart23]

Lol I know what playing Devils Advocate is, but I didn't read the entire discussion.

Of course life is improbable... in a given part of the unviverse Most of the universe isn't even made out of the same class of matter we are and even more isn't even matter at all, and the matter that is out there is overall incredibly sparse, incredibly hot, or incredibly cold. So sure it's improbable.

However the universe is very very very big. There are trillions upon trillions of stars out there. Statistics hardly say that it is impossible. Life seems like it couldnt possibly occur in our solar system, but there are at least 100 billion other stars in our galaxy, and at least 500 billion galaxies...... at some point, statistically its almost CERTAIN to happen.

I bolded the part that I wanted to reply to. A living cell is now much better understood than ever before, and while it is not fully understood, we know that the most basic living cell is in fact more complex than the most complex man-made computer or robot or peice of machinery. A living cell consists of DNA, RNA and protein and for a living cell to exist, all three must be working together. It is now understood that for these to suddenly come together to form life is impossible by any mathematical standard.

It is almost certain to happen? I know that you wrote that yourself, and did not pull it from any scientific study, because in fact it is certain not to happen, how complex living cells are.

I can post some studies supporting this if you would like, but I know that you are unable to post any studies showing that life is almost certain to happen.

[geeseman]

Lol I know what playing Devils Advocate is, but I didn't read the entire discussion.

Of course life is improbable... in a given part of the unviverse Most of the universe isn't even made out of the same class of matter we are and even more isn't even matter at all, and the matter that is out there is overall incredibly sparse, incredibly hot, or incredibly cold. So sure it's improbable.

However the universe is very very very big. There are trillions upon trillions of stars out there. Statistics hardly say that it is impossible. Life seems like it couldnt possibly occur in our solar system, but there are at least 100 billion other stars in our galaxy, and at least 500 billion galaxies...... at some point, statistically its almost CERTAIN to happen.

Great post. The arguement of probability of life has no basis as evidence for god considering the size of the universe and the point that this may have not been the first universe.
What we know for certain is that we are here and there is no evidence for the existence of any god

[beefstuinit]

I bolded the part that I wanted to reply to. A living cell is now much better understood than ever before, and while it is not fully understood, we know that the most basic living cell is in fact more complex than the most complex man-made computer or robot or peice of machinery. A living cell consists of DNA, RNA and protein and for a living cell to exist, all three must be working together. It is now understood that for these to suddenly come together to form life is impossible by any mathematical standard.

It is almost certain to happen? I know that you wrote that yourself, and did not pull it from any scientific study, because in fact it is certain not to happen, how complex living cells are.

I can post some studies supporting this if you would like, but I know that you are unable to post any studies showing that life is almost certain to happen.

Yes, that is conjecture. However so is any study saying that life is impossible to happen naturally due to the complexity of a cell, as unlike me, no scientific study would ever state the certainty of something based on aggregated possibilities based on highly complex biomechanical processes spread over billions of years. thats a career ender.

A living cell consists of much more than three things by the way, I think they're actually much more complex than you know.

However, that has nothing to do with the probability of life evolving as the development of cells would have been in itself an iterative evolutionary procedure. DNA didn't just appear, simpler molecules existed first, and it's unlikely that a cellular envelope came into being all at once.

There is no need for a cell to come into existence all at once. A better understanding of the truly bio-mechanical nature of amino-acids would help you see that once they are in solution they go about doing all kinds of interesting things.

Are you aware of the evolutionary progression from prokaryote to eukaryote? We are made of eukaryotes, cells with nuclear envelopes amongst other things. Big big important difference there, it allows for mitosis and meiosis. Prokaryotes came before eukaryotes, so the complex cell your using in your argument wasnt even around to begin with.

And I would be interested in these studies if you have them.

[-click_here-]

I bolded the part that I wanted to reply to. A living cell is now much better understood than ever before, and while it is not fully understood, we know that the most basic living cell is in fact more complex than the most complex man-made computer or robot or peice of machinery. A living cell consists of DNA, RNA and protein and for a living cell to exist, all three must be working together. It is now understood that for these to suddenly come together to form life is impossible by any mathematical standard.

It is almost certain to happen? I know that you wrote that yourself, and did not pull it from any scientific study, because in fact it is certain not to happen, how complex living cells are.

I can post some studies supporting this if you would like, but I know that you are unable to post any studies showing that life is almost certain to happen.

See if a living cell is more complex than any man-made computer in a few million years shall we.

[Kmart23]

See if a living cell is more complex than any man-made computer in a few million years shall we.

I would love to see that, but I think you are missing the point, that if we as intelligent humans are unable to manufacture something nearly as complex in design and working as a living cell, how can we say that they are poorly designed. If we can say that then we also must say that everything that we have built, from the pyramids down to the Golden Gate Bridge to the most complex super computers are absolute garbage. I think that you would agree that all of the latest man made technology is truly remarkable and took a great many brilliant minds to come up with it. How then can we suppose that blind luck or chance got us here?

If you drive past a house, you do not for a second consider that it just fell there in the last big storm, as that is an impossibility. How then can we suppose that a living cell, which is infinitely more complex than the most well designed house just came along by chance? It does not stand to reason or logic.

[Mr Beer]

I would love to see that, but I think you are missing the point, that if we as intelligent humans are unable to manufacture something nearly as complex in design and working as a living cell, how can we say that they are poorly designed. If we can say that then we also must say that everything that we have built, from the pyramids down to the Golden Gate Bridge to the most complex super computers are absolute garbage. I think that you would agree that all of the latest man made technology is truly remarkable and took a great many brilliant minds to come up with it. How then can we suppose that blind luck or chance got us here?

If you drive past a house, you do not for a second consider that it just fell there in the last big storm, as that is an impossibility. How then can we suppose that a living cell, which is infinitely more complex than the most well designed house just came along by chance? It does not stand to reason or logic.

No scientist in the world claims that a cell resembling a modern cell popped into existence spontaneously.

[ONtop888]

So let's get this settled.

The desire is perfect. This is a statement which in and of itself I feel has no meaning, because there is no value judgment attached to desire. But for the sake of argument, I'll grant it, because it really isn't quite related to the original purpose of this thread.

Key statement #1: The desire to create the universe was perfect.

So the desire is perfect. And yet the universe is not optimally designed. This means that the perfect desire was to create a non-optimally designed universe. This leads us to the inescapable conclusion, stated below:

Key statement #2: The universe cannot be optimally designed, if the perfect desire was for a non-optimal universe.

Based on the above, again it leads us to another unarguable conclusion:

Conclusion: If the universe cannot be optimally designed, then the argument that the optimal design of the universe (fine tuning, etc) is null and void from the outset, and cannot be used to argue for the existence of God.


Although I find this line of thinking contradictory to begin with, because argumentation from design would follow this pattern:

1. Theist: Argue for the existence of God via the argument from design (good design).
2. Atheist: Counter by pointing to examples of poor design.
3. Theist: Counter by arguing that the poor design of the universe is intended from a perfect desire.
4. #3 contradicts #1. Inherent contradiction ensues.

I see the point you were making, so I revised my argument. I had some lulz with the bolded argument

God's desires are perfect
God desired to create a Judged Universe
A Judged universe is designed to be imperfect
An imperfect universe can sustain life in sub-optimal conditions
The universe sustains life and is subject to sub-optimal conditions
Therefore, God created the universe

- Fine tuning arguments (anthropic constants/etc) can be used to validate claims that God designed the universe, so long as the universe can sustain life, that life can exist in sub-optimal conditions, and the universe reflects a Judged state.

I appreciate the counter-argument, it helped me pick apart my inconsistencies and refine my argument. Looking forward to your response.

[Boffman]

I see the point you were making, so I revised my argument. I had some lulz with the bolded argument

God's desires are perfect
God desired to create a Judged Universe
A Judged universe is designed to be imperfect
An imperfect universe can sustain life in sub-optimal conditions
The universe sustains life and is subject to sub-optimal conditions
Therefore, God created the universe

- Fine tuning arguments (anthropic constants/etc) can be used to validate claims that God designed the universe, so long as the universe can sustain life, that life can exist in sub-optimal conditions, and the universe reflects a Judged state.

I appreciate the counter-argument, it helped me pick apart the inconsistencies and refine my argument. Looking forward to your response.

His argument didn't really address fine-tuning, which is why I wondered why he brought it up. His points are still valid, however, with the whole "hey look at how well designed my eye is" arguments. Also, you need to define your points a lot better. What the heck do you mean by "judged universe?"

[ONtop888]

His argument didn't really address fine-tuning, which is why I wondered why he brought it up. His points are still valid, however, with the whole "hey look at how well designed my eye is" arguments. Also, you need to define your points a lot better. What the heck do you mean by "judged universe?"

I agree, the design of snow flakes/etc being optimal isn't a valid argument, so his point stands there, however, I wasn't trying to make an argument for designed based on eye structure, etc. His argument was similar to yours, but he expounded on 'optimal design'.

The argument followed as:
God is perfect
The universe is imperfect (not optimally designed)
Therefore; God didn't create the universe

A judged universe is a universe that reflects God's judgement for humanity's sin.
For this to take place, Adam and Eve's Temptation must've taken place in an ethereal realm that is not time-dependent, before it took place in the world.

An optimal universe would be defined as having no natural disasters, no asteroids smashing into the earth. I would even go as far to say that an 'optimal' universe would be one that is free from suffering/evil, but than arguments would spring from who's subjective interpretation defines what is evil, etc.

*EDIT: I got class, be back later broskie

[IROCthe5.7L]

This thread is further proof that you can rationalize anything if you try hard enough.

[Boffman]

This thread is further proof that you can rationalize anything if you try hard enough.

Do you really believe that? Try to rationalize the belief that nothing exists.

[ONtop888]

Do you really believe that? Try to rationalize the belief that nothing exists.

lulz

[user5145]

Since this whole thing started with evolution, i want to point out that there is no such thing as optimal in evolution.

Thats called the fallacy of orthogenesis, believing that evolution has some kind of end goal. That more complex is more better etc.

Wrong. Evolution is a mechanism, there is no end goal. If tomorrow food became incredibly scarce on the earth and the incredible carbohydrate requirement of a huge brain became a disadvantage, most likely selection pressure would favor those with lower metabolic requirements... smaller brains.

Small brains would be "optimal" under a world with no carbs to feed nervous tissue.

Optimality is a purely human construction rooted in our ego and desire to feel special. Whatever, grow up, intelligence was a happy accident of our large social groups and tool use, the rest of this is a crazy coincidence.


The other thing is that people like to think complex is better. Really? The vast majority of the biomass on this planet is composed of bacteria and insects. Whose more successful and fitter on a purely evolutionary and objective criteria? As far as evolution is concerned, ocean bacteria have got us beat by a mile, 150x the mass.

That is a problem many anti-evolutionists have.