Muhahahahaha! Intelligent Grappling lives!

[elfs]

A long time ago, I wrote the "Intelligent Grappling FAQ," in which I proposed that gravity was such an important force in the universe that it could never have happened by chance, and that "gravity" was a weasel-term physicists used to confuse the public. "Gravity only attempts to describe what objects do. It does not explain WHY they do them. It is that challenge that Intelligent Grappling is intended to meet." Later, I added:

6. In order to accept Intelligent Design, must I accept Intelligent Grappling as well?

YES. Intelligent Design says that there is a non-naturalistic, conscious designer at work at the biological level. Intelligent Grappling says that there is a non-naturalistic, conscious grappler at the physicial level. Accepting a naturalistic explanation for one phenomenon but a non-naturalistic explanation for another is a philosophically corrupt position and we do not advocate it.

While this is an important point at the end, and the key philosophical point (if you accept a tinkerer god in biology, you must accept one in physics), I never thought that the ID folks would be so stupid as to actually adopt it.

I was wrong:

Everything is made of atoms. Atoms have no means to relocate themselves in a rapid and precise way to build any living thing. To make an average adult's replacement red blood cells alone, over 4900 quadrillion atoms per second must be sorted from the food we have eaten, selected, assembled, and delivered to our blood stream; that is every second of every day of our adult life.

Muahahahaha! It's not just biology, it's every physical reaction that requires constant, divine intervention in order to happen with the accuracy necessary to keep us alive. This is divine providence made creepy: you're not just a bag of wet meat, you're a bag of wet meat that would fall apart instantly if it weren't for the angels holding you together.

Comments

[omahas.livejournal.com]

Can science then be used to refute theological claims?

If I understand you correctly, science must remain silent on assertions made by theology.

Of course science can. How many times has theology wandered into the realm of observable science, making this claim and that that can be refuted by observation? The most obvious one is the theological claim that the earth is only 6000 years old because the bible says so. That can easily be refuted using time-tested scientific techniques.

[dossy.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I guess I wasn't being clear. What can science assert about the existance (or non-existance) of a extra-natural divine force that maintains the perceived order of the universe that we observe?

Science cannot refute theology's claims about the cause, as only the effect is measurable.

[(Anonymous)]

It's irrelevant that science can't refute theology's claims about the cause, because theology can't support those claims in the first place -- there's nothing for science to refute. Except perhaps a violation of parsimony, which has a pretty good track record, epistemologically speaking.

Number 127

[omahas.livejournal.com]

That's not exactly true.

Theology is an explanation of the divine, not the physical, world. By definition, the divine is ultimately not explainable by mere human observation...we can only attempt to understand it through our experience of the physical and an attempt to connect with the divine. And, more importantly, each person's connection with the divine is, by definition, different, so it cannot be measured in the way that science measures the observable world.

So, to claim that "theology can't support those claims in the first place" is ignoring the core concept of what theology is...or supposed to be. The two are not supposed to be operating within the same realm.

[(Anonymous)]

"Theology is an explanation of the divine, not the physical, world."

What reason is there to suppose there is such a thing as a divine world?

Number 127

[omahas.livejournal.com]

What reason is there to suppose that there isn't? This is where belief comes in. You don't have to abandon science to also have belief. You don't have to believe in divine to practice science. But trying to force both to operate in the same plane is stupid.

They don't. They weren't meant to. And doing so is what creates stupidity like Creationism and ID.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't suppose there isn't, but until the existence of the divine can be demonstrated, I don't see any usefulness in discussing an explanation of its nature, any more than I can see the point of talking about what the invisible elves dancing on my lawn like to eat.

Number 127

[omahas.livejournal.com]

Science's job is not to refute the claim's of anything that is not observable...by definition, if you can't in some way observe it, you can't very well measure it and come to a conclusion that it doesn't exist.

That being said, you do seem to have missed an important point. Lacking evidence of the existence of something, one can *only conclude* that the "something" does not exist. This does not mean that it does not exist, but that the evidence does not reveal any existence of it. This is an incredibly important point in science that layman *do not get*.

Therefore, lacking any evidence that angels or any other divine intervention operates the force of gravity, I can only conclude that that divine intervention *does not exist* on the force of gravity. Until I discover further physical observations that tell me that it does, my scientific observations say that it doesn't exist.

My theological belief? That's my own personal opinion, based on my own connection to the divine, and not one to be refuted by anyone but me. And not one for me to force upon anyone else (no pun intended).

[dossy.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to understand you. Thank you for taking the time explaining this to me.

Has science concluded that infinity doesn't exist? One can never - by definition - measure something which is infinite. You might be able to reason about it, using an inductive proof, but it's outside the realm of the empirical. Yet, I imagine, many scientists would probably tell me they understand the concept of infinity.

So, without being able to measure or observe something which is infinite, a scientist can still assert the truth and existance of a concept's validity based purely on reasoning alone. Or, woudld you say that mathematicians and logicians find the concept of infinity useful, but science concludes that it does not exist because none such thing can be observed or measured?

Gnarly, confusing ...