Intelligent Design is not creationism

Quote from jem:

appearance of design is undeniable -- (unless you believe in a multiverse)

Leonard Susskind

from physicsweb.

http://physicsweb.org/articles/review/18/12/3

you will see a little rundown of our debate.

I would say slightly skewed to than anti anthropic side but certainly eye opening for you anti AP people.
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Slightly skewed? I cannot friggin' believe your interpretation of the facts.

1. The title of the book is: "The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the 'ILLUSION' of Intelligent Design." If that doesn't clue you in to what Dr. Susskind's thesis is, then I don't know what would.

2. The book review states: "The anthropic principle is thus rendered respectable and intelligent design is just an ILLUSION. The author’s stance is the same as that of Laplace when asked by Napoleon why his celestial mechanics had no mention of a creator: 'Your highness, I have no need of this hypothesis.'"

3. The reviewer is saying that Susskind explains why the anthropic principle only APPEARS to favor intelligent design, but in reality, it does not favor it at all (i.e., Susskind has no need for a creator to make his theories operative).

4. The reviewer closes with the statement, "Susskind expresses the hope that the sentence 'the appearance of intelligent design is undeniable', will not appear out of context on a religious Internet site. Fat chance!"

Thus you, jem, are doing precisely what Dr. Susskind hoped would not would occur, i.e., you are taking his statements out of context and using them to support the exact opposite of what the professor is attempting to demonstrate.

Please stop, now. Your continuing to shoot yourself in the foot has given you an infection.

I suggest a prescription for a Zithromax(r) "Z-Pack." The metaphor should be obvious.
 
Quote from kjkent1:

Slightly skewed? I cannot friggin' believe your interpretation of the facts.

1. The title of the book is: "The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the 'ILLUSION' of Intelligent Design." If that doesn't clue you in to what Dr. Susskind's thesis is, then I don't know what would.

2. The book review states: "The anthropic principle is thus rendered respectable and intelligent design is just an ILLUSION. The author’s stance is the same as that of Laplace when asked by Napoleon why his celestial mechanics had no mention of a creator: 'Your highness, I have no need of this hypothesis.'"

3. The reviewer is saying that Susskind explains why the anthropic principle only APPEARS to favor intelligent designed, but in reality, it does not favor it at all (i.e., Susskind has no need for a creator to make his theories operative).

4. The reviewer closes with the statement, "Susskind expresses the hope that the sentence 'the appearance of intelligent design is undeniable', will not appear out of context on a religious Internet site. Fat chance!"

Thus you, jem, are doing precisely what Dr. Susskind hoped would not would occur, i.e., you are taking his statements out of context and using them to support the exact opposite of what the professor is attempting to demonstrate.

Please stop, now. Your continuing to shoot yourself in the foot has given you an infection.

I suggest a prescription for a Zithromax(r) "Z-Pack." The metaphor should be obvious.
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man this is annoying KJ I know you are smarte than this.

Ponder this:

1. if, there is only one universe according to susskind does science have a good explananation for the fine tuning?

2. if there is only one universe does Susskind say it would appear designed?

Like the deck of cards. if you hit billions of royal flushes in a row you could conclude the game was rigged. But if you played an infinite amount of hands you coud draw no such conclusion.

This is the breakdown.

if we live in one univere the anthropic principle would lead a person who understood physics as we now do to conclude wow it sure looks designed.

But if you belive in multiverses you can conclude that our universe is one that is hospitible to life but the trillions of others are not. consequently we do not have to conclude design. We just live in the one of trillions of universes and ours works and has not collapsed on itself, and is flat etc.


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Susskind believes that it is more than dumb luck that the universe is so accommodating to human beings. "Can science explain the extraordinary fact that the universe appears to be uncannily, nay, spectacularly, well designed for our own existence?" he asks.
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did you read that KJ?

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But does this mean that the religious fundamentalists have won? Must we invoke the existence of a god to account for the gaps in our knowledge? Susskind’s answer is "no" on both counts. As you might have guessed from the book’s subtitle, he argues that while "the appearance of intelligent design is undeniable", science can nevertheless explain it all. Phew! Thank God for that.

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how about that -- the "appearance" is undeniable.




from physics web.

http://physicsweb.org/articles/review/18/12/3

more read this about arch arch athiest --

Nevertheless, no less a person than Nobel laureate and arch-atheist Steven Weinberg believes that one particular constant of nature - Einstein’s cosmological constant Λ - may be anthropically determined. The size of L has long been an enigma. Theoretically its most natural value would be unity in natural units, but anything bigger than 10-120 would be inconsistent with astronomical data - and a world record for the worst agreement between theory and experiment!

So Weinberg set out to see if any bigger value would prevent life. The answer, it turned out, did not have anything to do with molecular chemistry or the stability of the solar system. Weinberg found that if L were just an order of magnitude bigger than 10-120, no galaxies, stars or planets would have formed. His anthropic arguments not only provided a limit on L, they also give some idea of its expected value. In 1992 he wrote, "Thus if such a cosmological constant is confirmed by observation, it will be reasonable to infer that our own existence plays an important role in explaining why the universe is the way it is." Even sceptics had to take notice, therefore, when recent astrophysical observations indicated that L is, in fact, non-zero and has just about the value Weinberg predicted.
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I am not sure your know who Weinberg is but if you did you would take notice of this fact.

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To avoid any intelligent-design connotations, however, there is still one missing ingredient: the "multiverse" or, as Susskind likes to call it, the "megaverse". According to a popular but still controversial version of "cosmic inflation", due to Andre Linde and others, there is not just one Big Bang but a whole series of bubble universes that are continuously being created. If we combine this with M-theory, every kind of universe permitted by the landscape will eventually come into existence. This is called the "populated landscape".

To avoid confusion, Susskind reminds us that the landscape is not a real place, just a list of possibilities. The pocket universes of the megaverse, on the other hand, are real places. Hence his slogan: "A landscape of possibilities populated by a megaverse of actualities."

Susskind concludes that questions such as "why is a certain constant of nature one number rather than another?" may well be answered by "somewhere in the megaverse the constant equals this number: somewhere else it is that number. We live in one tiny pocket where the value of the constant is consistent with our kind of life. That’s it! That’s all. There is no other answer to the question".

The anthropic principle is thus rendered respectable and intelligent design is just an illusion. The author’s stance is the same as that of Laplace when asked by Napoleon why his celestial mechanics had no mention of a creator: "Your highness, I have no need of this hypothesis."

By the way, Susskind expresses the hope that the sentence "the appearance of intelligent design is undeniable’’ will not appear out of context on a religious Internet site. Fat chance!



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Directly in line with your question KJ

you see the anthropic princple is rendered respectable and intelligent design an illusion... when you have multiverses. (and millions and millions of them.)

As I have said dozens of times if there are multiverses than you would not say we looked designed.

But remember this multiverse stuff is speculation. so what are you left with.
 
Quote from james_bond_3rd:

Again, only through misunderstanding (or misrepresenting) these articles you would find support for ID.

The anthropic principles is basically this: The fact that we exist pretty much limits what the values of the natural constants can be in our corner of the universe. It doesn't mean that someone designed these numbers so that we can exist.

Here is an analogy. Suppose you and your friend are playing Russian roulette. After a couple of rounds between you and your friend, he draws the bullet and kills himself. You could have two reactions to it. One is "God I'm lucky!" The other is "God I'm blessed!" Both are plausible human reactions but which one is more logical?
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Please read above about the cosmological constant and the work of arch atheist weinberg.
 
Quote from traderNik:

I've been reading your posts in this thread and it's remarkable how much faith you put into the pronouncements of Susskind in particular and 'upper echelon' physicists in general. This is odd, considering that most ID'ers are quick to point out that it is undue faith in the scientific method that deceives those who do not accept ID.

You speak as if you are on very intimate terms with concepts such as string theory. However, if I am not mistaken, string theory has never achieved the kind of widespread acceptance that, for example, QM has. Please let me know if I am wrong about that. Either way, just because Susskind can't see an alternative to string theory that does not involve ID, it doesn't mean that such an alternative does not exists. Very very very smart theoretical physicists have been spectacularly wrong in the past (a lot, actually).

In the end, it's proof we need. I am STILL asking for anyone to post a link to the proof that has been offered for ID. I am not holding my breath for zEvader to do it, because he is asserting out his ass as usual. I thought some of the other more level headed ID'ers here might be able to show me one scrap of proof, since the whole point of ID is that it is supposed to be scientifically provable.
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Please read article I just quoted above.

That will give you a rundown.




Nevertheless, no less a person than Nobel laureate and arch-atheist Steven Weinberg believes that one particular constant of nature - Einstein’s cosmological constant Λ - may be anthropically determined. The size of L has long been an enigma. Theoretically its most natural value would be unity in natural units, but anything bigger than 10-120 would be inconsistent with astronomical data - and a world record for the worst agreement between theory and experiment!

So Weinberg set out to see if any bigger value would prevent life. The answer, it turned out, did not have anything to do with molecular chemistry or the stability of the solar system. Weinberg found that if L were just an order of magnitude bigger than 10-120, no galaxies, stars or planets would have formed. His anthropic arguments not only provided a limit on L, they also give some idea of its expected value. In 1992 he wrote, "Thus if such a cosmological constant is confirmed by observation, it will be reasonable to infer that our own existence plays an important role in explaining why the universe is the way it is." Even sceptics had to take notice, therefore, when recent astrophysical observations indicated that L is, in fact, non-zero and has just about the value Weinberg predicted.


Susskind could be wrong about string theory that is not my point. I am asking you to examine what he is saying about the credibility of the anthropic principle how strong the theory is - if there is only one universe.

I could not care less if we looked designed or not -- I suspect Susskind's view of an almost infinite amount of universes is very wrong. (just a gut feeling) I am not saying anyone is right this is obviously all fairly new.

I am just letting you know that the design argument was not put to bed by Spencer Tracy in the movie about the Scopes trial.
 
I'M TYPING IN UPPERCASE, NOT BECAUSE I'M ANNOYED, BUT BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE TIME TO APPROPRIATELY FORMAT MY REBUTTAL.

Quote from jem:

man this is annoying KJ I know you are smarte than this.

Ponder this:

1. if, there is only one universe according to susskind does science have a good explananation for the fine tuning?

YES. SUSSKIND SAYS IN THE AUDIO INTERVIEW THAT THE UNIVERSE IS DIFFERENT IN DIFFERENT LOCALES AND THAT IT ONLY APPEARS TO BE FINE TUNED IN OUR LOCALE BECAUSE WE EXIST IN AN AREA THAT IS HOSPITABLE TO HUMAN LIFE.

2. if there is only one universe does Susskind say it would appear designed?

NO. SEE ABOVE.

Like the deck of cards. if you hit billions of royal flushes in a row you could conclude the game was rigged. But if you played an infinite amount of hands you coud draw no such conclusion.

IF YOU ASSUME A LIMITLESS UNIVERSE (OR UNIVERSES), THEN EVERY STATISTICAL PROBABILITY IS EQUALLY LIKELY, WHEN CONSIDERING THE WHOLE. HOWEVER, A SUPERNATURAL INTELLIGENT DESIGNER IS NOT PART OF ANY UNIVERSE, SO IT IS NOT ONE OF THE POSSIBILITIES. IF IT WERE, THEN IT WOULD NO LONGER BE SUPERNATURAL, AND IF IT'S NOT SUPERNATURAL, THEN IT IS NOT THE "CREATOR" OF EVERYTHING.

This is the breakdown.

if we live in one univere the anthropic principle would lead a person who understood physics as we now do to conclude wow it sure looks designed.

BUZZZZZZ! INCORRECT. SUSSKIND STATES OTHERWISE IN THE AUDIO INTERVIEW, AND IN HIS WRITINGS.

But if you belive in multiverses you can conclude that our universe is one that is hospitible to life but the trillions of others are not. consequently we do not have to conclude design. We just live in the one of trillions of universes and ours works and has not collapsed on itself, and is flat etc.

BUZZZZZZ! INCORRECT. MULTIVERSES ARE SUFFICIENT, BUT NOT NECESSARY TO DISMISS THE EXISTENCE OF AN INTELLIGENT DESIGNER.

--

Susskind believes that it is more than dumb luck that the universe is so accommodating to human beings. "Can science explain the extraordinary fact that the universe appears to be uncannily, nay, spectacularly, well designed for our own existence?" he asks.

BUZZZZZZ! INCORRECT. THAT'S NOT WHAT SUSSKIND SAYS. HE SAYS THAT THE "APPEARANCE" OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN IS AN "ILLUSION."

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did you read that KJ?

YES, AND YOU ARE COMPLETELY INCORRECT ON EVERY SINGLE POINT!

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But does this mean that the religious fundamentalists have won? Must we invoke the existence of a god to account for the gaps in our knowledge? Susskind’s answer is "no" on both counts. As you might have guessed from the book’s subtitle, he argues that while "the appearance of intelligent design is undeniable", science can nevertheless explain it all. Phew! Thank God for that.
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how about that -- the "appearance" is undeniable.

ALREADY ASKED AND ANSWERED ABOVE.

from physics web.

http://physicsweb.org/articles/review/18/12/3

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I am not sure your know who Weinberg is...

YES, I KNOW WHO WEINBERG IS. IN THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE, HE ALSO DISMISSES FINE TUNING AND AN INTELLIGENT DESIGNER.

http://www.physlink.com/Education/essay_weinberg.cfm

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But remember this multiverse stuff is speculation. so what are you left with.

ACCORDING TO YOUR BELIEF SYSTEM, AND COMPLETE MISCONSTRUCTION OF THE ARGUMENT, YOU ARE LEFT WITH GOD. HOWEVER, ALL OF THOSE WHO YOU BELIEVE PROVIDE SUPPORT FOR YOUR ARGUMENT, ARE ACTUALLY DEMONSTRABLY HOSTILE TO YOUR POSITION.

AS AN AGNOSTIC, I, FRANKLY, COULD GIVE A SHIT ABOUT GOD. IF HE DOESN'T LIKE MY USE OF HIS UNIVERSE, HE CAN BILL ME.
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Quote from kjkent1:

I'M TYPING IN UPPERCASE, NOT BECAUSE I'M ANNOYED, BUT BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE TIME TO APPROPRIATELY FORMAT MY REBUTTAL.
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KJ that is bullshit accross the board. Your "buzzer wrong" response is not the type of answer that shows you are capable of disputing my statements. it shows you are frustrated and refuse to engage on the point.

I find it curious.

Your weinberg quote is clearly a non response also. he dismisses fine tuning in the context of these new speculations about muliverses.

Notice he did not dispute the findings about the cosmological constant and it application to one universe.
 
Quote from jem:

KJ that is bullshit accross the board. Your "buzzer wrong" response is not the type of answer that shows you are capable of disputing my statements. it shows you are frustrated and refuse to engage on the point.

I find it curious.

Your weinberg quote is clearly a non response also. he dismisses fine tuning in the context of these new speculations about muliverses.

Notice he did not dispute the findings about the cosmological constant and it application to one universe.
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Of course, all of my responses are irrelevant, and all of yours are well reasoned.

As far as I'm concerned, the conclusion is summed up by Susskind in the audio interview, i.e., the idea of fine tuning and/or an intelligent designer is "silly -- it's crazy!"

You believe otherwise, because his statement absolutely destroys your argument.

Admittedly, there's no one to judge this contest other than the other posters, all of whom have their own biases -- as do we.

So, kindly let it go, because it's a waste of both of our time.
 
jem,
String theory, multiverse, and other such speculations are only speculations. As such they leave more questions than answers. I don't believe that you understand the string theory more than I do. I think you're just using it to intimidate your opponent - who dares to argue that your understanding of the string theory is incorrect, when you're quoting the ultimate authority on the subject?

It is understandable that when people fail to find a coherent theory due to our limited understanding, some revert to assumption of superbeings. When the cavemen did not understand what lightening was, the wisest of them said that it was God who made the lightening. This had happened repeatedly in the history of science. Every single time, the advance of science came when the "natural" answers were found that replaced the "supernatural" answers.

Is this time different? I don't know but my bet is with science succeeding again.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_Number_Generator

"True" random numbers vs. pseudo-random numbers

Main article: pseudo-random number generator

There are two principal methods used to generate random numbers. One measures some physical phenomenon that is expected to be random and then compensates for possible biases in the measurement process. The other uses computational algorithms that produce long sequences of apparently random results, which are in fact determined by a shorter initial seed or key. The latter type are often called pseudo-random number generators.

A "random number generator" based solely on deterministic computation cannot be regarded as a "true" random number generator, since its output is inherently predictable. John von Neumann once famously said "Anyone who uses arithmetic methods to produce random numbers is in a state of sin." How to distinguish the output of a pseudo-randomgenerator from a "true" random number is a very difficult problem. However, carefully chosen pseudo-random number generators can be used instead of true random numbers in many applications. Rigorous statistical analysis of the output is often needed to have confidence in the algorithm.


Now, please show the mathematical formula by which you have ruled out design as the cause of biological events and changes, such that the claim can be factually, and rightly be offered that biological events are truly random, and not possibly programmed or by design.

Try this, follow around a human being and predict with accuracy each and every move them make for a period of a year...

Observation will show both random and predictable behavior, but both behaviors are the product of human intelligence, not lifeless ignorant chance...

Random is essentially an argument from the ignorance of "I can't see design, I can't see a pattern, I can't imagine a connectedness or purpose...so none must exist."

Call it the ostrich argument...

The ostrich rules out danger by putting on blinders...


Quote from james_bond_3rd:

Now you're showing your ignorance with the computers too.

What computer generates are not random numbers. They are pseudo-random numbers, meaning that they are tuned such that the correlations between these numbers are insignificant for the purpose of computation. For each type of "random" number generator, the correlations are well understood and people are advised to use the most appropriate generator for their tasks.

With today's technology, no computer can generate truly random numbers.

If biological events had similar types of correlations, it would be a very big deal and scientists would be all over them.
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