You know, but I don’t.
Could you explain how the shadow of a cloud generates complex information without intelligence?
- Pareidolia???
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There is information in the shadow – ground speed, shape, density of the cloud, direction of winds aloft…
Cloud Shadows.
“Aliens” is the usual term for natural intelligent technological agents other than human. The idea of aliens tinkering with Earth is within the realm of physical causation, and a number of otherwise skeptical scientists seem partial to such visits.
This is within the scope of scientific investigation. This first step is to investigate the potential for life in the universe. If aliens have the technology to visit Earth, then humans should be able to develop it as well for stellar treking. Exobiology attempts to determine what paths to life might exist on other planets.
None of that has much to do with biological complexity on our home world, mainly because life on Earth is generally explicable in terms of more mundane and familiar processes that either miracles or aliens. Almost all of ID boils down to some argument that such explanations are not sufficient, but the examples offered have ranged from not compelling to dishonest.
ID itself, when not appealing to recognition of intelligent design such as laptops on Mars, puts little or no stock in identifying aliens as plausible intelligent designers for life on Earth. It is almost as if the whole point was apologetics.
I can think of two approaches to investigating an intelligent cause of biological complexity that would be scientific. One would involve the hypothesis that nonhuman intelligent organisms (aka aliens) had a role. That approach would involve attempts to detect and characterize the aliens, identifying when and where they were likely present, looking for evidence of that presence, and attempts to identify the techniques they applied to life.
The other would be a more general treatment of intelligent design. What do we mean by intelligence here? What do we mean by design? Are there any features of intelligent design processes that could actually serve to distinguish them from non-intelligent processes? (I suspect not, but who knows?) I don’t think this approach would have a high probability of reaching any solid conclusions, but it might be interesting.
As far as I can tell, the ID movement has adopted neither approach.
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This is demonstrably not a valid test.
I can make salt or ice. But it is demonstrable this doesn’t mean all salt and/or ice is made by a natural intelligent. I can watch salt and ice forming in the world without the help of any natural intelligent.
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I think they think they are actually doing the latter or maybe even both, but in essence they are just arguments from incredulity. And they may not even be arguments but in fact only presumption.
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The test that I supposed in fact is done by Nobel prize laureates of 2018. They studied the use of evolution to create novelties. Evolution was able to improve existing functions multifolds, however for creating new functions, they needed to do the engineering themselves, and they did.
advanced-chemistryprize-2018.pdf (nobelprize.org)
“This ensures that the enzyme template in each round has at least some rudimentary starting activity under the conditions used in that round.”
“This is possible as long as the enzyme that is chosen as a starting point has at least some low level of activity for the intended reaction, i.e. some level of catalytic promiscuity (Figure 4, reviewed in e.g. 43-46). An inactive scaffold is not a suitable choice; directed evolution requires some low level of activity.”
Very interesting paper… but it was very clear that directed evolution was only used to speed up the natural process and not to do something that natural evolution was incapable of doing. But if that is the case then what is the conclusion from the fact that the evolution of the species took so long? Doesn’t this imply that evolution was not directed very much? At least… not in the way that the people writing this paper meant by directing evolution.
This is simply assuming that what we can measure is not supernatural. Otherwise known as begging the question. For all we know we could be measuring the supernatural. We have no way of knowing that we are not measuring the supernatural.
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Incorrect. It has nothing to do with assuming whether something is supernatural or not. The question is how do we measure a supernatural character to something. There simply is no such measure. Since science is about measurable things this renders the whole idea of something being supernatural irrelevant and meaningless to science. You can call everything supernatural until you are blue in the face but you have not given a reason why anyone in science should care one way or another.
But this really is a lot of empty rhetoric twisting words to no meaning at all. For the really relevant question is whether science can measure (explain, and control) everything. And it is the belief that science cannot measure (understand, and control) everything which leads to this distinction between the natural and supernatural. So we return to the central question which you avoid again and again… DO YOU BELIEVE God is measurable, testable, and controllable?
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No, this is simply a matter of definitions.
What is a unit of supernatural?
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Very nice answer to a good question. I’m glad that I read this far in the thread. And I hope we can discuss the topic of science, faith, and creation as it relates to observable happenings in the world 
… like the immediate effect of an uncaused cause 
(that was totally unintended)
This is really an ironic turn of phrase. For any observable happening, there will be three possible statements: it was caused by nothing (the event is uncaused), it was caused by another event (to which the same question applies) or it was caused by something that does not happen (an uncaused cause)
I know that the Catholic Church doesn’t have a definite teaching on how God brought life on earth into existence. The Church allows the faithful to believe that (the physical body of) Adam evolved from a non-human creature … but the Church also allows the faithful to reject evolution and believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis and a even young earth. The Church also allows the faithful to have no opinion at all about how God brought life on earth and Adam and Eve into existence.
In short, the Church allows a variety of beliefs/opinons about origins.
The matter of origins is hardly ever discussed in mainstream Catholicism … it’s pretty much a non-issue for 99.99% of Catholics.
The Catholic priest in the youtube video I watched seemed to claim that the Church condemns belief in universal common ancestry. If that is indeed what he’s preaching, then I believe he’s misrepresenting Church teaching on the matter. As far as I know, the Church doesn’t condemn belief in UCA.
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It only condemns the teaching that our soul came about in the same way and clarifies that it is only our body to which this common ancestry can apply.
I believe something similar but not the same. It is the human mind which I believe comes from God – not some nonphysical supernatural entity but this physical construct of ideas derived from the inspiration which comes from God.
I tend to agree. I think it’s impossible for us to determine to what extent God interacts with the physical world. And let’s not forget that the entire physical world comes from God was created by him from nothing.
Is God in the wind? Who knows?
Did God orchestrate evolution? I believe so, but such a belief cannot be proven.
I think all the Church’s bishops would agree that evolution is the best scientific explanation for the history of life on earth. But as for being the best theologically acceptable explanation, perhaps not.
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