Life is Intelligently Designed

Thanks Pro. I. Preface I will like to begin with the pleasantries, indeed thanks to Pro for his participation in this debate. My thoughts are that if he wanted a full out debate on what constitutes intelligence, and whether or not naturalism can account for intelligence then I am glad to take it, but this debate is about life and whether or not it is intelligently designed. Anyway, this concludes my second in this series of ID debates, and I welcome future ID proponents to ask me for one. In any case, best of luck to Pro in the voting! II. Immaterial Intelligence: My original argument against intelligence and matter being separate entities has gone largely unaddressed by Pro. The argument is logically valid so he actually needed to contest the premises to avoid the conclusion, which debunks his entire notion of intelligence causing physical stuff to form. Note that this doesn't debunk the notion of ID altogether, but it does debunk the assertion that our own intelligence mandates a special explanation. Remember, I never at all denied that we (humans) are intelligent, I only contested the means by which we are intelligent. Pro has provided zero reasons for accepting his assertions that naturalism cannot account for intelligence and I have provided several reasons that to assume they are different substances is completely false. Recall my argument: P1. If mind and matter are not one in the same, then mind interacts with matter P2. If mind and matter are not one in the same, then mind does not interact with matter C. 1 & 2 form a contradiction, therefore mind & matter are one in the same. My support for P2 was actually for the stronger premise: P2*. If mind and matter are not one in the same, then mind CANNOT interact with matter The interaction problem is a well known problem in philosophy that demonstrates that by assuming dualism leads to insurmountable problems with interaction. The mind MUST interact with matter, yet mind CANNOT interact with matter, since it has no ability to. There needs to be some sort of 'medium', or transmitting entity, which given the laws of physics will require shared properties, which have been ruled out by definition in dualism. At no point must I deny that mind, and thus intelligence exists in naturalism, I only contest the causation/nature of mind. Which Pro has yet to provide a shred of evidence for. "It is not necessary to think of intelligence as completely immaterial, but it is necessary to admit something that is not limited by the laws of nature." In which case why make the extra assumptions if you now assert they do share properties? And asserting it's not limited to the laws of nature is the equivalent to advocating for magic, and if that is the case then I have absolutely no idea how Pro can even pretend to think he can make claims about the intelligence's nature, and what it has done in the natural world. An appeal to something that cannot possibly be understood is a self-defeating proposition. "Con says "we are talking about non-organic intelligence, which we simply do not have any evidence for its existence". But if intelligence is essentially immaterial and the physical is only its medium, like music being carried by mp3 bits, then we have abundant evidence for its existence. " 1. Pro has yet to even begin to demonstrate that intelligence is immaterial 2. Runs head-first into the interaction problem 3. This is not evidence, this is speculation III. Case for ID: Pro has largely missed the point on my refuting arguments against ID and IA, the arguments from telos and from lack of collateral evidence (non reproducing intelligent remnants, such as cars, phones, etc.). To attack my assertion of there being a lack of other intelligent remnants Pro asserts: "First of all, the ecosystem is in fact comprised of an uncountable number of different designs. " Two issues here, first I grouped life as a single example, as they are roughly the same type of thing, reproducing organisms based on DNA/RNA. I was attacking the lack of non-reproducing examples, which would not leave open the possibility of evolution, since many ID theorists only assert that the original life was ID, and then life today evolved from that. Of we are to follow Pro's reasoning, just WHERE and WHEN did ID occur if every living organism was ID?? "Speculating about the intentions of an unknown designer is of little value." Excellent, if that is the case then I don't see how Pro can begin to assert that life was ID if he cannot speak for how it would be ID, which would require an understanding of it's thought process. He basically forfeits any right to say what an IA would do, and subsequently, what an IA has done. Furthermore, this is special pleading, since he has applied known stuff about human intelligence to an IA, yet does not equally apply this standard to other things if we follows his line if reasoning. Pro has also completely ignored my argument from telos. Existence of an IA: "A purely natural origin of life is pure speculation. Pure speculation. Secondly, intelligence is in fact very much in evidence and it is every bit as reasonable as Darwin to suppose intelligence could have produced life." It is beyond my means to present all the evidence in favor of such, as there are many hypothesis', and all with evidence to affirm their case. But I would like to call attention of Pro's equivocation of 'intelligence' with 'intelligent agent/designer'. We simply do not have evidence of the existence of an IA (which Pro now resorts to calling on God), and hence the physical possibility of such doing ID. Equivocating human 'intelligence' with the metaphysical 'intelligence' needed for OOL is just patently absurd. The existence of one example does not support the existence of the other. IV. Case for Naturalism Note that I never advocated for a specific type of natural process that would generate life, as there are many such pathways, such a lipid world hypothesis, RNA world, metabolism first, etc. all are active areas of research, with their own states of progress. It could also be that all the specific hypothesis' for the OOL under investigation are wrong, but that would not rule out naturalistic causation. A large range of chemical processes can fit the bill of what I presented in this debate so far. An adaptive autocatalytic system is all that is needed, such as one that does not copy itself perfectly, and very, conceivably within reach of known natural processes. Note that what Pro attacks my position saying 'life has not been produced naturally', he is actually referring to life as it exists today, such as the modern halobacteria. But I have already argued that abiogenesis does not address the formation of these organisms, as they are far more sophisticated that what abiogenesis would yield. Abiogenesis only yields a system which is capable of leading to such a system's formation via. evolution. That is all that is needed. Pro constantly attacks my inability to present a case of life 'emerging', but as you have see so far in this debate, life 'emerging' is not a 'bang, it's done' type of thing, but instead is more of a continuous process which takes a long period of time, and has numerous variables influencing the rate and versatility of such. It is not something that would even take place in one set of conditions, it may require multiple different environments and a long time to produce a tangible system. The difficulty of replicating this are obvious, since the early Earth's conditions are up for debate, and the Earth is not a uniform planet, there are many different environments on Earth, ranging from hydrothermal vents, to the polar ice caps, to the Sahara desert. All have unique chemistry as a result. A very large set of plausible conditions for life to originate from. Pro dismisses my presentation as evolution as an explanation for the diversification of life, but offers no reasons why we should reject it. Remember the BoP is on him and I have presented a very plausible, and physically possible route by which life could occur today. Also remember he has yet to demonstrate the physical possibility of an IA, so this point remains valid. "You've got to stop medicating yourself with this nonsense about evidence because there isn't any. It's pure speculation." I would like to refer you to several excellent reviews on the field of abiogenesis. [1,2] This statement is flat out false. "You are certainly welcome to speculate about autocatalytic systems... but don't call speculation science until you've got experimental verification." Autocatalytic systems are very much well known in chemistry, and many OOL studies (with results) have been based on this principle. Speculation (forming tangible hypothesis'/theories is very much science). Given that I have presented a case which has gone barely addressed by Pro, we can conclude that it is a strong possibility, that is both driven to occur (via. thermodynamic stress), and has a large scale of opportunities to occur (the whole history of earth, and all planets in the universe). V. Conclusion: Let us not forget the purpose of by his debate. Pro has spent a long time attacking and asserting that naturalistic causes cannot account for the OOL and the diversification of life. But remember, this debate is about ID, and is demonstrated that it simply isn't enough to attack naturalistic causation, because if it is physically possible, then it becomes a certainty given enough trials. Personally I think I have done enough to affirm the naturalistic case in earnest, but it is unnecessary to win this debate. Pro has not done enough to independently affirm the existence of an IA, and therefore the physical possibility of ID. This debate has little to do with religion, and I can affirm there are many theists who accept both abiogenesis and evolution, it is just non topical, so to theists and atheists alike, vote Con! VI. References: 1. http://tinyurl.com... 2. http://tinyurl.com...