Intelligent design theory is quickly gaining acceptance with school boards from Kansas to Pennsylvania. For those desiring to educate themselves on the basics of intelligent design theory I recommend the following simple self-education procedure:…
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— go to most recent comments76 - Zeno
One again the ID exponents return to bacterial flagella and blood-clotting sequences. These are classic ID arguments (in fact, there are none better) that have been pretty thoroughly smashed. (I have some links here.) Nevertheless, when someone offers an explanation, the IDer refuses to accept it. A reduced flagellum may no longer serve as a flagellum, but it might work perfectly fine as something else. IDers hate the idea of biological co-option because it kicks "irreducible" complexity in the teeth. Researchers have filled in many stages in the development of the blood-clotting sequence. That's okay, IDers point out that questions remain to be answered (so obviously God did it). ID is a hoax perpetrated for political purposes by those on a religious quest.
77 - Orac
Why would you look at your assumptions? Science isn't a democracy, and "insight" from people who have at best a superficial understanding of what evolutionary theory even is means little:
here's the link
78 - Kagehi
I am just going to make "one" comment. Someone brought of Abiogenesis. This hypothesis, while it has some potential to eventually give real explaination, it **not** currently sufficient to constitute proven and therefor, while it may be believed by many scientists as more likely than any other possibility, is *****not***** port of Evolution. Evolution by definition does not deal with life's origins, even if Darwin's book did talk about 'species' origin. This in itself makes half the argument between ID and Evolution pure bullshit. The other half that is bullshit is stupid claims like irreducible complexity, which projects like Avida have clearly shown can and do happen, at least in artificial conditions, in which only the most basic rules of evolution are implimented and without the external intervention of any 'guidence', beyond those rules. That the earth is a million times more complex simply means their are more rules to drive it, which means the results can be 'more' complex, just as adding more rules to Avida produces a wider variety of 'species' and more complexity.
Or to restate it. Half of ID's assumptions are *not* contradictory to evolution in the first place, since evolution itself makes no current or past claim about how life started, and the other half are purely based on incredulity.
79 - Liberal
"The slow successive and unguided modifications of Darwinism cannot produce a machine like this, not even with all the time in the world."
Now there's some good science! It is logically impossible to prove a negative, so simply assert the negative.
"And every example of information you will find..."
As long as you stop looking.
"The embarassment of the fossil record "
And an incomplete record of course means that nothing can be gleaned from the record that does exist.
"Nevertheless, when someone offers an explanation, the IDer refuses to accept it."
That's because research designed to support a predetermined result is not sciens. It is merely research designed to support a predetermined result. Any information that doesn't support that result is meaningless.
80 - Bennett
>"if I [Christianity] had the resources"
*time (thousands of years), money (billions of dollars), and a world-wide organizational structure (churches and preachers and priests)*
"that have been devoted to trying to sell Darwin"
Sell Darwin? Millions upon millions of hours have been spent by highly educated scientists (and a whole lot of non-scientists) to try and "un-sell" Darwin. i.e. To come up with a better model to describe what we observe on our planet.
Nothing else (no other Theory or explaination) that meets the rigors and requirements of science has been able to "Un-Sell" Darwin.
>"and the majority of the world's public still wasn't buying (christianity is not the biggest or the fastest growing god-worship system), I'd look at my assumptions"<
Yeah, lets worship Thor or Zeus or Some other God. Maybe the great billboard we call a "sky" will light up with glowing words of fire....
I tend to doubt that it will.
But I'm pretty sure that science will continue to uncover the reasons and the cures and the medicines.
Your God will do none of these things.
81 - fracas_futile
A few questions for the IDers:
If ID identifies an "inteligent designer," whose "inteligent designer" would it be? Christian, Navajo or Spaghetti Monster?
If ID proves an "inteligent designer," what does that do to the essential element of "faith" required by so many believers of an "inteligent designer?"
If science based ID proves an "inteligent designer," wouldn't this "scientific" proof then limit the "inteligent designer?"
82 - The Fifth Dentist
Yes, of course, in the same way that Babel Fish proved the non-existence of god.
83 - The Evil Atheist
I think it is quite a simple matter. Scientists claim ID is not science. (Most) Republicans claim it is. Scientists say, "Science only deals with what is testable and falsifiable. If something can be disproved, it qualifies as a hypothesis, and can be investigated as science." (Most) Republicans say, "If you find a method by which one of the irreducibly complex systems we show you could have come into being through naturalistic processes, ID will be disproved. Thus, it is testable and falsifiable." Scientists told them how. They ignored it. And here is the clincher: if an irreducibly complex system was explained through evolution (which they all have been), Intelligent Design would still not be disproved. The possibility still exists that a guiding hand was involved in the process from self-replicating molecule to human being.
84 - Bennett
You sound confused.
Never mind, this is funny:
"The possibility still exists that a guiding hand was involved in the process from self-replicating molecule to human being."
Spaghetti Monsters from Outer Space.
Hey, the possibility exists...
Sorta.
85 - Luke
POST 4 - John Landon: "Darwinians have brooght all this on themselves, by promoting such a sitting duck theory as Darwin's natural selection fraud."
John, Evolution doesn't begin and end with Mr. Darwin, anymore than physics begins and ends with Isaac Newton. Science can't simply look at patterns and say, "there's clearly a design here, an intelligence must have made it (codeword for GOD)" because that's taking the easy way out, even if GOD made it, scientists still must endeavor to find out how he did it, the fact that there's a design is the least important thing, discovering how the design came to exist is, if GOD used evolution as a design tool, then both theories are correct, however, evolutionists are the only scientists doing any actual research, ID proponents do nothing but sit around debunking evolution, you could in fact be shitting on GOD's wise choice to use evolution to create these designs.
86 - Bennett
Good stuff, Luke!
IDers say "Okay, no more science kiddies. It's all due to a GOD's plans and actions. Now back to church like good little lambs. No need to look behind the curtain!"
Heh!
87 - Arne Langsetmo
A single strand containing more data than an entire library.
Nonsense, of course. Not counting even redundancy, the 3 billion base pairs in the human genome contain at most 6 billion bits of information. Assuming 72 characters per line, 60 lines per page, about 4 bits (slightly more, actually) per character, and 600 pages per book, that's about 10 million bits per book. So 600 books should do it.
Or maybe your library needs a few more books. ;-)
Try taking a few basic science courses before you start spouting creationist/ID propaganda almost verbatim....
Cheers,
88 - Hobart
Good evening everyone.
I've never posted here before. Let me introduce myself. I'm a systems engineer by profession, and tend towards the I.D. position both by conviction and by, well, reason. However, I am fascinated by the theory of naturalistic evolution and enjoy learning about it.
Maybe I tend towards "ID" because I think of myself as at least somewhat "intelligent" yet most of my professional life is spent figuring out how supposedly intelligently designed systems mess up! It's hard to make things work, especially new, more complicated things, even on purpose.
My take on ID is that, while it may not be provable insofar as we can't reproduce it, it becomes tenable due to the impossibility of the contrary. Basic logic.
I've had a look at some attempts to refute Behe's notion of irreducible complexity. From my practical perspective, some of them are flawed in some basic assumptions. Is this blog a reasonable place to discuss this? Please give me some feedback, as I've never engaged in this before.
Thank you.
89 - Arne Langsetmo
ID holds that certain features are not reducible to mechanisms alone, and must be an intelligent agent's intervention.
Yeah, but then there's that little thing called "proof". You can "hold" it all you want (or at least until you go blind), but we're waiting for something more scientific in the way of "proof" than "I can't figger it out, so must be Gawddidit."
You do know, of course, that various IC examples posited by the ID folks have been shown to not be as "IC" as the ID folks would want you to believe (the blood clotting cascade, for instance).
Cheers,
90 - Bennett
"ID may not be provable insofar as we can't reproduce it, but it becomes tenable due to impossibility of the contrary"
You have links and references?
No, this is not a reasonable place to discuss ID if you arrive believing that anything other than ID is "impossible."
Most scientists who know about such things disagree with you.
Time to go back to school.
91 - The Evil Atheist
I don't think that is the purpose of it, but is a discussion area, and, as such, is as good a place as any (although perhaps not as good as ones specifically devoted to the topic). The "impossibility of the contrary" implies omniscience on your part, as you would have to know every single possible naturalistic explanation for the origin of species to make that statement accurately.
"You sound confused."
No, I was just demonstrating the untestability. Perhaps I was not as eloquent as I would have liked to be. To the claim of untestability, the standard ID response is that "showing a method by which an irreducibly complex biological system could have arisen through entirely naturalistic explanations would disprove (falsify) Intelligent Design. Therefore, it is falsifiable, and qualifies as a hypothesis." I was saying that it would not disprove it at all, as there would be no evidence saying there was no design involved. Therefore, it is not falsifiable, does not qualify as a hypothesis, and does not qualify as science.
92 - Luke
Hobart, you're right, 99% of biologists are stupid, GOD is the ultimate irreducibly complex pattern, give me a theory for where he came from, or shut the fuck up, because scientists know more than you do.
93 - Arne Langsetmo
You site Talkorigins.org [has] a clear naturalistic/atheistic agenda and want nothing more than to censor the I.D. camp. And they have demonstrated time and again that they are willing to use blatant deceit (as well as out-dated data) to achieve their purpose.
Oh, really? Care to cite an actual example of such?
Say, speaking of "out-dated data", isn't your Bible getting a bit dog-eared? IIRC, it says that bats are birds and insects have 4 legs, not to mention cute tricks for raising spotted lambs that certainly falsify Mendel's passe "genetics". Why you continue to rely on it as any authority at all is beyond me...
Cheers,
94 - Hobart
Thanks for the varied input.
Perhaps I should have written,
"it would become tenable if the contrary was shown to be essentially impossible."
I won't take the time to supply references for the laws of logic.
The point is that both evolution and ID are not reproducible, certainly as regards the question of origins. If either can be shown to be impossible, the other theory wins by default.
If naturalistic evolution is "impossible" (and I'm talking about macroscopic evolution that creates complex systems from basic building blocks) then something other than naturalistic evolution must be to blame. ID is one possibility. Perhaps there is another - that, somehow, we will find a naturalistic evolution someday? But, this is classified as faith, which is religious in nature.
But, certainly just because I can't figure it out doesn't mean no one can. That's one reason for a discussion, right?
95 - The Evil Atheist
That's not true, because science, by definition, does not allow appeals to the supernatural. Science looks for answers through observation and testing, and neither can be applied to God. Science does not rule out intervention by extraterrestrial agents, but there is no reason to believe that any have ever visited the Earth. And evolution (unlike ID) is reproducible. Bacteria constantly evolve resistance to antibiotic agents, one of the most common examples of selection, and, although speciation is rare, several examples have been observed. Also, evolution makes specific predictions that have been tested (e.g. general increase in complexity as one progresses from older strata to newer).
96 - Luke
Not a lot of things can be proven or disproven unfortunately, except for a few obvious things, like the earth going around the sun, stuff made from atoms, the basic newtonian laws of physics (in stuff big enough to see with the naked eye) etc. And then there's the 99.99% of things that we DON'T understand, and probably never will, but evolution is still the best bet at trying to figure out biology, saying "god made it" is a cop out, in the worst possible way.
97 - Luke
I'd ask Hobart why an intelligence would create diseases to kill off the more complex organisms, but he's probably waiting patiently to throw in a "satan did it" somewhere, or a "god did it so that humans would have an evil to fight against, because good can only exist as a flip-side to evil, and vice-versa"
98 - Hobart
Science does allow appeals to the intelligent. Forensics and archaeology, for example.
Evolution as applied to our own origins is not reproducible because we cannot model the initial conditions. We were not there to observe it. But, I certainly agree that if we could show that random processes are capable of producing life from non-life, then it would make a powerful case for evolution as being our raison d'etre.
But, I'm also interested in more macroscopic issues. I'm too simple-minded, perhaps ...
Some time ago I read the classic "The Naked Ape," every word of it. Very interesting. The author advances "the aquatic ape theory" to explain our external layer of fatty tissue. We have it. Apes don't have it. Whales do have it. So, he posits that prehumans went through an aquatic stage where we swam alot and thus developed this layer of fat, like whales.
This whole thing seems really funny to me. It's a just-so story. If I'm required to believe this sort of stuff in order to believe in evolution (like 99% of the biologists) then I'll just as well believe in Harry Potter.
But more germane to my own profession, I've been interested in the whole problem of the origin of flight for several years. Well before "ID" became well-known, I puzzled over how to "evolve" a cold-blooded, four-footed, fast crawling, diaphram-lunged reptile into a cross-flow lunged, hollow-boned, winged, feathered bird - all using a step-by-step process in which each generation was more performant than the preceding.
I can't do it. But, I'm not all-knowing. Maybe some of you can. If so, please sketch it out for me (10 or 15 generations at least) and tell me where to see the drawing. I'm quite serious.
Incidently, a belief in evolution can be scientifically blinding. Ask National Geographic. They were so ready to "prove" the evolution of flight that they paid 10 grand for a fake composite fossel from some chinese farmer and featured it several years ago, even in the face of dubious origins. They did make a formal retraction after the fossil was proved a fake.
The whole thing was fascinating, a case of self-deception.
99 - Randy Kirk
The argument that aliens, etc., might be posited as the agents of design doesn't help the discussion. While ID wants to have a place at the table without the God of the Bible as the agent, right now I don't think anyone would have a better source of the intelligence.
It is not scientific to deny the observations of 2B people.
100 - Bennett
"The whole thing was fascinating, a case of self-deception."
Exactly like religion, imo.
101 - Hobart
That's the point, Bennett. Evolution can become a surrogate religion, based on faith and hostile to challenge.
102 - Luke
My reasoning is that there're flightless birds, which to me suggests two scenarios, animals evolved winglike structures that were completely useless, and then some nifty evolution happened and they figured out they could fly, or you had some birds that flew, and for some reason it turned out they could survive better on land, so some nifty evolution made them (not aerodynamic enough to fly) I'm just guessing of course, but why would an intelligent agent design a bird that couldn't fly, seems like a stupid thing to do, if you could suggest ID in the origin of flight, maybe it's another case of a little from collumn A a little from collumn B an intelligent agent uses evolution or mutation of existing species to create something that can fly, and in a lot of the attempts made at a flying animal, it ended up with a goofy looking bipedle mammal with wings that didn't do anything, but it was aero dynamic as intended, but that only meant it could run fast, I'm thinking of emu's and ostriches here, and of course penguins<--they're aero-dynamic when sliding down the ice on their belly toboggan style.
103 - Arne Langsetmo
I won't take the time to supply references for the laws of logic.
The point is that both evolution and ID are not reproducible, certainly as regards the question of origins. If either can be shown to be impossible, the other theory wins by default. [emphasis added]
Missed this little facet of "logic", I'd say.
But testing the theory of evolution is "reproducible", in the sense that we can repeat experiments which bear out facets of the theory of evolution, and in addition, can extend these experiments to other areas to show if the theory of evolution (or the part being tested) is in fact more general. Keep in mind that "experiment" here doesn't require that we start the observed process ourselves; merely that we can use the theory to make predictions about the results of observations, and then see if the actual observations bear out the predictions. A case in point is the theory of plate tectonics; quite a bit was known, and the theory won acceptance, before we developed means of measuremeny accurate enough to actually measure the current movement of the plates (not to mention, even the current movement doesn't say everything about what happened previously, so that Pangea was deduced from lots of evidence other than currently measured movements). Considering the means of "discovery" of the theory of plate tectonics should shed a bit of light as to what really constitutes "experiment" and what is possible in the scientific realm.
HTH.
Cheers,
104 - Luke
Hobart, check out the theory of quantum evolution, there's a book about it which I'm thinking of getting (if i can't download a copy) the idea is that in quantum mechanics everything is probability, but at the sub-atomic level, all possibilities happen at the same time, however all except one of those possibilities actually physically effect us at a macroscopic level, (I'm putting it into terms that I understand, I actually can't get my mind around quantum mechanics, but it's fun to think about) The point is, a quantum action, has a number of possible reactions, in the case of biology, a number of possible mutations, so logical reasoning would suggest that there's a million to one shot that the mutation would be beneficial to the organism, but anything quantum doesn't follow normal logic, it's possible that all mutations happen at the same time, and through some miracle all the un-beneficial mutations are sifted out into the non-physical quantum dimensions, leaving behind the only one which is actually helpful to the organism as a whole, so you needn't end your "intelligent" opinion at the junction of creationism vs evolution, because there's a smorgasbord of nifty philosophical idea's about the origins of life on this planet to fill your head with, with just enough pseudo science to be considered a real theory, so don't be marginalized, because I think that's the only truely "unintelligent design" concerning the human psyche.
105 - Hobart
Arne, note that I've not invoked the "God of the Bible." The question is more general - materialism or not materialism. The law of logic to which I refer is the most basic: "If A then not not A," i.e., the existence of negation. Materialism is the negation of intelligence - or, the old "matter first, then mind" or "mind first, then matter." If there is another alternative, then please educate me.
Luke, you're saying (I think) that we observe surprising things in nature. Thus, any intelligent designer must be bizarre ...
That's not the question. I am asking if you (or anyone else) can realistically propose a scenario for how to get from lizard to bird. If no one can, then it doesn't mean it didn't happen. Even if all the world's scientists can't imagine how it happened, it doesn't mean it didn't happen. It does mean that we are required to accept that it did happen by faith.
I accept very much the need for any good theory to make predictions. The observed fact that all disease has a genetic component - a basic finding of the human genome project - is counter what one would expect from the theory of evolution. Think about it. Evolution says that mutations have added information and ultimately created all life. Observation says that mutations are related to disease - from cancer to heart problems. Mutations, according to observation today, are at best neutral. In some cases, a mutated gene gives better than a 95% chance of cancer before age 50. This is "de-evolution."
I've recently read in the media about how Darwin was proven right because chimp DNA is quite close to humans. Interesting. The whole field of taxonomy was established before Darwin, and it places apes and humans right next to each other. DNA tends to confirm taxonomy, not Darwin.
Furthermore, as regards DNA in general, it is terribly hazardous to the health of evolution as a theory. Darwinism in no way predicted the complexity of life on a macro biological level. On the contrary, the more specificity we find, the more displeasing becomes evolution as an explanation. Evolution tends to loose the prediction game.
106 - Hobart
Sorry, Luke, you're faster than I am. Your post touches on some of the points I just made ...
But, note that you used the word "miracle." Maybe just by habit?
And, note that mutations are generally bad, as I stated in my last post. I know of no mutation that increases the information content AND results in greater survivability.
You're referring to some stuff that tries to maintain that matter is self-organizing. I'm not too familiar with it. But, if it's true it must be verifiable, right? If it's true, then we should rather easily be able to duplicate conditions on the early earth and watch as life evolves. I'm all for prototyping and experimentation.
107 - Luke
I'm not going to give you a realistic scenario because I'm not a biologist, so all I can do is tell you what I think, so here goes, a lizard evolves to have a flexible web like skin between it's front and back legs, so now it's a reptile version of a flying fox, it doesn't actually fly but it glides, then it evolves to have bones inside the skin and then evolves to have the web split from the back legs, then somewhere along the line it becomes a mini-teradactle, then evolves into a teradactle, then the teradactle evolves into a bird of some kind etc etc.
Mutations are bad, and then they die, natural selection is suppose to kill the ones who have bad mutations, the good ones lives and have babies, this is at least how I understand the concept.
A miracle is either a miracle, or something we haven't explained yet, and even if it's a miracle, in that the creator has done it, we still have to explain how he did it, and how it is he even exists in the first place, but having said that, it's verifiably impossible for humans to know everything.
As for the matter being self organizing, it is verifiable that sub-atomic particles can be in two places at once, this implies parallel dimensions, as for the implications of this in the field of biology, it's still just an idea, the guy who wrote the book is a biologist.
108 - The Evil Atheist
"This whole thing seems really funny to me."
Hey, ever hear of an argument from incredulity? "I can't figure it out, so it can't have happened." ID adds: "Therefore, God did it. Or space aliens." The point is, the argument relies on you having a thorough understanding of the subject matter. There are physicists who doubt string theory. Do you doubt string theory, Hobart? If so, why? If not, why not? Of course, that won't apply if you turn out to actually be a physicist, but I think you get the point. Argument from incredulity does not logic make.
109 - Arne Langsetmo
Hobart: look here
Oh, sure, sure, you're just a disinterested commentator, and you're not a Christian. And I'm the pope. Glad to meet you. Now bless you, child, and sin no more.
The law of logic to which I refer is the most basic: "If A then not not A," i.e., the existence of negation.
Hmmm. (Leaving behond for a moment your rather poor expression of your idea here) that ol' binary thinking. Guess you didn't understand the "fallacy of bifurcation" link I gave above. There's things that are true even in formal logical systems that can't be "proved" true within the system (see Godel's work, for instance). They aren't necessarily false; in fact they aren't false at all. They're undeterminable. But we aren't talking about formal logical systems here, necessarily, and we certainly aren't talking about formal logical propositions where the only two alternatives are "true" and "false".
Hobart: "Materialism is the negation of intelligence - or, the old 'matter first, then mind' or 'mind first, then matter.'"
Huh? I suspect you need to look up "materialism". What possesses you to think that "[m]aterialism is the negation of intelligence"? Just as a fer'instance: If a factory is making watches to designs and specifications of (arguably) intelligent watchmakers, do you deny the "materialistic" nature of the manufacturing process? (Note, however, that just because materialistic processes are not incompatible with the existence of "intelligence", not all materialistic processes require intelligence as part of the process).
HTH.
Cheers,
Cheer
110 - Arne Langsetmo
Hobart: The observed fact that all disease has a genetic component - a basic finding of the human genome project - is counter what one would expect from the theory of evolution.
Huh? Why? Please explain. In fact, wouldn't genetic susceptibility to disease be generally more of a strike against "intelligent design"? I don't see that it's a problem for evolutionary theory, though....
Cheers,
111 - Bob A. Booey
A lesson for you all: Never start a topic about Intelligent Design, even if it's satirical, because the religion weirdos will come and make it an endless, pointless discussion. I think they're like bugs who hide under tree trunks and wait to come out and spread their larvae and maggots all over the place after it rains.
That is all.
112 - Arne Langsetmo
Hobart:
OBTW, ignore the Tom Torrow link (cut and paste error; I thought I'd cut and pasted this: "Arne, note that I've not invoked the 'God of the Bible.'", but had old cut buffer contents instead). But feel free to peruse Tom Tomorrow's comics; they're quite educational....
Sorry for the snafu.
Cheers,
113 - Stuart R. Harper
Hobart, it's trait survival not individual's longevity that's important.
My limited understanding of natural selection is rule#1: get your genes to children who can reproduce. If a mutation causes you to produce more survivable progeny over a reduced lifespan, natural selection will prefer those genes regardless of the effect/disease to the parent.
BTW since we're both IT people I have to ask, have you every seen a purely designed system work completely as planned? The ghost is ALWAYS in the machine, the meta rules and behavior that govern a complex system can only be seen while the system is running. That in and of itself makes me dubious of a grand creator.
114 - Luke
how about memetics(play on words, memory+genetics=memetics), that is tiny pieces of information which can be copied, memetics has led to extremely complex patterns with no creator in sight, all of human culture, art, language, and technology has simply sprung into existance in the endless choas of humanity's collective consciousness. Complete and utter choas, and all this complicated shit has come from it, so these tiny pieces of data that when strung together form words, memories, and idea's, basically anything that can be stored in your mind, are being copied from one mind to the next, and the meme's which help you to survive (information you literally can't live without) are more highly capable of being copied because of their neccessity to the organism that it is being copied to, the idea of religion is a series of memes that has survived for thousands of years due to mankinds need to understand the origin of existance, and to explain external forces which make no sense, where does wind come from, the wind god of course, meme's may change over time, but the worthless ones are erased, if i just start typing asdofkjhp9uyhtpoknlcgflkjhposaiujrlkjsadgkjidfjgijfg, what insentive do you have to remember that, the meme i just created has died almost imediately after i created it. So complex idea's are evolving constantly, and stupid idea's don't last much longer than it took to think of them. The point is, meme's form irreducibly complex patterns, for example, did a human one day suddenly split a rock by striking it against another at a particular angle so that a shard would break off, and then at the same time started twisting stringy vine type vegetation around itself to create some kind of twine, and then get the straightest fallen branch he could find and remove all of the twigs that were sticking out the sides, and then use the twine to tie the shard to the end of the stick to make a spear, if he never knew how to make a spear, then why would he bother to copy a meme about having a straight stick, or a meme about having a piece of twine, or a meme about making a sharp rock, individually they're useless, so it's an irreductibly complex pattern, therefore, god imparted on man the knowledge to create a spear.
115 - Temple Stark
Culture Section Editor Lisa Hoover thought this post was great and worthy. Click HERE to find out why.
116 - The Fifth Dentist
I'd like to thank the academy, my crack research team, mom and dad, and of course Bill Dembski. A lot of people think that it's easy to write a three paragraph screed telling people to shove a book up their ass and hit themselves on the head with a toilet seat ... but there's a hell of a lot more to it than that.
117 - The Fifth Dentist
Now that I'm an award-winning social critic, I'd like to cross-promote my latest piece de resistance HERE. It's about a boy from a small town in Texas, whom everyone thought was stupid and worthless, but who grew up to be the leader of the greatest nation in history and in only 5 short years turned that country into what it is today! Dave Nalle says: "[s]atire is supposed to be funny and this is just bitter and petty."
118 - Victor Lana
Fifth,
Got up to step three and then messed up. Will I be cross-eyed forever? Just wondering.
119 - The Fifth Dentist
Quite possibly. You should probably just continue on to step four to be safe.
120 - Hobart
Several interesting comments, but not much time now to respond. Let's see:
Arne: note that in your watch example you presuppose "mind" first. Certainly we create processes that run when we're not around. Yet, materialistic processes that make anything complex do, in fact, require "mind" first. It is designed.
Wind on sand is a non-mind materialistic process and it does create patterns, but information content is low. It does not make sand castles nor write "John loves Susan."
Arne also: problem w/ evolution regarding mutation's relation to disease is that evolution ascribes to mutation the ability to increase information content, yet we observe losses in information as the norm. We observe mutation as "bad" not "good."
In colon cancer, for example, generation "A" which has no mutation of a key gene (like most of us) will only get colon cancer if several other risk factors combine. But, if in generation B a single gene is mutated (like some of us have) then no matter what diet and life-style choices are made, the person will certainly get colon cancer.
Luke: you get the prize. Good job. You're really trying to make a lizard into a bird. However, aerodynamically and anatomically speaking, gliders (like flying squirrels) are different from flyers. One can definitely imagine speciation occurring, like a non-flying squirrel to a flying squirrel. It's difficult to go much farther.
There is no evolotionary link (according to those 99% of scientists who espouse evolution) between flying reptiles and birds. Flight independently evolved 4 times: reptile to bird, reptile to flying reptile, non-flying mammal to flying mammal, non-flying insect to flying insect.
Again, I have an open invitation to anyone wishing to follow Luke's example and try to (intelligently) imagine how to evolve a bird.
Finally, Evil Athiest. I'm not making an argument only from incredulity. I'm demonstrating that it's not just dumb-ole me who can't figure it out. The devil is in the details, so to speak. Those messy little details, like how to describe plausible step-by-step evolutionary scenarios, are important.
121 - diana hartman
I'm relatively new to the research of ID - a year or so. I have been looking for proof of it. After reading Dembski and a few others, I've so far concluded that they look for connections between science and theology in much the same way as those who sought and found connections based on the number of letters in both Lincoln and Kennedy's names -- proving absolutely nothing in the process. I'm especially disturbed by the equating of scientific constants with "design" and the idea that this is any kind of proof of an intelligent designer, and yet the design definition doesn't allow or even attempt to explain exceptions. When scientists can't explain something they say "we don't know" or "this is our best guess". They don't make things up or refer back to "we know God created the universe". And if you already have the solution to the problem, why not go back to where you got it and get the rest of the equation. We're to believe that God created the universe and gave us the knowledge that he created the universe and that's it? Is this some kind of sick theological rubik's cube?
An assertion isn't true just because it can't be disproven. I can't disprove that four plus armchair equals banana.
It's as if this "bridge" between science and theology is being built by small children with construction paper and elmer's glue laboring under the delusion that the elements will not destroy their medium.
122 - DrPat
Diana's "four plus armchair equals banana" characterization of the ID argument is spot-on.
I've often wondered why proponents of God's Design in the world would presume that He gave us the intelligence and rationality (not the same things, unfortunately) to perceive the way life has developed from its beginnings to its curreent complexity, if not to reject the "because I said so" argument.
And that holds true whether the "I" who says so is the Diety or the ID fan...
123 - Arne Langsetmo
Hobart:
Arne: note that in your watch example you presuppose "mind" first. [emphasis added]
No. I think you completely missed my point. You were blathering about "mind" and "materialism" being mutually exclusive. I put forth a situation that even you might agree had elements of both. Clear now?
Yet, materialistic processes that make anything complex do, in fact, require "mind" first.
Some do. No one argues that (in fact, I used such an example just above. Your task is to show that all such "materialistic processes ... require 'mind' first". If you can't do that, you'd have to admit that it's possible that some such "materialistic processes" do not require such.
Wind on sand is a non-mind materialistic process and it does create patterns, but information content is low.
Ummm, please define "information content". Feel free to use S, or if you prefer, Shannon entropy, or whatever, as long as it's a generally accepted measure of "information content". FWIW, "patterns" (at least as colloquially used) are indicia of low information content (at least with the measures I suggested above).
Arne also: problem w/ evolution regarding mutation's relation to disease is that evolution ascribes to mutation the ability to increase information content, yet we observe losses in information as the norm. We observe mutation as "bad" not "good."
Look, mutations take place whether you accept evolution or not. Whether you like it or not, mutations do increase "information content" (by any standard measure). Whether they increase information within the genome of a specific organism and its progeny varies. Deletions reduce information, but insertions and duplications increase it. Whether that is "bad" or "good" has not a lot to do with whether it's an insertion or deletion; beneficial mutations can result from deletions, and deleterious ones from duplications. You may claim that you view "mutation as 'bad' not 'good'", but that's simply your unsupported, simplistic, and uninformed opinion (not to mention being a parroting of Creationist/ID pseudoscientific nonsense...).
Note, BTW, that for evolutionary processes to work, it is not needed that all mutations be beneficial, or even a majority. I'll admit deleterious mutations if you'll admit beneficial ones? Deal?
Also BTW, evolution doesn't consider a mutation beneficial or deleterious per se; in many, many cases, it's a function of environment. Drug resistance is benefical and selected for in the presence of antibiotics, and is lost again when this selection pressure is removed; it's just not needed, and weakens or disappears. Another BTW, many mutations are neutral (or close to neutral); some don't even change AA coding (there's redundancy in the codes). This hogwash of the Creationists (and some ID folks) about mutations always being deleterious is simply false.
Cheers,
124 - Arne Langsetmo
Hobart: Flight independently evolved 4 times: reptile to bird, reptile to flying reptile, non-flying mammal to flying mammal, non-flying insect to flying insect.
Glad you acknowledge that. Looks like we're getting somewhere. ;-)
Cheers,
125 - Quicksilver
Irreducible complexity: Even assuming a single cell posesses this what does this mean? Just because something is irreducible doesn't mean it is the best way to achieve the result. It only means that it is the simplest way to achieve the result using the same method. It also does not imply that prior to cells there was not a life form *more* complex and less efficient that existed. We're based on cells.... Does this mean they are the only way to construct life? To say so would be thus assuming *you* are God and know all there is about creation of life. So here's the dilema: You either accept the obvious contradiction that you are God or you accept that cells could have *evolved* from something else. Q.E.D
(... and promptly disappears in a puff of...)
Assume that evolution *can't* explain how single cells developed. So? If we can't explain it then it *has* to have come from intelligent design that we can never understand? So the arguement reduces to if we don't understand it now we never can. For the sake of myself and Dad (cured of cancer) I'm sure glad I.D didn't take hold in the past.