tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post5408744503045126309..comments2024-01-23T02:32:28.567-08:00Comments on Darwin's God: Professor: God Would Not Create the Giraffe’s Recurrent Laryngeal NerveUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger123125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-85464746841515116442010-12-31T10:10:38.510-08:002010-12-31T10:10:38.510-08:00Joseph -
" I believe what evolution is and ...Joseph - <br /><br />" I believe what evolution is and the definition given by Ritchie seems more of heartfelt emotional passion for expressing a belief while not totally understanding that belief. At least that belief's original meaning at the beginning when it was created."<br /><br />How so, exactly?Ritchiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03494987782757049380noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-89435636919648868252010-12-31T08:46:19.529-08:002010-12-31T08:46:19.529-08:00johan wrote:
Prof Felsenstein
You write:
//long...johan wrote:<br /><br /><i>Prof Felsenstein<br /><br />You write:<br /><br />//long after that and even today, his LCCSI prevents essentially all adaptation by natural selection.//<br /><br />Dembski's conservation theorems is not against natural selection or adaptation per se, it's against the idea that one can somehow find small targets while one has no knowledge about where to look. As natural selection cannot guide mutations, it cannot tell evolution where to look, natural selection must patiently wait for random mutations to stumble upon the sequences that happen to lead to fitness. Only after these sequences have been found (by blind search if Darwinian evolution was true) and only after these have caused the organism to have a functional advantage over other organisms in the population does this become visible to natural selection.</i><br /><br />Dembski's argument is that the specification (and I argue that fitness is the valid specification to consider) cannot increase by more than a certain amount (the amount that leads it to be considered by him Complex, about 500 bits). If all the appropriate mutations have occurred, his argument seems to rule out having natural selection cause them to rise in frequency and fix in the population, at least by enough to carry us out into the upper tail of the fitness distribution and be in its upper (1/2)^500. It is thus <i>not</i> an argument about unavailability of beneficial mutations. You misunderstand his argument.Joe Felsensteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06359126552631140000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-72629771584526569282010-12-31T08:40:47.055-08:002010-12-31T08:40:47.055-08:00Corax,
I'm in agreement that what we might c...Corax, <br /><br />I'm in agreement that what we might consider 'poor' design is insufficient to exclude design. <br /><br />My point is that ID's claim of design in regards to the concrete biological complexity we observe is an implicit a claim that the designer in question actually *would* design that complexity. Otherwise, the theory would be limited to some kind of abstract outcomes. However, this is not the case. ID is clearly referring to the concrete biological complexity we observe. How do we get there from a being that could have designed anything or absolutely nothing?<br /><br />Again, we need an explanation why this, rather than something else. Given the problem of induction, that's the best we can do. <br /><br />The routing of the Giraffe's laryngeal nerve is relevant because it represents an example of a concrete design. Unless ID is going to exempt Giraffes from its theory, it's implicitly claiming that a designer *would* actually design it's nerve as we observe it. But ID fails to provide a reason for this specific design, rather than some other possible design. That's just what the designer must have wanted. <br /><br />In contrast, the concrete routing of the Giraffe's laryngeal nerve is better explained by evolutionary theory.Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11193595678064010528noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-72642272873967915102010-12-31T08:38:53.402-08:002010-12-31T08:38:53.402-08:00Corax wrote:
Why do you need an explanation of th...Corax wrote:<br /><br /><b>Why do you need an explanation of the reason why a designer designed it that way in order to know it was designed or not? </b><br /><br />We have specific examples of buildings that are known to be designed from which we can make detailed comparisons with the specific building in question. And it exhibits a large number of features that correlate with a relatively specific set of goals, needs and limitations of a specific cause which is known to exist: human beings. <br /><br />However, unlike the building in your analogy, we lack examples of planets populated with known designed biological complexity, from which we can make reasonable comparisons to that found on our own. Nor could we have any features or indicators to to correlate to the goals, needs or limitations of an abstract designer.Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11193595678064010528noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-41185061051124334242010-12-31T08:38:34.536-08:002010-12-31T08:38:34.536-08:00johan said about my refutation of Dembski's ar...johan said about my refutation of Dembski's argument:<br /><br /><i>Prof Felsenstein, <br /><br />Before we go on, I have a bone to pick with you with regards to something else you wrote in your piece. You write:<br /><br />"According to Dembski's argument we would not need to worry: bacteria infecting a patient could not evolve antibiotic resistance. Human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) would not become resistant to drugs. Insects would not evolve resistance to insecticides."<br /><br />But this is false, for example when bacteria obtain the ability to resist bacteria via mutations this is usually by what Behe would consider "loss of function" mutations, this does not violate anything Dembski has argued.</i><br /><br />Dembski's argument is that he has ruled out any gain of Complex Specified Information, and if the specification is fitness, that argument (his original LCCSI and the Design Detector) rules out any change that is a gain in fitness (that is big enough). It says <i>nothing</i> about whether this change is loss of function versus gain of function. That is a later add-on by others. Show me where in Dembski's detailed presentation of the LCCSI or the Design Detector he raises the issue of loss versus gain.Joe Felsensteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06359126552631140000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-41080334954359507432010-12-31T08:35:58.194-08:002010-12-31T08:35:58.194-08:00This comment has been removed by the author.Joe Felsensteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06359126552631140000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-34636237601082628732010-12-31T06:32:04.402-08:002010-12-31T06:32:04.402-08:00@Prof Felsenstein
You write:
//long after that a...@Prof Felsenstein<br /><br />You write:<br /><br />//long after that and even today, his LCCSI prevents essentially all adaptation by natural selection.//<br /><br />Dembski's conservation theorems is not against natural selection or adaptation per se, it's against the idea that one can somehow find small targets while one has no knowledge about where to look. As natural selection cannot guide mutations, it cannot tell evolution where to look, natural selection must patiently wait for random mutations to stumble upon the sequences that happen to lead to fitness. Only after these sequences have been found (by blind search if Darwinian evolution was true) and only after these have caused the organism to have a functional advantage over other organisms in the population does this become visible to natural selection.<br /><br />JohanD4rw1n_sk3ptichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17558520641679568293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-3730627541644414232010-12-31T05:54:07.233-08:002010-12-31T05:54:07.233-08:00Prof Felsenstein,
Before we go on, I have a bone...Prof Felsenstein, <br /><br />Before we go on, I have a bone to pick with you with regards to something else you wrote in your piece. You write:<br /><br />"According to Dembski's argument we would not need to worry: bacteria infecting a patient could not evolve antibiotic resistance. Human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) would not become resistant to drugs. Insects would not evolve resistance to insecticides."<br /><br />But this is false, for example when bacteria obtain the ability to resist bacteria via mutations this is usually by what Behe would consider "loss of function" mutations, this does not violate anything Dembski has argued. Micro biologist Kevin Anderson writes about mutations that lead to anti biotic resistance:<br /><br />"..These mutations result in the loss of pre-existing cellular systems/activities, such as porins and other transport systems, regulatory systems, enzyme activity, and protein binding. Antibiotic resistance may also impart some decrease of “relative fitness” (severe in a few cases), although for many mutants this is compensated by reversion. The real biological cost, though, is loss of pre-existing systems and activities"<br /><br />Lee Spetner writes:<br /><br />"This change in the surface of the microorganism's ribosome prevents the streptomycin molecule from attaching and carrying out its antibiotic function. It turns out that this degradation is a loss of specificity and therefore a loss of information. The main point is that Evolution… cannot be achieved by mutations of this sort, no matter how many of them there are"D4rw1n_sk3ptichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17558520641679568293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-2373095487057640572010-12-30T05:54:33.906-08:002010-12-30T05:54:33.906-08:00johan said (after looking at my article that refut...johan said (after looking at my article that refutes Dembski)::<br /><br /><i>You were first accusing ID theorists of using theological arguments for ID, and now you are arguing that ID-theoretic concepts have been refuted.</i><br /><br />Yes. But the very opening sentences of that article make clear my position: the positive arguments about what ID predicts are not science, but the negative arguments about what evolution cannot explain are science. So no self-contradiction.<br /><br /><i>Also, I don't see how you have refuted anything, you say CSI translates to highly fit designs, how does this make it any easier for evolution to explain complexity? Yes fitness might be good for the organism, and if a good design helps an organism survive, natural selection would be sure to preserve such designs no argument, but this doesn't make it any easier for random mutations or any other blind search to stumble upon such designs.</i><br /><br />Dembski's argument is an impossibility (well, OK, astronomically extreme improbability) argument that claims that natural selection cannot create Specified Information, which in the fitness case translates to higher fitness. I show that his theorems don't prove this. I even give a simple case with four different bases at one site in a piece of DNA where one can see that the equations of population genetics predict that the more fit base will increase in frequency, and thus some Speciified Information is put into the DNA. You have simply repeated his conclusion that specified information cannot be put into DNA, without defending his rationale. He has an argument, his Law of Conservation of Complex Specified Information, that purports to show that, and in my article I demonstrate that it shows no such thing.<br /><br /><i>I've just looked at your article now, and I see you write:<br /><br />"biologists would regard them[digital information embedded in DNA] as the outcome of natural selection. To see them as evidence of ID, one would need an argument that showed that they could only have arisen by purposeful action (ID), and not by selection."<br /><br />Natural selection doesn't help explain the origin of functional information or worse the origin of informatio necessary for the first life, because one first needs digital information before one could even have self-replication.</i><br /><br />Let's not go whizzing off to the Origin Of Life. Dembski's argument is that, long after that and even today, his LCCSI prevents essentially all adaptation by natural selection.<br /><br /><i>In the paper "The Capabilities of <br />Chaos and Complexity" David Abel writes</i><br /><br />I am not Abel. I was asking whether the argument in my article made sense. So far you have repeated Dembski's claim without dealing with what I said about<br /><br />(1) Dembski's LCCSI being irrelevant because it changes the specification in mid-stream, and<br /><br />(2) Specified information being able to be put into the genome by natural selection (the simple four-bases argument).Joe Felsensteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06359126552631140000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-61114887719208686362010-12-30T05:06:12.677-08:002010-12-30T05:06:12.677-08:00johan: Natural selection doesn't help explain ...<b>johan</b>: <i>Natural selection doesn't help explain the origin of functional information or worse the origin of informatio necessary for the first life, because one first needs digital information before one could even have self-replication. In the paper "The Capabilities of <br />Chaos and Complexity" David Abel writes ".. natural selection never works at the decision node programming level [10]. Evolution works only on already-programmed, already-living, already-fittest phenotypic organisms" </i><br /><br />As silly as Abel's paper is, it still should be represented accurately. He's not referring to the origin of life, but that natural selection only selects whole individuals and not individual traits ("decision node programming level).Zachrielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11268229653808829377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-19831556632971570912010-12-30T02:29:02.132-08:002010-12-30T02:29:02.132-08:00Richie,
Others have pulled you up in the past on ...Richie,<br /><br />Others have pulled you up in the past on your use of the word 'evolution'. Technically the word simply means 'change'. So when we ask 'Has life on Earth evolved over time?' what we are technically asking is 'Has life on Earth changed over time?' And it IS pretty undeniable that it has, in fact changed.<br /><br />I hope that you agree on this point at least - that life on Earth has, at least, changed - to some degree, for whatever reason and by whatever mechanisms.<br /><br />This is the 'evolution' referred to when people say 'evolution is a fact'. It is a scientific fact that life on Earth has CHANGED. How? Why? When? Immaterial. Life on Earth has changed. That is the scientific FACT of the matter.<br />===<br /><br />Hunter,<br /><br />"This is an incredible equivocation."<br /><br />''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''<br /><br />I agree with this. I'm surprised though that no other evolution commentor here corrected this statement unless this would be the same universal view by the supporters. I believe what evolution is and the definition given by Ritchie seems more of heartfelt emotional passion for expressing a belief while not totally understanding that belief. At least that belief's original meaning at the beginning when it was created.<br /><br />There does seem to be alot more of politicing and philosophy injection, maybe by both sides and that is ashame because you have to wonder what both sides could be really missing when it comes to discovery.<br />''''''''''''''''''''''''<br /><br />Janfeld:<br /><br />"I have yet to see CH promote any kind of scientific hypothesis whatsoever (I thought that's what scientists do?)." <br /><br />"So naturally it's not surprising that many of us he think that he's rather disingenuous in his approach when he talks about "bad science", particularly since he has yet to offer any alternative science whatsoever."<br />''''''''''''''''''''''<br /><br />For once and in fairness and I think it would be beneficial if he could show where the other sides {Id - Creationism} fail in the assuming department. Since he claims he wants neutral naturalistic explanations only science, and that creationism and ID are not his cup of tea either, I'd love to see examples of where creationists and IDers do exactly what he says evolutionists do. But i haven't noticed any examples in any of his writings.Chaparral Earthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00618976919417073750noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-36990493240505049592010-12-30T01:43:19.457-08:002010-12-30T01:43:19.457-08:00@Prof Felsenstein
//what do you think is wrong wi...@Prof Felsenstein<br /><br />//what do you think is wrong with my article's argument?//<br /><br />I've just looked at your article now, and I see you write:<br /><br />"biologists would regard them[digital information embedded in DNA] as the outcome of natural selection. To see them as evidence of ID, one would need an argument that showed that they could only have arisen by purposeful action (ID), and not by selection."<br /><br />Natural selection doesn't help explain the origin of functional information or worse the origin of informatio necessary for the first life, because one first needs digital information before one could even have self-replication. In the paper "The Capabilities of <br />Chaos and Complexity" David Abel writes ".. natural selection never works at the decision node programming level [10].Evolution works only on already-programmed, already-living, already-fittest phenotypic organisms"<br /><br />At the end of the day evolutionists are forced to put their money on self-organizational forces to explain the origin of information so that natural selection could have something to act on. In the paper "Life's irreducible structure" the chemisty and philosopher of science Michael Polanyi wrote:<br /><br />"In the light of the current theory of evolution, the codelike structure of DNA must be assumed to have come about by a sequence of chance variations established by natural selection. But this evolutionary aspect is irrelevant here; whatever may be the origin of a DNA configuration, it can function as a code only if its order is not due to the forces of potential energy. It must be as physically indeterminate as the sequence of words is on a printed page. As the arrangement[information] of a printed page is extraneous[irreducible] to the chemistry of the printed page, so is the base sequence[information] in a DNA molecule extraneous[irreducible]to the chemical forces at work in the DNA molecule."<br /><br />Evolutionists have a real problem on their hands because self-organization does not explain the origin of information, and natural selection can do nothing to explain the origin of information which need to first exist before natural selection can come into play.<br /><br />JohanD4rw1n_sk3ptichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17558520641679568293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-32338441312142332642010-12-30T01:42:04.762-08:002010-12-30T01:42:04.762-08:00@ Prof Felsenstein
You write:
"It's rel...@ Prof Felsenstein<br /><br />You write:<br /><br />"It's relevant because Dembski's Design Detector detects design (allegedly, not actually) by looking for Complex Specified Information. The relevant specification is fitness, and CSI then translates to highly fit (i.e. good) design."<br /><br />You were first accusing ID theorists of using theological arguments for ID, and now you are arguing that ID-theoretic concepts have been refuted.<br /><br />This is a different matter altogether, I was merely pointing out that ID arguments are not based on knowledge about "what God would have done or wouldn't have done".<br /><br />Also, I don't see how you have refuted anything, you say CSI translates to highly fit designs, how does this make it any easier for evolution to explain complexity? Yes fitness might be good for the organism, and if a good design helps an organism survive, natural selection would be sure to preserve such designs no argument, but this doesn't make it any easier for random mutations or any other blind search to stumble upon such designs.D4rw1n_sk3ptichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17558520641679568293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-69065072141727085262010-12-30T01:41:19.192-08:002010-12-30T01:41:19.192-08:00@ Prof Felsenstein
You write:
"It's rel...@ Prof Felsenstein<br /><br />You write:<br /><br />"It's relevant because Dembski's Design Detector detects design (allegedly, not actually) by looking for Complex Specified Information. The relevant specification is fitness, and CSI then translates to highly fit (i.e. good) design."<br /><br />You were first accusing ID theorists of using theological arguments for ID, and now you are arguing that ID-theoretic concepts have been refuted.<br /><br />This is a different matter altogether, I was merely pointing out that ID arguments are not based on knowledge about "what God would have done or wouldn't have done".<br /><br />Also, I don't see how you have refuted anything, you say CSI translates to highly fit designs, how does this make it any easier for evolution to explain complexity? Yes fitness might be good for the organism, and if a good design helps an organism survive, natural selection would be sure to preserve such designs no argument, but this doesn't make it any easier for random mutations or any other blind search to stumble upon such designs.<br /><br />//what do you think is wrong with my article's argument?//<br /><br />I've just looked at your article now, and I see you write:<br /><br />"biologists would regard them[digital information embedded in DNA] as the outcome of natural selection. To see them as evidence of ID, one would need an argument that showed that they could only have arisen by purposeful action (ID), and not by selection."<br /><br />Natural selection doesn't help explain the origin of functional information or worse the origin of informatio necessary for the first life, because one first needs digital information before one could even have self-replication. In the paper "The Capabilities of <br />Chaos and Complexity" David Abel writes ".. natural selection never works at the decision node programming level [10].Evolution works only on already-programmed, already-living, already-fittest phenotypic organisms"<br /><br />At the end of the day evolutionists are forced to put their money on self-organizational forces to explain the origin of information so that natural selection could have something to act on. In the paper "Life's irreducible structure" the chemisty and philosopher of science Michael Polanyi wrote:<br /><br />"In the light of the current theory of evolution, the codelike structure of DNA must be assumed to have come about by a sequence of chance variations established by natural selection. But this evolutionary aspect is irrelevant here; whatever may be the origin of a DNA configuration, it can function as a code only if its order is not due to the forces of potential energy. It must be as physically indeterminate as the sequence of words is on a printed page. As the arrangement[information] of a printed page is extraneous[irreducible] to the chemistry of the printed page, so is the base sequence[information] in a DNA molecule extraneous[irreducible]to the chemical forces at work in the DNA molecule."<br /><br />Evolutionists have a real problem on their hands because self-organization does not explain the origin of information, and natural selection can do nothing to explain the origin of information which need to first exist before natural selection can come into play.<br /><br />JohanD4rw1n_sk3ptichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17558520641679568293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-62724862181222057192010-12-29T21:47:38.140-08:002010-12-29T21:47:38.140-08:00johan said (when I pointed out that advocates of D...johan said (when I pointed out that advocates of Design who argue that most putative junk DNA must really be functional are making a Good Design argument):<br /><br /><i>From a design perspective we can expect as much functionality as possible in the genome, therefore the more functional the genome the more likely it is the product of design. The more functions we discover for non-protein coding DNA the more probable design and the more improbable for blind material processes. It's not that we think "God would have made no junk DNA", it's just, the more sophisticated and integrated the genome's functions become, the less likely it becomes that it's the result of blind material processes. The argument is not based on a theological argument about what God would do or what God wouldn't do, it is the evolutionists here who were guilty of using our ignorance as evidence for evolution because "God would not have made so many errors"</i><br /><br />This is strange. If we see functional sequences in the DNA they can be there because of natural selection, they need not be evidence of Design. (William Dembski thinks his theorems say otherwise but his argument fails). So seeing some more function in the DNA is not evidence of Design, as there is a good conventional explanation.<br /><br />But Design advocates really do (in spite of your assertions) make a Good Design argument. See Stephen Meyer's recent book, chapter 18, pp. 406-407: where he says:<br /><br /><i>ID theorists do not deny that mutational processes might have degraded or “broken” some previously functional DNA, but we predict that the functional DNA (the signal) should dwarf the nonfunctional DNA (the noise) and not the reverse.</i>Joe Felsensteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06359126552631140000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-3586593049030811742010-12-29T21:32:52.108-08:002010-12-29T21:32:52.108-08:00johan, when I pointed out that Dembski's argum...johan, when I pointed out that Dembski's arguments had been refuted, said<br /><br /><i>a)Notice that you just moved the goal post now? Whether William Dembski is right or wrong is actually not the point we were arguing.<br /></i><br /><br />It's relevant because Dembski's Design Detector detects design (allegedly, not actually) by looking for Complex Specified Information. The relevant specification is fitness, and CSI then translates to highly fit (i.e. good) design.<br /><br /><i>b)Having said that, Dr Dembski has never said anything is impossible because Dembski knows that there is no way of proving that(regardless if this was impossible). ... Dr Dembski has never tried to argue that it's impossible for IC systems to have evolved via Darwinian processes, rather he argues that it is highly unlikely given what we understand about such systems and what we currently understand Darwinian processes can do.</i><br /><br />I stand corrected: he didn't say it was impossible, he said (in effect) it was astronomically improbable. OK, with that emendation (let's call it “essentially impossible” -- that's the phrase I used in my article), what do you think is wrong with my article's argument? If nothing is wrong, Dembski's design detection is dead.Joe Felsensteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06359126552631140000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-25008167858793642582010-12-29T15:26:36.605-08:002010-12-29T15:26:36.605-08:00"Too easy to PLAME the spell checker"?
..."Too easy to PLAME the spell checker"?<br /><br />;)<br /><br />Just teasing...Ritchiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03494987782757049380noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-60093817638893357002010-12-29T14:48:13.820-08:002010-12-29T14:48:13.820-08:00In my last post "If we stick to the water of&...In my last post "If we stick to the water of", should have read "If we stick to the matter of"<br /><br />Not sure why that happened, too easy to plame the spell checker, more likely just a mistake on my part.Coraxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03665296439622741711noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-41449396457802796572010-12-29T14:45:33.234-08:002010-12-29T14:45:33.234-08:00Scott,
Not sure I can agree with some of your poi...Scott,<br /><br />Not sure I can agree with some of your points.<br /><br />If we stick to the water of the topic of the original blog entry, i.e. the comment that "God Would Not Create the Giraffe’s Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve". You state that: "This is why the design of a Giraffe's Laryngeal nerve is relevant. We need an explanation as to why a designer would design that particular concrete design. But ID fails to provide one. That just what the designer must have wanted. Evolution, on the other hand, does have an explanation." <br /><br />Why do you need an explanation of the reason why a designer designed it that way in order to know it was designed or not? While that information may be very interesting, it is not relevant to the question.<br /><br />When the issue of imperfect or sub-optimal design is raised it is to undermine the design argument - i.e. if the design is not optimal, then the feature concerned can be taken to have arisen by some means other than design. Dawkins in the giraffe episode of Inside Natures Giants, having referred to the RLN stated that while evolution can produce 'designs' that are "almost perfect" it can also account for imperfect design, regarding which he stated "imperfection which no designer would ever have perpetrated".<br /><br />As I have pointed out already this is fundamentally flawed. The panoply of human invention includes both good and bad designs. Design doesn't have to be optimal to be design. In arguing that 'imperfect' or sub-optimal design = not designed, Dawkins is simply absolutely wrong.<br /><br />Returning to your point that "We need an explanation as to why a designer" designed in a particular way - one of the ways in which the design argument differs from others is that a designer may have had a purpose/motive, whereas chance and physical laws clearly can't (note may, not must have). Knowing what that purpose or motive was, is not necessary in deciding if something was designed, any more than knowing why a person chose what they did from a menu is required to know if a meal was eaten.<br /><br />A building on the campus where I work was refurbished a few years ago. The double doors throughout the building were replaced - the new doors consisted of an asymmetric pair (i.e. one of the pair was significantly wider than the other). This not only looked a little odd, it also is not easy to open the smaller doors (basic physics, principle of moments and levers, essentially the door handle is too close to the hinge to be mechanically efficient). My initial thought was that some arty architect, who would fail GCSE physics, had come up with a lousy design. I didn't need to know his reason for doing it to know that it had been designed, but it was clearly a bad design. Or so I thought - it turned out that health and safety had required that a wheel chair must be able to pass through with one of the door pair open, and the building structure didn't allow the whole doorway to be widened to accommodate two doors at the larger size. This illustrates two points (1) you don't need to know the reasons a design is the way it is to recognise design, (2) don't jump to conclusions about designs being poor.<br /><br />If it seems that the design argument tries to have it both ways (i.e. good design supports the case, and poor design is still design),what I am actually saying design is design, poor or excellent – how good it is may be relevant to some other discussion, but it is not relevant to the question ‘is it designed?’. It is also worth pointing out that Dawkins could also be accused of trying to have it both ways when he stated that 'Intelligent design' can account for perfect designs, but only evolution can account for both the perfect and imperfect design.Coraxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03665296439622741711noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-40075723543085247342010-12-29T10:33:16.150-08:002010-12-29T10:33:16.150-08:00@Scott
"Theists want ID taught in schools as...@Scott<br /><br />"Theists want ID taught in schools as science to open the door for their specific theological beliefs. But they know this can only occur if they posit an abstract designer."<br /><br />This is false, William Dembski explains <br /><br />"Design theorists do not bring up God for the simple reason that design-theoretic reasoning does not warrant bringing up God. Design-theoretic reasoning tells us that certain patterns exhibited in nature reliably point us to adesigning intelligence. But there’s no inferential chain that leads from such finite design conducing patterns in nature to the infinite personal transcendent creator God of the world’s major theistic faiths."<br /><br />“ID’s metaphysical openness about the nature of nature entails a parallel openness about the nature of the designer. Is the designer an intelligent alien, a computional simulator (a la THE MATRIX), a Platonic demiurge, a Stoic seminal reason, an impersonal telic process, …, or the infinite personal transcendent creator God of Christianity? The empirical data of nature simply can’t decide."D4rw1n_sk3ptichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17558520641679568293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-56267908693659337432010-12-29T09:39:20.756-08:002010-12-29T09:39:20.756-08:00Corax wrote:
...really the question is not how g...Corax wrote: <br /><br /><b>...really the question is not how good is the design?, but rather is there a means by which we can determine what is designed?</b><br /><br />We do it the same way and to the same degree as we do in other domains: with scientific theories. And what are scientific theories? They are unseen explanations about the seen (observed phenomena) <br /><br />What you've described is essentially Hume's problem of induction, which had a significant impact on science. We didn't really solve the problem of induction, we changed the definition of scientific knowledge. Just as we cannot know for certain if phenomena of falling apples and moving planets are actually caused by a single, natural force, we cannot know if anything is actually designed or not. <br /><br />The best we can do is posit a concrete explanation for the phenomena in question via conjecture, then see if concrete observations collaborate the explanation in the form of predictions. While Cornelius appears OK with this method in other domains, he objects in the case of Evolution, which also likely conflicts with aspects of his theological position. <br /><br />This is why the design of a Giraffe's Laryngeal nerve is relevant. We need an explanation as to why a designer would design that particular concrete design. But ID fails to provide one. That just what the designer must have wanted. Evolution, on the other hand, does have an explanation. As a natural process, evolution does not exhibit foresight and only forms good-enough solutions. <br /><br />In the case of an intelligent agent, we must consider means, motive and opportunity. However, in the case of an omnipotent and omniscient agent, means an opportunity become irrelevant. At best you have motivation. But an abstract designer has no motives. In fact, and abstract designer need not actually choose to design anything as it merely represents the potential for design. <br /><br />Again, we need an explanation that gets us from an abstract logical possibility of abstract design, to having actually having designed any of the concrete biological complexity we observe. However, this explanation is absent from the official theory that ID attempts to present as science. <br /><br />It's likely that theists smuggle in this motivation from their own theological beliefs.Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11193595678064010528noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-51185443740166739302010-12-29T09:31:03.241-08:002010-12-29T09:31:03.241-08:00Corax wrote:
At least in saying this (even if so...Corax wrote: <br /><br /><b>At least in saying this (even if somewhat tongue in cheek) you are 'acknowledging' the point that the design argument is completely neutral as to who/what the designer is.</b><br /><br />Which is precisely the problem with the design argument as presented. We can't get there from here given an abstract designer. <br /><br />On one hand, the argument which ID attempts to present as science is limited to an abstract designer. However, on the other hand, it claims this abstract designer was responsible for at least some of the concrete biological complexity we observe. What we need is an explanation which gets us from from the abstract to the concrete. But this explanation is missing from the theory which ID attempts to present as science. It's a catch 22 situation.<br /><br />Theists want ID taught in schools as science to open the door for their specific theological beliefs. But they know this can only occur if they posit an abstract designer. But in retreating to this position in their "official" theory, they they also retreat from the particular theistic belief that provides an explanation for why the designer would design any of the concrete biological complexity we observe. <br /><br />We need this explanation because, as an agent, an abstract designer (which has no limits) could intentionally choose to design things to look exactly as if they evolved via a natural and undirected process. And an omnipotent and omniscient designer could do so in a way that perfectly hid his involvement. Or it could have the ability to design a natural process that apparels to our sense of design, but only on the surface, and exhibits a wide range of freedom in regards to the specific outcomes.Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11193595678064010528noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-43976897864741904062010-12-29T08:24:58.893-08:002010-12-29T08:24:58.893-08:00natschuster: The cables in my computer were design...<b>natschuster</b>: <i>The cables in my computer were designed. I know this because I see the purposful integration of parts for a specific function. </i><br /><br />Just like people of the past, you compare neurons to familiar objects. <br /><br />The classical planets have specific functions regulating the cycles of life, such as the cycle of day and night, or the cycle of seasons, all to ultimately demonstrate the beneficience of the Creator. The most complex artifact of its day, the astrolabe, shows how complex the motions of the planets are. The cosmos is obviously a grand astrolabe, built by God, and regulated by His angels. <br /><br />And let's not get started on the whimsical nature of Æolus.Zachrielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11268229653808829377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-48474188248965507242010-12-29T07:04:42.406-08:002010-12-29T07:04:42.406-08:00natschuster: "The cables in my computer were ...natschuster: "The cables in my computer were designed. I know this because I see the purposful integration of parts for a specific function."<br /><br />No, you know it for many more reasons than this. You have both a plausible agent, (human designers) and a plausible mechanism. (factories & machines that make wires) The agent is plausible because it is your experience that humans can design and manufacture complex electronics. (Many products are labeled with both the designer and manufacturer) The mechanism is plausible because it is your experience that other complex electronics also come from factories and machines. The agent is verifiable; you can directly converse with the engineers who designed it, or at least with engineers that design similar things. The mechanism is verifiable; you can visit the factory, even with a film crew if you wish.<br /><br />You also don't have a plausible alternative explanation as to how the cables came to be. Computers don't reproduce with random variation, and they aren't filtered by differential reproductive success.<br /><br />natschuster: "That's why I say that it looks like it was designed. Darwinism is an attempt to explain all this. It is an attempt to provide a mechanism for the appearance of design."<br /><br />Erastothenes attempted to explain the fact that the earth 'appears' flat, yet the Earth's shadow on the moon is round. He did quite well.<br /><br />Copernicus and Galileo attempted to explain the the fact that the sun 'appears' to orbit the earth. They did quite well.<br /><br />And yes, Darwin attempted to explain the fact that organisms 'appear' designed. He did quite well. His theory has held up to over a century of scrutinizing and rigorous testing.Derick Childresshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04957020457782757629noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-44891889247679268912010-12-29T06:38:15.628-08:002010-12-29T06:38:15.628-08:00@ Professor Felsenstein
You write:
"I gave ...@ Professor Felsenstein<br /><br />You write:<br /><br />"I gave the example of Design advocates arguing that the Designer would not have made junk DNA."<br /><br />The junk DNA argument was used against ID to borrow a phrase from Miller "From a design point of view, pseudogenes are indeed mistakes. So why are they there? Intelligent design cannot explain the presence of a nonfunctional pseudogene, unless it is willing to allow that the designer made serious errors, wasting millions of bases of DNA on a blueprint full of junk and scribbles. Evolution, however, can explain them easily. Pseudogenes are nothing more than chance experiments in gene duplication that have failed, and they persist in the genome as evolutionary remnants of the past history of the b -globin genes"<br /><br />From a design perspective we can expect as much functionality as possible in the genome, therefore the more functional the genome the more likely it is the product of design. The more functions we discover for non-protein coding DNA the more probable design and the more improbable for blind material processes. It's not that we think "God would have made no junk DNA", it's just, the more sophisticated and integrated the genome's functions become, the less likely it becomes that it's the result of blind material processes. The argument is not based on a theological argument about what God would do or what God wouldn't do, it is the evolutionists here who were guilty of using our ignorance as evidence for evolution because "God would not have made so many errors"D4rw1n_sk3ptichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17558520641679568293noreply@blogger.com