So what's-his-face has gone from trying to make a case for ID to whinging that ID is excluded by Darwinian poopyheads?

If he was a horse he'd be shot in the back of his head, lame as he is.

Animavore wrote:So what's-his-face has gone from trying to make a case for ID to whinging that ID is excluded by Darwinian poopyheads?

If he was a horse he'd be shot in the back of his head, lame as he is.

Even worse, he asserts that ID is excluded therefore intellectual circle jerking by the DI where people on the editorial panel write papers and get them published in the same journal somehow makes this journal without an impact factor equivalent to Nature.

Animavore wrote:So what's-his-face has gone from trying to make a case for ID to whinging that ID is excluded by Darwinian poopyheads?

Yep, Darwinian poopyheads.

MY bold-hold that thought. This is the key to understanding evolution, because the environment [initially just the physical, but later when biological evolution kicked in-the biotic] provides the information that defines the differential reproduction of replicators.

Not really. I asked a philosophical question. Yet you are talking about evolution. Evolution is about science, not philosophy. Design and evolution could both exist in the same designed universe.

The world is full of gradients: hot and cold, light and dark, salty and fresh, wet and dry, oxic and anoxic, acid and base, high and low. Different enzymes for example, work best at different temperatures. Some biological catalysts are not proteins at all, but multi-valence metals. Iron ions for example, can be in +2 or +3 oxidation states. The compounds of iron can therefore be soluble or insoluble in water according to their oxidation state.

Okay...

This is how we know that the Banded iron formations in Western Australia began to be precipitated out of the seas some two billion years ago, meaning that there was oxygen in the seas. Every fucking geologist knows this, and iron ore exports are worth billions.

The fact that all those processes you mentioned above exist, does not tell you anything about the age of any of the product of those processes.

You are always asking "why" questions and putating purpose. You would do better to ask "HOW" questions. That is the key to understanding nature.

Depends on what you want tho know. Like I said, I posed a philosophical question, not a scientific one. Describing nature is best done, in my opinion by science, but if we are going to be asking questions that are outside of nature, then we should use philosophy, because we can't test for anything outside of nature.

In general I find all your comments highly offensive, as you are implying that every scientist on the planet is dishonest.

Some ore, some aren't. Scientists are people too, not angels.

Scientist don't make shit up, and science is not a religion.

Yes they do. That is precisely what they do. For an example. Einstein said that space-time is curved. Is it? How does he know? Does he KNOW that, or does he BELIEVE that? Obviously he made that up, and he believes that. He doens't really know that. He made a lot of calculations that describe space-time as curved, but that does not mean that it really is such. It's just a description. And there is an infinite amount of possible descriptions. So he doesn't know it's curved, he believes it's curved. And yes, keep in mind that I mean this philosophically not scientifically.

Also keep in mind that science is based on a particular philosophical idea that of – empiricism. Which is an idea that the best way to get the information about nature is through empirical observations. But that is just one of a lot of possible methods. What we get from this method is descriptions of nature, not truths. And by definition, a description is not true. So we do not really know what is and how nature works. So, like I said, scientists do make things up, philosophically speaking.

And I don't mean that in a bad way, I mean that in a good way. We have a lot of use for scientific ideas. You just have to know their limits and not try to use them where they can't help you.

Well other than it is not a goal as a goal infers a designer of the goal.

Dawkins is the designer of the fitness function for the „METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL“ program.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_program

The Dawkins' argument was to show to people how genetic algorithms can work well. The sequence could as equally be,

„IUWDIUE UTD DUI PQUGHDCCYITGKJR OUYWIGUD EUTIUDGIID“

If parts of that sequence above was found to be fit for the environment then it would be selected for but only because the many possible other (now non-existent) sequences do not exist any more !. The above sequence was never the goal and equally the non-existent sequences were never the goal.

This is going to be the hard part for you because without a goal then there is automatically no goal designer (well unless you propose a goal designer who simply uses Evolution which is what Theistic Evolution is all about).

You just said that the above sequenc could be teh goal! You just said it! If it COULD be the goal, than there is the goal. The fitness function, the THING that selects the sequences is determining the goal. And the person who sets up the fitnes function is the designer.

This is your Texas Sharpshooter fallacy in action - you are painting the target around the animal that has just been born. You are ignoring the many others that were not born.

I am not painting a target anywhere! Nature is! Nature has a natural fitenss function. Nature determines which animals are born with which properties, not me.

Painful for you as it defeats your argument. Obviously it can be modelled as a search in the same way that stalactites can be considered as art or even architecture.

If it can't be modeled as a search then why are scientists modeling evolutin as a search.

Yes and these are a function of the complexity of the environment not the organism. Later on you actually agree with me.

What exactly is this supposed to mean?

Only through you not dying !. This is the inverse of what you are after with your goal of an Intelligent Designer. Thus this defeats any claims of a designer.

What?

Yes but without a goal in mind

The goal is the fit animals. It's a time-dependent goal because what is fit in some environment changes with time. And what determines fitness? Physical properties of biological sequences. So in other words, PHYSICS, not biology determines what is fit.

People do seem to given agency to natural things e.g. the Sea or the Forest and so on but there is no agency in salt water and waves and there is no obvious agency in land and trees.

I'm not making any claims of agency in this case.

Without a goal then there is not search. The sea does not care if the animals that live in it live or die. So there is no search in the way that you want a search.

The sea does not have to care! I never said it does care! But it selects some sequences and excludes others. Just like when we have a computer search. Computers DO NOT CARE! But they still perform the search.

But the flaw in your attempt to nail a goal into Evolution is that both living and dying have meaning with Evolution if you want to install a "purpose". This is like having a game in which no matter where the ball was kicked you would yell "Goal!".

This is just a misunderstanding of the word "goal". By all reasonable standards of the definition it is an aim or the object of an endeavour or the end of a journey or race. It is unreasonable to use the word goal with Evolution.

I'm not talking about a purpose. I'm talking about a goal. Regardless of who set it up. The nature selects for fit animals in a particular environment. This is the goal of evolution, regardles of who set it up, eitehr a designer, or chance or some natural law.

Obviously without the word "goal" then we automatically have no Designer.

A perfect non-sequitur.

Because that was the goal of a designer and we have details and photographs of the people involved. There is no need to infer a design.

What if you had no such information? What if you saw Mount Rushmore for the first time in your life?

When we ask for the details of your Designer you refuse to present this to us claiming that "This would defeat the purpose of design inference. If we knew who the designer was, then we would not need to infer design in the first place."

Becasue I don't know who teh designer is. And isn't it perfectly obvious that if we knew who the designer was we wouldn't need to infer design? What's the point of infering design if you already know something is desgined!? Duh!

This in the end shows the paucity of Intelligent Design. We don't want to infer a designer - if you want this to be science then we want the designer too.

That's like saying to SETI scientists: „First show us that aliens exist, then you can detect their radio signals!“ I mean lol? Why? What would be the point to detect them by their radio signals if we would already know they existed? I mean really!?

One is natural and one is designed. You can tell the designed one as we have very clear details of the designer and it sticks out from the surrounding hills ( image here ) and there is just one of them.

So if I were to take a flagellum from some bacteria and put it on some mountain, you would conclude it was designed because it was different than it's environment!? Wow, just wow...

The flagellum on the other hand has no documented designer (e.g. the Bible doesn't actually mention bacteria) and there are many different examples of flagellum.

The fact that it isn't documented anywhere that it was designed, doesn't mean it wasn't. Where are the documents that Stone Henge was designed? Wow, just wow...

If there were many Mount Rushmores with vast numbers of subtly different images then that would be harder to say it was designed.

LOL, no. That would jsut mean a lot of designs were brought about! Wow, just wow! What logic!

So by your logic:
1 Mount Rushmore = Design
10000000000000 Mount Rushmores = Not Design

Let's take it to anotehr level

1 car = Design
10000000000000 cars = Not Design.

Take a look at how many cars are there in China. Are you telling me they were all NOT designed becasue there are a lot of them!?

From a US stance obviously the findings of Kitzmiller v. Dover. In the UK then Education department (here) very clearly states that "Creationism and intelligent design therefore do not form part of the science National Curriculum programmes of study." and that "Attempts to establish an idea of the ‘specified complexity’ needed for intelligent design are surrounded by complex mathematics. Despite this, the idea seems to be essentially a modern version of the old idea of the “God-of-the-gaps”. "

A court can'tt ell me what's science and what's not. About 50 years ago, evolution was banned from US classroms. What does that tell you? I rest my case.

Well if other patterns are just as good in an environment then the "independently given pattern" isn't as unique as it is claimed. Using the Texas sharpshooter example, this is like us going to the next barn and drawing a new target around a different set of shots.

Umm... what? This has nothing to do with uniqueness. An independently given pattern is by definition NOT unique. It means that at least two objects can be described by the same pattern.

Of which we have a number of examples of differing complexity and functionality.

Exactly. Which means that the flagellum exhibits an independently given pattern. Just like Mount Rushmore does. None of them can be explained by natural laws only, and both are too improbable to have happened by chance, therefore, both are designed.

And that is the problem. There is no attempt to identify the designer even though it is essential for the argument because it shifts the question to "Who designed the designer ?" if the designer is a natural entity within this universe.

When we identify teh designer, then we will be able to ask this question, not before that moment. This particular question has no no relevance to the question of who designed the flagellum.

But you refuse to answer that question because you don't think it needs to be answered. If it is science then you have to answer that - if it is religion then obviously you don't. Your call.

It's irrelevant. I'm interested in the question“is the flagellum designed“ not „who desigend the designer that designed the flagellum“.

Since YOU are accusing Nature of being doctrinally committed to evolution and as a result biased against ID, the onus is on YOU to provide evidence that ID papers were submitted to Nature but were rejected for reasons that were exclusively based on the fact that they were pro-ID, your fuckwitted attempt at shifting the burden of proof has been noted.

It's not just about ID papers. It's about their pro-evolution stance. I have shown that Nature was founded for a single purpose. I have seen no evidence that their purpose has changed. If it did, please show me the volume of Nature that made the tranzition from pro-evolution to neutral.

On the other hand, there is enough evidence to doubt the honesty of Bio-complexity, not least because they haven't outlined that they use double or single blinded anonymous peer-review, and the underhanded tactics of DI to try and sneak Cretinism into classrooms (aka Wedge Strategy), which was exposed at Dover, if you provide evidence that high standards of scientific rigour are a feature of Bio-complexity, then it will be considered.

What exactly was exposed at Dover?

Nature on the other hand does this and the levels of scientific rigour contained therein can be testified to by means of how High-Impact it is, whereas I doubt the self-pushed guff in the DI Biocomplexity even has an impact factor that can beat the one the hypothetical Journal of Leprechaunology has.

The fact that it's High-impact could also mean it's painfully easy to get your article published there if it's pro-evolution. Like duh...

Of course, if you so want you can reject Nature papers prior to the point they became a peer reviewed journal with anonymous peer review.

But I DO NOT want to reject Nature's articles. I have already said that their articles are fine. You on the other hand choose to forget that I said that. Not only that but you are the one who rejects BC's articles out of hand, even though it was founded in the same way as Nature.

I said it many times already. It does not matter to me if an article is published in a peer review journal or not. What matters to me, is only one thig. And that is, is it valid or not.

Nature is pro evidentially supported hard empirical science.

Pleaople coming from rocks is not a empirically testable idea, and has no supporting evidence.

By „pepole coming from rocks“ I mean the idea that about 4.6 billion years ago, the Earth formed from a hot state, it colled down, it rained for millions of years on the rocks and the minerals went into the waters. After about a billion years those minerals formed a first self-replicating molecule. That molecule went on to replicate and become more complex. Over time it turnd into fish, reptiles and birds and humans. So ultimately, people came from rocks. And Nature supports this idea.

ID is rectally extracted bollocks, not science. Until ID has some evidential support or actually conducts some science, don't expect to see it in a peer-reviewed SCIENCE journal.

Yawn...

The most coherent view of the universe is that of a system of subsystems that efficiently interact to prepare for, develop, and support advanced life, subject to various physical constraints.

The quest for understanding our universe as a whole benefits from the integration of knowledge from all areas of study, including those that consider questions of purpose, such as design engineering.

http://library.witpress.com/pages/Paper ... erID=19279

Царь Славян wrote:

Nature is pro evidentially supported hard empirical science.

Pleaople coming from rocks is not a empirically testable idea, and has no supporting evidence.

By „pepole coming from rocks“ I mean the idea that about 4.6 billion years ago, the Earth formed from a hot state, it colled down, it rained for millions of years on the rocks and the minerals went into the waters. After about a billion years those minerals formed a first self-replicating molecule. That molecule went on to replicate and become more complex. Over time it turnd into fish, reptiles and birds and humans. So ultimately, people came from rocks. And Nature supports this idea.

Genesis 3:19

By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return."

Not just a naturalistic point of view, but also a religious one in which an intelligent designer formed us from the earth. Your argument good sir is silly as your own assertions contradict what you just said.

The fact that it's High-impact could also mean it's painfully easy to get your article published there if it's pro-evolution. Like duh...

I will just point and laugh at the serious level of mental retardation involved in making the aforementioned assertion, the fact that it is high impact does not make it easy for pro-evolution papers to be published, it means that the journal's standards of empirical rigour lead to it being extensively used as a source for further research, and you have shown the fundamental inability (perhaps wilfully) to understand the fact that Nature is a multidisciplinary journal and it is easy to get articles published if they are empirically very good in a wide variety of fields, which has not being going into your head due to Morton's demon.

High-Impact journals are high impact not because they allow easy publication of articles supporting a non-existent doctrinal committment, but because the scientific community regularly uses the work published therein to inform and guide their own work.

What exactly was exposed at Dover?

[1] The Wedge Strategy, that the DI only sought to push religion into classrooms through the use of underhanded propaganda tactics to try and replace science, by creating a wedge between the public and academia.

[2] The typical discoursive malfeasance of people like Michael Behe, who among other things indulged in dismissing evidence without having even considered that evidence in the first place, in other words, Olympic standard handwaving and dishonesty under oath.

[3] The total no-show of DI representatives except Behe at the trial.

[4] The admission by Michael Behe that the inclusion of ID as science would stretch the boundaries of what constituted science so far that things like astrology would fall under its remit, in other words, the very inclusion of ID as science would require treating unadulterated bullshit as scientific.

[5] The Wedge inspired nature of the ID attempt at sneaking Cretinism through the back door, "Cdesign Proponentsists"
comes to mind.

Just off the top of my head. For the discerning reader the complete legal transcript is available here
http://ncse.com/creationism/legal/kitzm ... ranscripts

By „pepole coming from rocks“ I mean the idea that about 4.6 billion years ago, the Earth formed from a hot state, it colled down, it rained for millions of years on the rocks and the minerals went into the waters. After about a billion years those minerals formed a first self-replicating molecule. That molecule went on to replicate and become more complex. Over time it turnd into fish, reptiles and birds and humans. So ultimately, people came from rocks. And Nature supports this idea.

I want a citation that this lugubrious satirized version is actually what is presented/supported by Nature.

GenesForLife wrote:
High-Impact journals are high impact not because they allow easy publication of articles supporting a non-existent doctrinal committment, but because the scientific community regularly uses the work published therein to inform and guide their own work.

Indeed. Where would these journals be if they allowed any old paper to be published even if it was a steaming pile of assertion-laden fantastical horseshit?
They'd be dropped quicker than you can say Intelligent Ant Falling.

GenesForLife wrote:

By „pepole coming from rocks“ I mean the idea that about 4.6 billion years ago, the Earth formed from a hot state, it colled down, it rained for millions of years on the rocks and the minerals went into the waters. After about a billion years those minerals formed a first self-replicating molecule. That molecule went on to replicate and become more complex. Over time it turnd into fish, reptiles and birds and humans. So ultimately, people came from rocks. And Nature supports this idea.

I want a citation that this lugubrious satirized version is actually what is presented/supported by Nature.

Especially about the "hot state" formation of planet Earth and all the other planets. It is not as simple as you are saying Czar. It is a very complicated process, that, in our Solar System, took hundreds of thousands of years to happen. The formation of any Solar System involves protoplanetary disks, collisions and accretions, migrations of planets, and more. To simplify it into "The Earth formed from a hot state" is totally inaccurate, and a serious misrepresentation.

Which to me says, that you are ignorant of the field of astronomy, and more generally of physics. And continuing with the rest of your inane misrepresentation, it looks like you do not understand neither geology, chemistry, biology or any science for that matter.

The most coherent view of the universe is that of a system of subsystems that efficiently interact to prepare for, develop, and support advanced life, subject to various physical constraints.

The quest for understanding our universe as a whole benefits from the integration of knowledge from all areas of study, including those that consider questions of purpose, such as design engineering.

Another paper from a journal without an impact factor which has only been cited by the author himself when writing for a theological publication that aims to get missionaries involved with fields of technical importance.

The paper per se says nothing about ID being scientific, just that if we assume nature to be designed in the same way machines are designed, it appears coherent (a subjective judgement) since some areas of nature look designed (Watchmaker argument restated).

So your attempt to present this is nothing more than a quotemine, offering a subjective opinion without reasoning using debunked canards in a paper abstract that no one other than one of the authors per se has endorsed somehow makes ID scientific?

Let me go through the full abstract other than the snippet that you quoted, perhaps out of context, and run through it.

Normally, information from scientific discoveries is funnelled into the development of engineered products that benefit humanity.

But recently a strange turnabout in the flow of practical information has occurred.

Concepts from the field of engineering have been found extremely useful in areas of science.

Well, obviously, since engineering is the exploitation of natural processes and forces to human ends and some scientific research at least depends on altering and manipulating natural events and processes in order to study the effects of said manipulation on the processes being studied.

From the very large aspects of the universe (i.e.

big bang cosmology and galactic and stellar evolution) to the very small aspects (i.e.

the fitness of the chemical elements and the coding of DNA for life), the cosmos is so readily and profitably reverse-engineered by scientists and engineers as to make a compelling argument that it was engineered in the first place.

Bzzzz, say hello to arse backwards reasoning. Anything that is reverse engineerable must be engineered in the first place? And the empirical evidence to show that this invariably must be the case is? And it makes for a compelling argument how?

The linking of extraordinarily complex, but stable functional structures with the production of value provides the strong impression of a calculating intentionality, which is able to operate in a transcendent fashion.

The old "Let us attach things with a purpose" line of obfuscatory navel gazing, never mind the fact that attributing purpose to things automatically constitutes the use of question-begging, since it has to be demonstrated that everything is a mark of intenionality or that everything must have an intention in the first place.

The most coherent view of the universe is that of a system of subsystems that efficiently interact to prepare for, develop, and support advanced life, subject to various physical constraints.

The Anthropic Principle Canard and the Fine Tuning Canard rolled into one.

The quest for understanding our universe as a whole benefits from the integration of knowledge from all areas of study, including those that consider questions of purpose, such as design engineering.

Multidisciplinary research can contribute to advances in other fields, well yes, obviously.

The synthesis of this knowledge that provides the most satisfying answers regarding human experience is one that admits the recognition of purpose and the existence of an (as yet, not-wellunderstood) engineering influence.

Satisfying? Appeal to emotion much?
Engineering Influence? Lack of evidence much?
Recognition of purpose? Begging the question much?

And all this notwithstanding the fact that practically nobody else except the author himself has taken the aforementioned opinions, even if we were to ignore the shoddy nature of the assertions contained in the abstract (since you haven't posted the full paper) seriously is yet another reason why your assertion that this somehow shows that ID is scientific is laughable.

The fact that you quoted a snippet which didn't take the context of their subjective assertion making while asserting that they somehow had found teleological explanations the "most coherent" constitutes a quote mine ipso facto.

Царь Славян wrote:

Well other than it is not a goal as a goal infers a designer of the goal.

Dawkins is the designer of the fitness function for the „METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL“ program.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_program

The Dawkins' argument was to show to people how genetic algorithms can work well. The sequence could as equally be,

„IUWDIUE UTD DUI PQUGHDCCYITGKJR OUYWIGUD EUTIUDGIID“

If parts of that sequence above was found to be fit for the environment then it would be selected for but only because the many possible other (now non-existent) sequences do not exist any more !. The above sequence was never the goal and equally the non-existent sequences were never the goal.

This is going to be the hard part for you because without a goal then there is automatically no goal designer (well unless you propose a goal designer who simply uses Evolution which is what Theistic Evolution is all about).

You just said that the above sequenc could be teh goal! You just said it! If it COULD be the goal, than there is the goal. The fitness function, the THING that selects the sequences is determining the goal. And the person who sets up the fitnes function is the designer.

Err...I didn't. I said "The above sequence was never the goal and equally the non-existent sequences were never the goal."

It is you that keeps bring up the idea that there is a goal. Well obviously the person who sets up the fitness function is the designer which is why you want there to be a goal.

This is your Texas Sharpshooter fallacy in action - you are painting the target around the animal that has just been born. You are ignoring the many others that were not born.

I am not painting a target anywhere! Nature is! Nature has a natural fitenss function. Nature determines which animals are born with which properties, not me.

You are painting the target as it is you that is picking the flagellum. These flagellum exist but there isn't any intent.

Painful for you as it defeats your argument. Obviously it can be modelled as a search in the same way that stalactites can be considered as art or even architecture.

If it can't be modeled as a search then why are scientists modeling evolutin as a search.

You're going to have to show where this has been said that way by scientists. When you start to use "search" then though the terminology may be comforting to others, problems arise e.g. in the topic of protein folding there are a vast numbers of possible structures but the protein manages to fold in a short time. Humans use vast search routines to try and predict the structure - with varying degrees of success.

Yes and these are a function of the complexity of the environment not the organism. Later on you actually agree with me.

What exactly is this supposed to mean?

There is no argument here. You agree with me that the environment is what drives the "design".

Only through you not dying !. This is the inverse of what you are after with your goal of an Intelligent Designer. Thus this defeats any claims of a designer.

What?

Yes but without a goal in mind

The goal is the fit animals. It's a time-dependent goal because what is fit in some environment changes with time. And what determines fitness? Physical properties of biological sequences. So in other words, PHYSICS, not biology determines what is fit.

Again and again we must highlight that is not the goal of Natural selection as there is not goal. You only relate to this as a goal for whatever reason you personally have.

People do seem to given agency to natural things e.g. the Sea or the Forest and so on but there is no agency in salt water and waves and there is no obvious agency in land and trees.

I'm not making any claims of agency in this case.

You are talking about "specified" and "designed" as well as "goal" ?. This is agency.

Without a goal then there is not search. The sea does not care if the animals that live in it live or die. So there is no search in the way that you want a search.

The sea does not have to care! I never said it does care! But it selects some sequences and excludes others. Just like when we have a computer search. Computers DO NOT CARE! But they still perform the search.

Only because they were told to do a search. Are you saying that the sea (i.e. the environment) was told to "perform the search" when something enters the sea ? This is rather stretching the imagination somewhat.

But the flaw in your attempt to nail a goal into Evolution is that both living and dying have meaning with Evolution if you want to install a "purpose". This is like having a game in which no matter where the ball was kicked you would yell "Goal!".

This is just a misunderstanding of the word "goal". By all reasonable standards of the definition it is an aim or the object of an endeavour or the end of a journey or race. It is unreasonable to use the word goal with Evolution.

I'm not talking about a purpose. I'm talking about a goal. Regardless of who set it up. The nature selects for fit animals in a particular environment. This is the goal of evolution, regardles of who set it up, eitehr a designer, or chance or some natural law.

There is no goal with evolution. You are equivocating the word goal. A goal without a purpose is an outcome. The nature selects for fit animals in a particular environment. This is an outcome of evolution (natural selection). There is no goal in mind so there is no search.

Obviously without the word "goal" then we automatically have no Designer.

A perfect non-sequitur.

Because that was the goal of a designer and we have details and photographs of the people involved. There is no need to infer a design.

What if you had no such information? What if you saw Mount Rushmore for the first time in your life?

As you have clearly stated what selects for an object is the physical environment it is in. Mount Rushmore is a huge chunk of granite rock face so it is not going to be moving around so we examine how incongruous it is to the environment and our understanding of weathering of rock faces.

Pretty quickly we find that Mount Rushmore is incongruous with a scree slopes below the face containing large fragments and tooling marks that would suggest an assisted and un-natural weathering.

Obviously you would just run a mathematical calculation on it and come up with the answer.

When we ask for the details of your Designer you refuse to present this to us claiming that "This would defeat the purpose of design inference. If we knew who the designer was, then we would not need to infer design in the first place."

Becasue I don't know who teh designer is. And isn't it perfectly obvious that if we knew who the designer was we wouldn't need to infer design? What's the point of infering design if you already know something is desgined!? Duh!

This in the end shows the paucity of Intelligent Design. We don't want to infer a designer - if you want this to be science then we want the designer too.

That's like saying to SETI scientists: „First show us that aliens exist, then you can detect their radio signals!“ I mean lol? Why? What would be the point to detect them by their radio signals if we would already know they existed? I mean really!?

These are different situations as no SETI person says that the aliens visited Earth and stuck tails on bacteria. SETI exists because it is the only practical way of discovering if intelligent Aliens exist (though atmospheric changes on exoplanets may tell us if aliens have converted atmopheres that won't imply intelligence). Non-natural Radio transmission by default means an intelligent source. So until we get superluminal speed spacecraft we're stuck here on Earth. How else would you propose to discover intelligent life ?

One is natural and one is designed. You can tell the designed one as we have very clear details of the designer and it sticks out from the surrounding hills ( image here ) and there is just one of them.

So if I were to take a flagellum from some bacteria and put it on some mountain, you would conclude it was designed because it was different than it's environment!? Wow, just wow...

How incongruous something is to its environment that could have formed it suggests agency is involved. So finding a flagellum on a mountain, where none is expected to exist, would suggest agency is involved (in this case it was you that put it there).

The flagellum on the other hand has no documented designer (e.g. the Bible doesn't actually mention bacteria) and there are many different examples of flagellum.

The fact that it isn't documented anywhere that it was designed, doesn't mean it wasn't. Where are the documents that Stone Henge was designed? Wow, just wow...

If there were many Mount Rushmores with vast numbers of subtly different images then that would be harder to say it was designed.

LOL, no. That would jsut mean a lot of designs were brought about! Wow, just wow! What logic!

So by your logic:
1 Mount Rushmore = Design
10000000000000 Mount Rushmores = Not Design

Let's take it to anotehr level

1 car = Design
10000000000000 cars = Not Design.

Take a look at how many cars are there in China. Are you telling me they were all NOT designed becasue there are a lot of them!?

Well I was expecting you to say that though I was hoping for some better mathematics rather than simple number counting. You claim that some mathematical formula can show something was designed. Obviously it is not simple numerical counts or comparing numbers of things. What other mathematics do you propose to use ?

After a foray into your mathematics I'm going to stay with how something is incongruous to the physical it is located in.

The many types of bacteria flagellum are not obviously incongruous.

From a US stance obviously the findings of Kitzmiller v. Dover. In the UK then Education department (here) very clearly states that "Creationism and intelligent design therefore do not form part of the science National Curriculum programmes of study." and that "Attempts to establish an idea of the ‘specified complexity’ needed for intelligent design are surrounded by complex mathematics. Despite this, the idea seems to be essentially a modern version of the old idea of the “God-of-the-gaps”. "

A court can'tt ell me what's science and what's not. About 50 years ago, evolution was banned from US classroms. What does that tell you? I rest my case.

Religious people are desperate to get religion into the classroom in the US by whatever means. The courts are used to uncover the devious tactics used to undermine science. Intelligent design is just one such tactic. It has been very clearly stated that it is religious in nature. That you don't accept what the courts say is neither here nor there on this matter. Both in the US and the UK, "design" is not science.

Well if other patterns are just as good in an environment then the "independently given pattern" isn't as unique as it is claimed. Using the Texas sharpshooter example, this is like us going to the next barn and drawing a new target around a different set of shots.

Umm... what? This has nothing to do with uniqueness. An independently given pattern is by definition NOT unique. It means that at least two objects can be described by the same pattern.

Of which we have a number of examples of differing complexity and functionality.

Exactly. Which means that the flagellum exhibits an independently given pattern. Just like Mount Rushmore does. None of them can be explained by natural laws only, and both are too improbable to have happened by chance, therefore, both are designed.

They can only not be explained by nature if they are not congruent to the environment they are in. The effect of this incongruence is to increase the complexity or improbability of the "independently given pattern" e.g. the tool marks on the mountain mean that the "independently given pattern" is made incredibly complex and so improbable because of the complexity of the toolchain in use. So whilst a cleaved stone is seen in nature (through water/frost damage or roots etc), a cleaved stone with chisel marks demands we ask where is the chisel.

If a designer uses evolutionary tactics i.e. the toolchain is genetic algorithms then we are unable to make any claims about the origin of the "independently given pattern". If the designer does not use evolutionary tactics i.e. the toolchain is not selected using genetic algorithms then we are able to make any claims about the origin of the "independently given pattern"

You are making claims about the origin of the "independently given pattern" without identifying the toolchain. That is presumptuous.

Current scientific consensus on the bacteria flagellum shows a natural and evolutionary pathway as the "toolchain" to construct the flagellum.

And that is the problem. There is no attempt to identify the designer even though it is essential for the argument because it shifts the question to "Who designed the designer ?" if the designer is a natural entity within this universe.

When we identify teh designer, then we will be able to ask this question, not before that moment. This particular question has no no relevance to the question of who designed the flagellum.

But you refuse to answer that question because you don't think it needs to be answered. If it is science then you have to answer that - if it is religion then obviously you don't. Your call.

It's irrelevant. I'm interested in the question“is the flagellum designed“ not „who desigend the designer that designed the flagellum“.

I would have thought that as you already are certain that there is a designer then you would be interested. This is a rather odd approach you take. We look at the pyramids and we presume a designer - I'd be interested in who they were. But that is me.

And what determines fitness? Physical properties of biological sequences

Bzzzzzz. Thank you for playing. Environment determines fitness and, even then, only probabilistically. There is no rule that a given allele will survive, even if it confers a survival advantage.

The ignorance on display in this thread is truly special.

hackenslash wrote:

And what determines fitness? Physical properties of biological sequences

Bzzzzzz. Thank you for playing. Environment determines fitness and, even then, only probabilistically. There is no rule that a given allele will survive, even if it confers a survival advantage.

The ignorance on display in this thread is truly special.

Think Susu's wonderful exposition of this would fit in very well here.

Царь Славян wrote:If the universe has no reason behind it, then people are not reasonable. All your ideas are just a bunch of physical processes. No different then what is going on in a river when water is passing by. So based on your logic we can define rivers to be equally reasonable as people. Yet you wouldn't do that. Why? If everything is just a physical interaction, why is one defined as reasonable, and the other is not?

What part of “reason is a characteristic in humans and a mental faculty...science (and being reasonable) is not dependent on whether the universe is sentient.” did you not understand? You haven`t even bothered to define reason, let alone your quibble on mind, whereas I can safely again provide the characteristically definitive thing about human intellect is it is the source for reason by generating conclusions from premises, in which intellect and the capacity for reasoning are properties of the mind. FFS, it`s as if you`ve never come across the term cognitive processes or cognition, where ideas are sprung forth, thought out to give you a bloody hint. I`m gobsmacked to see someone conflate physical processes via natural phenomena like gravity with cognitive processes. This is your logic, not mine.

Царь Славян wrote:And what's my definition?

“...implying that God either does not exist, or that he is irrelevant, thus you are either saying that atheism is true...”

According to the quoted context, atheism is tantamount to the expression god does not exist. Which goes beyond its intended meaning, but does not refrain from negating its common understanding, thus linguistically inaccurate.

Царь Славян wrote:

Viraldi wrote:Help me out Tsar, by the looks of it the variation is bordering non sequitur, while the original is bloody inaccurate anyhow. The variation is precisely saying something tantamount to the following: by promoting theocracy or cosmic divine dictatorship, you are implying that either you are in favour of being ruled over an imperious, overweening oppressor or that you fancy such, thus saying it is true that a person who is a theist does believe in gawd...

What seems to be the problem here? People who are theists believe in a particular God? Is that false? Furthermore, a person who is promoting some worldview, accepts this worldview. If not, then he is probably a liar.

What`s the problem? NON SEQUITUR if not IGNORATIO ELENCHI

Царь Славян wrote:I'm not talking about this definition of atheism. I'm talking about teh definition where a person consciously chooses to be an atheist.

Then you`ll do well to remember to never frivolously include certain atheists by particularising which sort of atheists you speak of, namely the consciously rejecting ones.

Царь Славян wrote:Religion – personal belief that you base your worldview and morals on. Organised religion – Organised and cultivated belief that is shared by a multitude of people. Usually containst a lot of ceremonies, sacred texts etc.

I`m pretty sure I requested significant references.

Царь Славян wrote:So you don't know? Why then do you think people shouldn't base their morals on a particular organised religion?

FFS, it`s like you don`t even want to read. I WOULD NOT know (entertain the possibility that I have yet to study anything remotely similar to that subject). I`ll provide an answer when I have at least done that much.

Царь Славян wrote:

The most coherent view of the universe is that of a system of subsystems that efficiently interact to prepare for, develop, and support advanced life, subject to various physical constraints.

The quest for understanding our universe as a whole benefits from the integration of knowledge from all areas of study, including those that consider questions of purpose, such as design engineering.

http://library.witpress.com/pages/Paper ... erID=19279

Oh, another stupid idea. The universe is in fact trying to kill us. Have you seen what is out there? Black holes that rip you apart atom by atom, gamma rays that would destroy the Earth's atmosphere in a flash, comets, asteroids, that by impacting on the Earth would bring about another major extinction event...

There is no actual design! The constants of the universe, such as gravity may be like they are in this universe, but if there are other universes out there, either because of the multiple worlds interpretation of QM, or because we are just one bubble of many, or any other theory of multiple universes, the other universes may not have been so "lucky" with the constants. And others may have been much luckier and have more life arising! Or if we believe the cyclic model, we are living in one of the cycles whereby life is possible.

Design of the universe: what a crock of shit!

I am not a biologist, and only know the basics of evolutionary theory. However, I can say that whenever I hear the word "design" I know I am going to listen to a lot of stupid ideas, and a lot of religion masked as science. What design? The design of the eye that gets into all sorts of troubles? The design of the teeth, that need to be constantly checked and re-checked by dentists?

Of course, this is more ignorant garbage from another IDist.

You mean you don't believe in intelligent design? Why not?