Have to admit I haven't a clue.

Calilasseia wrote:This one comes courtesy of deadman_932 over at TalkRational.

Since those who erect the "design" assertion think that "design" is allegedly "obvious", and that it's only rejected because those pesky scientists won't accept magic, I've a simple question, courtesy of the aforementioned deadman_932.

Here's a picture of some rocks. The picture is being linked to because it's over 700 pixels wide, and the board software is set not to allow embedding of wide images. One of these rocks is "designed" (it was shaped by human hand). Which one?

Present all reasoning (assuming that the "design" assertion is accompanied by any reasoning, of course), to support your answer. Specious apologetics will simply be pointed and laughed at.

Picture of lots of rocks ...

EDIT: thanks to Xeno for reminding me about this.

First its not scientists that are the problem. Science has little or nothing to do with origin issues. Evolution can't claim the prestige of science or scientists.

This is not a good case.
First all the rocks are designed. They are within the laws of the universe. They were not made round but became round by processes. They first were not round.
So copying them is copying a process and copying a process within a universe of design.
So they all are designed where a process was invoked to make them round.
The human made one just did it too.

If your trying to say the rocks are from chance then your wrong.
They are from laws in nature. No chance here at all.
This is rather a good case why creationism makes better points over the old evolution ideas.
Closer attention to presumptions.

Robert Byers wrote:

Calilasseia wrote:This one comes courtesy of deadman_932 over at TalkRational.

Since those who erect the "design" assertion think that "design" is allegedly "obvious", and that it's only rejected because those pesky scientists won't accept magic, I've a simple question, courtesy of the aforementioned deadman_932.

Here's a picture of some rocks. The picture is being linked to because it's over 700 pixels wide, and the board software is set not to allow embedding of wide images. One of these rocks is "designed" (it was shaped by human hand). Which one?

Present all reasoning (assuming that the "design" assertion is accompanied by any reasoning, of course), to support your answer. Specious apologetics will simply be pointed and laughed at.

Picture of lots of rocks ...

EDIT: thanks to Xeno for reminding me about this.

First its not scientists that are the problem. Science has little or nothing to do with origin issues. Evolution can't claim the prestige of science or scientists.

This is not a good case.
First all the rocks are designed. They are within the laws of the universe. They were not made round but became round by processes. They first were not round.
So copying them is copying a process and copying a process within a universe of design.
So they all are designed where a process was invoked to make them round.
The human made one just did it too.

If your trying to say the rocks are from chance then your wrong.
They are from laws in nature. No chance here at all.
This is rather a good case why creationism makes better points over the old evolution ideas.
Closer attention to presumptions.

So that's a "No" then?

Robert Byers wrote:
This is not a good case.

Can you present a better one then?

Robert Byers wrote: First its not scientists that are the problem. Science has little or nothing to do with origin issues. Evolution can't claim the prestige of science or scientists.

This is not a good case.
First all the rocks are designed. They are within the laws of the universe. They were not made round but became round by processes. They first were not round.
So copying them is copying a process and copying a process within a universe of design.
So they all are designed where a process was invoked to make them round.
The human made one just did it too.

Thanks, Robert, for making a very persuasive case against Intelligent Design.

If your trying to say the rocks are from chance then your wrong.
They are from laws in nature. No chance here at all.
This is rather a good case why creationism makes better points over the old evolution ideas.
Closer attention to presumptions.

Oh, too bad. And after such a promising start.

It is the creationists who mistake natural laws for "chance." Those who don't deny evolution fully understand the difference.

Calilasseia wrote:This one comes courtesy of deadman_932 over at TalkRational.

Since those who erect the "design" assertion think that "design" is allegedly "obvious", and that it's only rejected because those pesky scientists won't accept magic, I've a simple question, courtesy of the aforementioned deadman_932.

No, those pesky scientists don't accept anything other than a naturalistic explanation for the origins and diversity of life.

Their assumption is there must be one, even if the evidence is antithetical to this belief.

Here's a picture of some rocks. The picture is being linked to because it's over 700 pixels wide, and the board software is set not to allow embedding of wide images. One of these rocks is "designed" (it was shaped by human hand). Which one?

This is absolutely cretinous piece of obfuscation. Design inferences work because there is no naturalistic explanation

Digital codes don't just come into being by chance or the laws of physics and chemistry. A rock placed on a beach by a human could have also have been deposited by natural forces. There is a big difference between what Nature can do and what she cannot.

Atheistoclast wrote:
Their assumption is there must be one, even if the evidence is antithetical to this belief.

Examples of "antithetical" evidence please.

Atheistoclast wrote:
This is absolutely cretinous piece of obfuscation. Design inferences work because there is no naturalistic explanation

Correct. Your point?

Atheistoclast wrote:A rock placed on a beach by a human could have also have been deposited by natural forces.

Except the rock in question was designed and shaped by a man, not just placed there. That sort of went over your head, didn't it?

Atheistoclast wrote:There is a big difference between what Nature can do and what she cannot.

Talk about stating the obvious.

Animavore wrote:

Atheistoclast wrote:There is a big difference between what Nature can do and what she cannot.

Talk about stating the obvious.

Except not so obvious to a creationist. In fact, Joe's statement is nonsense coming from a creationist. To them "nature" isn't a process that is distinct from "design". "Nature" is simply one of the methods that the "designer" uses to create. So to say that "nature" cannot do things that a "designer" can is nonsense. It's like saying a computer program can operate without a programmer.

Joe' statement, IOW, is a refutation of creationism.

Atheistoclast wrote:

Calilasseia wrote:This one comes courtesy of deadman_932 over at TalkRational.

Since those who erect the "design" assertion think that "design" is allegedly "obvious", and that it's only rejected because those pesky scientists won't accept magic, I've a simple question, courtesy of the aforementioned deadman_932.

No, those pesky scientists don't accept anything other than a naturalistic explanation for the origins and diversity of life.

Yeah, it's because of that annoying fact we call a lack of evidence for the existence of the supernatural. So pesky they are. And then of course there is the fact that the extant naturalistic explanations make sense, in addition to actually being evidentially supported.
These annoying real-word facts... what ARE we to do with them?

Atheistoclast wrote:Their assumption is there must be one, even if the evidence is antithetical to this belief.

And what, specifically, would this supposed evidence be?

Atheistoclast wrote:

Here's a picture of some rocks. The picture is being linked to because it's over 700 pixels wide, and the board software is set not to allow embedding of wide images. One of these rocks is "designed" (it was shaped by human hand). Which one?

This is absolutely cretinous piece of obfuscation. Design inferences work because there is no naturalistic explanation

No naturalistic explanation for what, exactly?

Atheistoclast wrote:Digital codes don't just come into being by chance or the laws of physics and chemistry.

Simultanously an argument from bare assertion and an argument from ignorance.

Atheistoclast wrote:A rock placed on a beach by a human could have also have been deposited by natural forces. There is a big difference between what Nature can do and what she cannot.

But we don't care how the rock got there, we care about if you can repeatedly identify whether it was shaped by intelligent designers or just the plain physics of geology and erosion.

Oh look, it's troll Creationist Atheistoclast.

Oh look, it's troll Creationist Self-confessed Poe Atheistoclast.

Shrunk wrote:
Except not so obvious to a creationist. In fact, Joe's statement is nonsense coming from a creationist. To them "nature" isn't a process that is distinct from "design". "Nature" is simply one of the methods that the "designer" uses to create. So to say that "nature" cannot do things that a "designer" can is nonsense. It's like saying a computer program can operate without a programmer.

No, that is a Deist position. God creates Nature which in turn creates Man.

But Nature has no creative potential since it lacks intelligence.

The blind cannot leads the blind...except in the fantasy of evolutionism.

Atheistoclast wrote: No, that is a Deist position. God creates Nature which in turn creates Man.

But Nature has no creative potential since it lacks intelligence.

The blind cannot leads the blind...except in the fantasy of evolutionism.

So the theist God didn't create nature?

Yes, but Nature itself cannot emulate the creativity of its Creator.

katja z wrote:

Largenton wrote:
I think Dawkins made a point against it though with the ant program. I forget the book it was in (The Blind Watchmaker possibly?) but it made a good point on how a simple set of instructions could lead to something unexpected.

Do you mean Langton's ant?

That's the one. Thank you.

Atheistoclast wrote:Yes, but Nature itself cannot emulate the creativity of its Creator.

Actually from someone who has just spent all day up to his eyes with animal skeletons, yes it can. Especially as you've yet to prove a creator.

Although I must admit the concept of a creator is extremely creative within itself.

Atheistoclast wrote:Yes, but Nature itself cannot emulate the creativity of its Creator.

This from the person who just pointed to bird nests and beaver dams as results of "design"?

Oh dear. I see the in tray is full again, from two fetishists for mythology. Looks like it's time to load up on the JDAMs again ...

Robert Byers wrote:First its not scientists that are the problem.

For once, Byers, you've posted a sentence that isn't plain, flat wrong. But not for the pseudo-reasons you're erecting below. The problem is fetishists for mythology trying to claim, that Bronze Age nomads who couldn't count to six properly, knew more about biology than the present day world's most eminent professional biologists. A claim that results in much pointing and laughing on the part of those of us who paid attention in science classes.

Robert Byers wrote:Science has little or nothing to do with origin issues.

BULLSHIT.

Byers, you've been peddling this BLATANT CREATIONIST LIE for the whole of your posting career on several rationalist forums, a posting career that included such gems as this hilarious piece of idiocy that you posted over at the Richard Dawkins Forums, in which you said the following:

Byers over at RDF wrote:I don't like genetics as it requires too much basic study

Yes, the above is the post in which Byers admitted to being "Mr I Don't Do Genetics". He openly admitted with those words, that it required too much hard work to study, and as a consequence, anything he says on the subject is completely null and void. However, he compounded that nonsense by continuing that sentence with these words:

and is still primitive in its concepts.

Oh yes, Byers, a scientific discipline that has given us complete genome sequences of dozens of living organisms, and exquisite analyses of that data, is "primitive". What does that make your beloved Bronze Age mythology then, Byers?

This is too easy. Byers, I'm not even drawing extra breath in order to smack your apologetic excrement with the baseball bat of REALITY and send it not just out of the ballpark, but all the way to fucking Pluto. Just take a look at the above, Byers, and see how much your words constitute steamingly pungent and suppuratingly bubotic cortical faeces of the most noxiously odoriferous order.

As to your droolingly encephalitic claim that "science has little or nothing to do with origin issues", Byers, I have over one thousand, eight hundred peer reviewed scientific papers in my collection, from the cream of the world's research biologists, that all say your above claim is horseshit, because they contain DIRECT EXPERIMENTAL TEST AND VALIDATION OF THE RELEVANT POSTULATES. By contrast, Byers, your mythology has NOTHING of the sort to support it.

Moving on ...

Robert Byers wrote:Evolution can't claim the prestige of science or scientists.

BULLSHIT.

Once again, Byers, those ONE THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED OR MORE SCIENTIFIC PAPERS BY THE CREAM OF THE WORLD'S RESEARCH BIOLOGISTS SAY YOU ARE TALKING HORSESHIT. What part of "these papers contain DIRECT EXPERIMENTAL TEST AND VALIDATION OF EVOLUTIONARY POSTULATES" do you not understand, Byers?
Which means, in case you don't understand this elementary concept, Byers, that EVOLUTIONARY THEORY IS VALID SCIENCE BACKED BY HARD EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE, unlike your worthless Bronze Age mythology and the ideological masturbation fantasies erected around it.

Robert Byers wrote:This is not a good case.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!



Byers, once again, I HAVE ONE THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED OR MORE SCIENTIFIC PAPERS CONTAINING DIRECT EXPERIMENTAL TEST AND VALIDATION OF VARIOUS EVOLUTIONARY POSTULATES. The idea that this is "not a good case" is yet another of your ideology-addled fantasies. Because that's all that you have here Byers.

All that you have, Byers, is a fantasy that an invisible magic man was needed to conjure up the biosphere, just because some ignorant and retarded Bronze Age nomads, who were too stupid to count to six properly, dreamt up this shit. Your ignorant and retarded Bronze Age nomads didn't even have the excuse that they were on drugs when they concocted this retarded fantasy, Byers, because they were anally retentive killjoys who thought that enjoying being human was cause for being stoned to death. Their mythology is replete with psychotic, anti-human rantings of a sort that would lead to any modern ideology containing such rantings being dismissed as the product of a diseased mind. And the modern political arena provides us with enough examples of people alive today with diseased minds who swallow this psychotic, anti-human excrement and seek to impose it upon others - diseased minds such as Randall Terry and the creepy Dominionists, who can't wait to turn the USA into a 12th century theocracy alloyed to modern weapons and methods of exterminating those who fail to conform. These people have openly and explicitly stated, Byers, that they want to execute summarily anyone who doesn't conform to the strictures of Leviticus, which is one of the most psychotic parts of the mythology you love so much. The mythology you love so much, Byers, leads to people like these wanting to commit mass murder.

Think about the above paragraph for a while, Byers. And think also, if you dare, that because, as I have repeatedly pointed out, you have erected ideas in your posts that are heretical with respect to creationist orthodoxy, then you are one of the people that the creepy Dominionists will summarily execute if they gain power on your continental land mass. Because this is what they have openly stated, Byers, that they will execute those who fail to conform to the orthodoxy that they have decided that they have a "divine right" to impose upon the rest of humanity. Because you have posted ideas that are heretical with respect to that orthodoxy, Byers, YOU are one of the people they want to kill.

Robert Byers wrote:First all the rocks are designed.

What, all of them, Byers? Though this is hardly a novel apologetic approach - it's exactly the one I'd expect to see coming from the Jehovah's Witnesses. By the way, Byers, are you one of these? And if so, what are you doing fraternising with the likes of us outside of the supervision of your elders? Only given that the apologetics you're erecting here is straight out of their playbook, it's pretty unusual to see someone from outside their circle using them, and so for this reason I have to ask if you're one of them. As a corollary thereof, you shouldn't even be talking to us, Byers, because the people at the top of the command chain of the JW hierarchy lay down strictures about such matters, and if you happen to be a JW, Byers, you're in violation of those strictures posting here unsupervised.

And now, let's see upon what basis you erect this apologetic excrement, shall we?

Robert Byers wrote:They are within the laws of the universe.

And guess what, Byers? Three hundred years of diligent observation, analysis and experiment by the world's scientists has established that no magic is required in order to understand this. Every scientific paper that has EVER been published, in EVERY field of scientific endeavour, renders your magic man superfluous to requirements and irrelevant with respect to vast classes of real world observational phenomena. As for blind assertions that the laws of physics themselves needed your magic man to bring them into existence, well, I can think of several top physicists who would laugh at your ignorance of developments in the field, two of whom have published papers I've presented here in some detail.

Robert Byers wrote:They were not made round but became round by processes. They first were not round.

And exactly how does erosion over time by either wind or water equal "design", Byers? Last time I checked, air and water molecules were not conscious, and did not possess intent. They simply moved in accordance with the laws of physics. The idea that this constitutes "design" of the sort that people like you assert to have taken place with respect to the biosphere is fatuous, Byers. Because THAT "design" assertion on your part, Byers, consists of the assertion that an invisible magic man, possessing stupendous magic powers and a level of purported knowledge scientists can only dream of, integrated components with complete and perfect foreknowledge of their interactions as an act of intent. Air and water molecules don't possess intent. And please, spare us the hilarity of your magic man micro-managing the universe to the point of saying "this piece of gravel will be this shape in August 2010, and this slightly different shape in August 2011", and indeed purportedly engaging in magic orchestration of every quark, lepton, fermion and boson in the universe, because I'm minded to recall something called Maxwell's Demon here. Overcoming that needs magic, and once again, her have ZERO evidence that magic is needed to understand the universe.

Robert Byers wrote:So copying them is copying a process and copying a process within a universe of design.

Bollocks. This is just a blind assertion you've pulled out of your rectal passage, Byers. Once again, the very point I was making, Byers, is that if there are NO entities that are not "designed" in the universe, then it is IMPOSSIBLE TO DETECT so-called "design", because no rigorous comparison can be made. What part of this elementary concept do you not understand, Byers?

Robert Byers wrote:So they all are designed where a process was invoked to make them round.

Fatuous apologetic gibberish. "They were all designed because my magic man designed the universe". You really have to do better than this hogwash from the JW playbook, Byers. Which, if you had bothered to READ my posts properly, you would have seen I anticipated with my line of attack. That's the whole fucking point of the exercise, Byers, in case you hadn't worked this out.

Robert Byers wrote:The human made one just did it too.

So according to your witless apologetics, it should be IMPOSSIBLE TO TELL WHICH IS WHICH. Congratulations on falsifying your own assertions in a few simple steps, Byers.

Robert Byers wrote:If your trying to say the rocks are from chance then your wrong.

HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Byers, HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I USED THE WORDS "TESTABLE NATURAL PROCESSES" IN MY POSTS????

Which I EXPRESSLY USE IN ORDER TO REFUTE CREATIONIST BLIND ASSERTIONS AND LIES ABOUT "CHANCE"???

You can't even be bothered to pay attention to the most elementary of my statements, can you Byers?

Robert Byers wrote:They are from laws in nature. No chance here at all.

And THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT SCIENTISTS POSTULATE ABOUT THE BIOSPHERE, BYERS. THAT IT WAS THE PRODUCT OF TESTABLE NATURAL PROCESSES GOVERNED BY COMPREHENSIBLE LAWS. THAT'S WHAT EVOLUTION IS, BYERS, A SET OF TESTABLE NATURAL PROCESSES GOVERNED BY COMPREHENSIBLE LAWS.

Which means that from now on, Byers, you yourself have destroyed your ability to erect the "chance" canard in any of your future apologetics. I urge everyone reading this thread to bookmark your post for the purpose of catching you out on this.

Robert Byers wrote:This is rather a good case why creationism makes better points over the old evolution ideas.

HA HA HA HA HA HA!

And how OLD are creationist "ideas", Byers? Oh that's right, they arise from 3,000 year old mythology, written by ignorant and retarded Bronze Age nomads who couldn't count to six properly, and who thought that you could breed mammals with different striped coats just by sticking them next to a fence.



Meanwhile, I'm going to love seeing what apologetic horseshit follows the above assertion, Byers.

Robert Byers wrote:Closer attention to presumptions.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

And that, Byers, is why your mythology, and the farcical ideological masturbation fantasies erected around it, FAILS, because YOUR MYTHOLOGY THINKS THAT "PRESUMPTIONS" COUNT FOR MORE THAN REALITY. A characteristic that is also present in all too many of your posts.



Meanwhile, look who else has turned up ... the individual who openly admitted that he was only posting here to wind people up, and whose "submission" of a "paper" to various journals was a comedy epic in its own right. Oh, by the way, Atheistoclast, since you erected the assertion over at TalkRational that you were engaged in acvitivies contrary to UN sanctions, have you been visited by those nice people from Special Branch yet? Only if not, this can be arranged, given that you've openly asserted that you've aided and abetted a hostile foreign power with respect to the acquisition of nuclear weapons. For those interested, the post in which this assertion is erected is here, a follow-up post being this one, whilst a subsequent post referring back to these is this one, eliciting the following retort from ericmurphy.

Oh, and as an example of this individual's views, try this gem, which exposes the vacuity before I even begin:

Atheistoclast over at TR wrote:As with holocaust revisionism, evolutionism revisionism is important in establishing the truth.

Right, let's take a look at this shit shall we?

Atheistoclast wrote:

Calilasseia wrote:This one comes courtesy of deadman_932 over at TalkRational.

Since those who erect the "design" assertion think that "design" is allegedly "obvious", and that it's only rejected because those pesky scientists won't accept magic, I've a simple question, courtesy of the aforementioned deadman_932.

No, those pesky scientists don't accept anything other than a naturalistic explanation for the origins and diversity of life.

Which is what I said above. They don't think magic is needed. Pay attention, Atheistoclast.

Atheistoclast wrote:Their assumption is there must be one, even if the evidence is antithetical to this belief.

Oh, going to bore us all shitless with this piece of tiresome trolling now, are you, despite the fact that it's been destroyed countless times in the past? Since when does "direct experimental test and validation of the relevant postulates" equal "belief", in anything other than the fantasy universe in which you are Ahmadinejad's global fixer and enforcer?

Atheistoclast wrote:

Here's a picture of some rocks. The picture is being linked to because it's over 700 pixels wide, and the board software is set not to allow embedding of wide images. One of these rocks is "designed" (it was shaped by human hand). Which one?

This is absolutely cretinous piece of obfuscation.

A field in which you have demonstrated yourself to be a peerless expert. I cite your posts on numerous rationalist forums as evidence for this.

Atheistoclast wrote:Design inferences work because there is no naturalistic explanation

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Yeah, right. Those ONE THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED OR MORE SCIENTIFIC PAPERS CONTAINING THE VERY EXPLANATIONS YOU ASSERT DO NOT EXIST being yet another part of REALITY you'll pretend doesn't exist. Do you really want to be a second-rate imitation of Michael Behe during the frying of his arse cheeks at the Dover Trial? Because that's what your above assertion sets you up for.

Atheistoclast wrote:Digital codes don't just come into being by chance

Yawn. It's the "chance" canard again. Been there, done that to death to such an extent that even zombies are pointing and laughing at the lack of life of this canard.

Atheistoclast wrote:or the laws of physics and chemistry.

HA HA HA HA HA HA!

I'm sure Turing, Shannon, Kolmogorov and Chaitin will all be so gratified to know where they went wrong. Every CPU that has ever been produced is pointing and laughing at you at this juncture.

Atheistoclast wrote:A rock placed on a beach by a human could have also have been deposited by natural forces.

The point being, it's not the deposition that's crucial here, it's the shaping of that rock. Namely, which ones were shaped by forces such as wind and water erosion over a long period of time, and which ones were shaped by a human being chiselling away at them?

Atheistoclast wrote:There is a big difference between what Nature can do and what she cannot.

Well since no one has demonstrated that there exist phenomena in the real world that are beyond the remit of testable natural processes, we can toss your assertions to the contrary into the bin.

Given that you've already placed into the public domain more than enough material to support the view that you are not worth bothering with, except for entertainment purposes, and I've ceased to find your subsequent drivel in this thread entertaining, I'll call it a day at this point. Because I have something serious I wish to post, and your interventions have already delayed me from this for too long.

And now, time to post the serious post I intended to post in this thread, before discovering that my shiny thread was full of the dumped contents of the soiled intellectual nappies of mythology fetishists.

And, since I've been itching to do this for some time, I've decided to give this post a title that will amuse many here. Namely:

WHY DESIGN ASSERTIONISTS ARE SCREWED

With respect to the "design" assertion, another apposite problem has come to my attention, a problem which is apposite with respect to my opening post, because it brings problems inherent with any purported universal metric for detecting "design" that I haven't covered before into sharp relief. This applies equally to two different classes of purported "designer", namely natural ones and supernatural ones, but, as shall be seen, is actually worse for supernatural ones.

One of the favourite corollary assertions erected by fetishists for "design", is that instances of so-called "design" in the biosphere are purportedly detectable as such, because they exhibit a purported level of "perfection" that is beyond the remit of evolution. The problem with that corollary assertion, of course, is that the biosphere contains numerous documented instances, from the molecular level upwards, of features that make absolutely no sense whatsoever when juxtaposed with this assertion of "perfection". The biosphere contains enough documented instances of kludgey and far from optimal 'solutions' to various ecosystem space problems to render this assertion null and void. But that corollary assertion of "perfection" turns round and bites design assertionists on the buttocks in another way.

One of the reasons why evolution has produced some kludgey, sub-optimal solutions to various ecosystem space problems, is that evolutionary processes are not striving for some teleological goal in this regard. All that evolutionary processes do, when they operate, is produce organisms that are sufficiently competent for their particular ecosystem niche at any given time, and if the conditions of that niche change too rapidly for evolutionary processes to respond in a given instance, then that particular solution ceases to be sufficiently competent and becomes extinct. Evolutionary processes rely upon organismal genomes to act as their 'memory' of what works and what doesn't in a given instance, and when a given instance stops working, those processes can only rescue that instance from extinction under certain appropriate conditions. Before any creationists or IDists try to quote mine this, and claim that I'm accepting that evolutionary processes have limits, well, duh, congratulations for alighting upon the banally obvious - no one, myself included, has ever said that evolutionary processes can operate beyond the laws of physics, for example, but myself and others have reported at length, that evolutionary processes are perfectly capable of producing observed biodiversity and its allied features, and have presented the evidence for this, so don't bother quote mining this paragraph unless you actually want to look dishonest. What I and others who paid attention in science class do NOT accept, is blind creationist/IDist assertions that evolution cannot produce X, Y or Z, simply because creationist/IDist ideology and its defining assertions require magic. I've said so often in my time, that 300 years of scientific endeavour has established conclusively that we don't need magic in order to understand the universe, that any quote mining of my words above will not only look dishonest, but stupid.

Continuing for a moment on the real limits of evolution, as understood by those of us who paid attention in science classes, as opposed to the fantasy magic barriers asserted to exist by mythology fetishists and their ilk, one of the constraints acting upon evolutionary processes is that they work by using inheritance. This constraint doesn't stop those processes from producing a large number of interesting organismal features, but it does mean that those processes have to work with whatever has arisen in the past. Those processes cannot conjure up an entirely new genome, totally bereft of any trace of antecedent genes, and no one in the world of real science has ever postulated that they can. What real scientists have postulated, of course, is that despite the limitations of having to work with inheritance, those processes can still alight upon a vast range of solutions to various ecosystem problems, courtesy of the time honoured mechanism of shaping population heredity differentially. Assertions to the effect that this constitutes some sort of 'magic barrier' preventing those processes from producing, say, the bacterial flagellum, are so asinine in the light of the scientific evidence (including the 15 or so papers I've presented in detail elsewhere on these forums) that the only proper response left is to point and laugh at such assertions.

However, the point I am leading up to with the above preamble is this - any entity that possesses the vast body of knowledge, and the means, to manufacture organismal genomes from scratch, as design assertionists claim is the case for their purported "designer", is NOT thus constrained.

Such an entity is NOT constrained by the requirements of inheritance. Indeed, in the case of those asserting that a supernatural magic entity is required to produce the biosphere, they define their magic entity as not being thus constrained. However, the same applies to any purported "natural" entities capable of genetic engineering on the grand scale required to support the "design" assertion - any entities possessing the knowledge and the means to perform this task are NOT constrained in the least to rely upon inheritance.

As a corollary of the above absence of constraint to work within inheritance, any entity that qualifies as a "designer" for the biosphere is free to produce a range of elegant solutions, none of which need betray ANY trace of homology with antecedent systems whatsoever, because, well duh, such a "designer" isn't relying upon inheritance. Any such "designer" is free to alight upon whatever elegant solutions happen to be made possible by that vast body of knowledge and vast possession of skills. Consequently, we should see no instances of kludgey, sub-optimal solutions if a sufficiently powerful "designer" was genuinely responsible for the biosphere. We should indeed observe that the biopshere conforms to what I labelled the "Bugatti Veyron fallacy" when dealing with Michael Behe's nonsense in a previous post at the Richard Dawkins Forums - we should see that organisms are indeed the acme of perfection, and that there is no room for improvement in any organismal lineage. This follows inexorably from the fact that design assertionists insist that their magic entities are purportedly wonderfully gifted in this regard.

Now, this is bad enough for any assertion that the purported "designer" is itself a natural entity, working within the laws of physics. Even an entity constrained in this manner, if it possesses sufficient knowledge, skill and tools for the job, should be capable of producing elegant solutions that don't result in biologists looking at them, and thinking upon doing so, that their electrician or plumber could produce a better job.

But in the case of sueprnatural entities, the situation is even worse, because such entities are defined by those who assert that they exist, to operate outside of the constraints of natural processes altogether. As a consequence, such entities should be even more capable of producing the "perfection" that design assertionists frequently insist is present, and on an even greater scale. Which means that design assertionists' own insistence upon holding up the biosphere as evidence of the fantastic and wonderful capabilities of their assorted magic entities, turns round to bite them on the buttocks, because such perfection is far from evident. The biosphere includes more than its fair share of lash-ups, nonsensical features and broken relics extant within living organisms, to support the notion that they were the result of natural proccesses constrained to work with inheritance, and refute the assertion that they were the product of some supremely gifted magic entity.

Apologetic fabrications to the effect that recognising this constitutes "arrogance" on our part are precisely that - apologetic fabrications and nothing more. They amount to erecting the wholly unsupported claim that their asserted magic entities possess some privileged knowledge denied to us, despite the fact that it is this very claim of purported "privileged knowledge" on the part of their asserted entities that we are contesting with this evidence. The assertion that their magic entities are somehow so inscrutable and so far above us in knowledge, that these instances of kludgey solutions somehow constitute "perfection" for reasons unbeknownst to us, despite exhibiting manifest inconsistencies with this assertion of "perfection", is merely another of those apologetic fabrications that the assertionist mind is so fond of. One of the juicier ironies arising from such apologetic fabrications, of course, is that after posturing as being in a position to chastise us for doubting the magic powers of their beloved entities, design assertionists of various species then happily erect other assertions, that are tantamount to making the very claim that they purport to chastise us for - namely, possessing the very privileged knowledge about the mind of their magic entities that they previously told us was somehow "impossible" for us to obtain. Indeed, their very assertion that their magic entities possess this purported "privileged knowledge", including the claim about purported inscrutability described above, is a claim of the same type that they are posturing as being in a position to chastise us for erecting!

The only escape left to design assertionists, given the above, is to accept that their beloved entities must be subject to additional constraints, if what we see is indeed the best that those entities could purportedly "design". But if the vast body of scientific evidence, to the effect that magic entities are superfluous to requirements and irrelevant, wasn't enough on its own, that body of evidence is doubly damning once constraints are accepted upon those entities, because the whole point of erecting those entities, was to make the claim that those entities possessed capabilities beyond those of testable natural processes, capabilities that were purportedly "necessary" to produce the observed phenomena we see. The moment that constraints are placed upon those entities that reduce them to the same level as testable natural processes, they are even more superfluous to requirements than before, because the entire raison d'être for those entities, as described above, has vanished.