A simple case for intelligent design

[tas8831]

Yes, apparently you have to know whether it was designed before you apply the filter.
Like when Dembski acolytes have to know whether or not a DNA sequence is a gene before assessing whether or not is has CSI...

That is an unjustified assertion,

Yes you do need to know if the DNA secuence is a functional gene (and/or other properties of the stuff of interest)

No you don’t have to know if a priori if it was designed.

So you admit that you have to know if a sequence of DNA is a functional gene or not before you can assess whether or not is has CSI, and if it does, it must have been made by a human mind, since a sequence of DNA that differs only by a single nucleotide from a functional gene has no CSI and was not made by a human mind.

Brilliant, great scientific 'device.'

 

[leroy]

In looking back at my original post, you omitted/ignored this:

"So this gene is 1500 bases long... there are 4 bases to pick from... So lets say the odds of this gene coming together all at once is 4^1500 - WOW! that is a HUGE number! We will then declare that therefore, no natural process could have put those 1500 bases in that order to make a gene all at once by chance!"I​

As I said before and assuming that the gene is funcional, ONLY if most possibel combinatios result in to useless DNA and only if there is not a bias in natrual laws to create functional genes, one could proclaim SC​

I have written more than once that one can learn a lot by looking at what creationists decide not to reply to.
I interpret your omission of this in your reply to be an ADmission - that you think that evolution posits a one-shot, all at once 'evolution' of genes.

No wonder you folks are so wrong all the time.

Wrong, (see the red letters)

I manifestly and openly admited multiple times that if Evolution (Darwinism) where true then there would be a bias for producing functional genes and therefore functional genes would fail to have the atribute of SC. (therefore one counldt infer design)

 

[tas8831]

Just declaration.

Pretty much. I just read a couple of criticisms of Demsbki's fluff and it is worse than expected.
Actually, I "knew" most of this stuff more than a decade ago when Dembski and the DI were heavily promoting it via websites, books, Campus clubs, etc. It was topic #1 on forums for a long time, but once that hype died, I moved on and have mostly forgotten about it all. A bit too mathy for my tastes, anyway, but mathematicians had a field day with it at the time.

In the end, one of its major flaws is the oft-refuted notion that 'gene x' or 'structure Y' had to have come about all at once - totally contrary to theories of evolution and genetics and genomics. So it was basically moot from the get-go.

But by golly, the acolytes just keep trumping on....

 

[tas8831]

I interpret your omission of this in your reply to be an ADmission - that you think that evolution posits a one-shot, all at once 'evolution' of genes.

Wrong, (see the red letters)

I manifestly and openly admited multiple times that if Evolution (Darwinism) where true then there would be a bias for producing functional genes and therefore functional genes would fail to have the atribute of SC. (therefore one counldt infer design)

And yet, the filter actually is based on that false notion - irreducible complexity.

 

[leroy]

Suppose I claim to have a device - a filter, if you will - that can tell me the average speed of a car without knowing the distance or the time that it traveled, it just tells me the average speed.

And you say, 'Wow, fantastic! How does it work?'

So first you apply you device in cars with known average speed, and determine if your devise works and determine under what circumstances does the device works.

If say the Device only works with black cars, then before applying the devise you (or someone else) have to tell me if the car is black before applying the device. You could say “but the device doesn’t tell you if the car is black or not”and I would say “true, so what?”if we don’t have enough information about the car, we simply don’t apply the test, as simple as that.

And I say 'OK, but you have to provide me with some attributes of the car traveling at that average speed, like how far it has driven and during what time frame.'

sure
So what? You need some data before using the devise, if you can access to that information you can know the average speed.

Why not just demonstrate an application of the filter without having to know a priori if it exhibits the attributes of human design?

Well in an ideal world first one has to apply the test (any test) to things with known results in order to determine if the test works.

So first one should apply the test in things that are known to be design and things that are known to be “no-design” and see if it works, and determine under what circumstances it works.

If the test is successful then the second step would be to apply the test in things that we don’t know (like DNA) if are design or “no-design”

Would you agree that at least the first step has been accomplished? If not why not?

 

[leroy]

And yet, the filter actually is based on that false notion - irreducible complexity.

Yes it could be said that IC implies SC, but SC does not imply IC

 

[leroy]

But...

Don't you claim that function is a hallmark of design?

No, specificity is a necessary (but not sufficient) attribute in order to declare SC. And in some contexts function could be an example of specificity.

But sure something can be functional without being SC

I wouldn’t claim, function therefore design

 

[Polymath257]

Well in an ideal world first one has to apply the test (any test) to things with known results in order to determine if the test works.

OK, where are the peer-reviewed studies to show your process works?

So first one should apply the test in things that are known to be design and things that are known to be “no-design” and see if it works, and determine under what circumstances it works.

OK, where has this been done for your process?

If the test is successful then the second step would be to apply the test in things that we don’t know (like DNA) if are design or “no-design”

Would you agree that at least the first step has been accomplished? If not why not?

No, I would not. You have given no study where that process was tested. You even got the concepts of false-positive and false-negative mixed up.

And, I'll go further. You have given no concrete criteria for establishing SC. In particular, you have given no concrete way to determine the 'combinations' that are *relevant* for a case.

As an example, what are the *relevant* combinations for determining if a particular shape of rock is SC or not? Does it boil down to whether *you* recognize it or not? If so, then it is useless.

 

[leroy]

Apparantly you do.....

As said in the previous post I replied to....

A functional DNA sequence that is the result of mutation while not knowing how it came about, would qualify as "specified and complex".
And you have just declared that "specified and complex" can only come from "design".

But then you discover the natural origins of the sequence. Nothing about the sequence under investigation has changed though. It still has all the same properties. And suddenly it isn't "specified and complex" anymore, because you found out that it wasn't designed.

So being of natural origins, ONLY FOR THAT FACT ALONE, an object is ruled out as "specified and complex". No reason, no rhyme.

Just declaration.

Again, at most that would imply that I can wrongly misinterpret the data and wrongly assume SC. But that would invalidate the test.

And the same is true with any other test, one can always be guilty of misinterpreting the data and getting wrong results, but that wouldn’t count as evidence against the test….

 

[leroy]

OK, where are the peer-reviewed studies to show your process works?



OK, where has this been done for your process?



No, I would not. You have given no study where that process was tested. You even got the concepts of false-positive and false-negative mixed up.

And, I'll go further. You have given no concrete criteria for establishing SC. In particular, you have given no concrete way to determine the 'combinations' that are *relevant* for a case.

As an example, what are the *relevant* combinations for determining if a particular shape of rock is SC or not? Does it boil down to whether *you* recognize it or not? If so, then it is useless.

The lack of peer review simply proves that the filter has not been proven to be successful in a robust (conclusive) way. But that doesn’t mean that the filter is invalid nor bad.

By your logic, there are no peer review articles that conclude that Eyes, Flagella, Brains, etc. evolved mainly by a mechanism of random variation and natural selection. So by that logic we should reject evolution under the same basis.

And before you quote any articles, please make sure that the author is actually showing that these things evolved by such mechanism.

 

[leroy]

So you admit that you have to know if a sequence of DNA is a functional gene or not before you can assess whether or not is has CSI,

yes

and if it does, it must have been made by a human mind

,
No, there are more things that one needs to know before claiming design (ether human or non human)

function by itself does not imply a mind

since a sequence of DNA that differs only by a single nucleotide from a functional gene has no CSI and was not made by a human mind.

If the gene only requires a single mutation in order to become functional, then it woudl probably still have CSI but it woudl be less specified than the gene with a function. if everything else is equal design woudl become more and more likelly to be true as the degree of specificity increases.

 

[Polymath257]

The lack of peer review simply proves that the filter has not been proven to be successful in a robust (conclusive) way. But that doesn’t mean that the filter is invalid nor bad.

By your logic, there are no peer review articles that conclude that Eyes, Flagella, Brains, etc. evolved mainly by a mechanism of random variation and natural selection. So by that logic we should reject evolution under the same basis.

And before you quote any articles, please make sure that the author is actually showing that these things evolved by such mechanism.

Actually, of course, it is the species that have those organs that evolved by mutation and natural selection, not just the organs themselves. And there are many peer reviewed articles concerning animals having evolved to give those organs by those processes.

But you are dodging. You have proposed this 'filter' without giving sufficient detail, with no study verifying it *at all*, even for plausibility, refusing to even show how it could apply in specific examples, and then say we should adopt it uncritically to support your rather outlandish position?

Sorry, real science doesn't work like that.

 

[leroy]

Does it boil down to whether *you* recognize it or not? If so, then it is useless.

I don’t know what is this a big deal, of course I have to recognize the pattern before I conclude SC, if I don’t recognize the pattern then I can’t make any claims.

You can send a message using a secret code, and I might fail to recognize the specified pattern, in such case I can wrongly assume “no-design” when in reality the message was designed. So yes when applying this filter you can have design and wrongly interpret “no-design”

But when applying this filter you cant interpret Design when in reality it is no-design

 

[leroy]

Actually, of course, it is the species that have those organs that evolved by mutation and natural selection, not just the organs themselves. And there are many peer reviewed articles concerning animals having evolved to give those organs by those processes.

show me 1

But you are dodging. You have proposed this 'filter' without giving sufficient detail, with no study verifying it *at all*, even for plausibility, refusing to even show how it could apply in specific examples, and then say we should adopt it uncritically to support your rather outlandish position?

Sorry, real science doesn't work like that.

That simply is wrong, I have provided multiple specific examples on how this filter should be applied, I

And no body I asking you to adopt the filter uncritically, you can reed Debskis work, find the flaws of his argument and share them with us in the forum

 

[Bear Wild]

The point that I made with pyramids was that you don’t need to know the mechanism used by the Egyptians in order to conclude that they were designed. In the same way you don’t need to know the mechanism used by the designer to create life, in order to infer design.

Do you agree with this specific point?

You might have thousands of other objections but do you grant that this particular objection is bad,

No I do not agree. You clearly do not understand the difference between a dynamic living organism with the ability to change with a man made structure that decays with time but never increases its complexity. We have evidence that life increases its own complexity through the genetic ability to create new combinations to control and make proteins. You must be able to see this difference. Pyramids do now create new pyramids. They do not increase complexity. Life does changes its complexity without any help of intelligent designer. You cannot make the comparison.

Show the evidence that the designer exists and how the designer currently influences with new unseen designs. If not learn about evolution.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Again, at most that would imply that I can wrongly misinterpret the data and wrongly assume SC.

No. It means that your test is useless.
It means that "specified complexity" has nothing to do with the properties of an object.

Again I'll refer you back to that functional DNA sequence.

Both before AND after the discovery of how it comes about naturally, the sequence is the exact same.

Learning how it came about, does not change its properties. It doesn't change the object under investigation ONE BIT.

Yet its properties BEFORE the discovery apparantly make it qualify as "specified and complex".
And AFTER the discovery, it does not.

The object didn't change. Its properties didn't change. Its function, shape, molecular composition, ... everything is still the exact same both before and after the discovery of how it came about.



This is CLEAR evidence that "specified complexity" is NOT determined by evaluating the properties of the object. If it were, then the DNA sequence would STAY "specified and complex" after the discovery.

In fact, it would also be judged "specified and complex" if its natural origins were already known when starting to apply the "test" to it.


Again, this seems black on white evidence that "specified complexity" is NOT determined by the actual properties and nature of an object.


Instead, it's determined purely based on incredulity, awe and ignorance.

And the same is true with any other test, one can always be guilty of misinterpreting the data and getting wrong results, but that wouldn’t count as evidence against the test….

This is where you are either wrong or dishonest about this specific example.

The actual data, stays the same both before and after discovering its natural origins.
That's the entire point. There is no "mis interpreting" going on. The observations of its properties are the exact same observations both before and after discovering its natural origins, with the exact same conclusions: it's functional, it's complex, its molecular composition is made of elements X and Y,....

The sequence didn't change. The function didn't change. The complexity didn't change. The shape, molecular composition,..... everything about it stays the exact same both before and after discovering how it came about.


This clearly and unambigously proves beyond a shadow of a doubt, that "specified complexity" is not being determined based on the properties of the actual object, but only on fallacious reasoning like arguments from awe, complexity, incredulity and ignorance.


I expect that you'll now do your very best to avoid addressing this simple point, that obviously "specified complexity" isn't based on the actual properties of an object at all. Because if it were, an object wouldn't cease to be "specified and complex" the second one finds out how it came about naturally.

 

[leroy]

No I do not agree. You clearly do not understand the difference between a dynamic living organism with the ability to change with a man made structure that decays with time but never increases its complexity. We have evidence that life increases its own complexity through the genetic ability to create new combinations to control and make proteins. You must be able to see this difference. Pyramids do now create new pyramids. They do not increase complexity. Life does changes its complexity without any help of intelligent designer. You cannot make the comparison.

Show the evidence that the designer exists and how the designer currently influences with new unseen designs. If not learn about evolution.

Yes yes, but your original argument was "" because I can't tell what mechanism was used by the designer, the claim life had a designer has to be wrong"

Implying that knowing the mechanism used by the designer is escential and necessary for any design inference


If you still hold that your objection is valid, then justify it.... And justify your arbitrary exception, why is it that this "rule" only applies when the design inference has theological implications that you don't like?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Yes yes, but your original argument was "" because I can't tell what mechanism was used by the designer, the claim life had a designer has to be wrong"

Just for the fun of it, where exactly did he make that claim? Can you quote him, using the quoting feature so it links back to the original post?

Implying that knowing the mechanism used by the designer is escential and necessary for any design inference

I'ld certaintly agree that at least to a certain extent, that seems to be a requirement... that the mechanism or at least part of the mechanism is known. How else would you be able to determine it was artificially made?

When you conclude something had a natural origin, then one can also only support such a conclusion when at least part of that natural process is unraveled / understood / discovered, right?

If you still hold that your objection is valid, then justify it...

I think I just did. It's the case for concluding a natural origin and it is the case for concluding an artificial origin. Failing at both, one can only call the origin unknown.

And justify your arbitrary exception, why is it that this "rule" only applies when the design inference has theological implications that you don't like?

I have no need for such exception.

 

[Polymath257]

I don’t know what is this a big deal, of course I have to recognize the pattern before I conclude SC, if I don’t recognize the pattern then I can’t make any claims.

Precisely.. That isn't scientific, then. You simply don't have the general ability to recognize patterns reliably.

You can send a message using a secret code, and I might fail to recognize the specified pattern, in such case I can wrongly assume “no-design” when in reality the message was designed. So yes when applying this filter you can have design and wrongly interpret “no-design”

But when applying this filter you cant interpret Design when in reality it is no-design

And, by thinking you see a pattern when there is none, you can falsely determine Design. By failing to recognize alternative paths, you can falsely determine design. By misuse of probabilities (combinations), you can falsely determine design.

So, for example, think about Mt Rushmore vs that other rock formation you saw as not designed. In both cases, how do you determine the range of comparable rock formations to allow? Suppose, ahead of time, that you are an alien that doens't know what humans look like.

In particular, how do you determine how many combinations to consider in the case of the rock formation you saw as not designed? How do you decide which others are similar enough to be worthy of being included in the comparison?

 

[tas8831]

So, for example, think about Mt Rushmore vs that other rock formation you saw as not designed. In both cases, how do you determine the range of comparable rock formations to allow? Suppose, ahead of time, that you are an alien that doens't know what humans look like.

Or suppose that Mt.Rushmore was made by talented artists and another face was not - done by a beginner, for example. And the face they carve is barely recognizable as a face.