A simple case for intelligent design

[Subduction Zone]

Ok so we can say that there are 2 "types" of evolutionary chance;

1 those who add complexity,
2 those who reduce complexity.

.....both types of changes might me positive negative or neutral; if it is positive it would be selected by natural selection.......agree? Yes or no

Do you have any evidence to support the idea that evolutionary changes that add complexity are more common than those who reduce complexity?

they don't have to be more common. They only have to be selected for. Selection is a very powerful "force".

By the way, it is better to call them positive and negative mutations.. Getting caught up in a concept that you cannot define only confuses the issue. For example it is easy to demonstrate eye evolution through the selection of naturally occurring variation. One cannot say when "complexity" entered the discussion.

 

[leroy]

they don't have to be more common. They only have to be selected for. Selection is a very powerful "force".

By the way, it is better to call them positive and negative mutations.. Getting caught up in a concept that you cannot define only confuses the issue. For example it is easy to demonstrate eye evolution through the selection of naturally occurring variation. One cannot say when "complexity" entered the discussion.

I am talking about just the set mutations that are selected.


From this set of mutations some add complexity others decrease complexity. Can you prove that those that add complexity are more common ?

 

[leroy]

it is a reasonable conclusion to draw since we can at least observe parts of the process. C!aiming that it is the result of magic does not appear to be a very scientific approach to me.

It would be a reasonable conclusion, if you can show that this mechanism tends to increase complexity

 

[leroy]

And since you can't even define "complexity" how are people going to deal with this claim?

Correction, since you pretend not to understand the concept of specified complexity, one can't expect a direct anwean from you.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I am talking about just the set mutations that are selected.


From this set of mutations some add complexity others decrease complexity. Can you prove that those that add complexity are more common ?

The problem is that you can't even define "complexity". What you call complexity may be an emergent property of added mutations. For example the evolution of the eye from an eye spot is well understood and could be said to be "more complex". But no specific mutation that added "complexity" was needed. You are creating a bit of a strawman by using a nebulous term and then not finding what you cannot define.

EDIT: Here is a simple test. A change is observed in a member of a species. How do you know whether it is "complex" or not? How do you know if it adds "complexity"?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Correction, since you pretend not to understand the concept of specified complexity, one can't expect a direct anwean from you.

None has been given that is of any value. It is of the same order as the definition of "kinds" used by creationists. They cannot come up with a proper definition of one. By the way, I am not the only one that has explained this failure of yours.

 

[Subduction Zone]

It would be a reasonable conclusion, if you can show that this mechanism tends to increase complexity

Hardly. Since when has "it was magic" even been a reasonable conclusion? Meanwhile we have phenomenon after phenomenon that in the past was thought to be magic but are now understood by naturalistic processes. This is an attempt at not just shifting the burden of proof but ducking and running away from it.

 

[leroy]

EDIT: Here is a simple test. A change is observed in a member of a species. How do you know whether it is "complex" or not? How do you know if it adds "complexity"?

Did the mutation added new functional genetic information ? If yes then it would be an example of added complexity.

If the mutation destroyed functional infornation, the complexity has decreased.

If the mutation added useless genetic noise then it could be said that complexity was not added nor decreased.


Why don't you reed the source that I provided, ?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Did the mutation added new functional genetic information ? If yes then it would be an example of added complexity.

If the mutation destroyed functional infornation, the complexity has decreased.

If the mutation added useless genetic noise then it could be said that complexity was not added nor decreased.


Why don't you reed the source that I provided, ?

I don't think you understand what mutations do. A single mutation will not add a function. New functions appear to evolve. Existing functions slowly change until they have a new one. There is no sharp boundary. That is why your definition is worthless. Take flight. It did not appear with one mutation. Feathers evolved before flight for insulation and display. And they evolved from a preceding function that again had a different use itself. There was no sudden change to feathers and new information. There was no sudden change from no flight to flight. You are as I pointed out earlier using a strawman version of evolution.

 

[The Bible Alone]

Ah OK, thanks very much, that is interesting. I can certainly see that if you take literally the Genesis account that death only entered the world with Adam and Eve's Original Sin, then sure, you have to reject the idea of any fossils antedating human ones. And then you also have to reject the age of the rocks by radiometric dating and the entire scientific account of the formation of the earth and solar system. Which is self-consistent - if admittedly weird to a person with a science background.

Tell me though, are you a Young Earth Creationist or an Old Earth Creationist? I suppose I am really most interested in the Old Earth Creationist position, as that seems to accept taking a certain amount of the Genesis account allegorically, but not the common descent idea, for some reason. What intrigues me is the basis for making this distinction. I had an idea it was something to do with the theology of the Fall and the Atonement, but I am not sure why evolution is deemed to be incompatible with that.

Can you help?

Yes I am a young earth creationist.

The day age theory requires millions of years of death before sin which contradicts the Bible's explanation for why both people and animals die.

Genesis 1:31
[31]And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good...

In God's definition of "very good" there is no death, not even of animals.

Isaiah 11:6
[6]The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.

The Bible says everything was vegetarian before sin.

Genesis 1:30
[30]And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

The first sin brought a curse on the whole earth. This was a literal curse that we still see all around us today. If the punishment was literal the fall must have been literal as well.

Genesis 3:17
[17]And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

Romans 8:22
[22]For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

If there will be no more physical death when God ends the curse then the curse must have caused physical death and not spiritual death alone.

Revelation 21:4-5
[4]And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
[5]And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new...

Revelation 22:3
[3]And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him:

The comparison of Jesus and Adam in this passage show that if Jesus was a literal person so must Adam have been.

1 Corinthians 15:21-22
[21]For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
[22]For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

As for radiometric dating, it is founded on unprovable assumptions such as
1) there has been no contamination and
2) the decay rate has remained constant.
By dating rocks of known ages that give highly inflated radiometric ages, geologists have shown that this method can’t give reliable absolute ages. There is no problem with a literal interpretation of Genesis and science but there is a big problem with mixing Genesis and evolution.

 

[Bear Wild]

Ok so we can say that there are 2 "types" of evolutionary chance;

1 those who add complexity,
2 those who reduce complexity.

.....both types of changes might me positive negative or neutral; if it is positive it would be selected by natural selection.......agree? Yes or no

Do you have any evidence to support the idea that evolutionary changes that add complexity are more common than those who reduce complexity?

To your question yes. All three are possible. What ever change gives the organism the best advantage. In very stable environments with low competition there may be less advantage for more complexity since that complexity may require more resources to maintain the organism for instance while a less complexity requires less to maintain and has the advantage. Higher problem solving capacity in birds requires more energy resources to maintain On the Island of Barbados there are two birds with similar ancestral genotype between the bird The Bajan bullfinch has greater problem solving capacity compared to the Grassquit that lives on the same island. The bullfinch does better in the environment disturbed by man's development where greater cognitive capacity for problem solving gives it the advantage but in the undisturbed areas where the conserved behaviors with less cognitive complexity, the Grassquit does better. Thus the selection for genetic changes for more complex problem solving behavior is favored in some environments while more conserved genetics with less complexity gives the advantage in another environment. This is a single example but hopefully shows how advance in complexity depends on the environment.

The concept of convergent evolution also supports why evolution answers what is seen on out Earth. Both mammals and birds have complex cognitive behaviors with similar abilities but different arrangements to the brain. In intelligent design, if the designer made the perfect brain pattern to allow for more complex behaviors then you would expect the pattern to exist in all organisms. But when we compare birds and animals who both can show quite complex behavioral patterns, the mammals cortex for complex behavior derives from the dorsal pallium which is connected with the olfactory center hand develops layer over layers as seen clearly in the human brain. Birds brains derive from the ventral pallium connected with vision and auditory and develops a patchy pattern rather than layers. Despite the differences in evolutionary development they both operate similarly with respect to complex cognitive behaviors and problem solving.

I hope this gives some explanation that evolution can create complex patterns in many ways. A intelligent designer who created the brain pattern that is best for complex behavioral patterns would then use that same design for any organism needing complex behavioral. There are so many examples of convergent evolution that also demonstrate this.

 

[Bear Wild]

Yes I am a young earth creationist.

The day age theory requires millions of years of death before sin which contradicts the Bible's explanation for why both people and animals die.

Genesis 1:31
[31]And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good...

In God's definition of "very good" there is no death, not even of animals.

Isaiah 11:6
[6]The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.

The Bible says everything was vegetarian before sin.

Genesis 1:30
[30]And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

The first sin brought a curse on the whole earth. This was a literal curse that we still see all around us today. If the punishment was literal the fall must have been literal as well.

Genesis 3:17
[17]And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

Romans 8:22
[22]For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

If there will be no more physical death when God ends the curse then the curse must have caused physical death and not spiritual death alone.

Revelation 21:4-5
[4]And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
[5]And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new...

Revelation 22:3
[3]And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him:

The comparison of Jesus and Adam in this passage show that if Jesus was a literal person so must Adam have been.

1 Corinthians 15:21-22
[21]For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
[22]For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

As for radiometric dating, it is founded on unprovable assumptions such as
1) there has been no contamination and
2) the decay rate has remained constant.
By dating rocks of known ages that give highly inflated radiometric ages, geologists have shown that this method can’t give reliable absolute ages. There is no problem with a literal interpretation of Genesis and science but there is a big problem with mixing Genesis and evolution.

There you go using myths that are designed for teaching the beliefs through metaphors to those following that religion and trying to use them for what they were not intended as in the case of how life evolved on our planet. You can quote all day long from the bible but until you get out and learn from the natural world you will never understand how humans and all life forms came about. You will never find the true explanation in your books. Look at the world around you instead then you will find the insight to see that evolution is the correct explanation.

 

[Milton Platt]

People tend to complicate things, but the concept of inteligetn design (as proposed by Behe, Demski and many others) is very simple and easy to understand.

The theory of ID is based on 2 premises

1 Intelligent design is detectable: there are objective ways to detect design, this is uncontroversial; for example forensic scientists, archeologists, fire experts, detectives, cryptographers, and many other professionals detect design all the time. For example If we go to another planet and find something that looks like pyramids there would be an objective way to determine if they where design or not. And one could (in principle) conclude that these pyramids where intelligently design even if nobody knows who the designer, or where did it come from, or “who created the designer” the answer to those question could simply be “I don’t know”

2 if we apply those objective methods to living things, we would infer design: If we look at living things at apply the same methods that we already know that are reliable, to detect design, we would infer that life was designed by an intelligent designer (even if we might not know who the designer is, or were did he come from)


The objective method that Dembski and others propose is “specified complexity” something is specified and complex if:

1 it has many parts (or units)…. For example a book has many letters

2 they are organized in a pattern…..for example the letters are organized in such a way in which they produce meaningful words and sentences

3 the pattern is independent from the forces of nature: …. For example there is no a law (or principle) in nature that forces “ink” and “paper” to produce meaningful letters words and sentences.

Something requires all (1,2 and 3) in order to call it “specified complexity”


The argument is that life is specified and complex

even the simplest life forms would require many amino acids (1) organized in a very specific order and pattern (2) and nothing in nature forces the amino acids to organize themselves in such a way that they would produce functional self replicating “things”


*For simplicity lets define life as: something organic that can reproduce.


In my experience those who deny ID don’t really present an argument, and usually they don’t spot their point of disagreement, they simply troll and call ID “creationism with another name” instead of providing an actual argument.

Please provide some of the actual evidence for everyone to look at. What research papers are you referring to? What experiments have demonstrated an intelligent designer exists(not that something is complex looking)?

 

[BilliardsBall]

You simply have no clue on how the sciences are done, or how to reason rationally. Of course rational thought would be the end of your beliefs. You cannot afford it.

That is your response to: "Please provide your proofs here that this space-time is all, there is no multiverse, and there is nowhere water outside this universe?" -- being the question you begged?

 

[BilliardsBall]

Very, very different scenarios. For one thing, multiverses and such larger aspects are routinely discussed and investigated theoretically. There is NO reason to think anything as complex as water (for that matter, even oxygen) would be around when the early universe was. In fact, what we know of the physics says it could not be.

As for dark matter, we see the effects of it. That was why it was introduced in the first place. We can even map out where it is using gravitational lensing. And, from the particle physics perspective, there are a number of different possibilities that have not been eliminated. The problem is detection in our accelerators, not detection in the cosmos.

Again, there is NO reason to take the Bible seriously as a science text. it is poor enough as a history text. These sorts of speculation are simply not in the realm of reasonable speculation.

Address what I wrote, not what you presume I said--the water was outside the expansion/our know universe.

 

[BilliardsBall]

SETI is much more likely to work.

This "gem" based on the fact, no doubt, that millions people testify their prayers work, and SETI has found zero.

 

[Polymath257]

Address what I wrote, not what you presume I said--the water was outside the expansion/our know universe.

Again, not even a reasonable starting point without some explanation of how water was formed in such quantities outside of our known universe. I doubt any serious scientists would take this seriously *at all*.

First, it in no way fits with what we know of cosmology. It doens't fit with what we know of how the elements are formed (inside of stars). To get the densities required is completely unphysical.

 

[Polymath257]

This "gem" based on the fact, no doubt, that millions people testify their prayers work, and SETI has found zero.

Nope. Anecdotal evidence notwithstanding, there is no *scientific* demonstration that prayer works. If anything, knowledge that people are praying for you tends to lead to worse outcomes according to the studies that have been done. The effect is *purely* psychological.

As for SETI, what we know of the conditions for life on Earth makes it more, not less, likely that life exists in other locations in the universe. Now, I personally suspect that *technological* life is rare enough that we won't find it while our species survives. But I would honestly be surprised if bacterial life isn't common.

 

[SkepticThinker]

My friend,

An atheist is a person who will agree wholeheartedly that we should spend millions to shoot signals into space to contact non-proven alien entities (SETI), while simultaneously calling UFO believers superstitious nut jobs and at the same time, refusing to say a few basic words of prayer (for free, not millions of dollars) to contact a non-proven (to their satisfaction) entity, to inherit eternal life.

I used the scientific method (make a hypothesis, follow it as true) to get there, by the way.

THINK BIGGER, darling, to paraphrase Tom Hardy.

PS. Participate in my assertion, falsifying it, by PRAYING NOW.

Stop making things up. Please.

 

[Jose Fly]

I am not avoiding the burden proof.

Yeah you are. Several of your recent posts in this thread are you attempting to shift the burden of proof onto everyone else. For example, in the post I responded to you state, "You have to show that on average organism are more likely to gain information/complexity rather than loading it."

How is that relevant to you making a positive case for ID creationism?

My claim are:

1 that specified complexity can only come from a mind

2 And that life is specified and complex

Each of these points is testable and falsifiable. Which of these do you find controversial, so that I can support it?

Given how you defined "specified complexity" in the OP, we know #1 isn't true. Now, keep in mind that I'm only applying your first two criteria, because the third ("the pattern is independent from the forces of nature") is either circular or nonsensical. But we know for a fact that non-intelligent sources produce items that "have many parts" that are "organized in a pattern".

Ok we know that complex multicellular life came from unicelular organisms......how do you know that evolutionary mechanisms (random mutatios and narural selection )
where responsable?

Because we've seen it happen. Experimental evolution of multicellularity