How do you detect "design"?

[shunyadragon]

There is a big difference between engineered (intelligent) design and evolved (natural) design. Engineered designs tend to become less complex and eliminate redundancies and inefficiencies in function. Evolved designs are unplanned. So they tend to be less efficient and messier. Animal bodies can contain vestigial organs, which have little or no bearing on the survival of the organism but are holdovers from ancestors in which they had a useful function.

A good example of an inefficiency in an evolved biological design is the lack of bilateral symmetry in the two recurrent laryngeal nerves (RLN) that supply sensation and energy to each side of the larynx in a wide variety of animals, including our species of evolved ape. They are always of unequal length, because the one on the left is trapped underneath the aortic arch, but the right one is free to move higher in a body as, for example, the neck becomes longer over generations. The left RLN has to grow longer as the neck stretches, so giraffes have an extremely long left RLN and a much shorter right RLN. If intelligent designers saw this kind of thing happening, they would redesign the body to elevate the left RLN above the aortic arch, because the extra length serves no function.

Richard Dawkins has written extensively on the difference between biological evolutionary and artificial engineered designs, and that is why he entitled one of his books The Blind Watchmaker. That is, the watchmaker can still design and make watches, but he just doesn't see flaws in his designs. He may take longer to get the watch to work right or repair its function, and the results won't be as good because of that limitation. Nature's breeding program relies on survival of the fittest in a given environmental niche, but it does not eliminate all of the flaws, or evolutionary detritus, left over from ancestral bodies that it left behind. In order to "see" those flaws, it needs some way to distinguish the necessary parts in the design from the unnecessary parts.

Very poor argument for beating a dead horse to death with the misuse of the concept of design in nature. Nature is indifferent to any human anthropomorphic proposal of design and "Fine Tuning" as well. Both terms are oxymoron application in the nature of our physical existence.

 

[Copernicus]

Very poor argument for beating a dead horse to death with the misuse of the concept of design in nature. Nature is indifferent to any human anthropomorphic proposal of design and "Fine Tuning" as well. Both terms are oxymoron application in the nature of our physical existence.

I have no idea why you referred to my post as somehow "anthropomorphic" or having to do with "fine tuning". I didn't use either expression, and I wasn't trying to respond to anything that you had posted recently. I was just talking about planned vs. unplanned design. Inanimate forces can actually create order out of chaotic deterministic interactions. That fact is noncontroversial and easily demonstrated. Evolutionary design in biological organisms is just a special case of emergence in chaotic deterministic systems.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

But given your clarification, I don’t disagree and neither would Demsky nor any other ID proponent.

I disagree. Demsky and other cdesign proponentsists, including you, constantly claim to be able to detect design in other ways.

How does life or the universe or text written in the sky, fail as “design objects”?

Tell me, what are the signs of manufacturing in the universe or life?

 

[leroy]

Sorry @leroy, we have been reasonably dismissing your argument since before you were born. It was an ancient argument that never held up even in it's ancient versions. New knowledge has only made it's

Really? What argument? Quote my words and explain how my actual argument was dismissed………ohhh lets me guess……………..you are just making this up?

Is this part of a conspiracy theory against me? it seems to me that people like and you are lying unropes so that I reply with some insult so that I get banned form the forum?

I usually don’t buy conspiracy theories, but I see no other explanation for why are you making things up in a very shameless way.

 

[leroy]

I disagree. Demsky and other cdesign proponentsists, including you, constantly claim to be able to detect design in other ways.

Hard to believe, given that your method is too wide and allows for pretty much all possibities,

Tell me, what are the signs of manufacturing in the universe or life?

Life has the property of specified complexity……………..SE would be the evidence for manipulation/manufacture

WHY is life SE

because there are many in which the building blocks of life can exist, that are allowed by the laws of nature…………. But only few combinations would produce a self replicating molecule, the laws of nature don’t favor this pattern

why SE indicates design

experience, every time we find something with this property it is always designed.



No who is ready for a long and evasive reply?

Answer directly…………… why isn’t SE a sign of manufacture?

Me predicting the future: you will not answer to the question clearly and unabigously

So my next question is

Why isn’t me predicting the future evidence for the supernatural?

 

[Pogo]

Really? What argument? Quote my words and explain how my actual argument was dismissed………ohhh lets me guess……………..you are just making this up?

Is this part of a conspiracy theory against me? it seems to me that people like and you are lying unropes so that I reply with some insult so that I get banned form the forum?

I usually don’t buy conspiracy theories, but I see no other explanation for why are you making things up in a very shameless way.

Teleological argument - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The argument from intelligent design appears to have begun with Socrates, although the concept of a cosmic intelligence is older and David Sedley has argued that Socrates was developing an older idea, citing Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, born about 500 BC, as a possible earlier proponent.[13][14][15]

The argument you have been trying to make in many obtuse forms.
Most recently with Dembski's 1986 necessity, chance, design version from before you were born?

Intelligent design - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Intelligent design (ID) is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God, presented by its proponents as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins".[1][2][3][4][5] Proponents claim that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."[6] ID is a form of creationism that lacks empirical support and offers no testable or tenable hypotheses, and is therefore not science.[7][8][9] The leading proponents of ID are associated with the Discovery Institute, a Christian, politically conservative think tank based in the United States.[n 1]

 

[Pogo]

Hard to believe, given that your method is too wide and allows for pretty much all possibities,

Life has the property of specified complexity……………..SE would be the evidence for manipulation/manufacture

WHY is life SE

because there are many in which the building blocks of life can exist, that are allowed by the laws of nature…………. But only few combinations would produce a self replicating molecule, the laws of nature don’t favor this pattern

why SE indicates design

experience, every time we find something with this property it is always designed.



No who is ready for a long and evasive reply?

Answer directly…………… why isn’t SE a sign of manufacture?

Me predicting the future: you will not answer to the question clearly and unabigously

So my next question is

Why isn’t me predicting the future evidence for the supernatural?

If you can show how to measure "specified complexity" and what the specification is in anything, you will be the first,
it is just another of the Disco-tutes claims from their backside.

 

[Banach-Tarski Paradox]

A topic that frequently comes up in these creation debates, be it in context of evolution or the origins of the universe or alike, is our supposed ability to be able to differentiate "design" from natural occurances.

Yet whenever creationist or "design proponents" bring this up, it seems to me that they are either very vague about it or their methodology of "detecting design" seems to be no more then fallacious argumentst from ignorance ("I don't know how it can be natural, so therefor it isn't"), arguments from incredulity ("I don't believe it's natural, therefor it isn't") or various species or combinations thereof.

I would say that in a nutshell, we detect design by demonstrating signs of manufacturing or use of artificial materials.
This implies that we have to understand manufacturing processes and what signs / traces they tend to leave.
It also implies that we have to understand the difference between naturally occuring materials and artificial materials.

This in turn means that we could not detect or conclude design when it concerns things of unknown manufactoring and natural processes or of unknown materials.

This also means that if a designer sets out to mimic natural processes and materials while doing a perfect job, we would not be able to tell the artificial object from the natural object.

For example, if someone would take a rough stone and smooth it out by perfectly mimicing water erosion as what would happen in say a river, we would not be able to tell that this was done by a person instead of by a river.


So, having said that, when somebody *Mod edit* then states that one can "detect design" in the universe based on for example of the values of the physical constants, I wonder what the methodology is that is being used.

So in this thread, I invite people who disagree with my methodology of detecting design to explain their methodology of doing so and demonstrate how it achieves better results.

Mathematical beauty?

 

[Pogo]

Mathematical beauty?

like orbits or inverse square responses or Fibonacci series etc.
They are beautiful in at least some senses but what is the relevance to design?

 

[leroy]

Teleological argument - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The argument you have been trying to make in many obtuse forms.
Most recently with Dembski's 1986 necessity, chance, design version from before you were born?

Intelligent design - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Why is it so hard to follow instructions…………………….QUOTE MY WORDS and explain how my actual claims have been dismissed.

 

[Banach-Tarski Paradox]

like orbits or inverse square responses or Fibonacci series etc.
They are beautiful in at least some senses but what is the relevance to design?

By the sense of discovery, as opposed to invention?

It’s kind of intuitive thing.

Like when a physicist guesses the equation. Surely mathematical beauty is a consideration.

 

[Pogo]

By the sense of discovery, as opposed to invention?

It’s kind of intuitive thing.

Like when a physicist guesses the equation. Surely mathematical beauty is a consideration.

see above, teleology

 

[leroy]

If you can show how to measure "specified complexity"

In fact this is not very hard to do…………. Just measure the number of possible combinations VS the number of combinations that would produce that pattern (or an analogous pattern) the larger the first number is compared to the second, the system would be more SE

For example if you what to measure the level of SE in this text all you have to do is measure the number of possible combinations of letters VS the number of possible combinations that would produce meaningful words and sentences.

Obviously it is hard to determine the exact numbers, but showing that the first number is very very big compared to the second is enough

and what the specification is in anything, you will be the first,

Specification is just “the pattern”………. In this case the patter is “meaningful words and sentences”

 

[Pogo]

Why is it so hard to follow instructions…………………….QUOTE MY WORDS and explain how my actual claims have been dismissed.

"your words"

 

[Banach-Tarski Paradox]

see above, teleology

I run into that concept in historiography from time to time.

 

[shunyadragon]

*Whoosh*

You still keep missing her point. That's your reading comprehension ability not mine.

Look closely at her quotes. she appeals to the subjective perspective of "my own opinion" and "experience of awe at the splendor of reality. What one believes is "behind" that splendor - if anything - varies from person to person and culture to culture."

This actually true of other appeals to "design" and "fine tuning" lacking objective evidence to support the claims.

 

[shunyadragon]

Or if he caused a butterfly to flap its wings just so.

I do not believe the butterfly flaps its wing "just so," The butterfly flaps its wings to fly.

 

[Banach-Tarski Paradox]

I do not believe the butterfly flaps its wing "just so," The butterfly flaps its wing to fly.

Ah, the teleological argument.

Awesome!

 

[shunyadragon]

I have no idea why you referred to my post as somehow "anthropomorphic" or having to do with "fine tuning". I didn't use either expression, and I wasn't trying to respond to anything that you had posted recently. I was just talking about planned vs. unplanned design. Inanimate forces can actually create order out of chaotic deterministic interactions. That fact is noncontroversial and easily demonstrated. Evolutionary design in biological organisms is just a special case of emergence in chaotic deterministic systems.

It remains a problem of an anthropomorphic view of "design" in nature as you describe it above as some "intent" in nature. Inanimate forces do not actually create order out of chaotic deterministic interactions, Nature is not chaotic or random by its nature. Natural Laws and processes simply exist and natural deterministic order is a natural property of our universe as it is without any need of "intent" in design. I like Einstein's view simply that the "dice are loaded."

One word of caution is science does not propose that nature is rigidly mechanically determanististic. The determinism in nature is that all cause and effect events in natural occur within the limits of outcomes constrained by Natural Laws and processes. The range of possible outcome is fractal based on the number of variables involved. For example: No two clouds are alike, but all clouds look like clouds. No two Maple lives are alike, but all Maple leaves look like Maple leaves.

 

[Pogo]

Look closely at her quotes. she appeals to the subjective perspective of "my own opinion" and "experience of awe at the splendor of reality. What one believes is "behind" that splendor - if anything - varies from person to person and culture to culture."

This actually true of other appeals to "design" and "fine tuning" lacking objective evidence to support the claims.

Stick my nose in for a moment, who is her, pronouns are actually a real problem in this case because I think we may have lost track of who is abusing "Intelligent Design" and for what reason.
One possibility is that it is being used in a black and white fallacy and another is an actual ignorance of the science/logic of the claim.