Required evidence for design?

[outhouse]

That a deity could not make it apparent that it was designed even if He/She/It wanted to?

a deity can do nothing as they do not exist at this point in time outside mythology

So you do consider a designed Universe to be indistinguishable from a non-designed Universe?

The question is purely imaginative.

If something could be designed, there might be something that exist outside mythology in a pattern we would be able to tell.

before attributing something to something, make sure that something actually exist.

 

[Parsimony]

a deity can do nothing as they do not exist at this point in time outside mythology

The question is purely imaginative.

before attributing something to something, make sure that something actually exist.

Surely you know what a hypothetical question is, don't you? That's what this whole thread is.

If something could be designed, there might be something that exist outside mythology in a pattern we would be able to tell.

What pattern would you expect to see?

 

[McBell]

Given that they are created by natural forces, I'd say no.

I agree.
However, each individual snowflake appears to be specifically designed by those who do not understand how snowflakes are formed.

So you do consider a designed Universe to be indistinguishable from a non-designed Universe? That a deity could not make it apparent that it was designed even if He/She/It wanted to?

I believe a deity could, if they so desired, make it obvious that a designer was involved.
Problem is, just like with snowflakes, there is no obvious sign of a designer.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that there is no designer, just that there is no obvious sign of one.

 

[Parsimony]

I agree.
However, each individual snowflake appears to be specifically designed by those who do not understand how snowflakes are formed.

Yes, I can follow that reasoning.

I believe a deity could, if they so desired, make it obvious that a designer was involved.
Problem is, just like with snowflakes, there is no obvious sign of a designer.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that there is no designer, just that there is no obvious sign of one.

Before I go any further, I just want to make it clear that the purpose of this thread is not to argue that the Universe is, in fact, designed. Since I addressed this to members who don't accept the premise of a designed Universe, a lack of design in our existing Universe was the starting assumption. The question was about what specific things would be different if it was.

Probably I would have to compare it against something that is not designed. But where do I find something that is not designed, if the Universe were, indeed, designed? I would need a piece of evidence, something undesigned, that defeats the seeked conclusion of everything being designed. In other words, either no evidence or evidence that defeats the conclusion.

Prima facie, this begs the question: how do you know then that the Universe is not designed if you cannot possibly compare it with something that is designed, either?

And my answer to that would be: my car is designed, that heap of mud is not. After all, this is what creationists have in mind when they differentiate between designed and not designed things: car obviously designed, heap of mud not necessarily so, see the difference, you heathen?

For instance, Palay's clock on the sand analogy implicitly assumes that sand is not designed, or not worth attention, defeating, thereby, the whole argument.

So, at the end of the day, all this reduces to perceived teleology, after all. And the apparent teleology of a clock does not entail an equally obvious teleology for the surrounding sand.

Ciao

- viole

So if we do not have an example of non-design to compare the Universe to, your position is that it would be impossible to deduce that it is designed by an intelligence, no matter how a hypothetical deity tried to go about doing it?

 

[outhouse]

What pattern would you expect to see?

Something NOT natural.

We can go out in nature and find many things not natural that were actually designed. We can even find where monkeys throw rocks at trees leaving a semi intelligent trail of evidence.

But we cannot find anything that substantiates a single one of the thousands of deities man has made.

There is not a blade of grass out of place we can attribute to mythology.

 

[outhouse]

So if we do not have an example of non-design to compare the Universe to, your position is that it would be impossible to deduce that it is designed by an intelligence, no matter how a hypothetical deity tried to go about doing it?

But this is an imaginative question.

All the books written by ancient men do not describe intelligent design, they describe creation in detail. Details that have no credibility what so ever and not a speck of historicity.

So why ever think this has a chance of being real when its known as modern pseudoscience, INVENTED by modern man to keep mythology in public schools?

 

[Milton Platt]

For those who do not believe that the Universe was a product of intelligent design, what qualities of the Universe would you expect to be different if it was intelligently-designed? What would have to be different about the Universe so that intelligent design would be considered the most likely explanation for these qualities? Take note that I am not talking about absolute proof, just whatever evidence would be sufficiently strong to lend weight to intelligent design.

Please take note that this isn't about evolution, the Big Bang or abiogenesis per se, unless you want to work those into it somehow.

Frankly, we have only one universe to examine and so far it does not seem to be interfered with in any way by any outside forces. I would have to see a being/god/whatever label you like/ actually produce a universe to be convinced because the claim is so astounding. If you presented the being, that would be no proof it can create universes. You can present a million universes, and that does not mean a being created them.

 

[viole]

So if we do not have an example of non-design to compare the Universe to, your position is that it would be impossible to deduce that it is designed by an intelligence, no matter how a hypothetical deity tried to go about doing it?

Yes. i am not even sure whether it is possible to ask the question in a not self defeating way. And even if we could imagine what an undesigned thing might look like, that would still be insufficient to draw any inference.

For instance. Suppose that there is criterium X that allows inhabitants of the Universe to infer that the Universe has been designed. No matter what a possible deity can do to make it look that way. This is our premise.

However, the premise can be easily defeated by a physical counterexample. It is possible that the Universe exists in a superposition of states and only the states that present design-like characteristics are entangled with the observers that are part of their state. For the other states have no possible observers to entangle with.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Darkstorn]

For those who do not believe that the Universe was a product of intelligent design, what qualities of the Universe would you expect to be different if it was intelligently-designed?

There's a major problem for me here: Intelligent Design only exists within this universe, already, the concept of it. It is within its framework. And *currently* Intelligent Design proponents do believe that the universe was intelligently designed... So... If it *was* intelligently designed... Nothing would be different. Only, then i too would see what they see... I would be different... Makes sense?

Or one could argue that there would never be need for Intelligent Design to actually exist if it was intelligently designed: We wouldn't need a bunch of liars trying to pass something off as something it's not... We would just call it "creationism" again...

And then science would be "not-true-ism".