In recent days, objector ES has been twisting the concept of Wickensian functionally specific information-bearing complex organisation into post-modernist deconstructionist subjectivist pretzels, in order to obfuscate the plain inductive argument at the heart of the design inference and/or explanatory filter.
For example, consider these excerpts from the merry go round thread:
ES, 41: . . . If a conscious observer connects some observed object to some possible desired result which can be obtained using the object in a context, then we say that the conscious observer conceives of a function for that object . . . . In science, properties of the material just are, without purpose, because everybody knows purpose is subjective. Functionality comes in when you get engineerial, and then it’s more up to the “objective functionality” of the engineer than of the material . . .
KF, 42: When one puts together a complex composite such as a program or an electronic amplifier ckt or a watch or an auto engine or many other things, function is not projected to it by an observer. I wuk, or i nuh wuk, mon. Was that a bad starter motor, a run down battery, out of gas, dirty injector points and more. Was that a bug in syntax or in semantics. Was that a BJT miswired and fried, did you put in the wrong size load resistor so it sits in saturation when it was meant to be in the middle of the load line, did you put in an electrolytic cap the wrong way around, etc. Is this a heart attack triggered by a blood clot etc. Function is not a matter of imagination but observation. And you full well know that or should.
Joe, 44: Earth to E. Seigner- functionality, ie a function, is an OBSERVATION. We observe something performing some function and we investigate to try to figure out how it came to be the way it is. Within living organisms we observe functioning systems and subsystems. As for “information”, well with respect to biology ID uses the same definition that Crick provided decades ago. And we say it can be measured the same way Shannon said, decades ago.
ES, 46: To an observer it looks like cars take people to work and shopping. But most of the time cars stand in garage motionless, and sometimes they fail to start. If the observer is truly impartial, then it’s not up to him to say that the failure to start or mere standing is any less of the car’s function than the ability of being driven. The car’s function is what the car does and when the car fails to start then that’s what it does and this is its function. Of course this sounds silly, but it’s true . . .
BA, 48: It is clear to me now. You have drunk deeply from the post-modernist/constructivist Koolaid. Kairosfocus and gpuccio be advised — attempting to reason with such as E.Seigner is pointless.
Let’s first remind ourselves as to what the glorified common-sense design inference process actually does as an exercise in inductive, inference to the best current explanation on empirically observed evidence:
. . . and also, of the significance of Wickensian functionally specific, complex information and Orgellian informational specified complexity for a blind, needle in haystack search; as highlighted by Dembski et al:
While we are at it, let us remind ourselves of what FSCO/I looks like in the form of functionally specific organisation in the technological world:
Fig 6: An exploded view of a classic ABU Cardinal, showing how functionality arises from a highly specific, tightly constrained complex arrangement of matched parts according to a “wiring diagram.” Such diagrams are objective (the FSCO/I on display here is certainly not “question-begging,” as some — astonishingly — are trying to suggest!), and if one is to build or fix such a reel successfully, s/he had better pay close heed.. Taking one of these apart and shaking it in a shoe-box is guaranteed not to work to get the reel back together again. (That is, even the assembly of such a complex entity is functionally specific and prescriptive information-rich.)
. . . and, in the life of the cell, as the Ribosome constructs a protein (which is a functionally specific string structure) based on the coded algorithmic information in the mRNA tape:
Step by step protein synthesis in action, in the ribosome, based on the sequence of codes in the mRNA control tape (Courtesy, Wikipedia and LadyofHats)
. . . not to mention, the parallel in the punched paper tape reader used for older computers and NC machines:
Punched paper Tape, as used in older computers and numerically controlled machine tools (Courtesy Wiki & Siemens)
(When things have been strawmannised and twisted into pretzels, it helps to straighten them back out again. Where also, a picture is worth a thousand words.)
However, Mr Arrington has a point.
While those caught up in po mo deconstructionist schemes are hardly likely to have a sudden change of heart on the strength of a mere blog comment or even a headlined post, the rest of us can draw lessons from what we see laid out before us. I therefore crave the indulgence of a promoted comment to headlined status, including a snippet of intensely personal history of my homeland. For, comments get buried and forgotten within hours, but a headlined post is for the record:
It may be entertaining to play semantics games with terms like function, but that simply reveals that your problem is not with science, it is with common sense reality tracing to some of the sillier bits of post-modernist radical subjectivism and deconstructionism.
Perhaps, it has not dawned on you that survival of the fittest or hill-climbing algorithms or natural selection or the like pivot on the objectivity of function. Have you gone to Panda’s Thumb, TSZ, ATBC or the like Darwinist agitator sites to challenge the core concepts of evolution based on differential reproductive success pivoting on functional differences of life-forms? I safely bet not, you are reserving such talking-points for those you object to, regardless of inconsistencies or outright incoherence.
[Ill-]Logic with a swivel.
Patently, revealingly, sadly, you have indulged in incoherent selective hyperskepticism.
And if you genuinely imagine that a stalled car with a dead engine, or a leaky roof, or a crashed computer, or a PA system that distorts sounds horribly are functionally distinct as a mere matter of subjective opinion, your problem is a breach of common sense.
Do you — or a significant other — have a mechanic? Are you a shade-tree mechanic? Do you have even one tool for maintenance? Do you recognise the difference between sugar, salt and arsenic in your cup of coffee? Between an effective prescription correctly filled and faithfully carried out when you get sick and a breakdown of that process? Etc?
I put it to you that you cannot and do not live consistent with your Lit class seminar-room talking points.
And, your evasive resort to clinging to such absurdities to obfuscate the issue of functionally specific, complex organisation and associated information, speaks loudest volumes for the astute onlooker.
Own-goal, E-S.
The bottom-line of the behaviour of several objectors over the past few days, speaks inadvertent volumes on the real balance on the merits of the core design theory contention that there are such things as reliable empirical markers — such as Wickensian FSCO/I — that are strong signs of design as key causal process.
But, many are so wedded to the totalising metanarrative of a priori Lewontinian evolutionary materialism that they refuse to heed the 2350 year old warning posed by Plato on where cynical radical relativism, amorality opening the door to might makes right nihilism and ruthless factions points to for a civilisation. Refusing to learn the hard-bought, paid for in blood lessons of history, they threaten to mislead our civilisation into yet another predictably futile and bloody march of folly. As the ghosts of 100 million victims of such demonically wicked deceptions over the past century warn us.
The folly on the march in our day is so arrogantly stubborn that it refuses to learn living memory history or the history passed on first hand to our grand parents.
Here is Sophia (personification of Wisdom), in the voice of Solomon echoing hard-bought, civil war triggered lessons in Israel c 1,000 BC:
Prov 1:20 Wisdom [Gk, Sophia] cries aloud in the street,
in the markets she raises her voice;
21 at the head of the noisy streets she cries out;
at the entrance of the city gates she speaks:
22 “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?
How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing
and fools hate knowledge?
23 If you turn at my reproof,[a]
behold, I will pour out my spirit to you;
I will make my words known to you.
24 Because I have called and you refused to listen,
have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded,
25 because you have ignored all my counsel
and would have none of my reproof,
26 I also will laugh at your calamity;
I will mock when terror strikes you,
27 when terror strikes you like a storm
and your calamity comes like a whirlwind,
when distress and anguish come upon you.
28 Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer;
they will seek me diligently but will not find me.
29 Because they hated knowledge
and did not choose the fear of the Lord,
30 would have none of my counsel
and despised all my reproof,
31 therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way,
and have their fill of their own devices.
32 For the simple are killed by their turning away,
and the complacency of fools destroys them;
33 but whoever listens to me will dwell secure
and will be at ease, without dread of disaster.”
A grim warning, bought at the price of a spoiled, wayward son who fomented disaffection and led rebellion triggering civil war and needless death and destruction, ending in his own death and that of many others.
Behind the Proverbs lies the anguished wailing of a father who had to fight a war with his son and in the end cried out, Oh Absalom, my son . . .
History sorts out the follies of literary excesses, if we fail to heed wisdom in good time.
Often, at the expense of a painful, bloody trail of woe and wailing that leads many mothers and fathers, widows and orphans to wail the loss of good men lost to the fight in the face of rampant folly.
But then, tragic history is written into my name, as George William Gordon’s farewell to his wife written moments before his unjust execution on sentence of a kangaroo court-martial, was carried out:
My beloved Wife, General Nelson has just been kind enough to inform me that the court-martial on Saturday last has ordered me to be hung, and that the sentence is to be executed in an hour hence; so that I shall be gone from this world of sin and sorrow.
I regret that my worldly affairs are so deranged; but now it cannot be helped. I do not deserve this sentence, for I never advised or took part in any insurrection. All I ever did was to recommend the people who complained to seek redress in a legitimate way; and if in this I erred, or have been misrepresented, I do not think I deserve the extreme sentence. It is, however, the will of my Heavenly Father that I should thus suffer in obeying his command to relieve the poor and needy, and to protect, as far as I was able, the oppressed. And glory be to his name; and I thank him that I suffer in such a cause. Glory be to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; and I can say it is a great honour thus to suffer; for the servant cannot be greater than his Lord. I can now say with Paul, the aged, “The hour of my departure is at hand, and I am ready to be offered up. I have fought a good fight, I have kept the faith, and henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge shall give me.” Say to all friends, an affectionate farewell; and that they must not grieve for me, for I die innocently. Assure Mr. Airy and all others of the truth of this. Comfort your heart. I certainly little expected this. You must do the best you can, and the Lord will help you; and do not be ashamed of the death your poor husband will have suffered. The judges seemed against me, and from the rigid manner of the court I could not get in all the explanation I intended . . .
Deconstruct that, clever mocking scorners of the literary seminar room.
Deconstruct it in the presence of a weeping wife and mother and children mourning the shocking loss of a father and hero to ruthless show-trial injustice ending in judicial murder.
Murder that echoes the fate of one found innocent but sent to Golgotha because of ruthless folly-tricks in Jerusalem c. 30 AD.
(How ever so many fail to see the deep lesson about folly-tricks in the heart of the Gospel, escapes me. New Atheists and fellow travellers, when you indict the Christian Faith as the fountain-head of imagined injustice, remember the One who hung between thieves on a patently unjust sentence, having been bought at the price of a slave through a betrayer blinded by greed and folly. If you do not hear a cry for just government and common decency at the heart of the Gospel you would despise, you are not worth the name, literary scholar or educated person.)
And in so doing, learn a terrible, grim lesson of where your clever word games predictably end up in the hands of the ruthless.
For, much more than science is at stake in all of this.
GEM of TKI >>
_________________
I trust that the astute onlooker will be inclined to indulge so personal a response, and will duly draw on the hard-bought lessons of history (and of my family story . . . ) as just outlined. END
PS, Sept 30: ES has been making heavy weather over the idea of a primitive tribe encountering a can opener for the first time and not understanding its function (which he then wishes to project as subjective):
A rotating cutter can opener in action
And, a modern development showing meshing serrated gears:
modern rotary action can opener with meshing gears (Both images HT Wiki)
However, this is both incorrect and irrelevant to recognising from aspects of the can opener that exhibit FSCO/I, that it is designed:
1 –> Whether or not the primitive seeing an opener for the first time can recognise its purpose and contrivance that integrates materials, forces of nature and components into a functioning whole, that functionally specific, complex organisation for a purpose exists and is embedded in how the opener is designed.
2 –> Just by looking at the evident contrivance manifested in FSCO/I that is maximally unlikely to obtain by blind chance and mechanical necessity — as with the fishing reel above, the primitive is likely to perceive design.
3 –> The rotating gears with matched teeth set to couple together alone implies highly precise artifice to build centred disks, cut matching gearing, mount them on precisely separated and aligned centred axes, with other connected parts already demonstrates design to a reasonable onlooker.
4 –> The precisely uniformly thick handles joined in a pivot, and reflecting rectangle-based shapes would be equally demonstrative.
5 –> Where, actual intended function has not been brought to bear. (And note, we see here again the implicit demand that the design inference be a universal decoder/ algorithm identifier. That is a case of setting up and knocking over a strawman, where . . . just on theory of computation, such a universal decoder/detector is utterly implausible. The point of the design inference is that on inductively confirmed reliable signs such as FSCO/I we may confidently identify design — purposefully directed contingency or contrivance — as key causal factor. It seems that any number of red herrings are led away from this point to convenient strawman caricatures that are then knocked over as though the actual point has been effectively answered on the merits. It has not.)
6 –> But of course, that functionality dependent on specific components and an arrangement otherwise vanishingly improbable, reeks of design and the function can be readily demonstrated, as the patents diagram shows.
7 –> Where, again, it must be underscored that, per my comment 49 to ES:
[the] ultra-modernist, ugly- gulch- between- the- inner- world- and- the outer- one [of] sophomorised Kantianism fails and needs to be replaced with a sounder view. As F H Bradley pointd out over a century ago, to pretend to know that the external world is un-knowable due to the nature of subjectivitiy . . . the denial of objective knowledge . . . is itself a claim to objective knowledge of the external world and a very strong one too. Which therefore is self-referentially incoherent. Instead, it is wiser to follow Josiah Royce’s point that we know that error exists, undeniably and self evidently. Thus, there are certain points of objective knowledge that are firm, that ground that objective truth, warrant and knowledge exist, and that schemes of thought that deny or denigrate such fail. Including post modernism, so called. Of course, that we know that error exists means we need to be careful and conservative in knowledge claims, but the design inference is already that, it is explicitly inductive on inference to best explanation on observed patterns and acknowledges the limitations of inductive knowledge including scientific knowledge. [A Po-Mo] selectively hyperskeptical focus on the design inference while apparently ignoring the effect of that same logic on science as a whole, on history, on common sense reality and on reason itself, simply multiplies the above by highlighting the double standard on warrant.
8 –> In short, we have here a case of clinging to an ideological absurdity in the teeth of accessible, well-warranted correction.
Comments
E.Seigner at #164:
Your 3 points:
1) ID theorists loudly insist that complexity, specification, design, etc. prove something and are calculable
True.
2a) There’s no agreement on the definitions
Wrong. There is a lot of agreement on the general concepts, and many disagreements on specific details or procedures, as it is completely natural in human thgought and in science. ID is a scientific theory, indeed a scientific paradigm, not a party line.
2b) and nobody has made any actual calculations, except feeble inconclusive ones.
Wrong. I have offered calculations for specific proteins. They are not feeble, and they are not inconclusive. You are free to believe differently, of course. But simply stating your imaginations does not make them true.
3) Upon requests to back up their claims they turn to insults.
Wrong. I don't think I have turned to insults. I have tried to answer in detail all your "arguments". As far as it was reasonable. I cannot spend my whole life answering someone who does not want to listen.
Maybe some ID proponent recurs to insults. It is equally true that a lot of anti IDists recur to insults. In some anti ID blogs, insult is the absolute rule. That is simply an interesting hint about human nature, and not certainly about ID or neo darwinism or any other human philosophy. People recur to insult about practically everything.
But I would never say that "I have a solid picture of anti-ID theorists and their community" and that the solid picture is that "Upon requests to back up their claims they turn to insults". That would be an offensive lie. It would be an offensive lie against people like Mark Frank, Piotr, wd400, and a lot of others, for which I have esteem and respect.
Maybe you should reflect a moment on what "humble" means.gpuccio
October 10, 2014
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You ask: “Can you name a thing that has no design or function?”
A valid answer comes: “the pattern my coffee makes on the floor after I spill it”
You respond “But if coffee still has function, then surely it has design too.”
In this exchange, and dozens of others, you clearly demonstrate that you have no desire to understand squat.
The purpose of the exchange was to get to the definition of design. According to most definitions I encountered early on, human-made was "clearly and demonstrably" supposed to mean design and to deny it meant to be "selectively hyperskeptical". Therefore: Does coffee drink grow on trees? Does it get into the cup by itself and spill itself? Evidently, by examples like this we are not getting any closer to what is meant by design, and it's preposterous to call it clearly demonstrated when your definition of design is an obfuscation by design in itself.
Upright BiPed
Barry posted two sequences of symbols; one that is gibberish (which he called “random”) and another with full specification to any English-speaking human adult.
Except that the randomness/design was supposed to be demonstrably measurable and the specification was supposed to be obvious without context. None of which has been the case.E.Seigner
October 10, 2014
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You ask: "Can you name a thing that has no design or function?"
A valid answer comes: "the pattern my coffee makes on the floor after I spill it"
You respond "But if coffee still has function, then surely it has design too."
In this exchange, and dozens of others, you clearly demonstrate that you have no desire to understand squat.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Barry posted two sequences of symbols; one that is gibberish (which he called "random") and another with full specification to any English-speaking human adult. Even though it was painfully obvious to all rational people what the meaning of the sequences were (as well as Barry's description of them), literally tens of thousands of words were produced for no reason other than to obfuscate the issue in place of dealing with it. And here you are, victory in hand, holding this farce up as a failed test of ID.
- - - - - - - - - - -
As I said, I don't know how you do it.Upright BiPed
October 10, 2014
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Upright BiPed
I would drive me crazy if, over and over again, the defense of my beliefs was forced to rely on rhetoric. I honestly don’t know how you people do it, but you do it well.
You mean I rely on rhetoric to defend my beliefs? The OP and the whole thread is a fine example that nobody actually cares what my beliefs are. All you do is exemplify yet another case of projection of beliefs that have nothing to do with me. Just like Barry who called me materialist after I had been discussing Thomist theology for a month. This definitely required some projection on his part, don't you think?E.Seigner
October 9, 2014
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Like Barry who brought up two strings that were supposed to prove something, but which ended up proving the opposite
I would drive me crazy if, over and over again, the defense of my beliefs was forced to rely on rhetoric. I honestly don't know how you people do it, but you do it well.Upright BiPed
October 9, 2014
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Meanwhile, I've been reading up on this blog how you calculate FSCO/I. You came closest here https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/on-the-calculation-of-csi/ but the conclusion you reached was hatred and vilification, not a solution to any of the problems.
By now I have a solid picture of ID theorists and their community:
- ID theorists loudly insist that complexity, specification, design, etc. prove something and are calculable, but
- There's no agreement on the definitions and nobody has made any actual calculations, except feeble inconclusive ones
- Upon requests to back up their claims they turn to insults
The short answer to the question how to calculate FSCO/I is: You don't. The long answer is loudmouthing and ridicule. After several rounds, at least this much is scientifically settled.
And I even haven't asked you to calculate anything. I came here to participate in threads on other topics. You are doing this ID thing to yourself and you fail miserably. Like Barry who brought up two strings that were supposed to prove something, but which ended up proving the opposite - calculably so. This was not the best case, but it is the most prominent one.
I'd rather you didn't embarrass yourselves so much. Be more humble (which is what you ask of others after all) and find some other topic.E.Seigner
October 9, 2014
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Meanwhile, E.Seigner continues to project.
Fortunately, projection only requires a blank screen. One might, mistakenly, think that projection obviates the need for reality.Mung
October 9, 2014
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E.Seigner:
You are on a beach. You see sand. Is it intelligently designed?
Farther on, you see a smooth rock generically shaped. Is it intelligently designed?
Couple more steps. You see an oddly-shaped lump of sand sticking up above the sand around it. Is it intelligently designed?
Farther. Now you see an exquisitely detailed sandcastle. Is it intelligently designed?
Still farther. You see another rock, triangular in shape, with what looks like possibly tool-marks on two sides. Is it intelligently designed?
Again, more. You find a watch, still running. Is it intelligently designed?
More steps. You find a paperclip. Is it intelligently designed?
A few more steps. You find the stone heads of Easter Island. Are they intelligently designed?
Almost there. You find an obviously complex structure with knobs and switches and weird protrusions you can't identify, made of a material you don't recognize. Is it intelligently designed?
Final steps. You find a pamphlet entitled "Intellectual Honesty and the Art of Self-Deception". Do you read it?drc466
October 7, 2014
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E. Seigner,
Vishnu: how do forensic technicians detect design or intent?
E. Seigner: They don’t. Does it say in their job description that they are supposed to detect design? Does anyone of them talk about detecting design?
Yes. That's their job. They work with prosecutors to create a hypothesis (which they typically call a "theory") of the crime based on the evidence. Abductive reasoning is an integral part of this process, is it is with ID, and forms the basis of all hypothesis creation.
And really, the question is how ID theorists detect design, not how some unrelated people do it. And the more fundamental question is what it even means to detect design.
SETI is attempting to detect design based on "coded information" on signals from space. Why do you suppose that is? Since we find coded information in the DNA/ribosome system, why should we not abductively reason that an intelligent source is the best inference given what we currently know about physics, chemistry, coded information systems, and intelligence?Vishnu
October 7, 2014
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E Seigner:
And the more fundamental question is what it even means to detect design.
On the contrary, the more fundamental question, as we have shown, is what it evens means to detect anything at all.
In different words, the more fundamental question, as we have shown, is what it evens means to project anything at all.Mung
October 6, 2014
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E Seigner:
And the more fundamental question is what it even means to detect design.
It means we have A) eliminated entire classes of possible causes, B) determined a causal class, which C) tells us how to proceed with the investigation. The strongest thing ID offers to biology is that opens up the likelihood that there is immaterial information, ie not DNA, RNA, AA, guiding biological processes and determining form.Joe
October 4, 2014
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E.Seigner:
To share a basic concept with you: Observation is the subject facing the object. There’s both an object and a subject in observation and this is irreducible.
Of course, the object is also a subject, but let's leave that aside for now.
To assert something about observation, as you have, is to assert certain things about what it means for something to be a subject and to assert certain things about what it means for something to be an object.
For a subject to observe an object, there must be something objectively there. If there is in fact nothing there to be observed, then by your own admission it's not an object. And no one here is claiming the reality or objectivity of non-objects.
E.Seigner:
Somehow you people think observation is all-objective because there’s an object, whereas in reality, if there’s no subject, there’s no observation in the first place.
You cannot possibly be so naive.
Your claim can be reduced to the assertion that absent a subject observing an object, nothing can exist.
Moreover, the way you go about observation – carelessly, with no regard to methodical interpretation of the facts so as to ensure reliable reproducible results – can only be called subjective.
You've lost sight of your argument.Mung
October 4, 2014
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PS: ES, the distinction between design, chance and mechanical necessity as causal factors is ancient and well-established. Such are not on trial, we are. With lawlike regularity, the sun and Moon rise and set across the face of the sky and the stars at night vary with the seasons, also guavas and apples fall at 9.8 N/kg from trees. These are connected, and the study of these by Newton as a young student transformed the world. About a century later, the analysis of pressure of a gas pointed to molecules moving around at high speed, and across C19 - 20, statistical thermodynamics emerged, pivoting on the chance-based random behaviour of such. Temperature came to be understood as an index of the average random energy per molecule per degree of freedom. And all along, mechanical necessity was associated with low contingency of outcomes on similar starting conditions. High contingency of outcomes on similar initial conditions could be stochastically distributed, reflecting chance. It could be credibly intelligently directed, reflecting design. Which is a manifestation of a very common phenomenon and experience, intelligence. Next, FSCO/I is a key example of a phenomenon -- such as the text of your post just above -- that is not plausible or empirically observed on chance, but is frequently seen on design. In this context, trying to obfuscate well known, readily understood and familiar concepts in order to try to blunt the force of evidence pointing to design in contexts that many are not comfortable with is not a healthy sign. The price being paid to reject it, however, is an inadvertent sign of how strong the case is.kairosfocus
October 4, 2014
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ES, one's behaviour becomes selectively hyperskeptical when one exerts a double-standard on warrant to shut out what one does not wish to take seriously. As has been documented above: inductive reasoning -- including abduction -- is a major foundation for science. It is a self-refuting position, and the onward level of global skepticism the OP has to address is even moreso. The implicit notion that one cannot know the external world but projects subjective thoughts unto it, is by direct implication a very strong knowledge claim about the external world. It refutes itself. Instead, one could start from the undeniably true claim, error exists, and from that one can build from the possibility of truth, knowledge and error, a sounder worldview. This is relevant to doing science, but also to much more than science. And, to point this out is not to denigrate you or your intelligence, it is to provide an opportunity for you to make a needed fresh start. KFkairosfocus
October 4, 2014
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LoL!@ E Seigner! Of course forensic scientists and technicians detect design- murder is a form of design. Any crime is a form of design. BTW ID uses basically the same techniques as forensic science, SETI and archaeologyJoe
October 4, 2014
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StephenB
I have already articulated (and dramatized) the point, which as usual, you ignored. All rational people will recognize and admit that the painted Mona Lisa screams design and that the scattered paint from the explosion does not.
What design? Do you mean that Mona Lisa doesn't spring up by chance or that it doesn't evolve by itself from natural causes? How are paint factories any different? Are you saying that paint factories spring up by chance and evolve by themselves from natural causes? I will get back to you when you begin to make sense.
Vishnu
Even if that were true – you haven’t demonstrate that it is – how do forensic technicians detect design or intent?
They don't. Does it say in their job description that they are supposed to detect design? Does anyone of them talk about detecting design? And really, the question is how ID theorists detect design, not how some unrelated people do it. And the more fundamental question is what it even means to detect design.
Mung
There must be something objectively there to be made sense of.
To share a basic concept with you: Observation is the subject facing the object. There's both an object and a subject in observation and this is irreducible. Somehow you people think observation is all-objective because there's an object, whereas in reality, if there's no subject, there's no observation in the first place. Moreover, the way you go about observation - carelessly, with no regard to methodical interpretation of the facts so as to ensure reliable reproducible results - can only be called subjective. We have had tons of discussion by now, but even the most basic distinctions have not been clarified. Basic distinctions such as design versus non-design. Somehow the distinction should be "obvious" and those who don't uncritically accept it are "selectively hyperskeptical" or "stupid like Darwinists".
What should be obvious is that when ID theory is a fringe minority movement, then "design detection" is evidently far from obvious. If you disagree with this, then that's your subjective opinion. I prefer to call things as they are.E.Seigner
October 4, 2014
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StephenB #151,
Thank you for the clarifications. I have to ponder on the profound objective – subjective distinction that you eloquently offer.
Some initial thoughts semi-related to this issue:
In an organism we witness harmonized functional connectedness –all the parts function in harmony and are subordinate to the whole. BTW all this is in stark contrast with e.g. my chaotic collection of kitchen appliances. If we attempt to explain the functional harmony of the countless parts of organism we must suppose it originates from the level of the whole organism. A bottom-up explanation, from the level of the parts, for the observed harmony takes us into the realm of absurdity. Order is imposed – and specific functionality is demanded - from above; that is, from the organism / person.
So, at least in biology, there is a definite hierarchy in the relation (not bottom-up) and no sharp devide between objective and subjective.Box
October 4, 2014
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ES:
Since nobody has provided a scientific method to detect design thus far, I can safely conclude nobody ever will.
All you are doing is reiterating a denial in the face of evidence. Speaks volumes.
Pause for a moment and glance up to OP.
Notice, the flowchart and linked infographic on why FSCO/I is maximally implausible to be found by blind chance and mechanical necessity?
Right there, head of the discussion.
Next, empirical data and induction.
We have in hand all around us trillions of cases of FSCO/I that we directly observe the cause of. Consistently, FSCO/I is the result of design -- intelligently directed contingency. (And no, we have no reason to confine such possible intelligence to humans.)
In addition, this is the only plausible solution to the needle in haystack challenge.
Per inductive argument -- by which evidence summed up in premises supports a conclusion, and particularly inference to best explanation on reliable sign, FSCO/I is a reliable index of design.
So, we are epistemically well-warranted to conclude that FSCO/I is a diagnostic sign of design.
Does this provide absolute, deductive proof or certainty beyond all possibility of doubt?
No.
So, you have failed to prove . . . tada!
Not so fast, pahdnuh.
We are here dealing with inductive warrant, the basic means of establishing reliability of scientific (and a lot of other) knowledge claims. Such are incapable of absolute proof, but are widely seen as reliable and useful, given inherent limitations of our knowledge and reasoning. Known for centuries.
So, to exert a double standard on warrant in order to reject the design inference approach, is a case of selective hyperskepticism.
No great surprise.
Please, pause, and think again.
KFkairosfocus
October 4, 2014
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Box
Thank you for your insights.
I always appreciate both your questions and your well-thought-out convictions.
One quick follow-up question. Do you agree that function is (ultimately) related to a person and not a thing? You did not address this in your previous comment and I’m particularly curious to find out what your position is.
I think that an organism has a function (objective) and it used by a person (subjective).
IMHO it doesn’t make sense to state that a can opener is functional for a can. Ultimately a can opener is functional (useful) for a person who wants to open a can.
I think that there is a "what" and a "for," answering the questions, what does it do? and for who(m)? Put another way, I think it functions as a thing and for a person. Or, again, I think function is a feature of and in the thing (its objective functionality) that is conceived, built, defined, understood, and used by the person (subjective). [***Subject conceives, designs, and builds objective functionality in a thing (organism, artifact) that comes to be understood and perceived by another subject].
Similarly, DNA is ultimately useful for an organism. A person is always the most outward circle of the ripple effect invoked by functionality.
I would be inclined to use the same formula as above. GPuccio also makes the distinction between the subjective and objective component, though he proceeds a little differently: You and I are discussing what is while he is discussing how we come to know it.StephenB
October 3, 2014
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Mung #146,
No, what you saw was part of a useful consciousness / matter interface :)Box
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E.Seigner: Since nobody has provided a scientific method to detect design thus far, I can safely conclude nobody ever will.
Even if that were true - you haven't demonstrate that it is - how do forensic technicians detect design or intent?
When blood is splattered on a wall, why would anyone think that it was "designed" or an artifact of an intentional action?
Now, just to clue you in, abductive reasoning is not necessarily "scientific", but it is useful. In fact, it is absolutely necessary for the survival of humans, include you. (I'm assuming you're a human.)
"Science" isn't everything. "Science" is merely one tool in the toolbox that humans use. Humans are more intelligent than science. In case you haven't noticed, we invented it.Vishnu
October 3, 2014
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E.Seigner:
Since nobody has provided a scientific method to detect design thus far, I can safely conclude nobody ever will.
Taken at face value, this is a non-sequitur.
As such, it is highly implausible that "nobody has provided a scientific method to detect design thus far" is in fact a premise in your argument.
But in case I am wrong, would you care to share your reasoning?Mung
October 3, 2014
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IMO, the box was designed to illustrate the concept that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.Mung
October 3, 2014
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Box @ 137.
LMAO!
Was the useless machine the thing with the human looking finger?Mung
October 3, 2014
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StephenB,
Thank you for your insights. One quick follow-up question. Do you agree that function is (ultimately) related to a person and not a thing? You did not address this in your previous comment and I'm particularly curious to find out what your position is.
IMHO it doesn't make sense to state that a can opener is functional for a can. Ultimately a can opener is functional (useful) for a person who wants to open a can. Similarly, DNA is ultimately useful for an organism. A person is always the most outward circle of the ripple effect invoked by functionality.Box
October 3, 2014
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E.Seigner:
Both ID theory and Dawkins project design onto the organism. Dawkins has a book on it, The Blind Watchmaker. The difference between ID theorists and Dawkins is that Dawkins doesn’t admit the designer.
What is it about this "organism" that leads BOTH Dawkins AND the ID theorist to "project design onto the organism"?
If both come to the same conclusion, even though from such opposite view points, perhaps there is something THERE that is in fact objective.
E.Seigner:
Projecting some structure or pattern is a necessary precondition to make any sense of anything.
There must be something objectively there to be made sense of.Mung
October 3, 2014
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SB: Interesting. A machine that was designed to serve no practical purpose. It does, however, do something, namely open and close. It is not totally without function. There is a process. I gather that you disagree.
Box
Not sure.
OK
Do you agree that ideally and ultimately must define function of designed objects in terms of usefulness for an agent (user)? I hold that we must; what else would function mean? Of course “usefulness for an agent” needs further definition.
I suppose there are two ways to approach it. If we go strictly by the dictionary definition, then I would be inclined to say that we could go either way.
Function
"an activity or purpose natural to or intended for a person or thing."
That doesn't help much: Is it activity or purpose. We are trying to decide which one and they offer us a choice with the word "or." If they has said "and," the matter would be settled.
They example suggests purpose:
"bridges perform the function of providing access across water"
but the synonyms appear to open it up for both ways:
"responsibility, duty, role, concern, province, activity, assignment, obligation, charge; task, job, mission, undertaking, commission"
It reminds me of the story of two groups of workers on opposite sides of a river. The first group took raw materials like stones and built beautiful structures, sending them to the other side of the river in completed form. The group across the river used demolition tools to tear all the objects down into raw parts and dust. Then they sent it back to the other side as raw materials to begin the process all over again.
Did each group perform a function? Obviously, the entire enterprise was futile, but the behavior appeared to be goal oriented. I guess it depends on your perspective.
At the moment, I am inclined to say that purpose is not necessary to function, however, I don't hold that opinion very firmly and can easily be persuaded otherwise.
From a broader perspective, though, even this apparently useless machine could have a purpose. It could, for example, be the intention of the builder to dramatize his creativity or to present a riddle for design thinkers, in which case it would seem to have a purpose after all.
What may follow is the question: If some designed object is absolutely useless for any agent, does it have function?
Right. That is the question.
BTW including an agent in the equation of function obviously does in no way imply the absurd notion of E.Seigner that function is entirely subjective. One can choose not to use a can opener, but one cannot choose that it is useless to open cans. Similarly, one cannot project into a can opener that it actually functions as remote control.
Yes.StephenB
October 3, 2014
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StephenB,
StephenB #139: Interesting. A machine that was designed to serve no practical purpose. It does, however, do something, namely open and close. It is not totally without function. There is a process. I gather that you disagree.
Not sure. Do you agree that ideally and ultimately must define function of designed objects in terms of usefulness for an agent (user)? I hold that we must; what else would function mean? Of course “usefulness for an agent” needs further definition.
What may follow is the question: If some designed object is absolutely useless for any agent, does it have function?
BTW including an agent in the equation of function obviously does in no way imply the absurd notion of E.Seigner that function is entirely subjective. One can choose not to use a can opener, but one cannot choose that it is useless to open cans. Similarly, one cannot project into a can opener that it actually functions as remote control.
StephenB #139: Still, the bigger and more important question remains: Would you at least agree that the design (not function) can be detected even in the absence of context.
Of course I do. The following line by WJM is a classic: “Anyone who argues that a battleship’s combination of directed specificity and/or complexity is not discernible from the complexity found in the materials after an avalanche is either committing intellectual dishonesty or willful self-delusion.”Box
October 3, 2014
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E, Seigner
An explosion in a pasta factory is also different from an explosion in a paint factory, and all paintings are different. Even printed reproductions of the same painting are different at microlevel. Your point was?
I have already articulated (and dramatized) the point, which as usual, you ignored. All rational people will recognize and admit that the painted Mona Lisa screams design and that the scattered paint from the explosion does not.
SB: Any rational person would laugh his head off at your thesis, namely the idea that one group of people may “project” design on the explosion and another group may project non design on the Mona Lisa on the grounds that their cultural biases prompted them to do so. The burden of proof is on you to defend such a bizarre philosophy. It is not on me to prove what everyone except yourself already knows.
The answer is easy. Savages may see in Mona Lisa just a burning material, nothing else. What purpose does a painting have for a stone-age civilization (provided that function is a sign of design, which you alternately affirm and deny as suits your purposes)?
The savages will recognize the design immediately. They need not know the purpose of the design to know that it was designed. The one thing they would not do is conclude that the painting was the product of law and chance. No savage could ever be a stupid as a Darwinist.
Also, I have never denied that function is a sign of design. Quite the contrary. This most recent claim of yours is, by the way, more evidence that you read things into what people write and don’t bother to apprehend the meaning in the text. Why do you so shamelessly misrepresent what people say.
I quote myself @136
Function does, indeed, imply design. Anywhere you find a function, you can safely conclude that it was designed.
Can you defend your claim by showing where I said that function is not a sign of design? Of course not. You are just blowing smoke again.
SB: Matter was designed to have an atomic structure. However, matter can be redesigned into new forms. Thus, the created matter called sand can be redesigned into a sand castle. That process leaves design clues. Also, God could have first designed matter and then redesigned it into a DNA molecule. That, too, leaves clues.
Clues such as? Let me guess: The clue of a designed thing is design
Notice how you completely ignore the refutation and change the subject. Everything is designed at the first level where God produces the raw materials for design, but not at the second level where those raw materials are used to make new designs. Contrary to your claim, not everything s designed at the second level. Aquinas would certainly not say that it was. Thus, you are refuted again—in spite of your attempt to evade the point.
Since nobody has provided a scientific method to detect design thus far, I can safely conclude nobody ever will. It’s been vehemently asserted that it’s mathematically calculable, but we are still revolving around examples like Mona Lisa, paint factories, sand castles, spilled coffee, etc. Enough.
I explained the difference between a formal scientific design inference and an informal design inference long ago. I used examples of the informal design inference to expose your nonsensical epistemology of design projection and the insane idea that an observer will project his anti-design bias onto a spear and call it a rock, or project his pro-design bias onto a rock and call it a spear. Everyone, except you, knows that such a scenario is ridiculous. I am confident that my readers and your readers know it.
To your claim that no one has produced a scientific method for design, I can only laugh out loud. Kairosfocus dedicated this post to that very point and you completely ignored it. No doubt you didn’t even read it. Unbelievable.StephenB
October 3, 2014
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StephenB
It is not a statement of faith to say that a paint pattern caused by an explosion in a paint factory can easily be distinguished from the paint pattern caused by an artists rendition of the Mona Lisa.
An explosion in a pasta factory is also different from an explosion in a paint factory, and all paintings are different. Even printed reproductions of the same painting are different at microlevel. Your point was?
StephenB
Any rational person would laugh his head off at your thesis, namely the idea that one group of people may “project” design on the explosion and another group may project non design on the Mona Lisa on the grounds that their cultural biases prompted them to do so. The burden of proof is on you to defend such a bizarre philosophy. It is not on me to prove what everyone except yourself already knows.
The answer is easy. Savages may see in Mona Lisa just a burning material, nothing else. What purpose does a painting have for a stone-age civilization (provided that function is a sign of design, which you alternately affirm and deny as suits your purposes)?
StephenB
Matter was designed to have an atomic structure. However, matter can be redesigned into new forms. Thus, the created matter called sand can be redesigned into a sand castle. That process leaves design clues. Also, God could have first designed matter and then redesigned it into a DNA molecule. That, too, leaves clues.
Clues such as? Let me guess: The clue of a designed thing is design :D
Since nobody has provided a scientific method to detect design thus far, I can safely conclude nobody ever will. It's been vehemently asserted that it's mathematically calculable, but we are still revolving around examples like Mona Lisa, paint factories, sand castles, spilled coffee, etc. Enough.E.Seigner
It may be entertaining to play semantics games with terms like function, but that simply reveals that your problem is not with science, it is with common sense reality tracing to some of the sillier bits of post-modernist radical subjectivism and deconstructionism.
Perhaps, it has not dawned on you that survival of the fittest or hill-climbing algorithms or natural selection or the like pivot on the objectivity of function. Have you gone to Panda’s Thumb, TSZ, ATBC or the like Darwinist agitator sites to challenge the core concepts of evolution based on differential reproductive success pivoting on functional differences of life-forms? I safely bet not, you are reserving such talking-points for those you object to, regardless of inconsistencies or outright incoherence.
[Ill-]Logic with a swivel.
Patently, revealingly, sadly, you have indulged in incoherent selective hyperskepticism.
And if you genuinely imagine that a stalled car with a dead engine, or a leaky roof, or a crashed computer, or a PA system that distorts sounds horribly are functionally distinct as a mere matter of subjective opinion, your problem is a breach of common sense.
Do you — or a significant other — have a mechanic? Are you a shade-tree mechanic? Do you have even one tool for maintenance? Do you recognise the difference between sugar, salt and arsenic in your cup of coffee? Between an effective prescription correctly filled and faithfully carried out when you get sick and a breakdown of that process? Etc?
I put it to you that you cannot and do not live consistent with your Lit class seminar-room talking points.
And, your evasive resort to clinging to such absurdities to obfuscate the issue of functionally specific, complex organisation and associated information, speaks loudest volumes for the astute onlooker.
Own-goal, E-S.
The bottom-line of the behaviour of several objectors over the past few days, speaks inadvertent volumes on the real balance on the merits of the core design theory contention that there are such things as reliable empirical markers — such as Wickensian FSCO/I — that are strong signs of design as key causal process.
But, many are so wedded to the totalising metanarrative of a priori Lewontinian evolutionary materialism that they refuse to heed the 2350 year old warning posed by Plato on where cynical radical relativism, amorality opening the door to might makes right nihilism and ruthless factions points to for a civilisation. Refusing to learn the hard-bought, paid for in blood lessons of history, they threaten to mislead our civilisation into yet another predictably futile and bloody march of folly. As the ghosts of 100 million victims of such demonically wicked deceptions over the past century warn us.
The folly on the march in our day is so arrogantly stubborn that it refuses to learn living memory history or the history passed on first hand to our grand parents.
Here is Sophia (personification of Wisdom), in the voice of Solomon echoing hard-bought, civil war triggered lessons in Israel c 1,000 BC:
A grim warning, bought at the price of a spoiled, wayward son who fomented disaffection and led rebellion triggering civil war and needless death and destruction, ending in his own death and that of many others.
Behind the Proverbs lies the anguished wailing of a father who had to fight a war with his son and in the end cried out, Oh Absalom, my son . . .
History sorts out the follies of literary excesses, if we fail to heed wisdom in good time.
Often, at the expense of a painful, bloody trail of woe and wailing that leads many mothers and fathers, widows and orphans to wail the loss of good men lost to the fight in the face of rampant folly.
But then, tragic history is written into my name, as George William Gordon’s farewell to his wife written moments before his unjust execution on sentence of a kangaroo court-martial, was carried out:
Deconstruct that, clever mocking scorners of the literary seminar room.
Deconstruct it in the presence of a weeping wife and mother and children mourning the shocking loss of a father and hero to ruthless show-trial injustice ending in judicial murder.
Murder that echoes the fate of one found innocent but sent to Golgotha because of ruthless folly-tricks in Jerusalem c. 30 AD.
(How ever so many fail to see the deep lesson about folly-tricks in the heart of the Gospel, escapes me. New Atheists and fellow travellers, when you indict the Christian Faith as the fountain-head of imagined injustice, remember the One who hung between thieves on a patently unjust sentence, having been bought at the price of a slave through a betrayer blinded by greed and folly. If you do not hear a cry for just government and common decency at the heart of the Gospel you would despise, you are not worth the name, literary scholar or educated person.)
And in so doing, learn a terrible, grim lesson of where your clever word games predictably end up in the hands of the ruthless.
For, much more than science is at stake in all of this.
GEM of TKI >>