Is the particle zoo just a hopeful fantasy?

jerry: You're missing a large part of the argument. ID predicted not only that junk-DNA would have a function, but that it would have a MORE IMPORTANT function than strictly protein-coding regions. IOW, as I wrote previously, ID predicted that the "blueprint" for organismal life would be FOUND in the non-coding, supposedly "junk", areas of the genome. So-called 'pseudogenes', considered to be effectively "junk", turns out to be very important in the development of the embryonic brain, and in early embryonic events in general. Darwinism, fixated on 'genes', would never have predicted this. PaV

If they turn out to be wrong, why is that, then, a matter of indifference?

Because "they" never represented everyone or even the official position. Some may have made the prediction but it was never necessarily dogma. The presence of junk DNA neither supports or disproves either side's position in the debate. The current theory for naturalistic evolution predicts both functional and non-functional non-coding regions or what has been called junk DNA. So this part of the genome should include some parts that have function and some that do not have function. So if some/several were wrong on junk DNA, it does not necessarily disprove naturalistic evolution nor does it actually support it. An essential part of the current naturalistic evolution story is that a lot of the genome is increased through various processes and then some parts will mutate away to produce new functions. So functional and non functional non coding DNA should be expected according to the naturalistic evolution From what I understand there is still a lot of non functional DNA in the genomes. ID does not live or die on the fact that there might be non functional DNA in the genome. The machinery that creates the non functional DNA is a intricately designed process for which ID regularly points out. It is not necessarily a big deal that some of the added DNA ends up with no function. It may be just the result of a process that is necessary and is designed. jerry

Don't all cells have tons of junk DNA, as they only express a fraction of the genome, based on their final cell type (like a skin cell vs. liver cell)? PWall

jerry:

Junk DNA is irrelevant to the ID/evolution discussion. It neither supports the naturalistic evolution argument nor the ID position. Non codeable DNA could be the by-product of a designed process.

It was the Darwinian community who chose to focus upon the "junk DNA" angle in their arguments to counter the ID hypothesis. If they turn out to be wrong, why is that, then, a matter of indifference? PaV

RDFish:

Utterly absurd.

The only thing that is utterly absurd is your response.

It was none other than Bill Dembski who pointed out that Junk DNA was perfectly compatible with ID theory! He pointed out that intelligent design does not mean optimal design, and so any sort of flaw we observe in biological systems could never count against ID.

Dembski was talking about "optimal" design; i.e., the idea that there is absolutely NO "junk" in the genome. That is a far different thing than saying a Designer would design a genome resulting in 98% of it having no function. Your remark is not a measured one. You seem to be blinded by your bigotry towards ID.

He even gave an example of dead code that is very commonly found in computer programs! In other words, in our experience, junk code is perfectly compatible with intelligent design.

Did Dembski give a percentage?

Here's a quote from Dembski: But design is not a science stopper. Indeed, design can foster inquiry where traditional evolutionary approaches obstruct it. Consider the term "junk DNA." Implicit in this term is the view that because the genome of an organism has been cobbled together through a long, undirected evolutionary process, the genome is a patchwork of which only limited portions are essential to the organism. Thus on an evolutionary view we expect a lot of useless DNA. If, on the other hand, organisms are designed, we expect DNA, as much as possible, to exhibit function. And indeed, the most recent findings suggest that designating DNA as "junk" merely cloaks our current lack of knowledge about function. For instance, in a recent issue of the Journal of Theoretical Biology, John Bodnar describes how "non-coding DNA in eukaryotic genomes encodes a language which programs organismal growth and development." Design encourages scientists to look for function where evolution discourages it.

Mr. Fish: kindly read the text in bold.

It was only after real scientists discovered that these DNA sequences were functional that ID folks began proclaiming that a “prediction” was confirmed!

I've been debating with Darwinists since 2004. From almost the beginning, I made the argument that proteins are like the 'materials list' that an architect would include in his plans, but that what was most important was the plans themselves. I then 'predicted' that the 'non-coding' portion of the genome would contain the 'blueprints' for constructing the organism. This is, each day, being born out more and more in laboratory studies now being conducted. From what I've read, similar such 'predictions' were being made by the ID camp starting from the late 1990's. After all, it is a simple step in logic if one begins by using the ID premise. Meanwhile, Darwinists, convinced that life is protein-centric, or, more generally, 'coding-protein' centric, delighted in pointing out just how much of the genome did not code, and therefore was trivial. How did Darwinists end up on the wrong side of this issue? If you can't figure this out, I'll help answer it for you.

But if tomorrow we found out that junk DNA was junk after all, ID would simply say “Sure – no problem! Looks like the designer left some non-coding DNA in there for some reason!”

This is just your 'cheeky' opinion. If genomes, in general, turned out to have a large percentage of truly non-purposeful DNA, this would be an argument against ID, and IDists would accept it as such---in complete contrast to how Darwinists react to any evidence which undermines their beliefs. TaTa Mr. Fish. PaV

We use our knowledge about human beings, or other animals, to make predictions, but this has nothing to do with “ID” as such.

Not relevant because it is trivial with ID. We use our knowledge about the standard model to make predictions. When the standard model fails as it often does we must seek an alternative explanation. Often the explanation is due to some life form. But, so far no one has been able to discern an alternative explanation for some major phenomena observed in the world. We then try to understand what such an alternative explanation might be for these unexplained phenomena. It could be because of some unknown force that is not covered by the standard model and as such we try to make some assumptions about this unknown force. The nearest thing we can use is something we see all the time and that is intelligence but it may be some force we as yet do not understand. Hence we call this force an intelligence because some of the outcomes of this unknown cause resemble what we call intelligence. But it does not have to be anything like what we call intelligence either in its highest known form, human beings or in lesser forms such as the various other forms of life. We often conclude that some form of animal is the cause of a phenomena but that does not mean that this is the only type of cause for some inexplicable observations. Plants may be a cause for some but few would describe plants as intelligence. They are essentially subject to the standard model once their existence with its complex interactions of its structure is acknowledged. As an example of a phenomenon that has no known explanation, consider the Shroud of Turin. Nothing that humans have ever seen can account for this specifi phenomenon. Are we to postulate that it is only humans or animals are its cause? Would it be possible that some unknown force caused this to happen? Could this force be the result somehow of the standard model? Maybe, but if the standard model cannot account for the Shroud of Turin, could there be some other explanation and because of the nature of the phenomenon could it have been caused by some intelligence? Whatever the cause, we can use the term intelligence but it might not be exactly what we would refer to as intelligence as we use the term to describe human activity or animal activity. Right now it is unknown. In the end we see myriad of phenomena in our world that cannot be explained by the standard model. That is the essence of ID, lack of standard model explanation. Most of these phenomena can be explained by human, animal and plant activity. That does not mean that these are the only sources of explanation. There could be others for which we have little understanding. And for some we have chosen to identify the cause as intelligent because we have observed intelligence as a cause of very similar phenomena and the standard model as unable to act as a cause. jerry

Junk DNA is irrelevant to the ID/evolution discussion. It neither supports the naturalistic evolution argument nor the ID position. Non codeable DNA could be the by-product of a designed process. jerry

We have to wait till the Large Hadron Collider is beefed up further to find the so called super symmetry particles, that's because of massive energy associated with the particles. Let calculate those: Planck Mass: 2.2 x 10^-8 Energy = MC^2 : 2.2 x 10^-8 x (3x 10^8)^2 In Joules = 3.17 x 10^9 Joules In eV = 3.17x10^9 x 10^19 = 3.17 x 10^28 In GeV = 3.17x10^28/10^9 = 3.17 x 10^19 The heaviest particle discovered is Top Quark which is 175 GeV. So imagine how difficult it would have been to discover a massive 3.17 x 10^19 associated particles. Luckily the super symmetry cancels out massive particles and Nature supposedly has been left with only heavier particles up to 200 odd Gev. So in theory beefing LHC up can help find these new elusive particles. Of course if the particles energy are upto 300 and above GeV, we need to built a more powerful collider before there is hope of discovering any super symmetry particles at all selvaRajan

You can’t handle me, RDFish. I’d chew you up and spit you out like a cherry pit.

We're supposed to spit out the pit? Really? Mung

RDFish:

Of course in ID, it takes only a second to invent a model (“God did it”), and in thousands of years nobody has thought up a single experiment to test it

You don't know what you're talking about, so why don't you just shut up and spare us all any more of your nonsense? Mung

RDFish, I may have an anger issue but you have a mendacity issue. I never said that motion is impossible. Why lie? Mapou

You can’t handle me, RDFish. I’d chew you up and spit you out like a cherry pit. You materialist dirt worshipers are not all that bright.

Ah yes, Mapou, everyone here can see you are really the smart one (albeit with some very serious anger issues :-)). A race of alien gods... with brains... motion is impossible... oh yeah, I'll be expecting you to make some serious breakthroughs in AI ... any day now :-) Hahahahahahahahahahahaha Cheers, RDFish RDFish

PaV,

Mr. Fish: have you forgotten that it was ID, and ID alone, that predicted that the 98% of the genome that Darwinian evolutionary biologists termed “junk” would turn out to have function?

Utterly absurd. It was none other than Bill Dembski who pointed out that Junk DNA was perfectly compatible with ID theory! He pointed out that intelligent design does not mean optimal design, and so any sort of flaw we observe in biological systems could never count against ID. He even gave an example of dead code that is very commonly found in computer programs! In other words, in our experience, junk code is perfectly compatible with intelligent design. It was only after real scientists discovered that these DNA sequences were functional that ID folks began proclaiming that a "prediction" was confirmed! But if tomorrow we found out that junk DNA was junk after all, ID would simply say "Sure - no problem! Looks like the designer left some non-coding DNA in there for some reason!" Cheers, RDFish RDFish

RDFish:

You appear to disagree with everyone else here – including me – regarding just about everything.

I am my own man and I'm nobody's fool. It's not true that I disagree with everyone here. I did agree with you that the brain is needed for intelligence. I disagree with the Christian fundamentalist/YEC commenters here who believe that the mind is all in the spirit. But so what?

I really don’t know where to start with you. Keep smokin’!

You can't handle me, RDFish. I'd chew you up and spit you out like a cherry pit. You materialist dirt worshipers are not all that bright. Mapou

RDFish: Nobody ever uses “ID” to make any prediction, ever. We use our knowledge about human beings, or other animals, to make predictions, but this has nothing to do with “ID” as such. Mr. Fish: have you forgotten that it was ID, and ID alone, that predicted that the 98% of the genome that Darwinian evolutionary biologists termed "junk" would turn out to have function? Further, one of the ideas current in ID circles for quite some time now is that of "front-loading," where the genetic ingredients for all future forms of a particular lineage would be present from the beginning. Just the other day there was a study that came out demonstrating that the proteins thought essential for "multicellularity" are present in a species that is "unicellular." Other such experiments have been reported. E.g., the proteins/genetic switch needed for the animal arm is already found in the 'sea anemone.' The fact is is that ID is, at this time, fairly limited in what it might predict. But the verdict so far is that what ID predicts turns out to be true. Of course, what is it exactly that "Darwinism" predicts? It predicts very little; but theorizes very much. The difference between ID and Darwinism--and I think this gets to the heart of your criticism concerning whether ID is a "science" or not---is that Darwinism can be used to "explain" anything. While that, on the surface, might appear to give Darwinism the edge, the reality is that Darwinism can predict anything, anywhere, and in almost any field. [Do you realize that there is currently a proposal that wants to use "natural selection" to solve cosmological problems? One of the problems with 'supersymmetry' is that using its methods one can come up with an almost infinite number of consistent models. How does one then pick out the correct model?] ID, OTOH, has to be more circumspect in its predictions, and, doesn't lend itself to facile "explanations" of this phenomena or that. As we learn more and more about cellular structures and functions, and, as we learn more and more about information-processes, I believe ID will be able to (1) understand the processes of life better, deeper and in a richer way than mere Darwinism, and (2) better able to predict what science might find in cellular organisms as nanotechnology itself 'evolves' and takes us to a smaller and smaller scale of experimentation. PaV

Nobody ever uses “ID” to make any prediction, ever.

Of course they do. Maybe 10 people on the planet would say otherwise.. But even they would act on their observations if they had to.

but this has nothing to do with “ID” as such.

Again, nonsense. jerry

'Cars are not produced by “ID”. Cars are produced by “human beings” and their tools.' .... Unintelligently? While in a permanent coma? Catatonia? Why are we looking for figs to grow on thorns. Go back to sleep, RD. There's a good chap. Axel

Hi drc466,

So, RDFish, what exactly are you saying – that a car has no intrinsic features that make ID the most likely cause for its existence?

Cars are not produced by "ID". Cars are produced by "human beings" and their tools. Cheers, RDFish RDFish

Mapou, You appear to disagree with everyone else here - including me - regarding just about everything. I really don't know where to start with you. Keep smokin'! Cheers, -RDFish RDFish

Hi Jerry,

We as individuals use ID all the time to make predictions.

Nobody ever uses "ID" to make any prediction, ever. We use our knowledge about human beings, or other animals, to make predictions, but this has nothing to do with "ID" as such. Cheers, RDFish RDFish

where models make actual predictions that can be tested and discarded. It just shows why calling ID a “science” is so very confused.

A couple comments: 1 There is a difference between calling "ID a science" and "ID uses science." There is first the question of defining what science means. Using just about any definition one usually uses for science, ID uses science to make conclusions. Whether ID is a science or not may depend on what one calls science. Is sociology science, is anthropology science, is archaeology science, is logic science,, is statistics science. is philosophy science? etc. 2. ID makes tons of predictions. We as individuals use ID all the time to make predictions. So the statement above is nonsense. jerry

Of course in ID, it takes only a second to invent a model (“God did it”), and in thousands of years nobody has thought up a single experiment to test it :-) It’s funny, Denyse, that you enjoy posting the challenges in doing actual science, where models make actual predictions that can be tested and discarded. It just shows why calling ID a “science” is so very confused.

What's funny is that, if it weren't for the implications for Evolution and its obvious application to Life, ID would probably be both a) non-controversial and b) uninteresting to most people. Look, correct me if I'm wrong, but ID Theory basically states that there exists some method of determining whether Intelligence was required (a threshold) to create something. An easy example is a car, or a paper-clip - can these items reasonably be expected to exists sans an intelligent force behind them? Creating a scientific theory that says "yes, these items are so complex that there must be an intelligence source for them" and "we can define mathematically and scientifically what 'complexity' means" in support of that theory seems like a observable, testable process - certainly as much so as evolutionary hypotheses about an untestable, unrepeatable past history, or hypothetical untestable multiverses. So, RDFish, what exactly are you saying - that a car has no intrinsic features that make ID the most likely cause for its existence? Or that, there's no possible way to test/prove mathematically whether a car can come into existence via non-ID methods? Or that even though common sense would lead any non-insane individual to conclude that a car must be intelligently designed, that conclusion is false and we're all fooling ourselves when we associate complexity with ID? Or that because we can't 100% define complexity that it therefore doesn't really exist? Or that Life is somehow exempt from ID and complexity arguments? I'm curious as to how you can reasonably think that ID isn't a theory, doesn't have a model (like, say a "filter" or something), or isn't testable (Oh, and before you proffer some "untestable" evaluation of ID, you might want to be sure your reasoning doesn't suck in evolution as also untestable by that same criteria). drc466

It must be the coffee (or the weed :-D). Ignore my #5 above. Mapou

Correction:

If a non-nested hierarchy is not found, the hypothesis is falsified.

Change 'non-nested' above to 'fully nested'. Mapou

RDFish:

Well, somebody has to point out all of the silliness going on here, and it might as well be me :-)

Maybe but you ain't nearly as smart as you think you are. The silly one here is you.

Oh, please. You are saying that if the “Intelligent Designer” chose to make a nested hierarchy then He could not have done so? ID makes precisely ZERO predictions, obviously, because there is absolutely nothing that an “intelligent agent” (as ID construes this term) cannot do.

Oh please, yourself. I've seen this stupid argument many times before. It's cr*p, of course. The hypothesis is not that the designers could not choose to do a bunch of stupid things. The hypothesis is that they DID choose to design things over time and they used lateral inheritance along the way because that is the intelligent thing to do. That's the hypothesis. It's a scientific hypothesis because it can be falsified with current technology. All one needs to do is to determine the genomes of every living organism on earth (there is a finite number of those) and determine how they fit within the hierarchy. If a non-nested hierarchy is not found, the hypothesis is falsified. Put that in your Darwinian pipe and smoke it.

Actually what you say is much, much funnier than physics. Modern physics predicted that transistors would work, and lasers, and fission reactors, and fusion bombs, and MRI machines, and quantum cryptography, and so on. And guess what? All these things actually do work! Complete jokes don’t actually work that way, Mapou, so you’ll apparently need to revise your understanding of modern physics.

If they got everything wrong, then they would not have lasted as long as they did, would they? The undeniable fact is that a time dimension makes motion impossible. Are you prepared to argue otherwise? The other fact is that time travel and infinite parallel dimensions are about as scientific as burning chicken feathers to cast off evil spirits.

Ouch! Glad I have geniuses like you to set me straight!

No need for geniuses. Like I said, you ain't nearly as smart as you think you are. Mapou

Hi Mapou,

RDFish, why don’t you give it a rest?

Well, somebody has to point out all of the silliness going on here, and it might as well be me :-)

This allows us to make prediction about design in nature. ID predicts that the tree of life is a non-nested hierarchy.

Oh, please. You are saying that if the "Intelligent Designer" chose to make a nested hierarchy then He could not have done so? ID makes precisely ZERO predictions, obviously, because there is absolutely nothing that an "intelligent agent" (as ID construes this term) cannot do.

As an aside, modern physics is a complete joke, what with time travel through wormholes,...

Actually what you say is much, much funnier than physics. Modern physics predicted that transistors would work, and lasers, and fission reactors, and fusion bombs, and MRI machines, and quantum cryptography, and so on. And guess what? All these things actually do work! Complete jokes don't actually work that way, Mapou, so you'll apparently need to revise your understanding of modern physics.

Stop making a fool of yourself.

Ouch! Glad I have geniuses like you to set me straight! :-) Cheers, RDFish RDFish

RDFish, why don't you give it a rest? We know enough about how intelligent design works by observing intelligent designers create designs over long periods of time. We know, for example, that objects designed over time undergo an evolution and that the objects can be classified hierarchically, as in a tree structure. We also know that the tree is not 100% nested and that there are many instances of lateral sharing of designs. This allows us to make prediction about design in nature. ID predicts that the tree of life is a non-nested hierarchy. Common descent (the Darwinian model), by contrast, predicts a fully nested hierarchy. Guess which prediction is correct. [The tree of life is not a Darwinian invention, by the way. It was first mentioned in the book of Genesis, thousands of years before Darwin began life as a tadpole. :-D] As an aside, modern physics is a complete joke, what with time travel through wormholes, infinite parallel universes, continuous (infinitely smooth) structures, cats that are both dead and alive when nobody's lookin, etc. Did you know that a time dimension (one of the staples of modern physics) makes motion impossible? Did you know that nothing can move in Einstein's spacetime, so much so that Sir Karl Popper compared Einstein to Parmenides (who, with his pupil Zeno, denied the existence of change) and called spacetime, Einstein's block universe in which nothing happens? Wake up and smell the revolution in the making. Stop making a fool of yourself. Mapou

“A good theorist can invent a model in half an hour, and it takes an experimentalist 20 years to kill it.” Of course in ID, it takes only a second to invent a model ("God did it"), and in thousands of years nobody has thought up a single experiment to test it :-) It's funny, Denyse, that you enjoy posting the challenges in doing actual science, where models make actual predictions that can be tested and discarded. It just shows why calling ID a "science" is so very confused. RDFish