At Evolution and News, there’s a link to a 2017 article tackling the problems of inflationary theory in the field of cosmology. What I find so interesting is the second to last paragraph in this six page article. Here’s how it reads:
A common misconception is that experiments can be used to falsify a theory. In practice, a failing theory gets increasingly immunized against experiment by attempts to patch it. The theory becomes more highly tuned and arcane to fit new observations until it reaches a state where its explanatory power diminishes to the point that it is no longer pursued. The explanatory power of a theory is measured by the set of possibilities it excludes. More immunization means less exclusion and less power. A theory like the multimess does not exclude anything and, hence, has zero power. Declaring an empty theory as the unquestioned standard view requires some sort of assurance outside of science. Short of a professed oracle, the only alternative is to invoke authorities. History teaches us that this is the wrong road to take.
Is he talking about Darwinism? No, about the “multimess” as he calls it. In the meantime, here we have a high-powered scientist telling us that a theory that lacks “explanatory power” is a theory that “excludes” very little. We have said here for years that Darwinism can accomodate ANYTHING; and, hence, it “explains” NOTHING. It is, to quote the author, an “empty theory” that “invoke[s] authorities” to keep it as the “unquestioned standard view.” Most compelling is his final thought: “History teaches us that this is the wrong road to take.”
How many more “epicycles” have to be trotted out by the scientific monopoly that is evolutionary biology before we get off this ‘wrong road’? We already have had too many.
If we needed theories this might be important. We don’t need theories, so this doesn’t matter.
I believe it is a yes.
We all know that Darwin’s theory cannot tell the future. Everyone agrees on that. But one of the arguments against a designer is that a designer would not do it that way. Why don’t humans have the eye sight of a hawk, the speed of a cheetah, the strength of an ape, etc.
In fact why don’t humans have much, better eye sight, faster and stronger limbs? The answer is if they did they would have destroyed the ecology in which they inhabit. Darwinian pressures would have favored such traits for survival but would not have foreseen that these traits would eventually become sub optimal.
How many ecologies depend on the limitations of its members to not be able to increase the capabilities of its members? They must be extremely limited in how much adaptation that can happen to survive.
My guess all of them
Polistra:
I’m lost. What do you mean that we don’t need theories? Maybe you’re being facetious.
Jerry@2
I think that another additional reason “humans (don’t) have the eye sight of a hawk, the speed of a cheetah, the strength of an ape, etc.” is that these capabilities inevitably would change the intricate set of inherent tradeoffs in the engineering design of the human body. Tradeoffs that in a lot of cases settle for an optimum combination of good far vision and excellent close vision, maximum burst running speed versus endurance, etc.
News: “We have said here for years that Darwinism can accomodate [sic] ANYTHING; and, hence, it “explains” NOTHING.”
I think this is pretty close to true, but not entirely true. If we observed an organism of one species give birth to one of a new species, that would falsify Darwinian evolution. Or if we had clear evidence of Lamarckian macroevolution, for example.
But yes, these unlikely scenarios notwithstanding, Darwinian evolution can be stretched to accommodate way too many data – it excludes little.
Obviously, though, Intelligent Design Theory is even worse in this regard. There is literally nothing I can think of that would be excluded as a possibility under ID. What, after all, is an undefined “Intelligent Cause” incapable of producing?
DD, you are clearly unfamiliar with ID, and have bought into a very familiar sounding strawman caricature. I suggest, first [though you are likely a recycled trollish objector . . . we expect responsible behaviour], that you scroll up and examine the items under the resources tab, including how actual ID advocates understand ID and the weak argument correctives.
You are hereby advised that the design inference is drawn after TWO defaults,
– one, that an event or entity E is caused by lawlike mechanism [broken by high contingency on similar initial conditions]
– two, that the highly contingent E is caused by chance process [broken by exhibition of patterns or signs maximally implausible on chance, e.g. functionally specific, complex organisation and/or associated information, FSCO/I].
For example, consider a coin that is dropped, it reliably falls under gravity. Next, consider a string of 500 coins, which exhibit a binary distribution as they tumble and settle in H/T patterns by chance. But if we were instead to detect a 500 bit [~72 character] ASCII coded message, that would be FSCO/I a strong sign of design.
That is the design inference does not seek to detect any and all cases of design but seeks to identify with maximal plausibility, strong cases.
As it turns out, the living cell has in it 4-state coded information that in key parts functions algorithmically to assemble proteins. The information content greatly exceeds 500 – 1,000 bits, exhibiting great complexity and a pattern that shows language [code] and goal-directed stepwise process [algorithm] which are strong signs of design. As for high contingency, that is obvious from even something as simple as mutation. Where, in a world with trillions of actually observed cases of cause of such FSCO/I, it has universally been by design. The empirically warranted inference is that the D/RNA in the cell is a result of design, intelligently directed configuration.
It is not by empirical observation of such FSCO/I coming about by blind chance and/or mechanical necessity — that would instantly shatter the design inference — but by ideological lockout, that the design inference on tested, observed sign has been excluded.
As can be shown.
KF
PS: Here is Monod [a Nobel Prize winning pioneer of molecular biology who wrote the highly influential Chance and Necessity], on the ideological imposition: https://uncommondescent.com/atheism/monods-objectivity-naturalistic-scientism-and-begging-big-questions/
Key clip, from an interview shortly after his book came out and caused an international sensation:
There is no good reason for that imposition, which is question-begging.
first of all, the theory of evolution as it is, is absurd in the highest possible degree ….
No wonder, that this theory has been developed by a bunch of natural science graduates, romantics, who never made anything … this is a fact… these guys never made anything, these guys just telling romantic/naive/absurd stories about how the most sophisticated design/technology created by itself from nothing … these romantic guys and their theory ignores everything what engineers learned so far … including a cave man engineer (to design an axe also requires engineering skills, so the axe works as it suppose to work ) … these romantics just don’t care … they infested the whole world with their crazy absurd theory and are happy with it … and scientists from other fields of science just watching …
I just wondering, when and how this Darwinian craziness will end …
KF: I read your reply, but you don’t seem to be addressing the point I made.
The OP was about how evolutionary theory was empty because it failed to exclude possibilities:
“The explanatory power of a theory is measured by the set of possibilities it excludes.”
I agreed with the OP that theories with insufficient sets of excluded possibilities do not constitute good explanations, and agreed that it was a weakness in evolutionary theory (even though there are possibilities excluded by evolution).
I then added that a theory which offers an unspecified “Intelligent Cause” as an explanation suffers from the same problem, and asked what possibility such a theory might exclude.
I don’t think you answered that question. For example, could an Intelligent Cause cause a lizard to give birth to (hatch) a bird? Or could it take 200 million years to gradually transition from reptilian ancestors to modern birds?
I don’t see why not.
Anyway, I’m sure there are plenty of other things to discuss about Intelligent Design Theory, but I’d prefer to just stick to this particular point: Like evolutionary theory, ID Theory appears empty in the way the OP suggests because it doesn’t exclude any possibilities.
DogDoc:
Darwinism did, indeed, exclude something: so-called “Junk-DNA,” which evolutionary theory described as a kind of “dark matter.” Yet, Intelligent Design said that this was not probable, that there is clearly information contained in DNA and that an intelligent agent would include this information for a purpose. ID turned out to be right, and EB (evolutionary biology) to be wrong.
So, it’s not true that ID does not exclude possibilities. And, unlike EB, it can make predictions–that actually turn out to be true.
There isn’t any scientific theory of evolution.
Dog:
A SETI researcher receives a signal that repeats the first 30 prime numbers over and over. He proposes a theory to explain the data that offers an unspecified “Intelligent Cause” as an explanation. His theory excludes random chance, mechanical necessity and any combination of the two as an explanation of the data. It is also almost certainly correct.
DD, you inadvertently confirm your want of understanding. As a simple indication on point, if ever it were actually observed that by blind chance and or mechanical necessity without intelligent action over 500 – 1,000 bits of functionally specific information arose, the design inference would fail decisively. That inference is about a causal process, intelligently directed configuration, and not about a designer. The strawman tactic game continues. KF
PS, here is an inadvertent test, the results of which are conceded against known interest by Wikipedia’s editors [and without acknowledging plainly, the significance]:
A mere factor of 10^100 short.
BA, quite so, and directly connected to the Infinite Monkeys result. KF
darwinism = lots of lucky accidents and always in right order …
DD, you may find the brief clip on confirmation theory here, from Swinburne, helpful at 102 level: https://uncommondescent.com/ethics/lfp-48i-dallas-willards-partial-list-of-reasons-for-the-unwarranted-disappearance-of-moral-knowledge/ KF
DD, kindly note this from 6 above:
KF
Interesting responses, thank you everyone.
PaV: I’ve heard about the Junk-DNA issue, yes. But I remember reading something years ago, before function was discovered for that DNA, where someone was arguing that Junk DNA was completely consistent with an Intelligent Designer: If you look at computer code, which is obviously intelligently designed, there is often a lot of code that is “dead” or “junk”. There are branches of programs that cannot execute, sections that have been commented out or stubbed for future work, and so on. So even in the case of Junk DNA, ID does not really exclude the possibility at all.
Barry: In your example, a SETI researcher posits an intelligent source behind the signal, rather than random chance or necessity. You say that theory “excludes” the latter explanations. But the exclusions that the OP talks about are of a different sort: The issue raised in the OP is not about forgoing one explanation in favor of another, but rather that a theory must exclude possible observations in order to have explanatory power. As PaV stated in the OP, any theory that can accommodate anything actually explains nothing.
So, in your example, an intelligent source may choose to send prime numbers, or to send random numbers, or to send no signal at all. Any observation regarding signals can be explained by the “intelligent source” hypothesis, just as (almost) every observation in biology can be explained by “evolution”. I see this as a problem for both theories.
KF: You suggest I’ve confirmed my want of understanding, but I think I understand this topic well, and I certainly can’t see how I’m setting up any straw men arguments here. You keep talking about the design inference, but as I’ve made clear, I am not talking about that. I am discussing the point raised in the OP, which is that any theory that fails to exclude possible disconfirming observations has low explanatory power.
DogDoc:
It would be helpful if you knew who it was that was arguing in this way and what year it happened. That said, yes, “computer code” is “obviously intelligently designed,” by humans. But is there any human being alive who can write computer code for something that can fly through the air, build nests, lay eggs and so reproduce? No. So, why should be accept that an Intelligent Agent who is vastly more intelligent than we can imagine would be this sloppy?
When the search for “coding DNA” began, EB’s expected that 25-30% of the genome would be functional, meaning that 75% would be “junk.” But the more they were able to experiment, this number finally went down to 10%. That’s one sloppy designer.
Meanwhile, I personally, and plenty before and after, said that “genes” are simply part of the “materials list,” while so-called junk-DNA was the “blueprint.” It was another successful prediction and completely antithetical to EB thinking.
I won’t bore you with an experiment I suggested be done and the results of which, based on ID thinking, I predicted; but I turned out to be right–a complete body-blow to Darwinism. What happened turned out to be more “Lamarckian” than Darwinian and really the predictions came from my reading of Richard Goldschmidt’s “The Material Basis of Evolution,” written in reaction to R. A. Fisher’s “The Genetic Basis of Evolution.”
“Evolution” is not an empty theory but a failed one. It does predict gradualism, divergence of character, abiogenesis, disunity of life, fitness, selection, random benefic mutation, etc. All demonstrably false as shown.
Intelligent design is opposed by the complementary randomness, not by “evolution”. And randomness is the easily rejected null hypothesis everywhere in biology. Also as shown. And of course, complementary means there is no third option.
PaV:
It doesn’t really matter who said what when; my point was just that there is nothing in ID Theory that excludes the possibility of code with junk in it. (Also, it isn’t just sloppiness that produces dead code – as I mentioned, non-functional code is often placed in a program as a “stub”, in anticipation of future functionality. And a super-intelligent programmer might indeed be planning for future function that we can’t even comprehend now!)
Still, I can see that evolutionary thinking could easily lead biologists to jump to the conclusion that junk DNA was a useless byproduct of trial-and-error. Also, I could be wrong but I think there have been several examples of mutations that appeared to be responsive to an organism’s needs in a particular environment. That would indeed discount Darwinian theory – but only because Darwinian theory excludes that possibility!
Nonlin.org:
I agree that evolutionary theory fails to explain our observations, but again, that goes to my point that it is because evolutionary theory is not completely empty, but actually excludes some possibilities.
I disagree strongly that there are only two possible options, viz. intelligent design and randomness. Think of the protein folding problem. Until relatively recently, it appeared impossible for a long polypeptide chain to quickly fold itself into a functional tertiary structure by searching through huge numbers of possible configurations and finding the functional structure purely by random chance. But of course it doesn’t: We now know a lot about the mechanics of how proteins fold, and it isn’t random, and there are no intelligent agents busily folding them up in our cells either.
Pav: why should be accept that an Intelligent Agent who is vastly more intelligent than we can imagine would be this sloppy?
If everything was front loaded, it may be more efficient, or was just plain easier to develop, to allow some unused “code” to exist in a genome when it’s not actually needed for that genome.
–Ram
DD the evidence is you misunderstand and construct caricatures based on misrepresentations of ID by critics that have elected to distort willfully in the face of correction. You were directed to the resources tab. As for low explanatory power, the design inference is just the opposite of your characterisation, and opens up a new and more reasonable paradigm. Observe, language and algorithms in the core of the cell and where that takes OOL for instance, given the ideological imposition documented by Monod, Crick and Lewontin etc. KF
KF, For the last time, the question I’ve posed was prompted by PaV in the OP, and it is this: What possible observations are excluded by ID theory? You clearly have no answer to the question, and should have just said as much.
DD,
Glad you agree on “evolution”. There’s another aspect to that as they always have a vacuous “evolutionary” explanation of everything and its opposite in biology. That’s probably why some claim it is an empty theory.
As far as protein folding, that is an act of intelligent design given that the laws of nature themselves are either random or ID products. And they cannot be random for two reasons :
1. All origin-known laws are products of ID
2. The only proposed random laws would be in an untenable and totally fictional multiverse scenario. Untenable because its only basis is the desire to exclude ID from science. Also because the laws of nature are believed, well, universal which forces all other hypothetical multiverses to be integers (unitary) as well. Meaning governed by universal laws as well. But that would be unnatural, wouldn’t you agree? If one were to imagine a multiverse, it would make more sense to imagine it as a continuum.
Nonlin,
Okay, say we observe some phenomenon – like some complex functional biological system – which appears unlikely to occur randomly, and you conclude that necessarily this was intelligently designed. Then we discover no, it is actually accomplished mechanically, by means of a process of which we previously had no understanding. This should convince you that we can’t simply rule out mechanism when we observe highly improbable phenomena.
But instead, you conclude that whatever created the foundational environment in which this phenomenon occurred must have itself been intelligently designed. And presumably, if we discovered that the environmental elements which permitted the phenomenon were themselves the result of yet another mechanical process, you would simply declare that whatever caused that process was intelligent – and so on, all the way back to the laws of nature.
If that’s your position, then you’ll need to just limit your “intelligence OR randomness” claim to whatever created the laws of nature, and concede that any worldly phenomenon we observe may have a direct cause that is mechanical but currently unknown.
As for figuring out how the laws of nature came to exist, I’d say that’s currently well beyond the purview of empirical science. Certainly the postulation of a multiverse did not simply arise as a ploy to avoid ID; you may (or may not) want to look into the history of that idea a bit. Personally I’m of the belief that we don’t really have any way to know how or why the universe began, or why it is the way it is.
Dogdoc:
1- Blind and mindless processes producing a living organism
2- Blind and mindless processes producing a coded information processing system, like the genetic code which has mRNA codons representing amino acids
Then ID is falsified! Such is the nature of science. Scientific inferences are tentative and rely on the knowledge of the time. The science of today does not and cannot wait for what the science of tomorrow may or may not uncover. The science of tomorrow is just as likely to confirm the science of today.
ET,
Well, no, if we observed a mindless process producing a living organism or a code, then ID would simply claim that the mindless process was itself the product of intelligence. (see my note to nonlin @21).
For another example, computers can learn to generate novel, highly complex artifacts, but ID generally dismisses this as being the result of the human programmers rather than mechanical intelligence. (As an aside, why isn’t our ability to program seen as simply the result of our intelligent designer, rather than of our own intelligence?)
I provided an example of this @21, where highly improbable structures are generated in some previously unknown way which has now been elucidated as a mechanistic process.
This is of course true, but my point was that you can’t justify a claim that “no mechanical process” can possibly be responsible for something, because we know for a fact that we do not understand every possible mechanical process.
dogdoc @21
actually, there are intelligent agents busily folding them up … ever heard of chaperones ?
from wikipedia:
Chaperone proteins participate in the folding of over half of all mammalian proteins. In molecular biology, molecular chaperones are proteins that assist the conformational folding or unfolding and the assembly or disassembly of other macromolecular structures.
Martin_r,
Well yes I have, and those are part of the mechanistic process that I’ve been referring to here (it’s a lot more complicated than just the action of these proteins of course). But why would you call these proteins “intelligent agents”? I would have to guess that most people would balk at attributing “intelligence” to a molecule, but maybe I’m wrong. What exactly do you mean when you say chaperone proteins are intelligent agents? Or perhaps you’re joking?
dogdoc @21
i, as a mechanical engineer with a decent IT background can only agree with you … a common computer script/code is full of non-functional code (e.g. remarks/comments) …
Moreover, i would like to add, that i as an engineer can also imagine, that the genome/DNA works as a read/write storage in contrary to read-only storage. There is a very old senior biologists James Shapiro (University of Chicago, an evolutionist) who published lots of papers on read-write genome.
So i am pretty sure, IF there is some ‘junk’ in our genome, IF … it is a result of intelligently designed read-write process (plus, ever heard of horizontal gene transfer ? it is when various species sharing chunks of DNA code)
The problem with biologists like R Dawkins is, that they never made anything, they don’t understand how things work … People like R Dawkins are the last ones qualified to talk about any design …
No wonder, that recently deceased “Darwin of the 20th century”, American biologist E.O. Wilson, called Dawkins a journalist :)))))
E.O.Wilson:
Dogdoc
my bad, …i agree, these are only intelligently designed molecules, doing things for a purpose … designed by an intelligent agent…
Martin_r
Ah, yes, I suppose it gets hard to keep straight what is actually intelligent from what just appears intelligent but is merely a tool of something actually intelligent.
Computers or chaperone molecules may produce complex specified information, but that is merely the apparent intelligence of an intelligently designed tool, a mindless conduit for the actual intelligence of the human programmer. Right? And of course human programmers are also designed, so when they design computer programs they really aren’t intelligent either – they are just intelligently designed tools also. Right?
dogdoc
it is not hard … i just made a mistake, i just copy+pasted your text, it was a mistake …
so once again, chaperones are molecular machines … just machines – hardcoded to do certain jobs …. intelligently designed molecular machines … a nanotechnology if you will …
no, this is wrong … humans where created in God’s image = humans are intelligent as is our Creator … of course, so far, much less skilled engineers …. humans aren’t tools … a computer /computer software is a tool …
🙂 Nope. Learning and intelligence are the atributes that belong exclusives to humans. A computer can’t learn and is as intelligent as a rock , a computer just do the instructions inserted by a programmer .
A mindless process can’t produce a code. Never observed , never will. Somehow you came to believe that absurdity even there are no evidences . Question is why? 🙂
For you there is no way to know but if there was a witness of the event there is a way to know. It’s about believing the witness or not. In this case believing in witness will result in knowledge that witness uncovers.
First believing then knowledge comes.
Nope.
Darwinian evolution is self refuting.
The fact that we have stable ecologies refutes Darwin’s ideas.
Darwin’s ideas are fantastic when explaining genetics where there are limits on change. But unlimited change would destroy an organism – not by deleterious changes (that too) but because it would destroy ecologies.
@26
There are no known “mechanistic processes” independent of design and randomness. That’s why we always try to understand what drives these unknown “mechanistic processes” rather than just accept them as given. Because we know there’s something else behind them.
There is nothing excluded by ID.
It accepts all confirmed observations. ID just says that certain processes are unlikely, some extremely unlikely. But will accept any verifiable observations.
ID is not a theory. It is just science +.
People are often hung up on what some proponents of ID such as Dembski did by developing a mathematical approach to support ID and then calling this mathematical approach ID. Their mathematical tool is just that, a tool like logic is a tool. It is not ID.
ID is better science than taught at any university on the planet.
i as an engineer would love to understand, what discovery would Darwinists convince, that species are designed … actually, there is a perfect one (and obviously, no Darwinist is convinced )
It is a icon of engineering – most engineering offices have it on their visit cards:
A MECHANICAL GEAR
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/animals/a9449/the-first-gear-discovered-in-nature-15916433/
PS: and of course, this mechanical gear is fully working, helps to synchronize bug’s legs when jumping… i would love to hear from biologists (natural science graduates), how a mechanical gear can be designed by blind unguided process by some lucky accident … all mechanical engineers know, that to design a mechanical gear takes lots of math (so it works properly ) …
Dogdoc:
Your ignorance of science and ID is not an argument. ID specifically claims that blind and mindless processes cannot do certain things.
So, you are stupid. It is a fact that computers and their programs are intelligently designed. It is a fact that computer programs do what they are intelligently designed to do. So yes, obviously what a computer does traces back to us, duh.
There isn’t any evidence that nature can produce life nor coded information processing systems. There isn’t even a way to test the claim that nature can do so. Christopher Hitchens said that we can dismiss such claims.
I was just Word Fenced. KF
Let me try to respond in steps:
PART A:
DD,
you are doubling down by refusing to acknowledge the answer as to what is ‘banned’ by ID and would falsify it, which has been there all along from 6 and has been repeated to you for emphasis in 17:
In 13:
“Such FSCO/I,” as can be seen from 13, refers to functionally specific, complex organisation and/or information beyond “500 – 1,000 bits, exhibiting great complexity” and “a pattern” of being specifically configured to function, e.g. the “language [code] and goal-directed stepwise process [algorithm]” that we see in D/RNA in the cell.
PART B:
As a specific, actual test of this, 13 records from Wikipedia testifying against interest but failing to acknowledge the force of what is there:
As I noted, “A mere factor of 10^100 short.”
PART C:
If you had bothered to look in the UD correctives, you would have seen in the very FIRST corrective:
This is the triple causal factor pattern at the heart of the explanatory filter.
Where, “Experience confirms beyond the slightest doubt that acts by intelligent agents frequently result in empirically observable signs of intelligence.” For example consult forensics, amd archaeology.
So, the WAC continues:
Just look all around you. The very fact that you are reading this sentence confirms that you are able to distinguish it from noise.
That is, FSCO/I is real, we contrast a functional sentence like this, from noise:jhud5rsvhfytdfty, or mechanical patterns, e.g. SASASASASA etc.
Jerry: ID is not a theory. It is just science +.
You do realise that, in science, a theory is something that has been verified and established by observation and experimentation?
People are often hung up on what some proponents of ID such as Dembski did by developing a mathematical approach to support ID and then calling this mathematical approach ID. Their mathematical tool is just that, a tool like logic is a tool. It is not ID.
It seems you are referring to Dr Dembski’s explanatory filter as supported by his probability model. Which, yes, is supposed to just be a way to detect design.
ID is better science than taught at any university on the planet.
Which makes it very strange that there aren’t a lot of, if any, ID journals or academic conferences. Aside from supposing some conspiracy theory about the idea being suppressed, why do you think that is true?
Oh, gosh, I was allowed to post. Who knows how long that will last. Last night I spent a long time trying to respond to about 10 posts to no avail.
Then simply consult the degree of complexity that may be expressed in bits either directly or by reduction to some description language. On trillions of observations, FSCO/I beyond 500 – 1,000 bits comes about by intelligently directed configuration. This is confirmed by simple analysis of blind search challenge on sol system or observed cosmos scope resources in 10^17 available seconds so we see why blind search is not a plausible way to get FSCO/I.
I am tired of WF now
KF
JVL, what do you think a trillion member uniform observation base that FSCO/I comes about by design is? Chopped liver? KF
PS: Computers are planned, are built and are programmed through intelligently directed configuration
JVL, I got word fenced about half a dozen times, had to chop up response and leave out parts. KF
Kairosfocus: JVL, I got word fenced about half a dozen times, had to chop up response and leave out parts. KF
I hear you. My bans last for days and don’t allow any postings. Last night I was unable to post to 10 or more threads.
JVL, what do you think a trillion member uniform observation base that FSCO/I comes about by design is? Chopped liver? KF
I think you need to explain or expound on that phrase a bit since I’m not clear exactly what you mean since the claim made by the unguided evolutionary crowd is NOT that complex life forms with large genomes came about randomly. Also, just to head off another possible retort: there are no islands of function. You assert there is based on your interpretation of the complexity of life forms that came about after millions and millions of years of derivation from common ancestors. But your interpretation has not empirical support.
On trillions of observations, FSCO/I beyond 500 – 1,000 bits comes about by intelligently directed configuration. This is confirmed by simple analysis of blind search challenge on sol system or observed cosmos scope resources in 10^17 available seconds so we see why blind search is not a plausible way to get FSCO/I.
And no one is claiming it is!! You’re arguing against a premise no one is supporting. You’re making a straw-man argument. And you’ve been told as much for years and years but you don’t change your tune.
You expect us to alter our approaches after you have ‘corrected’ us but you don’t do the same. You absolutely refuse to account for the clearly stated assumptions of your opponents which means you can’t even pay them the courtesy of arguing against what they’ve actually said.
🙂 This seems to be an extremely powerful argument to be played against darwinists, atheists, materialists .
1.Randomness(closed eyes ,hit the keyboard randomnly) : jgerighposkngpsfhg[sodgposirjdflbn
2.Intelligent designed(“randomnly” created of my mind): In the last century rich people(via different “organisations”) paid for darwinist-atheist propaganda in universities and on Tv(very powerful tools for brainwashing) but somehow truth can’t be killed . It’s a mistery. Somehow the poor truth will always win against filthy rich people.
JVL,
I explained FSCO/I above and over years while you were here. Just the Internet is trillions of examples. Go to a big box hardware store, every screw, nut, weed whacker, fishing reel or lamp is an example. Go to a big library, every page in every book is an example. Your watch, your car, a bicycle, instruments on your dash board.
Focussing on text, D/RNA is an example, one that has code — language — and algorithms — purpose directed stepwise process. (This is the case that led me to declare independence, those who refuse to acknowledge this have locked their minds.)
I did not mention islands of function in config spaces above you reflect that you know context. For that, the parts have to be correctly sized, oriented, arranged, fit together to achieve function, whether an ABU 6500 C fishing reel or a bacterial flagellum, disturb that a little bit and bang, function fails — ever had mismatched screw threads? So, by far and away most configs are non functional and there are small functional clusters set by tolerances etc. That is commonplace in a tech world and verbal dismissal does not change it.
A simple biological case is deep isolation of functional protein fold domains in AA sequence space. Islands is a metaphor but an apt one. Dembski originally IIRC.
You try to twist me into a strawman. D/RNA is from 100k to 3+ trillion bases and more in genomes. That is way beyond 500 – 1,000 bits and you knew it all along.
The pretence that no one is arguing for OOL by blind chance and/or mechanical necessity in a Darwin warm pond or the like, is a fallacy of gaslighting away an inconvenient fact. Similarly, for new body plans for multicellular species, we are looking at 10 – 100+ million new bases to cover needed genetic information. Again, well beyond threshold.
KF
JVL, do you think my WF headaches could be due to censorship? Or is it I likely fell afoul of algorithms? KF
JVL:
You do realize, that, in science, just because something has been verified and established by observation and experimentation, doesn’t have to have a theory?
THe EF just mandates the investigator follow Newton’s four rules of scientific reasoning.
There aren’t any unguided evolutionary journals or academic conferences. There isn’t any research that supports the claim that any bacterial flagellum evolved by means of blind and mindless processes such as natural selection or drift. Why is that?
JVL:
They don’t make any testable claims. That is the whole point! You and yours just spew shit and think it’s up to us to prove you wrong. Pathetic, really.
Well, getting back to the OP here, it appears that nobody is able to identify a single observation that would disconfirm ID. In other words, ID excludes nothing.
Here are the only attempts to find something ID excludes, and why I think they fail:
Barry suggested that when one theorizes an intelligent cause for some observation, then that theory excludes chance and/or mechanical necessity. But the issue here is the explanatory power of each theory – as measured by what they exclude as possible observations – and not simply one theory being chosen over another.
PaV argued that ID excluded (or minimized the probability of) the idea that non-coding DNA was “Junk”. I argued that while ID may be a helpful heuristic, it does not exclude the possibility of an intelligent designer including non-functional code (just as human programmers often do in comments, stubs, etc).
KF and ET both argued that ID excludes the observation of complex form and function (FSCO/I or whatever) coming about by blind chance and/or mechanical means. This fails for two reasons. First, just as I pointed out to Barry, saying that ID excludes evolutionary explanations doesn’t exclude observations, it simply describes two opposing theories for how FSCO/I comes about in biology. And second, when confronted with purely mechanistic systems that produce FSCO/I without intelligent intervention (for example, the action of the immune system, or the machinery that folds proteins), ID can always just resort to saying that while those purely mechanical systems do produce FSCO/I, it’s only because that machinery was itself designed by an intelligent source. So here again, there is absolutely no possible observation that is excluded by ID – per the reasoning in PaV’s OP here, ID is empty of explanatory power.
The rest of the discussion dealt with the design inference, which was not the point of my argument.
@56
Look, it’s simple. The only alternative to ID is randomness. If one could show randomness capable of creating the patterns we get from ID, that would falsify ID. But, so far, randomness can’t. So not only is ID not empty, but it also is validated. So far.
As far as “mechanistic processes”, if those were valid primary explanations of anything, we wouldn’t try to further explain them down to the laws of nature. But we do. That means “mechanistic processes” are not valid alternatives to ID and randomness.
DD,
you double down on falsehood despite specific correction, addressed to you — that is barefaced. Such, is blatant deceit and confirms your bad faith and so negative credibility. You know or should acknowledge that the design inference on functionally specific complex organisation and/or associated information would be falsified by actual observation of such FSCO/I beyond 500 – 1,000 bits being formed by blind chance and/or mechanical necessity. In fact, across trillions of directly observed cases, uniformly such comes about by intelligently directed configuration. Where, this is seen in the random text generation case, a factor of 10^100 short of the threshold. Where, too, this is directly relevant to the machine code and algorithms in D/RNA, which are far beyond the threshold. KF
PS: I again note that the design inference is to causal process/factors and is not an inference to particular designer.
F/N: Having pointed out the fundamental deceit, I note correctively for record as there is otherwise likely to be further rhetoric on failing to answer etc:
>>KF and ET both argued that ID excludes the observation of complex form and function (FSCO/I or whatever) coming about by blind chance and/or mechanical means.>>
– strawman caricature that refuses to accurately state what is on the table
– functionally specific complex organisation is based on particular arrangement of components or features to achieve function, as in text or the parts of a reel or in the biological context D/RNA, proteins and higher level structures such as the eye, which is information rich, and a threshold of complexity is applied based on blind search capacity of the sol system or cosmos, 500 – 1,000 bits.
– What is asserted by the design inference is that [a] as empirical observation of actual formation of FSCO/I bearing entities, uniformly on trillions of observations such is by intelligently directed configuration, [b] that per analysis of search challenge, such configurations will . . . for reasons similar to the statistical form of the second law of thermodynamics . . . be beyond the search capability of the sol system or observed cosmos.
– So, we are dealing with a reliable inductive inference and the associated point raised by Newton that in dealing with what we do not directly observe, we should only use explanations based on causes shown to have the like effect.
– Newton’s common sense rule has been spectacularly violated by a priori ideological imposition of evolutionary materialistic scientism
>>This fails for two reasons. First, just as I pointed out to Barry, saying that ID excludes evolutionary explanations doesn’t exclude observations,>>
– strawman, the inference is empirically falsifiable were there cases of blind chance and mechanical necessity seen to cause FSCO/I, but there are not. We have a reliable empirical generalisation.
— ducking that inconvenient fact and the stated falsifiability to brazenly assert the opposite is deceitful.
>> it simply describes two opposing theories for how FSCO/I comes about in biology.>>
– strawman, doubled down; deceit doubled down.
– it is obvious DD cannot acknowledge the falsifiability, the trillion member observational base and the reliability of the design inference so he sets up and knocks over a strawman.
>> And second, when confronted with purely mechanistic systems that produce FSCO/I without intelligent intervention (for example, the action of the immune system, or the machinery that folds proteins),>>
– strawman, this is similar to saying that we see computers producing FSCO/I so this is a case of blind mechanism producing FSCO/I without intelligently directed configuration.
– the point is, per Newton, that we have a known cause of FSCO/I, intelligently directed configuration, per trillion member observational base, so we here have a viable causal explanation for cases we did not see the origin of.
– Where, manifestly, we did not see the origin of cells, immune systems etc, so that is what is to be explained given FSCO/I, on CAUSES ACTUALLY OBSERVED TO PRODUCE FSCO/I.
– There are precisely zero cases of blind chance and/or mechanical necessity — blind means no intelligently directed configuration involved in the causal origin — being observed to cause such FSCO/I. That a strawman is set up in its place tells us DD knows better but wishes to propagate an ideology.
>>ID can always just resort to saying that while those purely mechanical systems do produce FSCO/I, it’s only because that machinery was itself designed by an intelligent source.>>
– strawman, triple down.
– here, the issue of origin of the system seen to work as high tech molecular nanotech automation is willfully suppressed.
>>So here again, there is absolutely no possible observation that is excluded by ID>>
– This is not just a strawman but a bad faith argument, willful falsehood, deceit, at this point for specific and adequate correction has been given only to meet doubling down on misrepresentations to create a false impression of blind chance and/or mechanical necessity being OBSERVED to cause FSCO/I without intelligently directed configuration.
– Where, note, the further shift from causal process to agent; ID does not infer from FSCO/I to agent directly, there are far too many further issues before one may infer agent as in active self-moved person as plausible source of intelligent direction
– there actually have been theories of intelligence being cosmically embedded and the like
– Again, strawman tactics coming from objectors.
– Here, clearly constructed to distract from falsifiability of the design inference, its actual tested reliability and clear absence of observed cause of FSCO/I by blind chance and/or blind mechanical necessity
KF
KF
You fail to understand what ID is.
It’s not a theory. It’s the use of logic. Applied to observations. So any observation is possible.
It’s the conclusions to the reason for why the observation occurred.
For some observations the reason for it to occur at a specific place and time is due partially to an intelligence interference in the laws of nature. For most observations that conclusion is not justified.
I repeat ID is not a theory
Earth to Dogdoc- your willful ignorance is not an argument. IDists have said exactly what would falsify ID.
Dogdoc:
You fail for many reasons. The explanatory filter will never let us reach a design inference once it is demonstrated that blind and mindless processes can produce it.
What a question-begging dolt! There isn’t any evidence that the immune system or protein folding arose via blind and mindless processes. And ID is not anti-evolution. Your ignorance, while amusing, is still not an argument.
It isn’t our fault that you and yours can’t demonstrate that blind and mindless processes produced life. It isn’t our fault that you and yours can’t demonstrate blind and mindless processes can produce coded information processing systems. All you have is your denial and your ignorance.
1) High information content (or specified complexity) and irreducible complexity constitute strong indicators or hallmarks of (past) intelligent design.
2) Biological systems have a high information content (or specified complexity) and utilize subsystems that manifest irreducible complexity.
3) Naturalistic mechanisms or undirected causes do not suffice to explain the origin of information (specified complexity) or irreducible complexity.
4) Therefore, intelligent design constitutes the best explanations for the origin of information and irreducible complexity in biological systems.
As anyone can see. by demonstrating that naturalistic mechanisms are capable, ID is falsified. My bet is Dogdoc is too stupid to understand that.
Kairosfocus: I explained FSCO/I above and over years while you were here.
You you have. AND I’ve read much of the material you published on your own website.
The problem is, again, you are arguing that the genomes of highly complex life forms could not have arisen via purely random processes and no one is saying they did.
Another problem is you are assuming that there is no unguided evolutionary process which could explain how a common ancestor led to much different living species such as human beings and wombats. Since you assume there is no such process you then feel justified in claiming there are islands of function in the genomic landscape.
The very least you could do, as a gesture of good will, is to address the actual unguided theory of evolution instead of your version. I’ve bothered to try and understand what the ID hypotheses are because I didn’t want to misrepresent its proponents. You could, at the minimum, adapt the same interest in having a real dialogue.
JVL, do you think my WF headaches could be due to censorship? Or is it I likely fell afoul of algorithms?
Again, my bans last for days and sometimes occur over many threads at the same time. IF it’s a matter of WordFence picking on foreign IPs (me being from England, you being from Monserrat) then it’s possible we’re both falling victim to the same or a similar reaction. But yours seem temporarily whereas mine last for quite a while.
If the settings of WordPress security plugins are set to react differently to foreign (i.e. non-US) IPs then it may just be that the site admin isn’t very aware of the amount of international traffic the site receives. That I would classify as incompetence and not censorship.
So which is it?
ET: They don’t make any testable claims. That is the whole point! You and yours just spew shit and think it’s up to us to prove you wrong. Pathetic, really.
Aside from the use of profanity which I think is against the site’s guidelines you do realise that what you request is impossible based on your criteria? You look at the same data that most biologists say shows that mutations are random with respect to fitness and say that matches what you’d expect to see if the processes were guided. So, there is no way to convince you that the mutations are unguided. Additionally, you have never been able to state a condition or test that would have to be met to show that mutations are unguided.
Based on that contested interpretation of the data you say no one can prove that mutations are unguided. BUT, if you interpretation is incorrect then it’s all unguided.
So, the question is: what is your mathematical basis for saying that mutations are guided? Or some are guided? And, if it’s some then how do you distinguish between them? AND what is the explanation for the timing of the beneficial mutations?
In the past you’ve punted by insisting that people pay money to read one of Dr Shapiro’s books even though you have always insisted that your detractors bring all their evidence. That is hypocritical and disingenuous.
Please present your evidence that (some) mutations are guided and how you can tell the difference. You don’t have to cut-and-paste a lot of text but providing links to free, online references would help.
Knowing you I expect you will, once again, fail to explain the mathematics behind your claim that (some) mutations are guided. Which, by your own criterium, means you haven’t defended you claim.
Your turn.
Nonlin,
Ok, we disagree about this. Like most people, I see physical causes as valid explanations for innumerable phenomena we observe.
Jerry,
I suppose I was under the impression that Intelligent Design Theory was a theory, because, you know, the name.
The point of the OP here was that in order to have explanatory power, a theory (or explanation) needs to exclude (be inconsistent with) a set of possible observations.
ET,
I don’t appreciate ad hominem arguments and name calling; these are the refuge of people who lack confidence in their arguments.
If you could describe one single observation that would disconfirm ID, you would. But you haven’t, because you can’t. A theory that can explain anything explains nothing.
KF,
Again you haven’t described one single observation that would disconfirm ID. You would if you could, but you haven’t, because you can’t. A theory that can explain anything explains nothing.
I have to say, your strategy of writing these long screeds mixed with accusations of deceit and bad faith is bizarre. If you can describe a single observation which would disconfirm ID then just say what it is, plainly and succinctly.
I repeat
ID is not a theory
If anyone believes it is a theory, then describe the theory.
Both theists and atheists use the same concept of miracle but atheists replace the word “miracle” with the word “randomness” . That is the only difference. :)))
@65
You can’t just “disagree” in science. And in fact you’re “not even wrong” as you’re not replying to my comment.
Think about it: there’s no such thing as a “mechanistic process” that needs no further explanation. Maybe you should consult “most people” on this.
Jerry,
Far be it from me to defend ID as a valid scientific theory. The explanation that ID offers for OOL, speciation, the physical constants, the size of the moon, and who knows what else, is nothing more than “intelligent cause”, which could mean any number of things. As I’ve pointed out here, there is nothing we could ever observe that could not be attributed to an “intelligent cause” one way or another.
Nonlin,
Actually, you can. Happens all the time.
You can always ask “why”, no matter where the explanation stops. Always – even for “intelligent” actions.
Still, science has undeniably generated a huge amount of knowledge about physical mechanisms that explain so much of what we observe. The fact that we can’t provide ultimate explanations doesn’t mean those explanations are untrue, or that those mechanisms are somehow “random”. The effects are predictable, reliable, repeatable – the opposite of randomness.
If you are referring to randomness at the quantum level, the fact remains that deterministic probabilities still describe predictable, reliable, repeatable regularities of the behaviors of ensembles.
Anybody: One more try – can anyone think of any observations that ID excludes? Or is it that we agree that ID is consistent with any possible observation, but you think (as opposed to PaV in the OP here) that it doesn’t matter?
@69
Actually you can’t. Unsupported disagreements are not science. You’re confusing science with democracy. Perhaps this explains your reference to “most people”.
The rest of your reply makes no sense whatsoever. Including the very hilarious “a huge amount of knowledge”.
Nonlin,
First, we certainly aren’t doing science here at Uncommon Descent, so… Second, you didn’t say “unsupported disagreements are not science”, you said “You can’t just ‘disagree’ in science”. I agree that unsupported arguments are not scientific.
But of course scientists obviously, constantly, publically, and sometimes famously disagree with each other. The point really is too obvious to debate.
Here, you are disagreeing with me but not offering any support for your position. Hmmm. (calling something “hilarious” does not actually advance your argument).
DogDoc@21:
But ID theory would say that ANY such possibility would be minimal, to almost non-existent. The most pointed-to instance of “junk-DNA” are LINEs, and recently a function was found for them–if memory serves me (please correct me if I’m remembering wrongly).
Well, transposons fit the bill: they are considered to be junk-DNA and are basically LINEs, yet they have recently been found to, as I said above, have function, even critical function. Darwinism is of almost no help whatsoever in the quest for knowledge.
You are playing games.
I didn’t ask you to defend it. I asked anyone to describe the so called theory. Since you do not understand ID, you should not be commenting on it.
ID is a set of conclusions about the most likely origin of a small number of physical observations. In reaching these conclusions, ID has essentially eliminated the four forces of physics as a possible explanation.
I repeat ID is not a theory
Dogdoc:
This is perhaps “missing the forest for the trees.” The notion of intelligent design entails that “junk-DNA” would be absolutely minimal; Darwinism/neo-Darwinism/ModernSynthesis favors the accumulation of “junk-DNA.” Who turned out to be right? Does this count for nothing?
JVL
>>The problem is, again, you are arguing that the genomes of highly complex life forms could not have arisen via purely random processes and no one is saying they did.>>
Not at all, what part of “blind chance and/or [blind] mechanical necessity” is it so hard to figure out?
Not, AND; not X-OR, Inc-OR, vel not aut, in legalese and/or.
Notice, Monod’s Chance AND Necessity. Notice Plato’s trichotomy, with ART contrasted with accident and necessity.
You will readily see on inspection that I have never argued chance alone, though I have pointed out that in the natural selection bit there is far more chance involved than some proponents have acknowledged.
On the warm pond etc of OoL, until you get to kinematic self replicator tied to “metabolic” entity capable of providing parts from available raw materials, no go.
For Oo body plans, you need to provide the novel functional systems or they will be weeded out as failing of function and likely reducing what was there. Where the search for functions challenge comes from the genome scale, observed at 100+ million bases, we can crudely calculate 10 mn.
First challenge, get TO a viable life form in a pond or the like, where self replication according to a built in tape requires associated machinery as does metabolism or its analogue. And yes my thinking is on von Neumann kinematic self replicators.
So, you have barked up the wrong tree at outset.
>>you are assuming that there is no unguided evolutionary process which could explain how a common ancestor led to much different living species such as human beings and wombats. >>
I have made no such ASSUMPTION, the above gives the search challenge and as Newton’s rules highlight, absent observed capable cause of FSCO/I that is non-intelligent . . . and chance and/or necessity capture the umbrella of possibilities . . . then you have empty speculation dressed in a lab coat not empirically anchored explanatory inference. Inference to best of competing explanations is not mere assumption.
For OOL and OOBP, blind chance and/or necessity based proposals lack factual, observed adequacy.
Perhaps, I need to point to the logic of abduction, a species of inductive reasoning in the modern broader sense.
SEP:
Wiki, a bit muddled in current form
>>Since you assume there is no such process you then feel justified in claiming there are islands of function in the genomic landscape. >>
As for islands of function, I am again not assuming but observing. Notice the text of this or your comment, made up from strings of glyphs tracing presumably to ASCII coded binary strings and a context of interpretation. You will see many — 128 — distinct elements, each with due orientation etc, chained in accordance with many rules to form meaningful text. Where, mechanical necessity typically gives low contingency on similar conditions eg asasasasa and chance predictably gives meaningless gibberish with long strings thryjryhdfefgerghgerhryjty due to overwhelming statistical weight in the configuration space of strings of length n. Where n becomes large, 72 – 143 characters for 7 bit naked ASCII code without checksum bits etc.
As AutoCAD etc exist, discussion on strings is WLOG.
The point is, most scattered or lumped arrangements of a significant number of parts will be non functional for much the same reason. It is information rich clusters of configurations that give function; try shaking up parts of an ABU 6500 C in a bait bucket as long as you please the predictable result of energy on an open system without correct assembly process is non function. . For life that starts with deep isolation of functional protein folds in aa sequence space, and goes up from there.
>>The very least you could do, as a gesture of good will, is to address the actual unguided theory of evolution instead of your version>>
False projection.
Is it now the resort, to twist us into strawman caricatures? If so, that is a telling implicit concession of defeat on merits.
Any responsible frame for tree of life evolution starts with OOL, which remains an unsolved mystery locked in a chance and necessity scenario by ideological imposition. Monod’s 1970s declaration is still very real, as is what Crick said and Lewontin.
Rootless tree.
As for the onward, the summary I have given is:
chance variation + differential reproductive success –> descent with [unlimited] modification
DWUM + ecosystem niches across time –> body plan level biodiversity
BPLB + further time –> tree of life.
That is fair summary from Darwin and Wallace forward, not a caricature. Indeed, where do you think “descent with modification” comes from? And, I use differential reproductive success to sum up preservation of the favoured races in the struggle for existence, as that is far clearer than “natural selection”.
And there is room in there for drifting etc etc.
The point I make is DRS obviously SUBTRACTS information by reproductive failure. So, the information source is the chance variation, which is allegedly filtered incrementally across the continent of successful forms to branch out with unlimited variation.
But there is no empirically warranted adequate information source for required FSCO/I.
Yes, there is what is called microevolution which it seems can reasonably go up to what is called the family, I think about red deer and American elk in New Zealand, which promptly interbred whatever the taxonomy suggested otherwise. Here, exotic European Collared doves seem to have happily interbred with our Zenaida doves over the past 20 years.
But there is a serious issue with origin of body plans, starting with the root of the tree of life and going through.
KF
PS, it is clear to me that we are falling afoul of algorithms targetting suspect patterns.
DD,
At this point you confirm that you have willfully, deceitfully set up and knocked over a strawman. And, that on repeated correction, you simply double down.
I note briefly for record, onlookers can scroll up for details, that the design inference is to a causal process not to a designing agent. As noted, there is a huge gap between the two starting with the point made by the Stoics 2000 years ago and more.
Second, the design inference across [blind chance and/or mechanical necessity] vs [techne aka art or intelligently directed configuration] is an abductive inference on tested, empirically reliable signs. Abductive inferences to the best current explanation are inherently defeasible [= defeat-able], were there evidence that the signs are unreliable or ambiguous etc to emerge. Where, the FSCO/I complexity threshold, 500 – 1,000 bits sets up a specific way to defeat the design inference: identify a case of observed origin of FSCO/I beyond that threshold by blind chance and/or mechanical necessity.
It is manifest that your resort to sophistry is an evasion of the fact that on trillions of observed cases, the inference has been found highly reliable. Indeed, I have noted above how Wikipedia reports without acknowledgement of significance, how random text generation cases are x10^100 low on implied config space to be searched.
As for the debate you evidently would want to have on how a trickster intelligent creator can mimic chance etc, that is irrelevant to the actual design inference. As has been shown.
KF
Dogdoc:
I have. Your willful ignorance doesn’t refute that fact.
1) High information content (or specified complexity) and irreducible complexity constitute strong indicators or hallmarks of (past) intelligent design.
2) Biological systems have a high information content (or specified complexity) and utilize subsystems that manifest irreducible complexity.
3) Naturalistic mechanisms or undirected causes do not suffice to explain the origin of information (specified complexity) or irreducible complexity.
4) Therefore, intelligent design constitutes the best explanations for the origin of information and irreducible complexity in biological systems.
As anyone can see. by demonstrating that naturalistic mechanisms are capable, ID is falsified. My bet is Dogdoc is too stupid to understand that.
Thank you for fulfilling my prediction.
JVL:
No, it isn’t.
Except biologists don’t say that mutations are random with respect to fitness. And they have NEVER demonstrated that mutations are accidents, errors and mistakes. They just assume it.
Liar. Show that blind and mindless processes produced life.
That is up to YOU and YOURS, duh.
But that is MOOT as there isn’t any evidence that any amount of differential accumulations of mutations can produce the diversity of life. And given what we know about genetics it appears to be impossible. But you are ignorant of genetics and biology so you are just a gullible fool.
Look, coward, I dare you to say how to test the claim that blind and mindless processes produced any bacterial flagellum. If you can’t then shut up.
And the peer-reviewed paper “Waiting for TWO Mutations”, more than proves that unguided evolution doesn’t have a chance of producing life’s diversity. But you just handwave it away because you are too stupid to understand its implications. That is all evos do. Wave away everything that proves their claims are nothing but BS.
ET: Except biologists don’t say that mutations are random with respect to fitness.
From: https://crossfitolac.com/fitness/question-briefly-explain-what-is-meant-when-we-say-that-mutations-occur-randomly-with-respect-to-fitness.html
From: https://evolution.berkeley.edu/dna-and-mutations/mutations-are-random/
AND
From: https://lisbdnet.com/how-did-we-determine-that-mutations-are-random/
From: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305805921_Is_Mutation_Random_or_Targeted_No_Evidence_for_Hypermutability_in_Snail_Toxin_Genes
AND
These I found with a very simple search. It’s clear that the notion of mutations being random with respect to fitness has been a solid concept in biology since before ET was born. AND, it’s clear, that research into these issues continues.
And they have NEVER demonstrated that mutations are accidents, errors and mistakes. They just assume it.
Also incorrect as documented in some of the resources I have linked to above.
Liar. Show that blind and mindless processes produced life.
Gee Kairosfocus, are you going to suggest ET dial back his language and responses or are you going to uphold a double standard?
Natural selection is not random. Any kind of selection is not random. Mutations are random with respect to fitness so where is the designer?
That is up to YOU and YOURS, duh.
But you cannot say what would change your mind. I think you can’t say because there is nothing that would change your mind. That means your own, personal view is unfalsifiable. Which means it’s not science.
But that is MOOT as there isn’t any evidence that any amount of differential accumulations of mutations can produce the diversity of life. And given what we know about genetics it appears to be impossible. But you are ignorant of genetics and biology so you are just a gullible fool.
I am much more aware of what biologists are actually saying. You seem to be just making unverifiable claims.
Look, coward, I dare you to say how to test the claim that blind and mindless processes produced any bacterial flagellum. If you can’t then shut up.
Gotta love it. An ID proponent falls back on the bacterial flagellum again. Has ID actually processed in the last decade?
And the peer-reviewed paper “Waiting for TWO Mutations”, more than proves that unguided evolution doesn’t have a chance of producing life’s diversity. But you just handwave it away because you are too stupid to understand its implications. That is all evos do. Wave away everything that proves their claims are nothing but BS.
hahahahahahahah Your interpretation of that paper has been debunked, easily. Try again.
Kairosfocus: PS, it is clear to me that we are falling afoul of algorithms targetting suspect patterns.
Well then it’s up to your site admin to check the settings of WordFence. Perhaps you should ask about that?
not my site, but also a high risk environment, a few days past someone tried to lock me out of the site.
JVL:
Total nonsense as they didn’t demonstrate any such thing. All they did was show the variation already existed. Meaning it wasn’t in response to THEIR stimulus. UC Berkeley doesn’t support your claim.
Also, I provided a university textbook on evolution to support my claim. JVL ignored it. I also provided Mayr, one of the architects of the modern synthesis. JVL ignored that, also.
And they have NEVER demonstrated that mutations are accidents, errors and mistakes. They just assume it.
Unfortunately, your resources didn’t do that.
You are lying, so there isn’t any double standard.
Learn how to read. I said blind and mindless, not random. Grow up. And NS is a process of elimination. It doesn’t select. Mayr explains the difference in “What Evolution Is”.
I just told you! What is your malfunction?
But that is MOOT as there isn’t any evidence that any amount of differential accumulations of mutations can produce the diversity of life. And given what we know about genetics it appears to be impossible. But you are ignorant of genetics and biology so you are just a gullible fool.
Nice non-sequitur. It is also a lie.
Unguided evolution hasn’t progressed in over 160 years. And the bacterial flagellum still works to refute unguided evolution. Thank you for proving that.
And the peer-reviewed paper “Waiting for TWO Mutations”, more than proves that unguided evolution doesn’t have a chance of producing life’s diversity. But you just handwave it away because you are too stupid to understand its implications. That is all evos do. Wave away everything that proves their claims are nothing but BS.
BWAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA You are a LIAR. It is pathological. Seek help.
AGAIN- “Evolution” third edition, Futuyma, 2013- a university textbook:
That is how mainstream biology uses the term. Mostly, though, they just use the words “errors and mistakes” that occur during copying and transcribing: Universally high transcript error rates in bacteria
I can’t blame Futuyma. He has no choice but to lie because he has already chosen his team(this is his fault) and will tell you everything that suits his team and not necessarily the truth. This is the story of this world: be aware which team you chose because after that you will not be free to impovise .
ET: Total nonsense as they didn’t demonstrate any such thing. All they did was show the variation already existed. Meaning it wasn’t in response to THEIR stimulus. UC Berkeley doesn’t support your claim. Also, I provided a university textbook on evolution to support my claim. JVL ignored it. I also provided Mayr, one of the architects of the modern synthesis. JVL ignored that, also.
I provided multiple references to show that the concept of mutations being random with respect to fitness was a widely held concept. Quote mining where that particular term is not mentioned verbatim isn’t really and argument is it?
And they have NEVER demonstrated that mutations are accidents, errors and mistakes. They just assume it.
Clearly refuted in the references I have already given. In fact the methodology Is laid out.
You are lying, so there isn’t any double standard.
Clearly I am not lying as anyone who follows through on the links I have given can discover.
I just told you! What is your malfunction? But that is MOOT as there isn’t any evidence that any amount of differential accumulations of mutations can produce the diversity of life. And given what we know about genetics it appears to be impossible. But you are ignorant of genetics and biology so you are just a gullible fool.
Clearly you can see someone who can’t even come to terms with their own worldview. First they say: I’ve told you what would falsify my view and then then say there isn’t any evidence that would falsify my view.
And, if you asked them, they could not tell you what evidence would falsify their view.
Arguing with people who cannot conceive of being wrong is pointless.
It is clear that mainstream biology has addressed all of ET>‘s issues. Not in his favour. But yet it seems that there are a lot of people who still want to flog the dead horse and pretend the issue is not settled.
I do admire the notion of being confident and sure. I do admit the idea of fighting for your cause even when the deck is stacked against you. I get all of that. But those feel-good idea don’t carry the field. They don’t bring home the gold. Not in my opinion anyway.
As someone who is sympathetic to the ID hypothesis I am trying to understand what the ID hypothesis is and where it could go. I get a lot of grief from its supporter because I ask questions and suggest they might have got somethings wrong.
ET clearly defined what mutations are generally held to be, i.e. unintended random errors and mistakes, etc.., and JVL responds with, basically, “No, No, No, mutations are not unintended random errors and mistakes they are really only “random with respect to fitness”?
So let me get this straight, is JVL really trying to deny that mutations are unintended random errors and mistakes, etc..? Is he really trying to claim they are really ‘intended’ errors and mistakes, etc..? 🙂
Oh, what a tangled web we weave,,,,,
But anyways, regardless of whatever hole JVL is trying to dig for himself with the term random mutations, JVL saying that mutations are only held to be “random with respect to fitness” still does not make JVL’s statement any more scientific than it was when Darwinists first, across the board, said that mutations were random, period.
The reason why saying that random mutations are only held to be ‘random with respect to fitness’ does not make JVL’s statement any more scientific than it was when Darwinists just said that mutations are random period, is that, like random mutations, Darwinists can’t seem to come to a rigid, i.e. ‘scientific’, universally agreed upon, definition of what the term ‘fitness’ actually means,
As Professor of Zoology John O. Reiss himself honestly admitted, “The rigor of this approach, however, is lessened because there is as yet no universally agreed upon measure of fitness; fitness is either defined metaphorically, or defined only relative to the particular model or system used. It is fair to say that due to this lack, there is still no real agreement on what exactly the process of natural selection is. This is clearly a problem.”
Moreover, the more precise one tries to be in defining exactly ‘fitness’ is, then the more one finds that that more rigid definition of ‘fitness’ falsifies Darwinian evolution instead of validating it.
For instance, when realistic rates of detrimental to beneficial mutations are taken into account, then, as John Sanford and company have now shown, it mathematically falsifies “Fisher’s belief that he had developed a mathematical proof that fitness must always increase”,
Moreover, if ‘fitness’ really were the way in which all life on earth originated and diversified, then, as Donald Hoffman has now proven, (via population genetics), “an organism that sees reality as it is will never be more fit than an organism of equal complexity that sees none of reality but is just tuned to fitness. Never.”
This finding that ‘fitness’ undermines our ability to have reliable observations, and as far as empirical science itself is concerned, is catastrophic for the claim, from Darwinists, that Darwin’s theory qualifies as a ‘scientific’ theory.
Specifically, since reliable observation is a necessary cornerstone on of the scientific method itself, then a worldview that undermines our ability to have reliable observations about reality cannot possibly be based upon the scientific method, (and thus directly undermines the claim that Darwin’s theory is a ‘scientific’ theory.)
Moreover, completely contrary to what is, via the mathematics of population genetics, predicted by Darwin’s theory, it turns out that accurate perception, (i.e. conscious observation), far from being unreliable and illusory, is experimentally found to be far more integral to reality, and therefore far more reliable of reality, than the mathematics of population genetics predicted for Darwin’s theory
For instance In the following ‘Delayed Choice’ experiment, it was found that “At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,”
Apparently empirical science itself could care less if Darwinian atheists are forced to believe, because of “fitness’ and the mathematics of population genetics, that ALL of their observations of reality are illusory!
Of supplemental note: It is also very interesting to note that Hoffman’s work on ‘fitness’ meshes extremely well with what several Darwinists themselves have already honestly admitted about the inadequacy of ‘fitness’ to ever account for ‘truth’, i.e. “Our brains were shaped for fitness, not for truth. Sometimes the truth is adaptive, but sometimes it is not.”
Verse:
JVL:
A blog is not an academic resource.
I didn’t quote mine anything.
And they have NEVER demonstrated that mutations are accidents, errors and mistakes. They just assume it.
Wrong.
Laughable.
You are stupid. Anyone can falsify the claim that Stonehenge was intelligently designed by demonstrating nature is up to the task. However, there isn’t any evidence to support that claim.
We have said EXACTLY what would falsify ID. Clearly you are just a willfully ignorant troll.
What is clear is that you are a bluffing fool and a liar.
The ID hypothesis:
1) High information content (or specified complexity) and irreducible complexity constitute strong indicators or hallmarks of (past) intelligent design.
2) Biological systems have a high information content (or specified complexity) and utilize subsystems that manifest irreducible complexity.
3) Naturalistic mechanisms or undirected causes do not suffice to explain the origin of information (specified complexity) or irreducible complexity.
4) Therefore, intelligent design constitutes the best explanations for the origin of information and irreducible complexity in biological systems.
But JVL is too stupid to understand what a hypothesis is. And he will NEVER present one for blind and mindless processes so we can compare.
ET and Bornagain77:
It’s really very simple. As elucidated in the quote you gave from the textbook mutations (mistakes) are not completely random over the whole genome; certain regions have higher mutations rates so the mutation distribution is not flat. HOWEVER, when mutations occur they are not predictably beneficial to the life form. So we say they are random with respect to fitness.
The fact that mutations are random with respect to fitness has been demonstrated. And, if they were not, then you should be able to set up an experiment showing that a given condition always leads to a particular mutation but that cannot be demonstrated.
You want someone to show that unguided evolution is up to the job. The mutations are unguided as has been demonstrated and established. Before humans were around to use random variations in breeding programs the only selection processes available were natural ones plus some genetic drift and things like sexual selection by the lifeforms themselves. And, yes, sometimes random physical events like floods and volcanic eruptions had an effect as well.
There is no evidence of any external guidance for any of these things. If you think any of the work that has led to the conclusion that mutations are random with respect to fitness then please point out what specific mistakes were made in the research. If you can’t find any mistakes then the work stands.
Kairosfocus:
You call me out for my tone but have nothing to say when ET addresses me:
You are lying, so there isn’t any double standard.
But you just handwave it away because you are too stupid to understand its implications.
You are stupid.
Clearly you are just a willfully ignorant troll.
What is clear is that you are a bluffing fool and a liar.
But JVL is too stupid to understand what a hypothesis is.
Far be it for me to tell you how to run this blog but if you’re going to condone a double standard at least be honest about it.
JVL, I am not closely monitoring the thread, for many reasons. I think you are in error but have no reason to hold you willfully, culpably deceitful. KF
ET, kindly turn down rhetorical voltage. It is counter productive to say lying save in rare circumstances of manifestly demonstrated deceit. KF
🙂 The experiments you asked for are everywhere but being explained by evolutionists they are “the evidence” for evolution by “spinning the truth” method . Figure that. Guppies , anoles ,etc. experiments prove again and again that the same environmental conditions will produce the same result and will trigger the same responses in different places. Will trigger not a random response but the right response for survival in a very short period of time (months, years not million of years ). What is that? It’s a preseted system in guppies ,anoles ,etc. that always “choose the right response” based on environment stimuli . Nothing random. Nothing by chance. That’s why there is still life on this planet because there is nothing random . The chameleon “choose” right camouflage (not after 100.000 years of “evolution”)or die, guppies change spot size, colour , body size, reproduction time,etc or all just disappear in few generation ,etc.
When the fox is guarding the hen house ,guess what , hen is always guilty .:))
Just watch and admire how the truth is cooked by an non biased God hater in front of your eyes:
Richard Dawkins – Evidence For Evolution – Guppy Experiment – Natural Selection Observed
JVL:
It’s all true, though! Perhaps YOU are the problem.
JVL:
I know that. I have known that for decades.
Wrong. They are random in that they are not planned! They are accidents, errors and mistakes. There are mutations that occur that are not random with respect to fitness. Shapiro wrote a book about it. Spetner wrote 2 books about it.
Wrong!
Science DEMANDS the people making the claim, support it. You and yours cannot. You lose.
Wrong, again.
Again, for the learning impaired: natural selection is a process of ELIMINATION. And there is a huge difference between a process of selection and a process of elimination.
External guidance is a strawman invented by rubes, like you.
AGAIN, there isn’t any evidence that nature produced life. There isn’t even a way to test the claim. Only our ignorance says that mutations are random. Transposable elements contain, within their sequence, the coding for two of the enzymes required for them to move around. No one on this planet has any idea how blind and mindless processes produced that. Saying blind and mindless processes did it is untestable. Christopher Hitchens has said that we can dismiss such claims. Hitchens applies to just about all of unguided evolution!
Back to the bacterial flagellum- we still use it because you and yours still have NOTHING to account for its existence! You and yours have NOTHING to account for our existence! You and yours are just a bunch of bluffing, scientifically illiterate punks.
ET: Wrong. They are random in that they are not planned! They are accidents, errors and mistakes.
I agree with that. No one is saying otherwise.
There are mutations that occur that are not random with respect to fitness. Shapiro wrote a book about it. Spetner wrote 2 books about it.
Such as?
Again, random with respect to fitness means if you just look at which mutations are beneficial to fitness there’s no way to predict when they occur. If you only look at where in a genome mutations occur then, because some loci have higher rates of mutations, they don’t look quite so random. It’s all really clear.
Science DEMANDS the people making the claim, support it. You and yours cannot. You lose.
They have supported the claim. You haven’t pointed to any mistakes made in any research. You also cannot say specifically how the ‘claim’ could be supported to your satisfaction.
Again, for the learning impaired: natural selection is a process of ELIMINATION. And there is a huge difference between a process of selection and a process of elimination.
There are the two parts of the same process. Some things are kept and some things are thrown away. The things that are kept generate more offspring which introduces new variation; possibly even some of the same variation that was thrown away previously.
External guidance is a strawman invented by rubes, like you.
Explain, specifically, how the guidance is internal. Not just ‘there must be some extra programming in the cell which no one has yet found.’ You’ve made that claim many, many times and you haven’t, ever, been able to support it. So no one believes it.
Only our ignorance says that mutations are random.
No, there are mathematical criteria for randomness. As has been explained to you already. You just refuse to believe it.
Saying blind and mindless processes did it is untestable.
Not at all. If mutations are random (with respect to fitness) then there is no guidance.
Back to the bacterial flagellum- we still use it because you and yours still have NOTHING to account for its existence!
Everyone knows that’s not correct. There are ideas of how it could have evolved.
You and yours are just a bunch of bluffing, scientifically illiterate punks.
You should start a journal then and publish your scientific endeavours. Why hasn’t that happened?
I will simply note that JVL is wrong to the point of being “not even wrong” (Pauli).
Actually they are not illiterate it’s even worse they are ill-intended. Big difference.
Of related note, even the much ballyhooed citrate adaptation of Lenski’s e-coli were shown, by Minnich and company, to be repeatable, environmentally induced, mutations.
Of note, saying the citrate adaptation was an “artifact of the experimental conditions” is, for all practical purposes, the same thing as saying it was a repeatable, environmentally induced, mutation(s).
Bornagain77:
Interesting result. But you didn’t point out the following aspect of the experiment:
So, they showed that by using direct selection (i.e. breeding) instead of natural (unguided) selection they could get the same result in a lot less time.
And they also concluded that there was generally enough variation created that you could get the same result if you repeated the experiment; that in Dr Lenski’s situation that particular result was rare because of his hands-off approach.
So?
Bornagain77:
Oh and by the way, regarding your reference to lizard plasticity . . . you can’t actually read the original blogpost that was the basis for your comment unless you’re invited.
Do you always quote research results just based on the abstracts or summaries?
ET:
Please note a quote in a passage posted by Bornagain77:
So, clearly, biologists have been using the notion of being random with respect to fitness or need for a long time. Despite what you said: they do not say that.
I assume you will now admit you got that wrong.
JVL, so apparently you saying that you miss the forest for the trees pretty much all the time? 🙂
Bornagain77: JVL, so apparently you saying that you miss the forest for the trees pretty much all the time? ?
You know me better than that!!
I do think my reading of the situation is just as plausible as yours. (Obviously I think mine is more plausible but I’ll meet you half-way.)
I will say that I think it’s important to see how the researchers and the scientific community as a whole regard research results. We can’t just grab phrases out of abstracts or summaries and declare: SCIENCE SAYS. It doesn’t work that way. One paper doesn’t change a paradigm. No one wants to flit about, to and fro, with every paper that is published.
“You know me better than that!!
No JVL, I actually do hold that you are as blind as a bat. (even more blind than a bat since they have fairly amazing, Darwinian defying, ‘acoustic vision’.
So again, here is Minnich’s talk on Lenski’s e-coli
Bornagain77:
Dr Minnich is listed on the Discovery Institute’s website as being part of their team. So I think we can pretty much predict what he’s going to say. He’s not exactly a neutral source is he?
If you want me to consider any of his actual academic publications then please link to them.
JVL:
And yet “random with respect to fitness” doesn’t address the fact that the mutations are accidents, errors and mistakes. Thank you for refuting yourself.
LIAR. You are beyond pathetic.
There is a HUGE difference between selection and elimination. Your ignorance isn’t an argument.
Already have. All you do is deny and lie.
Pure ignorance
Back to the bacterial flagellum- we still use it because you and yours still have NOTHING to account for its existence!
And yet no one can demonstrate otherwise!
Until those ideas are tested, they are not part of science. You lose.
There aren’t any actual academic publications that support evolution by means of blind and mindless processes unless we count genetic diseases and deformities.
And please stop lying and bluffing.
JVL:
Again, that does NOT address if the mutations are accidents, errors and mistakes. That alone makes it bullshit. Not my fault that you are too stupid to understand the debate.
Not only that but there is plenty of evidence to refute the claim of random with respect to fitness. And your ignorance on that isn’t an argument, either.
And we are still waiting for testable hypotheses for unguided evolution….
ET: And yet “random with respect to fitness” doesn’t address the fact that the mutations are accidents, errors and mistakes. Thank you for refuting yourself.
Yes, it does! They are random when looked at from the perspective of fitness. I have no idea any more what you are arguing. You’re not making any sense.
LIAR. You are beyond pathetic.
Always nice to have fans.
There is a HUGE difference between selection and elimination. Your ignorance isn’t an argument.
No, there is not. If you select some variation then you chose to try and eliminate other variation. If you choose to eliminate some variation then you are selecting/saving other variations. They are two sides of the same coin.
Already have. All you do is deny and lie.
No, you have not explained how the internal selection/guidance works. You have not explained how it is stored or encoded. You have not spelled out, clearly and coherently, how it works. You’ve just made assertions.
There aren’t any actual academic publications that support evolution by means of blind and mindless processes unless we count genetic diseases and deformities.
They all support unguided means unless you can show that things are guided. Which you cannot do.
Again, that does NOT address if the mutations are accidents, errors and mistakes. That alone makes it bullshit. Not my fault that you are too stupid to understand the debate.
You clearly don’t even understand the verbiage. They are random, i.e. mistakes, errors, accidents, but they don’t necessarily occur randomly across the genome. But they are random, i.e. unpredictable, from a fitness point of view.
You’re just arguing because you don’t want to admit you’re wrong.
Not only that but there is plenty of evidence to refute the claim of random with respect to fitness. And your ignorance on that isn’t an argument, either.
You do that work and submit it to a peer-reviewed journal.
If you get the same result then “Houston, we have a problem!” with your “randomness. ” If there is randomness then all the results will be different. ALL.
Randomness debunked.
:))) They don’t occur randomnly …but they are random. Soup of words .
We talk about the cause of a mutation not about the ability of the scientists to record/identify a mutation without knowing the intrinsic mechanism that produce them .
JVL:
That doesn’t mean they are accidents, errors or mistakes. And biological fitness is just survival and reproduction.
There is a HUGE difference between selection and elimination. Your ignorance isn’t an argument.
Then why do you think that it is?
Wow. From Ernst Mayr, in “What Evolution Is:
You lose, again.
Wow. Again, your side is all about the how and yet you have nothing but your lies. Nerves work via some threshold. Most likely there are built-in responses to environmental cues. And it would work similar to sensors.
I have forgotten more about evolution and biology than you know. And I don’t forget.
You are totally clueless. Unguided doesn’t get a pass. Without evidentiary support, testable hypotheses and experiments, you don’t have any science.
Again, that does NOT address if the mutations are accidents, errors and mistakes. That alone makes it bullshit. Not my fault that you are too stupid to understand the debate.
You clearly can’t follow along. Saying mutations are “random with respect to fitness” does NOT address the question of are they spontaneous and stochastic or are they directed and telic? Not my fault that you are too stupid to understand that.
YOU aren’t even wrong!
Not only that but there is plenty of evidence to refute the claim of random with respect to fitness. And your ignorance on that isn’t an argument, either.
It already is. Again, your willful ignorance is not an argument.
And we are still waiting on those testable hypotheses for evolution by means of blind and mindless processes. Why is that?
Science DEMANDS the people making the claim, support it. You and yours cannot. You lose.
JVL:
Liar.
There isn’t any research that demonstrates that any bacterial flagellum evolved by means of blind and mindless processes such as natural selection and drift. The same goes for any functional multi-protein complex.
So perhaps you should just stop lying and bluffing. You are beyond sickening
PaV:
Regarding junk DNA you say:
If you look for arguments for ID, you will see lots of essays (including by Meyers, Dembski, Behe) explaining that Intelligent Design does not mean Optimal Design. As you say, the evidence for optimal designs and no-junk DNA has certainly accumulated, but if it hadn’t then it is evident that ID proponents would have no problem whatsoever accommodating those results. Again I don’t recall who made the point about dead computer code, but it’s a good example of how motivated reasoning can argue that any possible observable result is consistent with one’s chosen theory, if that theory fails to specifically exclude a significant set of possible observations. And yes, I absolutely agree that this is true of evolutionary theory! (especially in shabby offshoots like “evolutionary psychology”, which is mainly “just-so” stories that could never be falsified).
I would emphasize “almost” here, but I’m not disagreeing with you 🙂
KF and ET:
You both keep reiterating the basic inference to design. I could not have been more clear that I am not debating the design inference. Rather, I am pointing out that since no possible observations are incompatible with design, ID lacks explanatory power – as was argued by PaV in the OP of this thread.
Your only comeback seems to be “if we observe naturalistic mechanisms creating complex systems, then that would falsify ID”. I have explained why this reasoning is faulty, but I will do so again:
1) Proving one theory false does not prove another theory true. Despite ID proponents’ rhetoric, it makes no sense to lump all possible non-ID explanations together under the rubric of “naturalistic mechanisms” and declare that no such theory can be true. What you can do, of course, is attack some particular theory (such as Darwinian evolution) and argue why that theory is false. But instead you are trying to argue that no existing and no future theory that doesn’t include the notion of an “intelligent cause” could explain biological complexity. That argument fails because we can’t judge a theory that we do not know.
Instead of (or in addition to) proving another theory wrong, you actually must make a case for your own theory. The inference to design is part of that work; you endlessly repeat these well-known points, but I have never argued against them. Instead, I am pointing out a problem with the explanation that ID provides. That problem is that – just as PaV says in the OP – a theory that can explain any possible observation explains nothing at all. And as we’ve seen, ID can explain any possible observation.
2) As I’ve explained, there are natural mechanisms that produce complex specified information, form and function – for example the immune system. But whenever such a system is observed, ID proponents do not concede that natural mechanical processes can produce CSI; instead, they just claim that the system in question was itself intelligently designed. Again, no matter what the observation, there is always the ability to infer design, and so no possible observation could ever be excluded by ID.
And by the way, it is concerning how you both accuse me of “willful deceit” and “willful ignorance”, and ET even calls me “stupid”. What is it that makes you people so angry all the time? Why can’t you just have a normal conversation about ideas, instead of getting your hackles up and throwing insults? Really, it’s not normal. Relax, posting on internet forums isn’t anything to get all riled up about. Seriously, take a breath, and try to be cordial and polite.
Dogdoc:
And we have explained why you are wrong. Not our fault that you have some sort of mental block.
There isn’t any scientific theory of materialism. There isn’t even a scientific theory of evolution. However, if there are TWO choices, intelligently designed or not, falsifying one is definitely going to provide support for the other.
That is QUESTION-BEGGING. There isn’t any evidence that the immune system arose via blind and mindless processes.
Again, to falsify ID all one has to do is DEMONSTRATE that blind and mindless processes are sufficient. It isn’t our fault that no one can do so.
People, like you, who are too clueless to understand what we are saying. How many times has this been explained to you and yet you repeat your ignorant trope? Your ignorance is willful
Dogdoc:
Only if you IGNORE everything IDists have said. Obviously, you have serious issues and need to seek help.
The ID hypothesis:
1) High information content (or specified complexity) and irreducible complexity constitute strong indicators or hallmarks of (past) intelligent design.
2) Biological systems have a high information content (or specified complexity) and utilize subsystems that manifest irreducible complexity.
3) Naturalistic mechanisms or undirected causes do not suffice to explain the origin of information (specified complexity) or irreducible complexity.
4) Therefore, intelligent design constitutes the best explanations for the origin of information and irreducible complexity in biological systems.
Anyone with an IQ over 50 can see that there is a huge class of observations that ID excludes. So, what is Dogdoc’s issue?
ET:
This is of course true. “Materialism” is the name of a philosophical position regarding ontology, and the name is actually quite anachronistic, as it refers to a type of physicalism that was prevalent among scientists at the beginning of the 20th century, but not since.
I disagree, although as I’ve said here repeatedly it suffers from several problems. I certainly do not consider evolutionary theory to be a successful explanation of biological complexity. It is, however, falsifiable (but just barely), and the fact that you can build probability-based arguments against it prove that it is not compatible with any observation.
But there are not two choices, as I just explained. I’m sure you would attack any theory inconsistent with ID, but the point is to support a scientific theory you must not merely attack other theories, you must provide positive evidence for your theory. For example, I may say that life originated by means of far-from-equilibrium self-organization mechanisms as described by Stuart Kauffman, or that speciation occurs by means of natural cellular genetic engineering as described by James Shapiro, and so on. You can call those ideas ill-conceived, or stupid, or whatever other epithet you choose, but the point remains: Other people think the same thing about your theory. That is why everyone must come up with positive evidence for your theory rather than just attacking other theories.
You didn’t understand my point; please try again. I am not arguing that the immune system arose via mindless processes. I am pointing out that antibodies contain high amounts of CSI, and they are produced in response to exposure to pathogens in a mindless, mechanical process. Thus, they defy your belief that mindless processes are incapable of producing CSI. Your response is to claim that even though the immune system operates mindlessly and produces CSI, the immune system itself must have been intelligently designed. And your response shows that no matter what disconfirming evidence is presented, ID can always just push the explanation back another step and claim intelligence was involved somewhere back the causal chain. This proves my point: There is nothing that could ever disconfirm ID.
Of course I feel that I’ve repeatedly explained my position to you, and that you are thus far unable to understand what I’m saying. The difference is, I’m not angry and hateful and afraid and using ALL CAPS to scream at those I disagree with. Just try calming down and accepting not everyone you disagree with is stupid, or willfully ignorant. We just disagree.
So that this is clear:
The immune system contains the complex specified information that needs to be explained in the first place. It is beyond the pale to start off with that which needs explaining and think you have found an explanation for it.
The immune system is only a natural mechanism in that immune systems are found in nature. However, there isn’t any evidence that nature produced them. The blatant equivocation used by ID’s detractors, while amusing, is still annoying.
There isn’t even a scientific theory of evolution.
Dogdoc:
No one cares. Link to it. Tell us who the author was. When was it published? What journal?
Intelligently Designed or not is all there is.
Wrong again. I attack ideas that are inconsistent or lacking evidentiary support and testablity.
Evidentiary support and testability. That is what science demands.
ID has done both. Again, your ignorance is not an argument. The criteria for determining design can be summed by what Dr. Behe wrote in “Darwin’s Black Box:
If we observe that, eliminate materialistic processes, we have intelligent design as the scientific inference.
Then you don’t have a point. You cannot say the immune system uses a naturalistic process unless you can show that it arose via blind and mindless processes! You are equivocating. And you have been busted. So, stop it.
And yet I told you exactly how to falsify ID.
All you have accomplished is to prove that you don’t know what you are talking about. And you think that your willful ignorance is an argument.
The ID hypothesis:
1) High information content (or specified complexity) and irreducible complexity constitute strong indicators or hallmarks of (past) intelligent design.
2) Biological systems have a high information content (or specified complexity) and utilize subsystems that manifest irreducible complexity.
3) Naturalistic mechanisms or undirected causes do not suffice to explain the origin of information (specified complexity) or irreducible complexity.
4) Therefore, intelligent design constitutes the best explanations for the origin of information and irreducible complexity in biological systems.
Anyone with an IQ over 50 can see that there is a huge class of observations that ID excludes. So, what is Dogdoc’s issue?
Dogdoc:
Give it a rest. It has nothing to do with a disagreement. When someone tells you exactly how to do something and you ignore it, it’s willful ignorance.
From Dr. Behe
ID doesn’t even try to explain everything.
Apparently ET is too angry to continue the conversation in a productive manner. If anyone else can answer the simple point I’ve made here, I’d like to discuss it. Once again: Can anyone identify a single possible observation that is excluded by ID theory?
Apparently dogdoc is too willfully ignorant to continue the conversation in a productive manner. There are many possible observations that is excluded by ID as being intelligently designed. There is even a way to falsify ID. But it is par for the course to have someone like dogdoc to have its questions answered and then having the audacity to say they weren’t.
dogdoc has been answered many times over. Its willful ignorance is not an argument.
And there is another instance of dogdoc’s challenge being answered. We also know that it too, will be ignored.
To dogdoc: A number of people here would say no. For example, since math is designed, every example of math showing up in the world is designed. Recent examples are fractals, megaripples in sand, and “growth pattern which describes how pointed shapes form again and again in nature.” I’m pretty sure ET has used the point that everything is designed numerous times. Part of the problem is some ambiguity about what design means: sometimes it means things that can’t be explained by natural processes so some type of unnatural intervention is needed but other times it includes things that happen by natural processes on the grounds that natural processes are designed. There isn’t a consistent understanding of what is being meant by design, but for the “everything is designed” crowd the answer to your question is no, I think.
Viola Lee:
That’s a lie. No one said that. You made it up.
And I know that you are full of crap. Two lies
Wow! THAT is the reason for the INTELLIGENT before the word DESIGN. It is to differentiate between optimal design on one side and apparent design on the other. Darwin’s entire point was to account for the appearance of design without the need for an intelligent designer. Natural selection was his huckleberry.
Intelligent Design simply means there is evidence for intelligent agency volition. An intelligent agency did something and we are seeing some result. See also: Intelligent Design is NOT Optimal Design
Why do people who know so little about ID feel the need to try to bash it?
ET, language and tone. KF
DD, evasion pursuant to strawman fallacy, the core of design thought as a scientific matter is the design inference. As a matter of science and underlying logic of abduction, the design inference is about empirically reliable, tested signs of intelligently directed configuration [design definition, in a nutshell] and drawing the reasonable inference known on record since Hippocrates and beyond: reliable sign –> signified. There is no direct inference to intelligent creator on sign of design as process, as you have been repeatedly corrected. For example, the stoics and their intellectual descendants would see design as flowing from the structure of the cosmos. But then, this is for record, it is clear that you are not open to correction. KF
PS, For example, on a per aspect basis, the design inference explanatory filter has two defaults. As, the intent is to have a strong inference on reliable sign, it happily accepts that it could miss designs lurking in what it would assign to lawlike mechanical necessity [a dropped object reliably falls with initial acceleration g], or blind chance [if a fair die, it would tumble and settle effectively randomly]. Such is why it is so stringent in the configuration based functional specificity-complexity criterion.
VL, the explanatory filter would assign closely similar outcomes under similar start points to lawlike mechanical necessity, on looking at such an aspect. It is high contingency on similar start points that opens up need to explain that aspect of an observed state of affairs, similar to how we would plot and do a best fit by eye — e.g. stretchy rubber band rule of thumb — or use statistics to differentiate the lawlike regularity from noise tracing to errors of observation. Recall, here, error bars on observational plots. Then, we might use an offset to detect bias, systematic error due to experiment or observer. Experiments of course are designed. KF
To clarify- I have NEVER said that everything is designed. Quite the contrary. I don’t understand why Viola felt the need to lie about me.
Been answered several times.
Why do you insist it has not been answered? That’s the interesting question.
As I said, you are just playing games and are not serious.
First, I may be mistaken, but that is different than lying.
And I’m fairly sure that ET has written that everything is designed in discussions with me in the past, but there is no way I could ever find them, so I’ll say that I could be wrong, and/or that the context we more nuanced than I remember.
ET:
Yes, it does! They are random when looked at from the perspective of fitness.
That doesn’t mean they are accidents, errors or mistakes. And biological fitness is just survival and reproduction.
What? Of course they are still accidents, errors or mistakes! They are mutations! You’re not making any sense now.
Most likely there are built-in responses to environmental cues. And it would work similar to sensors.
Where are they? Are you looking? Is anyone looking? Could be they’re in the DNA . . .
Again, that does NOT address if the mutations are accidents, errors and mistakes. That alone makes it bullshit. Not my fault that you are too stupid to understand the debate.
It’s impossible to predict if a mutation will be beneficial, neutral or deleterious before it happens. They are random accidents, errors and mistakes.
You clearly can’t follow along. Saying mutations are “random with respect to fitness” does NOT address the question of are they spontaneous and stochastic or are they directed and telic? Not my fault that you are too stupid to understand that.
If they were directed they wouldn’t be random would they?
Not only that but there is plenty of evidence to refute the claim of random with respect to fitness. And your ignorance on that isn’t an argument, either.
No, there is evidence that certain genomic regions have a higher (or loser) mutation rate. But you still cannot predict when a beneficial mutations will show up.
And we are still waiting on those testable hypotheses for evolution by means of blind and mindless processes. Why is that?
Mutations aren’t guided. Natural selection isn’t guided. So . . .
I have a question.
It’s the same drivel time after time.
As far as everything is designed, if the universe was designed then in a way everything could be said to be designed. But that is not how people are using this objection. They are knowingly conflating one thing with another.
ID accepts the laws of nature after they were implemented as leading to nearly all findings in our universe except for a relatively small percentage of findings. Thus ID accepts that the vast majority of findings were not designed.
The extremely small subset of findings that seem to defy the four laws of physics (which may have been designed) are then one of the purviews of ID.
ID has many purviews so to say it is a theory is misleading. It is a set of explanations/conclusions that have some commonality for this extremely small number of findings about the universe’s laws, its beginning, the beginning of life, the origin of Earth, the change of life forms over time, the origin of consciousness. In other words it has many domains of interest
So to call it a theory is misleading and not how the term/concept “theory” is ordinarily used.
So I repeat.
ID is not a theory.
“Does anyone actually believe that the anti ID commenters here have ever added much if anything to the discussion?”
Speaking as a commenter of many years, the answer is no with maybe some exceptions relating to side issues.
As far as what ID addresses, no.
Andrew
Dismantled Evolution Documentary clip (30 minutes) What do you all think? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhEPAXXwcX0
JVL:
Wow. You can’t even follow along. Saying that mutations are random with respect to fitness does NOT have any bearing on if mutations are accidents, errors and mistakes.
Wow. Context. Random with respect to fitness doesn’t even mean they are totally random!
And we are still waiting on those testable hypotheses for evolution by means of blind and mindless processes. Why is that?
Your bald assertions are not a testable hypothesis.
There isn’t any evidence that any bacterial flagellum evolved by blind and mindless processes. There isn’t even a way to test the claim. Unguided evolution isn’t science.
Viola Lee:
And I KNOW that I have NEVER made such a claim. I bet that Viola can’t find anyone on UD that said such a thing.
ET, did you read 130?
ET: Wow. You can’t even follow along. Saying that mutations are random with respect to fitness does NOT have any bearing on if mutations are accidents, errors and mistakes.
What? Mutations are mistakes, errors or accidents. You really are not making any sense now. When and where they occur is the issue.
Wow. Context. Random with respect to fitness doesn’t even mean they are totally random!
That’s what the qualification means. You really haven’t understood any of this discussion.
And we are still waiting on those testable hypotheses for evolution by means of blind and mindless processes. Why is that?
Most of us aren’t. It’s just you.
There isn’t any evidence that any bacterial flagellum evolved by blind and mindless processes. There isn’t even a way to test the claim. Unguided evolution isn’t science.
Mutations aren’t guided. Natural selection is not guided. So, evolution happened via blind and mindless processes.
Meanwhile . . .
You haven’t pointed to any clear flaw or mistake made by any evolutionary researcher.
You haven’t been able to find the ‘extra programming’ or detection sources in the cell. Nor have you said how those sources would affect development.
And, most importantly, when asked what you would consider convincing evidence of the power of unguided processes you just punt. It’s not up to you, meaning: you have no idea what could falsify your view. Translation: you don’t think your viewpoint is falsifiable. You can’t even conceive of something that would falsify it. I mean specific, clear criteria not just some general, vague thing.
Randomness doesn’t make mistakes, errors, accidents.
Mistakes ,errors ,accidents are the result of an intelligence(or designed cybernetic system) that didn’t manage to follow the instruction/blueprint to attain a goal!
JVL just admited that cell is an intelligent design . Good job. 😆
Yes, Viola Lee. I read your asinine trope and I responded to it. You have serious honesty issues and should seek help.
JVL:
I have been telling YOU that for years! However, saying taht mutations are random with respect to fitness does NOT address that! What is wrong with you?
Wrong. Saying they are random is the only qualification required to say they are accidents, errors and mistakes. Saying they are random with respect to fitness doesn’t address their true nature.
And we are still waiting on those testable hypotheses for evolution by means of blind and mindless processes. Why is that?
So, most of you don’t care about science? I already knew that. There aren’t any testable hypotheses pertaining to evolution by means of blind and mindless processes unless you include genetic diseases and deformities.
There isn’t any evidence that any bacterial flagellum evolved by blind and mindless processes. There isn’t even a way to test the claim. Unguided evolution isn’t science.
That doesn’t even address what I said! Obviously, you are just an ignorant infant. You clearly don’t know anything about science.
Not one researcher knows how blind and mindless processes produced any bacterial flagellum!
Liar.
LIAR! I have said exactly what would falsify ID! Dr Behe has said so, also. And I quoted him above. You are just a willfully ignorant punk! And you are a bluffing coward.
No one can falsify the notion that Stonehenge was intelligently designed! However, if someone could demonstrate that nature could produce it then it would be falsified!
To falsify ID all one has to do is demonstrate that blind and mindless processes could produce life. It isn’t my fault that you can’t.
The ID hypothesis:
1) High information content (or specified complexity) and irreducible complexity constitute strong indicators or hallmarks of (past) intelligent design.
2) Biological systems have a high information content (or specified complexity) and utilize subsystems that manifest irreducible complexity.
3) Naturalistic mechanisms or undirected causes do not suffice to explain the origin of information (specified complexity) or irreducible complexity.
4) Therefore, intelligent design constitutes the best explanations for the origin of information and irreducible complexity in biological systems.
Anyone with an IQ over 50 can see that there is a huge class of observations that ID excludes. So, what is JVL’s issue?
Re 140 🙂 I admitted I might be wrong, and that there would no way to try to find the discussions I thought I remembered. Doesn’t seem like an asinine response to me.
And do you know what trope means? I don’t see anything in my response that would be considered a trope.
And you didn’t respond to my point that being wrong is not the same as lying.
Your turn …
ET:
Mutations are mistakes, errors or accidents.
I have been telling YOU that for years! However, saying taht mutations are random with respect to fitness does NOT address that! What is wrong with you?
Wow. You just don’t understand what random with respect to fitness means. I’ve explained it to you over and over again. You can look it up. One more time just for kicks:
Mutations are mistakes, errors, etc. They don’t occur uniformly across the genome. So they are not random across the genome. But their effect on fitness is unpredictable so they are random from a fitness point of view.
If you still refuse to accept the above, simple concepts then you shouldn’t even be discussing these issues.
Wrong. Saying they are random is the only qualification required to say they are accidents, errors and mistakes. Saying they are random with respect to fitness doesn’t address their true nature.
That is exactly what the qualification is doing: it’s specifying under what criterium they are random. You don’t get it. You should stop arguing about something you clearly don’t understand.
LIAR! I have said exactly what would falsify ID! Dr Behe has said so, also. And I quoted him above. You are just a willfully ignorant punk! And you are a bluffing coward.
You always say: you can falsify ID by proving that unguided processes can ‘do it’. But when I ask you what you would consider proof that unguided processes are capable you refuse to state what would be adequate evidence for you. That is the point: you don’t know what would falsify your view. Or, even more likely, nothing would falsify your view. But, at least, you don’t specify what you would have to be shown that would make you change your mind. If you have no specific falsification criteria then what’s the point trying to show you anything? You’ll just deny it’s good enough when you, yourself, don’t know what’s good enough.
To falsify ID all one has to do is demonstrate that blind and mindless processes could produce life. It isn’t my fault that you can’t.
What would you accept as such a demonstration? You won’t answer that as usual so there is nothing you would accept. If there is nothing you would accept then what’s the point of trying? Your view is unfalsifiable by your own choice. That’s not science.
It’s not about the effect of the mutations it’s about the cause of the mutations.
❗ What is the cause of the mutations? ❗
This is the essential question because if cause is not intelligent then you can say the effect is random but if the cause has an intelligent nature then you never can say that the effect is random .
There is a mechanism between environmental stimuli and emergence of a mutation ,because there is “something” that translate an environmental stimulus of one nature (too heat, too cold ,presence /absence of prey/predator ,lack /presence of food, etc.) into emergence of a mutation that has a different nature. Environment is not the direct cause of a mutation. There is a complex system between them that darwinists intentionally ignore it . Everybody knows why? 😆
Nope, majority of mutations are just “maintenance”. What they call bad mutations are those situations when the maintenance mechanisms to adapt was overwhelmed. Only those mutations s can be called “errors”.
JVL:
Obviously, YOU don’t. Random with respect to fitness doesn’t address the claim that mutations are accidents, errors and mistakes. And you have been unable to demonstrate otherwise.
Again, I know the untestable claim. I have been telling you it for years. Grow up.
The nonsensical criterium does not address the claim that mutations are accidents, errors and mistakes! The 1s and 0s on a computer buss would appear random, mathematically, but we know they are not.
All IDists have said that. And we have provided specific examples. You choke on them. Not our fault.
Meantime we are still waiting for you to show us how to test the claims of unguided evolution. Seems like no one can.
To falsify ID all one has to do is demonstrate that blind and mindless processes could produce life. It isn’t my fault that you can’t.
DEMONSTRATE THAT BLIND AND MINDLESS PROCESSES CAN PRODUCE LIFE. I would even allow an intelligent agency to get all of the proper chemical precursors. Science knows the chemistry and physics involved. Yet not one scientist can create life in a lab. And that is because life is not reducible to physics and chemistry.
Back to the OP- ID is alive and doing well exactly because evolution by means of blind and mindless processes is completely untestable nonsense. And JVL has proven that with every one of his hypocritical posts.
Viola Lee:
Seeing that you posted it AFTER you had been corrected, makes it an asinine response.
Get an education. You posted it AFTER you were corrected.
Semantic games. You posted the lie after you were corrected.
For JVL:
Again, it isn’t our fault that no one can falsify ID. But that is what you would expect from the correct paradigm.
ET: Random with respect to fitness doesn’t address the claim that mutations are accidents, errors and mistakes
Correct. It states that mutations are accidents, errors, etc.
The nonsensical criterium does not address the claim that mutations are accidents, errors and mistakes! The 1s and 0s on a computer buss would appear random, mathematically, but we know they are not.
Well clearly you don’t understand the mathematical justification for things being classified as being random. If you don’t understand the mathematics then, perhaps, you should stop arguing.
Meantime we are still waiting for you to show us how to test the claims of unguided evolution. Seems like no one can.
And when we asked you what criteria you would accept you can’t say. Funny that.
To falsify ID all one has to do is demonstrate that blind and mindless processes could produce life. It isn’t my fault that you can’t.l
What would you accept as a valid demonstration? What kind of validation would you accept? I know you won’t address this point since you can’t since there actually is no criterium you would accept.
Random with respect to fitness does NOT mean the mutations are accidents, errors and mistakes. JVL’s continued false accusations just prove he is a desperate and clueless troll.
It’s up to you to make your case. You can’t.
The rest of JVL’s post just proves he is a willfully ignorant troll. Again, not my problem.
ET, the design inference is falsifiable (and more broadly testable and confirmed reliable), the point is that as something highly reliable across trillions of observations of its origin, it is confirmed reliable, as opposed to actually falsified. The problem is, as FSCO/I is so central to cell based life, e.g. D/RNA, proteins and that key subset, the enzymes of life, it points to life being designed, which cuts across an entrenched paradigm and worldview. KF
JVL, you have long since been answered as to what would objectively falsify the design inference on sign, and — notice the lurking shark, relativisation of reasoning and knowledge — it is NOT a matter of what “[we] would accept.” You are doubling down on a false assertion that has been corrected. It doesn’t even have to be in the direct context of origin of cell based life or body plans, ANY clear observed case of FSCO/I coming about by blind dynamic-stochastic processes would suffice. And objectors have long known it, they used to put up a lot of claimed or suggested cases, only to see them reliably collapse; my fav example was someone who tried to simulate origin of a clock, but was obviously ignorant of horology and precision machinery so he missed how much active information he was feeding in. Hence, the current rhetorical tack. KF
PS, Wikipedia’s forced acknowledgement on random text generation being x 10^100 short on config space relative to the 500 – 1,000 bit threshold (itself a refutation of Dawkins’ notorious warmer/colder feed-in of active information, Weasel), again . . . already ignored when it appeared in 13, 43:
In short, we see the significance of search challenge in large configuration spaces and how designers feed in active information, also, why islands of function in such spaces are an issue. That starts, for the world of life, with deep isolation of thousands of protein fold domains in AA sequence space, itself a tiny subset of broader organic chemistry.