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Can we distinguish human v. natural excavations?

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Large geometric shapes are being discovered beneath the Amazon forest. Have the discoverers evaluated their origins correctly? If so, why? Is there any way to distinguish between artifacts caused by human and extraterrestrial agents?
Once Hidden by Forest, Carvings in Land Attest to Amazon’s Lost World By SIMON ROMERO January 14, 2012

RIO BRANCO, Brazil — Edmar Araújo still remembers the awe.
As he cleared trees on his family’s land decades ago near Rio Branco, an outpost in the far western reaches of the Brazilian Amazon, a series of deep earthen avenues carved into the soil came into focus.
These lines were too perfect not to have been made by man,” said Mr. Araújo, a 62-year-old cattleman. . . .
The deforestation that has stripped the Amazon since the 1970s has also exposed a long-hidden secret lurking underneath thick rain forest: flawlessly designed geometric shapes spanning hundreds of yards in diameter.

Alceu Ranzi, a Brazilian scholar who helped discover the squares, octagons, circles, rectangles and ovals that make up the land carvings, said these geoglyphs found on deforested land were as significant as the famous Nazca lines, the enigmatic animal symbols visible from the air in southern Peru.

“What impressed me the most about these geoglyphs was their geometric precision, and how they emerged from forest we had all been taught was untouched except by a few nomadic tribes,” said Mr. Ranzi, a paleontologist who first saw the geoglyphs in the 1970s and, years later, surveyed them by plane.

Hundreds of Geoglifos Discovered in the Amazon 2010.01.20

Geoglifos is the term applied in Brazil to geometric earthworks discovered after recent deforestation. Geoglyphs are not new in South American archaeology, but these are different—massive earthworks of tropical forest soil rather than desert surface alterations. The Amazon Geoglifos present geometric forms; circles, squares, ellipses, octagons, and more, with individual forms up to several hundred meters across. Some are connected by parallel walls. Their distribution spans hundreds of kilometers, and much of the area remains forested jungle.

POSTCARDS FROM THE AMAZON: Massive clues of Amazon area’s past 2010

The geoglyphs in Acre were made by digging ditches into the earth to create shapes like circles, squares, and diamonds. They are outlined by ditches up to 20 feet deep and range from 300 to 1,000 feet in diameter.

Squares

Circles

Ranzi geoglyphs Google search

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For a serious discussion see Kairosfocus’ comment

Comments
Ogre you printed lots of marks and spaces above , to use old terminology. What point are you trying to make?Eugen
January 17, 2012
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What is this evidence? Where is it? Who published it? When? You keep saying you have evidence for things, but you never actually publish it or link to it? Why?OgreMk5
January 17, 2012
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Ah, classic Joe. When you can't answer a question, throw the old "if your position had any evidence". According to the AtBC timelog, then I posted this exact quote 1 hour before you posted it here as a prediction of your behavior. I'm not attacking you here, I'm just pointing out an observable pattern of behavior. All we're doing is asking you to present the evidence you have claimed to have. What's the harm in that?OgreMk5
January 17, 2012
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There are two possibilities here. 1) You didn't actually read what I wrote, which explains why this is merely the first step in a scientific investigation of ID claims. 2) You can't actually do it. Joe, if something is designed, the opposite of 'designed' is 'not-designed'. Since ID proponents (including yourself) have declared that everything from termite mounds to DNA to every lab experiment ever done (and ever will be done) are designed, then the only possible null hypothesis is pure randomness. Therefore, this simple test is directly relevant to the design hypothesis. If you can't distinguish between design and not-design, then your entire proposition falls apart.OgreMk5
January 17, 2012
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Joe,
How do you think scientists do it?
I've never heard a scientist mention the EF.
That is how do they determine a cause?
I've never heard a scientist determine a cause to be an entity we cannot investigate. You have determined the cause of life to be an entity that we cannot investigate, as ID only investigates the design and not the designer. As you have said several times already. So what's left to determine? You know it all now. I prefer a theory that investigates both the design and the designer. Evolution is the designer you are looking for Joe! You have just been repressing it all these years! Perhaps it's those chemicals you've been drinking (I've read your blog!)Peter Griffin
January 17, 2012
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This is a blog about ID. When I ask you about ID you get evasive and eventually abusive. And then I read your blog. And all became clear. Why are you so scared of clowns Joe?Peter Griffin
January 17, 2012
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Joe, What position is that? I'm asking *you* about claims *you* are making about *ID* on an *ID* blog. And as yet all you've shown is a great belief in ID but no particular reason for it. And then abuse. So I'd offer your own advice right back at you. Go focus on your position!Peter Griffin
January 17, 2012
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Joe,
Strange that you and your ilk can say that evolution and abiogenesis are separate, even though evolution is dependent on how life arose, and yet you act like little children when IDists say that the detection and study of design, ie ID, is separte from the designer(s) and processes.
So evolution and abiogenesis are separate as evolution is dependent on how life arose but the designer and the design are separate? How very convenient! But why?Peter Griffin
January 17, 2012
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There is evidence for ancient astronauts. More evidence for taht then your position has! :razz:Joe
January 17, 2012
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Peter, How do you think scientists do it? That is how do they determine a cause?Joe
January 17, 2012
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Peter, I am not uinterested in discussing this with you. Ya see if your position had any evidence, any at all, then we wouldn't be having this discussion. So go focus on your position.Joe
January 17, 2012
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Kevin, As I have already told you yours is a strawman. It has NOTHING to do with what ID is about. {snip - cut the at hominem. DLH}Joe
January 17, 2012
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Kevin, If you don't know how to tell a manmade bridge from an act of erosion perhaps you shouldn't be discussing science.Joe
January 17, 2012
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Peter:
If by spontaneously you mean naturally then all IDists are Darwinists.
And you are clueless.
So proteins require proteins to exist before they can exist?
that is what the evidence says.
Ah, I see. Your position is that until the origin of life is explained nothing else can be?
Clueless, as I said. No Peter, it is just that if the ooL was a design event then the safe bet is organisms were designed to evolve. So show us this protein arising without a living organism and other proteins.
No, Joe, that’s your claim.
Your position requires it.Joe
January 17, 2012
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Kevin, The confusion is all yours. Darwin is the one that said natural selection is a design mimic and evos have been repeating that unsupported nonsense ever since. Also you can't grasp the fact that ID is not anti-evolution- so you have some mental issues there. Also "selection" isn't- you are sadly and pathetically mistaken. natural selection is merely a result- it is differential reproduction due to heritable variation. It has never been observed to design anything. To sum up, Kevin, your position thinks it can determine design from non-design and says it has done so, albeit without any evidence.Joe
January 17, 2012
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Peter, Obviously you are confused and have no idea what ID is about. Strange that you and your ilk can say that evolution and abiogenesis are separate, even though evolution is dependent on how life arose, and yet you act like little children when IDists say that the detection and study of design, ie ID, is separte from the designer(s) and processes. You should just focus on your lame position because it is your failure that has allowed ID to stay around.Joe
January 17, 2012
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Joe, So who do you assume the designer is? You noted that in all the "design detection" examples you gave we start off assuming the designer is a human.
They can assume human but that is about it until they start investigating and gathering data.
So you've been investigating and gathering data for some time now. Do you have a reason to assume a designer other then human at this point?Peter Griffin
January 17, 2012
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Joe, Would it be possible for you to give a demonstration of the Explanatory filter? Perhaps you could use bridges? Natural(eroded) and man-made? Run an example of both through it and *show* you working! Alternatively perhaps you could give a fully worked example of the explanatory filter for something else? Take your pick. I'm interested to see the inner working of the legendary EF. If *any investigator* uses it then that should not be a problem!Peter Griffin
January 17, 2012
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Joe,
only possible way to make any scientific determination about the designer(s) or specific processes used is by studying the design and all other evidence left behind.
And what have you discovered so far?
However I am sure that is all in good hands.
On what specifically do you base that? Is blind belief that it is good enough for you? Personally I require a little more then that if I'm going to go around trying to sell that line to people. When are you expecting the first 'scientific determination about the designer(s) or specific processes used' to be published? 5 years? 10 years? Dembski has just noted it probably wont happen in his lifetime in a recent interview I read here. Some goal.Peter Griffin
January 17, 2012
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Joe,
Erosion does not produce the same type of bridge that humans do.
Tell me how I can reliably determine bridges created by erosion from bridges created by humans. What is the general case?
According to your twisted mind, maybe. Each case is treated differently.
Can you give me an example of two bridges and how you would determine one is designed and one is not?
Counterflow, ie signs of work.
Please include that in your example!
I don’t have a preference and and totally OK with being a descedent of an acient astronaut- as in we are the remains of interplanetary colonists.
Huh? Given the fossil record we observe it's an unlikely coincidence they arrived here just as the local life evolved into exactly the same species as those aliens. Why would you prefer to believe in aliens colonizing the earth, a position with no evidence at all to support it, rather then in one in which even a single piece of evidence should swing your opinion in it's favor, as the other has nothing to support it. Yet you consistently spout the alternative. And I thought you'd "follow the evidence"! Are you perhaps a scientologist?Peter Griffin
January 17, 2012
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Joe,
So they are all IDists then.
If by spontaneously you mean naturally then all IDists are Darwinists.
That is how ALL design detection is done- no exceptions.
What, design is ascribed to a being we know nothing about? Is it? Really?
Wow, just wow. On a fishing trip?
I'm not sure what you mean. I've seen several references to it's use as a reliable metric to determine design in the last few dozen comments alone.
Not without the existence of other proteins.
So proteins require proteins to exist before they can exist? Ok....
IOW your position has to start out with all the stuff that needs to be explained in the first place.
Ah, I see. Your position is that until the origin of life is explained nothing else can be? Ok....
So show us this protein arising without a living organism and other proteins.
No, Joe, that's your claim. Your position is that a protein can be created for a specific purpose directly without a living organism and other proteins.Peter Griffin
January 17, 2012
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All this is very interesting. But the initial question remains. Can ID principles tell the difference between a designed thing and a non-designed thing of the same size and class? If not, then how can anyone draw any conclusions about things that were designed vs. evolved? Don't answer the second question unless you can answer the first one. Once you can use an ID principle (and show your work) to successfully distinguish between random and designed, then we can start a discussion about evolved vs. designed. It would be easy to give you guys that challenge as well (there are designed genes and genes we know evolved*). But, I'm giving you an easy test of ID first. All you have to do is use ID principles to tell us if this sequence is designed or random. Use whatever ID tools you like. Here it is:
0111010000110110010101110101000001001001011000110111101001011010010101 0001000101010101100100110100110101010100110100010001011000001011100010 0000001000000101000101100100001101000111011100100000011100110111000100 1110000101010000110001001000000101001101100111011000100100111000100000 0111101001000100011100000111011000110000011011100010000001101001010101 00010011000110100100110011001000000100000101001101010100110011001001010 00001101011001110010111010001100101001100100101010000100000001101000100 01000110010001100011001000000110001001101010001101000010000001010100011 11000001000000100110000110011010100010011010100110010010101110011011101 110011001000000011100100110011011101000010000001000011001110000111010000 111001011110100101001001101110001000000100000101000001010110100110100100 1000000011000001001011011000100100110001000110011011100101001000100000011 010110110011001000010010000010010000001001110001100010111010100100000011 0101101000111001000000100111101111001010101100011100001111010010101000010 1011011100000010000000110100011110010110111100100000011011100111001000110 00101010010011011110100010001100001010010110011010101010010001100000010111 00010000000100000011001110111010101010000011100010101010101111000010011010 0100000011101100100100101110100011011000010000000110100001010110110111101 00100001101000001000000110100001100101001010110110111001101101001110000110 11100100111001110111001000000110011001101000011110000101100101110011010011 110111010001001000001101100010000000111001011101100101010101000111001100010 111010001001001010101110101100100110110010101000100111101100010001000000110 111101011010010000100110111100111001001000000100010000110100011011010110111 000100000010010000010111101101011001000000110001101101010011110010111011001 001011001000000111001001011010001101110010000001001000010010000111100001101 100001000000111001001001001001100010111000101010110010010010010111100100000 0100000100110100010101100010000001000101001101100111000101001000001010110101 0111010010110110110101100101011010000010000001100110011101000100011000100111 0111001000101111001000000100010001010000010100100011000101001101011011100010 1011011101010110010000110001010100010010000001011000011100000100100000100000 0101010101110001001101110111001001101100010010000111100000101100001000000101 01010110110000110101011001010100001000100000001110000110001000101011001100100 0100000011000010110001101001011011011000100010000100000001101100100011001010 10101001011010001010101010001001100010100100110100001000011011010110110110001 11010100100000011001010110001101111000011100010110101101000011011001000100011 000111001001101110010000001100100001101100110011001000101010110000010000000110 100001110000101011001000101010000100101001001100101001000000101011101100110011 110100101011101011001010010110101011101111001001011100000110100001010000011010 000101000111001011101110101011001100100001000000011001100110100011000100110101 000101100001000000110010001100100010010000010000000111000011101110111010101001 011011110100101100101000010010100100110100101001011011101100010000001110011010 110000100101001001001001000000011001000101111010100110011000001010011001000000 1001110011110000110100000110101001100100111011000100000010010010110001101110010 0010000001010001011101010010111101110110011010000100010000110001001000000101100 0010110000100111100110001001000000100110101111001011010100111101000111001011001 1001110000001000000011100001001000010110100101100100100000001100000011100101010 0010011001001010001001000000111100101001111011001010100011101001010010100010010 0000001110000100111001101011001101010111101001011001010000100111000000100000011 01101011100010011000001010001011100000100001101100010010011000011010001010001001 1000100101100001000000111000001100010011110100010000001001101001011110101011100 1000000011000101001101011001110010111100110011010100110100010101010101011100100 01101000111011000100000010001010011100001010010001000000100111101111000011001110 10110010010000001100100011001000111001000101111001000000101101000110110010010000 10110010110111000110110010011100010000001100010011010100100111100100000011000010 111000101000001010001110100111100100000010010000011001001110101010010000101001100 10000000110001010010000110010001101100001000000101010001101111001100110101001000 1100110010000001010110011000110011100001110011011110010010000001101000010100010100 110100110000001000000111011001011000001101000101101001100111001011110010000001101 100011000100011000100100000010100100110101000110101010000100010000000110101010010 110110101000100000011001110101100101000010011000110110111000110001010101010100100 001000110010101010011010000110110001000000100111001001000011001000010000001010100 011010010010101101000111001000000101000000110011010110010011010101000001011001100 0101110
Now, You will all say that we can't know whether it was designed or random without knowing what it does or who did it or "how did it come to be this way"? You know what it does. Convey information (yes, information, not meaning). You know who did it. Me. How did it come to be this way? Well, that's the whole question isn't it. The entire point of ID (according to Joe) is to make that determination. So, how did this sequence of numbers come about... was it random coin flips resulting in a random sequence of bits? Is it merely a conversion of some data into binary? Use the tools of ID to tell us. *How do we know? Because every step was observed and documented... no designer was involved, yet the sequence changed in a fundamental way.OgreMk5
January 17, 2012
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Perhaps you can settle this objectively then.
People have. Obviously you have issues though.
SHOW US!!!!! This is the same thing we've been asking you for years Joe (and all IDists). Quit telling us it's been done and show us it has. Where was it done? Who did it? When? Where was it published?OgreMk5
January 17, 2012
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Joe, you are confused. If you assume that we need to tell design from non-design, then you are admitting that natural selection (and other evolutionary principles) are effective designers. This negates the entire ID argument, because there is not "I" in anything that is required by "ID". Evolution would be a perfectly valid designer if this is this case. So, if you really would like to go down this road, then you are defeating the entire ID presupposition. If you don't want to go down this road, then you don't have an argument. Remember Joe (as Peter pointed out), only CREATIONISTS are assuming that EVERYTHING is random. Scientists, on the other hand, only think parts are random and the rest is selection.OgreMk5
January 17, 2012
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As has been said over and over again- yes I know that Dembski once dissed it- the explanatory filter is a process that forces any investigator to adhere to Newton's First rule. And it is also a process that would help us answer one of science's three basic questions- "How did it come to be this way/ the way it is?".Joe
January 17, 2012
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Peter, Science tells us that in the absence of direct observation or designer input, the only possible way to make any scientific determination about the designer(s) or specific processes used is by studying the design and all other evidence left behind. That is exactly how it works in all those fields. Again cause and effect relationships in accordance with Newton's First Rule- you seem to not know how science operates. Typical. Why do I have to go there? I need to look up close, for signs of counterflow. However I am sure that is all in good hands.Joe
January 17, 2012
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That’s just obtuse. Erosion does not produce the same type of bridge that humans do.
Perhaps you can settle this objectively then.
People have. Obviously you have issues though.
Could you calculate the FSCI for a naturally eroded bridge and a man-made bridge?
Wrong tool for the job. {snip }
Some bridges can be accounted for by stochastic processes. Therefore according to you no bridges are designed?
{snip OT DLH}
Tell me, what “type” of bridge is a naturally created (eroded) bridge and what “type” of bridge is man-made? What factor can be used, each and every time, to tell these two bridges apart? Be specific!
Counterflow, ie signs of work.
It’s relevant because you have no reason to prefer your designer over my elf.
{snip - cut the abuse} I don't have a preference and and totally OK with being a descedent of an acient astronaut- as in we are the remains of interplanetary colonists.Joe
January 17, 2012
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People against ID and Creation- what is the alternative? Peter:
Please provide a citation to a biologist making the claim that proteins spontaneously arise.
So they are all IDists then. OK That is how ALL design detection is done- no exceptions.
What about dFSCI. That metric appears to indicate design and it’s nothing to do with cause and effect.
Wow, just wow. On a fishing trip? Peter:
So, there’s no evidence that protiens can arise via natural processess?
Not without the existence of other proteins. IOW your position has to start out with all the stuff that needs to be explained in the first place. So show us this protein arising without a living organism and other proteins.Joe
January 17, 2012
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Joe,
That’s just obtuse. Erosion does not produce the same type of bridge that humans do.
Perhaps you can settle this objectively then. Could you calculate the FSCI for a naturally eroded bridge and a man-made bridge? You can choose which ones.
That said with Newton’s First Rule all design inferences can be refuted just by demonstrating stochastic processes can account for the thing being investigated.
Some bridges can be accounted for by stochastic processes. Therefore according to you no bridges are designed? Tell me, what "type" of bridge is a naturally created (eroded) bridge and what "type" of bridge is man-made? What factor can be used, each and every time, to tell these two bridges apart? Be specific!
Good for you. I don’t see how that is even relevant. But anyway you need to go out and read pro-ID literature as it is obvious you don’t know anything about it.
It's relevant because you have no reason to prefer your designer over my elf. We both have exactly the same amount of evidence on our side. None at all. Or can you tell me something unique about your designer? It's just that it sounds silly when I say elf but you've got so used to "designer" it no longer sounds silly!Peter Griffin
January 17, 2012
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Joe, Who is saying it is not? The point is that in each and every one of those cases experts in those "many fields" do not say "The designer was an unknown entity that we know nothing about" do they? That would not be a very good case of design detecting! They instead point to a designer that we have prior knowledge of - humans. In each and every case. Each and every. So "design detection" there is not the same "design detection" as used here. And in any case, why do you have to travel to the locations in the OP to determine design? What will you find out there you could not find out online? What it smells like? Could you designer perhaps be a smell?Peter Griffin
January 17, 2012
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