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4. ID does not make scientifically fruitful predictions.

This claim is simply false. To cite just one example, the non-functionality of “junk DNA” was predicted by Susumu Ohno (1972), Richard Dawkins (1976), Crick and Orgel (1980), Pagel and Johnstone (1992), and Ken Miller (1994), based on evolutionary presuppositions. In contrast, on teleological grounds, Michael Denton (1986, 1998), Michael Behe (1996), John West (1998), William Dembski (1998), Richard Hirsch (2000), and Jonathan Wells (2004) predicted that “junk DNA” would be found to be functional.

The Intelligent Design predictions are being confirmed and the Darwinist predictions are being falsified. For instance, ENCODE’s June 2007 results show substantial functionality across the genome in such “junk DNA” regions, including pseudogenes.

Thus, it is a matter of simple fact that scientists working in the ID paradigm carry out and publish research, and they have made significant and successful ID-based predictions.

A more general and long term prediction of ID is that the complexity of living things will be shown to be much higher than currently thought. Darwin thought the cell was a relatively simple blob of gelatinous carbon. He was wrong. We now known the cell is a high-tech information processing system, with superbly functionally integrated machinery, error-correction-and-repair systems, and much more that surpasses the most sophisticated efforts of the best human mathematicians, mechanical, electrical, chemical, and software engineers. The prediction that living systems will turn out to be vastly more complicated than previously thought (and thus much less likely to have evolved through naturalistic means) will continue to be verified in the years to come.

Comments
Looks like gpuccio has beaten a retreat.Diffaxial
May 9, 2009
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First of all, let me apologize for not writing in a few days. I was away and had no internet access. Anyhow: gpuccio (186):
I think the meaning is clear enough. If only a phenotypic variation is selected, but it does not correspond to a genotipic variation, the variation will not be transmitted. In some way, any phenotypic variation has to originate form the genotype, or to be converted to a genotypic difference. What other model have you in mind?
I think I see where your problem lies here. You seem to be assuming that there should be selection FOR junk. I have never claimed such a thing. The designer would select for whatever phenotype desired and the junk would simply go along for the ride. Even non-selected for DNA can be transmitted to subsequent generations.Hoki
May 6, 2009
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Adel: And to you. GEM of TKI PS: Tried Chrome -- nope. Safari may tempt me, or Opera. But it's maybe 6 weeks out on the fix-up to release candidate . . .kairosfocus
May 5, 2009
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The entailments of ID, as with archaeology and forensic science (SETI also), is that designing agencies leave traces of their involvement behind. Therefor if we did not observe any traces or the traces we thought we observed turned out to be caused by nature, operating freely, the design inference would fall. I have stated that several times already and not one of you can comprehend it. Why is that?Joseph
May 5, 2009
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Diffaxial, The EF works. The ONLY problems the EF has are the data used and the people using it. The EF demands TWO criteria be met: 1- the ruling out of chance and necessity PLUS 2- Specification If those two are met then it is safe to infer design. And yes as with ALL scientific inferences that can either be confirmed or refuted with future research. It is true that biological phenomemon have been explained but not by nor because of the theory of evolution. So to refute the design inference for the bacterial flagellum all one has to do is demonstrate that a designing agency is not required. To do that just take some populations of flagella-less bacteria and see if a flagellum develops. Right now your position doesn't have any empirical evidence to support it...Joseph
May 5, 2009
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gpuccio:
1) That informational saltations necessarily follow from design is not my position: it is an essential concept of ID. That the saltation can be detected if it is complex enough is the essence of the EF.
One can imagine a scenario in which a designer simply nudged certain mutations in a particular direction for particular adaptive purposes, in a manner that in each case was indistinguishable from mutations that are random with respect to the adaptive significance of the mutations. An examination of the phylogenetic history of the resulting organisms would reveal no shifts of either phenotype or subparts (proteins, for example) larger than those that were possible by means of random mutations and selection - yet the the outcome was preconceived and actualized by that means. No saltations would be present, yet the outcome was designed. You appear to be saying that it is not possible that a designer operated in this way. Why? Why is it a necessary entailment of ID that designers are constrained to work only by effecting "informational saltations?"
So, I don’t understand your series of statements of the kind: “ID entails no assertions regarding the number of designers. ID survives any finding.”
What I am asking for are entailments of ID theory, and the empirical tests of such predictions such that failure to observe the predicted outcome is something that ID may not "survive."
“not one single phenomenon attributable to design has ever been shown to have other explanations”. “not one single phenomenon attributed to design has ever been shown to have other explanations.”
The difference between these two statements is huge. It is analogous to the difference between:
"Not one single geometric circle has ever been shown to have a shape other than that of a circle" (true by definition), and "Not one single geometric form thought to have been a circle has ever been shown to have a shape other than that of a circle."
The first is certainly true, by definition. The second is not. That's the difference.
So, please show me a single phenomenon, outside biological information, which can be attributed to design by the ID procedure, and which has been proven to have another explanation.
I'm not aware of anyone actually "applying" the EF either "outside" or "inside" biological information. Moreover, the filter could be (for the sake of argument) 100% accurate in discerning human artifacts from natural objects, yet return 100% false positives when pointed at biological objects (because biological objects are not designed).
Either known laws of necessity can explain one thing, or they can’t. For known laws of necessity I obviously mean things like the laws of physics, and any detailed and quantitative physical explanation based on them.
"Laws of necessity" don't explain things - people do. In the relevant instances, scientists do. Nor are phenomena "either explained or not explained." Virtually all physical phenomena for which he now have explanations once were in need of explanation, and moved from the category of "unexplained by known laws of necessity" into the category of "explained by the known laws of necessity" by dint of human effort. Moreover, there remain many phenomena for which we have no firm explanation in the context of mathematical physics and chemistry (say, the particular compositions of the moons of jupiter, or then nature of dark energy), yet for which we have no reason to believe that natural explanations are not attainable. It follows that there may be many phenomena for which natural explanations cannot be offered in terms of the (imbecilic, repetitive ID shibboleth) "chance or necessity," yet for which we have no reason to conclude that they were thereby designed. This is why the filter doesn't work. The status, "can't be explained in terms of chance or necessity" is contingent: explanation in terms of chance or necessity doesn't simply lie there, self-evident. Rather, the class of objects that are explained thereby is constantly changing, and constantly expanding, as explanations are proffered and tested. Over approximately the last 150 years, biological phenomena have moved progressively from the "unexplained" category into the explained. Of course, you don't find those explanations "credible," the escape hatch you have built into your definitions that enables you to force them to be "true." But no matter: that migration will continue apace, whether you like it (or even acknowledge it) or not.
I have a sad suspect: in the end, all your arguments, or what remains of them, are arguments from authority. A lot of people think that way, how dare you think differently? Again, how sad.
Actually, what I have repeatedly, even monotonously stated is that contests of bare assertion (either yours or mine) get us nowhere, and that the way out of such contests is to specify necessary entailments of your theory that are subject to empirical test, such that your theory is placed at risk of disconfirmation. That is the furthest thing possible from an argument from authority.Diffaxial
May 5, 2009
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et cum spiritu tuojerry
May 4, 2009
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kf, gpuccio, jerry, Pax vobiscumAdel DiBagno
May 4, 2009
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kf: On FireFox - Have you tried Google Chrome? It's FAST and sleek.Adel DiBagno
May 4, 2009
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Adel: It seems that the main focus for this thread is over. but, a further note on the tangential issue you have raised is relevant. Kindly note that your incorrect inference to an equation of design and [Biblical] creationist thought has been corrected by three persons: GP, the undersigned and Jerry [not to mention Mr MacNeill as linked]. In sum: 1 --> Per definition, all creationists are design thinkers [cf. Newton's General Scholium to his Principia as a case in point]. 2 --> However, Creationists are practicing a form of what is called by Plantinga Augustinian science. (That is, there is a particular set of writings that are held to report the actual state of the world in the past, from a trustworthy source; that trustworthiness being based on the tradition of knowing God in the face of Christ, multiplied by a particular view on the reading of the relevant scriptural tradition.) 3 --> Design theory is not Augustinian, appealing instead to generally accessible and accepted empirical data and to an otherwise uncontroversial principle that per such evidence we may infer accurately and even reliably to intelligent vs unintelligent causal factors. 4 --> As a result, Creationists [of various flavours], theistic evolutionists [broad sense], members of other faith traditions than the Christian or event he Judaeo-Christian one, deists, agnostics and even atheists may -- and do -- practice design science. 5 --> Further to this, various models of how "tweredun" are inherently compatible with the question of a method that allows us to credibly test if tweredun. (No sense putting a suspect on trial if there is no good reason to think that here was arson . . . ) 6 --> This last being logically prior, we can see how Creationist, Frontloading etc models of how tweredun are all committed to the principle that design happened. 7 --> So, a method that makes design expectations specific, and makes in effect testable predictions [as summarised above] -- i.e. through the "aspects form" explanatory filter -- exposes all such onward models to a key point of empirical test. (And BTW, that is part of the objection to ID made by that school of theistic evolutionists who hold that design is real but undetectable by empirical methods.) GEM of TKI (PS: Looks like the prob is with FF 3.0.10 [Safari has no such probs . . . ], am now living off 3.5 beta, which has interesting "betazoid" effects!)kairosfocus
May 4, 2009
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Adel, There are only two broad alternatives in the evolution debate. They are right. One espouses a naturalistic macro evolution and the other espouses some form of design for macro evolution. These are very broad classifications and any theory one proposes will fit into one or the other. So those who argue for special creation of each species 6,000 years ago are part of a design paradigm. The designer is God. But that does not mean the ID supporters agree with them on how it happened. I suggest you read another comment a few comments above the other one I sent you and follow the link in the comment. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/survival-of-the-sickest-why-we-need-disease/#comment-316060 YEC is design by definition since God designed and made each species which is why a lot of YEC's glom onto ID and roam this site. Part of ID is discrediting naturalistic evolution and YEC's are also interested in this and in fact pioneered a lot of the ideas that undermines Darwinism. If one believes an ancient spirit arose from the middle of the earth and made man, then that person is also a design believer. Their ideas would probably not fit in here. Whatever group you find in the world that thinks life was made by some god or some alien will be by definition a design supporter but they may not agree with what has become ID. And that does not mean those here or most other places who are espousing ID agree with them or want any part of their ideas.jerry
May 3, 2009
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jerry [196]:
I suggest you read a comment by Allen MacNeill an hour or two ago on another thread to see how a sophisticated anti ID person sees it.
In the link that you gave, Allen said:
I have already agreed with my good friend and colleague (and intellectual opponent), Hannah Maxson, that such a conflation is both inaccurate and inflammatory.
I suggest you read comments 167 and 170 to see how your colleagues have, on the contrary, conflated ID and creationism. In those posts, they minimized differences between ID and alternative theories of origins to excape my assertion of improper disjunction in their earlier arguments. Earlier, they had insisted that there are only two alternatives - evolution or ID. When I pointed out that other theories are out there (and I only mentioned a few), they knocked themselves out to deny that any alternative is significant. They'll have to live with their words. Those words are on the record.Adel DiBagno
May 3, 2009
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Diffaxial: 1) That informational saltations necessarily follow from design is not my position: it is an essential concept of ID. That the saltation can be detected if it is complex enough is the essence of the EF. 2) My #166 included three different "bulleted lists", all of the a)... d) type (perhaps I should use more formatting imagination). Those you quote at the beginning of your post were in the first list, introduced by a very clear statement: "My positions on those points (many times explicitly stated on this blog):" So, they were never intended as scientific predictions, but as very simple calrifications of my personal postitons. Why then do you spend so much time criticizing them for their scarce value as predictions? They are not. They never were. I understand that english is not my native language, but is my expression so misleading? So, I don't understand your series of statements of the kind: "ID entails no assertions regarding the number of designers. ID survives any finding." And so? Are we obliged to guess how many designers there were, so that when it will be proved that there were three instead of two darwinists can rejoice? I must have missed something... Anyway, the predictions were later, as I think you yourself may have realized. 3) Another statement of mine was: a) “not one single phenomenon attributable to design has ever been shown to have other explanations”. That’s simply true. I obviously mean “attributable to design” by the ID inference. Have you any counter-example?" You comment:
“That is simply true…by the ID inference” is an argument by bare assertion. As stated above (perhaps you didn’t intend this), it is also true by definition.
I must really call my lawyer. Well, the whole phrase, with the specification I added, and with further specifications required by your musundrestandingd, would sound like that: "Not one single phenomenon attributable to design by the methodology of design inference offered by the ID theory has ever been shown to have other explanations, excluding the cases of biological minformation which are obviously the object of our controversy. Have you any counter-example? If not, you should agree that my statement is simply true." That is not an argument by assertion. It is an assertion with an invitation to simply falsify it. And certainly there is nothing true by definition in it. Given your desire to find me culpable of demonstrating things by definition or by circular arguments, I must give you a disappointment: I never do that. And yes, this is an assertion, you need not point to that in your next post. 4) Immediately after, you show that indeed you had understood what I meant:
A slightly modified but actually very different assertion would be “not one single phenomenon attributed to design has ever been shown to have other explanations."
Why very different? I had said: "not one single phenomenon attributable to design (by the ID inference) has ever been shown to have other explanations". Where is the difference? I beg your pardon, but it is your formulation which is vague and imprecise. I cannot answer for any design attribution made by anybody. I have to specify what kind of design attribution I mean, and by which methodology. And I did exactly that. The result: gratuitous accusations of arguments by definition and similar... Then you go on quoting the flagellum as a counter example. But you must understand that the whole biological information is the problem at stake here. So neither I nor you must use examples from biological information at this level. So, please show me a single phenomenon, outside biological information, which can be attributed to design by the ID procedure, and which has been proven to have another explanation. 5) To my repeated assertion of no false positive, you again search for help in biological information. And you really make a very peculiar statement:
This is peculiar. Biological complexity is indeed the issue, and virtually the entire biological community argues that all of your “positives” in that domain are false positives. Disagree? Get to work with those entailments and those tests.
IOWs, biological information is the issue of our controversy (then you do understand that!), and as the entire biological community agrees with you, I have to accept that as a counter example? Where is your logic? Please, give me a false positive of the ID procedure outside of biological information, or stop that. 6) Later, again you prove that you had understood better than you wanted to show:
Outside of biology (e.g. in forensics) many false positives have occurred. Your qualifier that no false positives have been observe using Dembsk’s numbers renders the assertion meaningless, as no one applies Dr. Dembski’s standards of probability in such settings. Hence neither “true” nor “false” positives by that standard are observed in these other domains.
Please, take notice that it is not so difficult to apply "Dr. Dembski’s standards of probability" to human artifacts. You can easily apply them to one of these posts, for example. Kairosfocus has stated a lot of times that any english post with definite meaning, and long more than, say, 100 or 200 characters, goes well beyond Dembski's requirements. So, show me that another explanation is available for one of these posts, or for an equivalent piece of software, and you will have made your point. So, in all products of language or of programming we do have a lot of positives, and none of them is false. Can you counter this statement? 7) Your "arguments" about my prediction of informational saltations are so out of any pertinence that I have no hope to discuss them briefly. So I just restate my prediction: "When we have all the necessary data, which will happen in some time, we can evaluate if informational saltaions have appeared suddenly in natural history, The prediction of ID is that we will observe that those saltations have appeared, and that they will be exactly of the kind anticiapated by ID: the sudden appearance of functional, complex information in a range of time and in a physical system where no random scenario, no kind of possible selection for function, and no known physical law can explain the appearance of that functional information." That for me is a prediction, and it is a scientific prediction. If you don't agree, please let's stop it here. 8) You final discourse, again about supposed circularity, is really amazing! I will address it for the last time, and then again, please, let's remain with our opinions. Others will jugde for themselves.
The circle is closed with the phrase “and no known law of necessity can explain what is observed…” Once again, THAT is the point of contention.
No, it isn't. My requirement (which is obviously from the EF) is very simple, and is not a point of contention at all, except in your imagination. Either known laws of necessity can explain one thing, or they can't. For known laws of necessity I obviously mean things like the laws of physics, and any detailed and quantitative physical explanation based on them.
Contemporary evolutionary theory argues that all of the complexity observed in biology is explained within a natural framework, absent design.
Thank you for informing me of that. Maybe I had missed it. You know, THAT is the point of contention. And "contemporary evolutionary theory" is not, you know, a law of necessity. It is a very speculative and unsupported model which we, in ID, believe false. I have a sad suspect: in the end, all your arguments, or what remains of them, are arguments from authority. A lot of people think that way, how dare you think differently? Again, how sad.
Therefore, upon pointing the EF at a biological phenomenon and and declaring it thereby as “designed,” you are simply taking exception to that assertion of contemporary biology, and simply making the bare contrary assertion, “We don’t believe that there is, or can be, a natural explanation for such complexity.
Wrong. I am taking exception to nothing. I am saying that there is not a credible explanation, either of the random kind or of the necessity kind, or of the mixed kind, unless the design concept is used. That is not a belief, it's a fact. And strangely, instead of falsifying very simply my statement by providing the desired credible explanation, you are trying all other possible ways...
Hanging numbers on the process (such as the UPB) doesn’t remove the circularity,
I am afraid that Dembski's powerful concept of an universal probability threshold can do many interesting things, but certainly not remove a circularity which is not there.gpuccio
May 3, 2009
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Adel #195:
Congratulations, gentlemen. You have nicely shown that ID and creationism are, in your minds, the same argument.
Adel, Adel... I hope that's only a joke. OK, maybe it would have been more precise to say: "Those are design theories" instead of "Those are ID theories". Maybe I will have to remember that I have to call my lawyer before blogging at UD :-) But my paragraph started with "So, why are you quoting design theories as alternatives to ID?" so, I believe that any intelligent person would have understood what I menat. And I am sure that you are an intelligent person. Have you any doubt that any form of creationism is a design theory? After all, creation is a form of design. The opposite is not necessarily true, obviously. But my point is that if things were created, they were designed. I was not implying, however, that the strict scientific methodolofy of ID must necessarily be accepted by all those who believe in a Creator. TEs are a good example of religious people who do not accept, ususally, ID. So, in a sense you are right: we can compare the methodology of ID and the methodology of a pure creationists form a scientific point of view. Let's say creationism is our B and ID our E. I state that E is still the best explanation. But if you believe that deriving our scientific conclusions directly from a sacred text is a better scientific methodology than detecting design by the ID methods, well, I am open to discussion... But my question to you remains: So, why are you quoting design theories as alternatives to ID? Have you no other alternatives left?gpuccio
May 3, 2009
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Adel: Not at all, please read the weak argument correctives above. 1 --> [Biblical] Creationism at root is about the concept that first people have a trustworthy inscripturated account (subject to onward debates on interpretation) about the true state of the world in the past, so should build that into our reasoning in science. 2 --> That sense of trustworthiness in turn rests on being a part of a 2,000 year tradition of encounter with God though the risen Christ. 3 --> So, Creationists believe in a designer, but they have onward frames of thought that are approaching the question from accepted traditions of revelation to experience, not from in-common empirical data in the world to signs of design to inferring designers in cases where we see the signs but have not directly observed the designer. 4 --> So, it is an error of reasoning to equate [a] making an empirically based design inference to [b] inferrring from trusted scriptures to an account of the claimed true state of the world in the remote past. 5 --> And, while Creationists can reason along the lines of [a], that -- assertions to the contrary notwithstanding -- is independent of their thinking along the lines of [b], which indeed the making of such an inference opens up to empirical test. 6 --> Further to the above, we should observe that design thinkers come from a wide variety of views and traditions, i.e. ID is showing itself to be an in-common empirically anchored approach. (And, one that is inherently open to empirical challenge: if it can be shown that there are no reliable signs of design, the design inference and filter would collapse.) 7 --> So, you have unfortunately affirmed the consequent: If Creationists then believing in design of life etc, does not sustain the claim: if believing in design then Creationist. For, implication is not equivalence. GEM of TKI (PS: I seem to be being dogged by what looks like a Firefox bug that kills a comment on moving to another tab then returning. Or, is that a virus that has got through to me?)kairosfocus
May 3, 2009
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"Congratulations, gentlemen. You have nicely shown that ID and creationism are, in your minds, the same argument." I suggest you read a comment by Allen MacNeill an hour or two ago on another thread to see how a sophisticated anti ID person sees it. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/survival-of-the-sickest-why-we-need-disease/comment-page-8/#comment-316121jerry
May 2, 2009
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kairosfocus [167]:
In the relevant context, chance and necessity [blind spontaneity] is one major family of explanations, and design is another [and all the cluster of alternatives you suggested are post design, dealing with proposed mechanisms and candidate designers].
gpuccio [170]:
So, why are you quoting design theories as alternatives to ID? Those are ID theories, although each of them has specific peculiarities.
Congratulations, gentlemen. You have nicely shown that ID and creationism are, in your minds, the same argument.Adel DiBagno
May 2, 2009
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Diff: The current discussion on WAC 4 is now far afield, on tangential matters. (That strongly suggests that the critics' case on the merits is not particularly strong.) However, I cannot but observe your:
ID has nothing to say about whether God is the designer. ID survives any finding. ID entails no assertions regarding the number of designers. ID survives any finding. ID includes no necessary entailments concerning the tempo of design. ID survives any finding regarding tempo. In short, in these domains, ID theory - that is, your theory regarding the characteristics or process of design - offers no testable entailments.
Now, since the crucial focus of the WAC above is that there are empirical points of test for the design inference, and that it is in fact making successful risky predictions, it is worth taking up this assertion. For, in light of abundant and easily accessible [even in this thread, including from GP] pointers to the actual empirical entailments and associated points of test for the design inference. So, you have unfortunately set up a strawman, which you then set out to knock over. 1: ID has nothing to say about whether God is the designer -- ID at core is the scientific study of empirical signs of design. --> This may be seen from a classic definition by Dembski:
intelligent design is . . . a scientific investigation into how patterns exhibited by finite arrangements of matter can signify intelligence.
--> inference on empirical evidence forming reliable signs of design is very different from inference to who may constitute the relevant set of candidate designers. --> As forensics long since tells us, specific circumstantial and testimonial evidence on motive, means and opportunity can lead us from inference that a crime has been committed, to whodunit. --> but, it must first be shown that tweredun. 2: ID survives any finding -- in fact, there are any number of possible findings that would either directly overthrow or so fatally weaken the design inference that it would break down. --> For instance, the design inference is predicated on the point hat there are identifiable, reliable empirical signs of design. --> So, to disestablish ID (and as has been said openly from the outset) all one has to do is to produce a credible case where, e.g. functionally specific complex information -- especially algorithmic or data structure information -- beyond the Dembski UPB has spontaneously arisen by unguided forces of chance and necessity. (And similarly for irreducible complexity.) --> There are millions of cases of CSI and of IC entities of known origin coming to be by intelligent direction. It seems that there is as yet no credible case of the opposite. (Otherwise, it would be trumpeted far and wide across the Internet.) 3: ID entails no assertions regarding the number of designers. --> Again, that tweredun is antecedent to whodunit, and whether by lone assassin or conspiracy. 4: ID includes no necessary entailments concerning the tempo of design. --> How tweredun -- and how much time it may take -- is again after that tweredun. --> First: are there empirically credible signs of design, per sufficient known cases and an explanatory framework that distinguishes art from chance + necessity? YES. --> Does that framework show why chance + necessity will be practically -- as opposed to logically -- hampered from creating FSCI etc? YES. --> is it tested? YES, millions of cases of known origin, no counter-instances. [So we have a well anchored inductive generalisation.] --> What of Miller's TTSS? In a nutshell, the TTSS uses a subset of the genetic provision of the flagellum to create a second device, a toxin injector, so that prokaryote cells may prey on eukaryote cells. That is, it is credibly later and derivative. 5: in these domains, ID theory - that is, your theory regarding the characteristics or process of design - offers no testable entailments --> You have here (despite repeated warnings to the contrary) diverted from the openly stated empirically testable claims made by core design theory, to go after what core ID does not attempt to address and seek to dismiss core ID based on what it does not address. --> That's like criticising cricket for not being baseball. (But it is not, and was never set out to be . . . ) --> Thus, you have set up and have sought to knock over a strawman of your making, not the real core ID theory. 6] The actual core of design theory and its empirical predictions. --> In 184 above, I have summarised:
let us not forget the major/central empirically testable claims — thus, predictions — of design theory: 1 –> The three longstanding causal factors, chance, necessity and design will continue to be a valid trichotomy of causal situations. 2 –> That is, not only will no fourth factor turn up, but distinguishing signs of the three factors at work will permit us to characterise each of the three as it affects aspects of empirical phenomena. 3 –> First, blind mechanical forces give rise to empirical regularities, i.e they lead to low contingency outcomes. (Once initial conditions are the same, the same path will play out.) This, we term, necessity. 4 –> Of course, this leaves room for the case of sensitive dependence on initial conditions; but we should note that the diversity of outcomes here rests on divergent initial conditions and divergence amplification through non-linearities, i.e the diversity does not come from the mechanical necessity at work. 5 –> In general, highly contingent aspects of outcomes under similar initial conditions will trace to chance and/or design. 6 –> In some cases, there will be a stochastic pattern [probability/ statistical distribution], i.e. the contingency of outcomes is credibly undirected. This, we term, “chance.” 7 –> In other cases, contingency will credibly be directed towards a goal, and will often be functionally constrained to achieve that goal; leading to an otherwise unlikely (i.e. on a random walk hypothesis, maximally unlikely) target zone of configurations that is specific, information rich and functional. this, we term, design. 8 –> Thus, we will see characteristic empirically detectable signs of necessity, chance and design that may be intelligibly discerned on appropriate aspects of empirical objects and phenomena. 9 –> For design, these will include: [a] irreducible complexity, [b] complex specified (especially functionally specified) information, [c] algorithmic, code-based functionality, [d] language based functionality (e.g. alphanumeric strings in a language like English or a computer language like C).
As I concluded previously: "Such claims are testable, are open to test and are tested day by day as we work in a digital, information age. So far, on literally millions of tests, the claims are well-supported by actual observations. So, though they are obviously risky assertions, they are confidently proffered, as well-tested observations will tend to be further supported. [Historically corrections tend to come at points where observations are pushed to new limits, with the older generalisations being retained as a well supported limiting case, e.g. Newtonian dynamics in a relativity and quantum age.]" _____________ Diff, we are on a cricket pitch, not a baseball field. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
May 2, 2009
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"Contemporary evolutionary theory argues that all of the complexity observed in biology is explained within a natural framework, absent design. " This is an absurd statement. There is no evidence for it. The whole controversy is about the lack of evidence for such a statement. So until such a statement can be supported all biology textbooks and courses should reflect that lack of empirical support for this very specious proposition.jerry
May 1, 2009
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Gpuccio: I now have the time to respond to your earlier post at 166, as well as 188.
My positions on those points (many times explicitly stated on this blog)...
Of course, I listed the "strong" hypotheses that you addressed in your response, and you may not wish to defend them. Yet I cannot be too far off the mark, seems to me, given that you say that you have articulated your position on each of these assertions many times on this blog. But perhaps you have others to offer (saltations necessarily follow from design, for example). What emerges from your responses on these particular issues is that none are "necessary entailments" of ID theory, such that an empirical test of those entailments places ID, or a tenet of ID, at risk of disconfirmation. Front-loading is a "possible scenario," although obviously not a necessary one, given that you don't believe in it. ID survives either finding. ID has nothing to say about whether God is the designer. ID survives any finding. ID entails no assertions regarding the number of designers. ID survives any finding. ID includes no necessary entailments concerning the tempo of design. ID survives any finding regarding tempo. In short, in these domains, ID theory - that is, your theory regarding the characteristics or process of design - offers no testable entailments. I then characterized several of your statements as bare assertions, only. Your response, for the most part, was to repeat your bare assertions:
a) “not one single phenomenon attributable to design has ever been shown to have other explanations”. That’s simply true. I obviously mean “attributable to design” by the ID inference. Have you any counter-example?
"That is simply true...by the ID inference" is an argument by bare assertion. As stated above (perhaps you didn't intend this), it is also true by definition. By definition, a phenomenon attributable to design does not have other explanations. But propositions that are true by definition do not necessarily pick out phenomena in the world, as their "truth" is tautological. A slightly modified but actually very different assertion would be "not one single phenomenon attributed to design has ever been shown to have other explanations." But that is the question currently in dispute. For example, the BacFlag has been attributed to design, yet others assert on the basis of empirical findings that it has been shown to have other, natural explanations. Of course you can assert that those other explanations are wrong - but we are then back to a contest of bare assertion. The only exit from such contests is to articulate your theory in such a way that it yields testable assertions, such that the theory is placed at risk of disconfirmation, and get going with the real science.
b) “Structures which are recognized as designed are designed”. That’s only the same point as a).
Again, bare assertion. Same response as to a).
c) “No false positives”. Again the same point. Have you any example of false positives? I mean, outside biological information, which remains the controversial issue, can you offere some example where a design detection process with the quantitative threshold given by Dembski gave a false positive?
This is peculiar. Biological complexity is indeed the issue, and virtually the entire biological community argues that all of your "positives" in that domain are false positives. Disagree? Get to work with those entailments and those tests. Outside of biology (e.g. in forensics) many false positives have occurred. Your qualifier that no false positives have been observe using Dembsk's numbers renders the assertion meaningless, as no one applies Dr. Dembski's standards of probability in such settings. Hence neither "true" nor "false" positives by that standard are observed in these other domains.
"So, what I am saying is...it will be obvious that the observed saltations will not be explained by a random variation + NS model. That is a prediction, and it will be verified"...That's a prediction, isn't it?
"It will be verified" is, of course, more bare assertion. But it IS a prediction. So is my prediction that the Cubs will never win a world series. Mine isn't a scientific prediction, however; it is a prediction about future historical events, but not a prediction that arises in any necessary way from a theory about future events. Similarly, yours is not a scientific prediction, as it reflects no positive entailments that arise uniquely from ID. Rather, it is a prediction about the future success or failure of entailments of another theory, and therefore a prediction regarding future history. It is a prediction about science, but it is not a scientific prediction. All of the work required to test that prediction is of necessity conducted from within the framework of that alternative theory, and is assisted not one iota by the design hypothesis. You should be deeply suspicious when a pututive primary empirical "test" of your theory derives no guidance whatsoever from that theory. Similar objections may be raised to your other predictions, which all include assertions that turn crucially upon the success of a rival theory. On to your next post. Your disquisition about the various forms of specification culminates in the following:
But, if there is “recognizable specification”, and complexity is enough, and no known law of necessity can explain what is observed, then design can be inferred, and it is the best explanation. IOW, that’s the EF, which you should be familiar with. Nothing is circular in this reasoning.
This is entirely circular (probably also a moebius strip), and again hides an argument by bare assertion. The circle is closed with the phrase "and no known law of necessity can explain what is observed..." Once again, THAT is the point of contention. Contemporary evolutionary theory argues that all of the complexity observed in biology is explained within a natural framework, absent design. Therefore, upon pointing the EF at a biological phenomenon and and declaring it thereby as "designed," you are simply taking exception to that assertion of contemporary biology, and simply making the bare contrary assertion, "We don't believe that there is, or can be, a natural explanation for such complexity. Therefore it is designed." Hanging numbers on the process (such as the UPB) doesn't remove the circularity, nor render this other than argument by bare assertion. The way out of this circularity? Specify necessary entailments of ID, such that empirical test of those entailments puts ID, or a major tenet of ID, at risk.Diffaxial
May 1, 2009
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Diffaxial #188: You go on not answering my points, and inventing new false points. Maybe I am a little tired of that. Anyway, for this time: Specification. We may define it as the input of a conscious meaning in the organization of information. In that case, it is obviously derives from design by definition. Let's call that, for clarity, original intentional specification, or if you want "true specification". Then, there is what we can call "recognizable specification": what appears to us as specified. That is the object of design detection. The two things are not the same thing, and you are obviously equivocating on what is obviously a very brief sum up of a much bigger issue. Again, it seems that you want to elude the more detailed points and stick to what allows you to equivocate. What appears as specified is not necessarily the product of "true specification". It could be the product of a random system, if it is simple enough to be in the range of what a random system can realistically generate, or it could be the product of known laws of necessity: let's call that "pseudo-specification". And it is not true that all "true specification" is easily recognizable. The recognition depends on the resources of the observer. So, let's call all "true specification" which we don't recognize "hidden specification". With those linguistic clarification, let's see the ID argument as I have given it, and let's see if it is circular ot not. "True specification" is the true mark of design: design is always specified because it always is the projection of a conscious intent. Sometimes that specification, that intent, is easy to detect. Other times it could remain hidden, even forever. In those cases of "hidden specification", design detection is simply not possible. Those cases will remain false negatives, unless specification is at some point recognized. For all those cases, instead, where we recognize specification, the question arises: a) is that "recognized specification" an expression of "true specification", and therefore of design? or b) is it the product of a random mechanism, or of known laws of necessity, and therefore only an instance of "pseudo-specification"? That's where complexity is necessary: it excludes the random hypothesis. If complexity is not enough, "recognized specification" cannot be satisfactorily interpreted: it could be "true specification" or "pseudo specification", but we cannot be sure. So the case is classified as negative: it could be a true negative (if it was indeed "pseudo specification) or a false negative (if it was indeed "true specification"). We simply can't say. A careful assessment of possible mechanisms based on necessity is also necessary. But, if there is "recognizable specification", and complexity is enough, and no known law of necessity can explain what is observed, then design can be inferred, and it is the best explanation. IOW, that's the EF, which you should be familiar with. Nothing is circular in this reasoning. "True specification" is a mark of the process of design, by definition. The design inference uses specific quantitative methods to be empirically certain whether what we observe in a candidate product of design (recognized specification, which is an empirical fact) is truly an expression of "true specification" or not. Under those conditions, design is inferred. So, before accusing others of demonstrating things "by definiton" or circularly, please try to understand what others are saying. If sometimes new concepts are introduced by me too briefly, you can ask for clarifications. I usually assume that my interlocutors, especially those who, like you, are so ready to criticize, have some basic understanding of ID. You are repeatedly demostrating that that's not the case.gpuccio
May 1, 2009
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Diff: Re, 188:
To claim that a structure reflects CSI is simply to claim that it is designed, not adduce evidence for design. And that claim is what is at issue.
Pardon, you seem to have made a misreading of both GP and the import of the claim that [functionally] specified complex information is a reliable EMPIRICAL sign of design: 1 --> Complex, functionally specific information is an observed fact, e.g. posts in this thread, DNA coding for proteins, computer programs and many other cases. 2 --> Once such information is originally digital or can be digitised, we can specify a configuration space and in prinsipul assess the presenxe of islands of funktion, where variation across the island may change degree of relevant function but does not destroy it. [For instance there are some deliberate typos here -- incorrect spelling but communication is preserved. But beyond a limit the limit of redundancy is passed and the message is garbled.] 3 --> Once the config space is large enough, and the islands of function are sufficiently isolated, then a random walk from an arbitrary initial point loses the prospect of being likely enough to find such an island on available search resources -- lost and sunk in the sea of non-function. 4 --> But, since we observe as well intelligent agents who design, we can see that such agents, well within available resources, routinely generate FSCI. 5 --> So, we have millions of cases of FSCI of known provenance, and in every instance beyond a reasonable threshold -- e.g. as a rule of thumb 500 - 1,000 bits of storage capacity -- where we know the causal story, FSCI originates in an intelligent agent. (Lucky noise is strictly possible but so improbable as to be empirically unobserved. [BTW, this is the foundation of the statistical form of the 2nd law of thermodynamics.]) 6 --> So, as an empirically anchored matter of summary of well-established patterns of the empirical world, FSCI is a reliable sign of intelligent design. 7 --> One that is backed up by the issue of the search space challenge for the other known cause of highly contingent outcomes, stochastic, undirected contingency. 8 --> So, no tautologies are being put, no questions are being begged and the issue is not addressed by definition but by observation and inference to best current explanation tied to those observations. ["Current" is used to underscore that his is an open-ended exercise: provide a counter-instance tothe design observations, summary explanations and conclusions, and they would be overthrown; as is true of all defeatable, empirically anchored reasoning.] GEM of TKIkairosfocus
May 1, 2009
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gpuccio:
Is that your way to discuss? Ignore my answers and arguments, take a single phrase out of context, misunderstand it and just comment on that?
Unfortunately, a closer look at context doesn't help you, Gpuccio. What it does is turn up more instances of tautology and circular reasoning. For example:
Now, here we have to discuss briefly what is that makes CSI CSI. As you probably know, there are two components: one is specification, the other is complexity. Specification (in the case of FSCI, functional specification) is the true mark of design: design is always specified because it always is the projection of a conscious intent. Sometimes that specification, that intent, is easy to detect. Other times it could remain hidden, even forever.
If "specification is the true mark of design," it must not only be true that all design results in specification. It must be true that "all specification results from design." Ordinarily that might be considered an empirical question: does all specification result from design, from intent? But here you have DEFINED specification as reflecting conscious intent: "Sometimes that specification, that intent, is easy to detect..." Therefore yours has stopped being an assertion of an empirical entailment of ID theory ("design results in specification; all specification results from design") and become true BY DEFINITION. CSI may as well be called NDCI "Necessarily Designed Complex Information." Having designed CSI or FCSI in this way, to turn to biological structures and argue "the CSI we observe here is evidence of design" becomes an illegal move, and a sleight of hand, because circular and tautological rather than empirical. To claim that a structure reflects CSI is simply to claim that it is designed, not adduce evidence for design. And that claim is what is at issue.Diffaxial
May 1, 2009
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gpuccio:
Glad to know that the C-value paradox has been solved.
Surely you knew it was designed by an intelligent power.Adel DiBagno
May 1, 2009
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Hoki: I forgot to close the quote tag. From "Again, read better" it's me again writing.gpuccio
May 1, 2009
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Hoki (#183):
Phenotypic selection alone will not do??? That’s a preposterous claim.
If you read better, you will see what I mean: "Phenotypic selection alone will not do. Intelligent selection of the genotype according to expression of function in the phenotype is a perfectly admissible modality, as I have argued." I think the meaning is clear enough. If only a phenotypic variation is selected, but it does not correspond to a genotipic variation, the variation will not be transmitted. In some way, any phenotypic variation has to originate form the genotype, or to be converted to a genotypic difference. What other model have you in mind? And what is preposterous in my claim?
On top of the design, there is also the implementation of the design. Do you also assume that that is perfect?
I have never spoken of perfection. But I do believe that both the design and the implementation are highly efficient, for human standards.
How can you, with a straight face, say that neither modality explains the existence of lots of junk DNA (would it even have to be close to 98.5%?).
I say it: neither modality explains lots of junk DNA. And my face is straight. Remember, this is an empirical judgement, not a logical one. It takes into account a lot of factors. And, bayesianly, I can bet on it (see later).
I wasn’t asking for how much junk DNA you thought there might be. I was was asking for a rough estimate of the probability of your assumptions being correct.
Again, read better and you will see that I have already given the answer: "For the same reason, I am ready to bet on a definite function of at least 80% of the genome, and I bet at 90%. Where and when can I pass to take my money?" A function of at least 80% of the genome is the specified assumption. 90% is a rough estimate of the probability of my assumptions being correct. And winning the money is a resonable hope.
gpuccio
May 1, 2009
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PS: Having noted as above, we should note that -- just factoring in the simple FSCI metric as a yardstick -- even in the presence of much "junk" [or, better, "noise"] the observation of 500 - 1,000+ bits worth of functional and specific information will be well beyond the reach of chance explanations on the gamut of our observed cosmos and would still substantiate a design explanation. That is where you, Jerry, have a good point. [And if the majority of the genome turns out to be noise, that would sharply constrain explanations of natural history; not least by implying a duration sufficient to achieve that, and also clusters of mass-mutation events, e.g. virus epidemics that mass-inserted DNA strands etc.]kairosfocus
April 30, 2009
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Jerry (and others): First and foremost, the point of "predictions" in a scientific tyheory is that they are testable and risky points where the theory meets up against reality. Theories are inferences to best explanations of the observed state of the world; which is open-ended and ever-growing. So, a good theory will make predictions that are testable [and at least in principle fail-able], thus risky. A decade ago or more, leadign design thinkers stepped up top the plate on the Junk DNA "consensus" of that time, and said that on the rationale behind design theory, it would be proved wrong. Over the past decade, evidence has increasingly rolled in, and it is the design thinkers who have been vindicated as what seemed to be inexplicable "junk" has turned out more and more to credibly be functional -- BTW, increasing the observed functional complexity of DNA into the bargain. On design thinking, it is reasonable to expect that MOST DNA will turn out to be functional, though of course there will be significant room for SOME accidents of teh various tuypes suggested; similar to how Darwinist theories of evolution have a recognised micro-role. But, the notion that 97 - 98+% of DNA is non-functional junk, is very probably dead; and that in the teeth of the confident -- and quite recent -- expectations of the majority of representative/ spokesmen Darwinists. That is, the idea that junk DNA in the genomic attic is in effect the smoking gun pointing to massive undirected macroevolution is increasingly plainly failing the empirical test. More broadly, design thinkers have underscored that cell based life is and will remain a functionally complex, information-rich entity that depends on SPECIFIC information to function. (That is, we will see islands and archipelagos of function in a much larger sea of non-function.) So, while we are at it, let us not forget the major/central empirically testable claims -- thus, predictions -- of design theory:
1 --> The three longstanding causal factors, chance, necessity and design will continue to be a valid trichotomy of causal situations. 2 --> That is, not only will no fourth factor turn up, but distinguishing signs of the three factors at work will permit us to characterise each of the three as it affects aspects of empirical phenomena. 3 --> First, blind mechanical forces give rise to empirical regularities, i.e they lead to low contingency outcomes. (Once initial conditions are the same, the same path will play out.) This, we term, necessity. 4 --> Of course, this leaves room for the case of sensitive dependence on initial conditions; but we should note that the diversity of outcomes here rests on divergent initial conditions and divergence amplification through non-linearities, i.e the diversity does not come from the mechanical necessity at work. 5 --> In general, highly contingent aspects of outcomes under similar initial conditions will trace to chance and/or design. 6 --> In some cases, there will be a stochastic pattern [probability/ statistical distribution], i.e. the contingency of outcomes is credibly undirected. This, we term, "chance." 7 --> In other cases, contingency will credibly be directed towards a goal, and will often be functionally constrained to achieve that goal; leading to an otherwise unlikely (i.e. on a random walk hypothesis, maximally unlikely) target zone of configurations that is specific, information rich and functional. this, we term, design. 8 --> Thus, we will see characteristic empirically detectable signs of necessity, chance and design that may be intelligibly discerned on appropriate aspects of empirical objects and phenomena. 9 --> For design, these will include: [a] irreducible complexity, [b] complex specified (especially functionally specified) information, [c] algorithmic, code-based functionality, [d] language based functionality (e.g. alphanumeric strings in a language like English or a computer language like C).
Such claims are testable, are open to test and are tested day by day as we work in a digital, information age. So far, on literally millions of tests, the claims are well-supported by actual observations. So, though they are obviously risky assertions, they are confidently proffered, as well-tested observations will tend to be further supported. [Historically corrections tend to come at points where observations are pushed to new limits, with the older generalisations being retained as a well supported limiting case, e.g. Newtonian dynamics in a relativity and quantum age.) They also constitute a manifesto for the correction of the Lewontinian materialism that has distorted late C20 to early C21 science. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
April 30, 2009
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gpuccio:
Phenotypic selection alone will not do. Intelligent selection of the genotype according to expression of function in the phenotype is a perfectly admissible modality, as I have argued. What it reasonably implies is that the designer knows the function he wants to obtain, but does not know directly how to implement it. That’s certainly a possibility. In human design, there are important models of that kind.
Phenotypic selection alone will not do??? That's a preposterous claim.
But my point is that, either the designer writes his code directly, or intelligently selects it after targeted random search, the result is functional, and neither modality explains a result of 98.5% useless code with 1.5% highly functional code interspersed. Even human protein designers, with all their ignorance, are much more efficient than that.
On top of the design, there is also the implementation of the design. Do you also assume that that is perfect? How can you, with a straight face, say that neither modality explains the existence of lots of junk DNA (would it even have to be close to 98.5%?).
If you think that the designer would probably have done what you think it did, could you put some (very) rough numbers on that? 90%? 50%? 10%? 0.001%?
For the same reason, I am ready to bet on a definite function of at least 80% of the genome, and I bet at 90%. Where and when can I pass to take my money?
I wasn't asking for how much junk DNA you thought there might be. I was was asking for a rough estimate of the probability of your assumptions being correct.Hoki
April 30, 2009
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Diffaxial #180: Have you stopped a moment before writing that? There is nothing bizarre. My phrase obviously means: The design inference allows us to infer the existence of a designer. It does not give us information about who the designer is or how he acted, but implicit in the inference (if the inference is correct, obviously) is the existence of a designer, and a designer is by definition a designer, a conscious intelligent agent who acts out of purpose and intent. Moreover, the designed products we are observing, and on which we built our inference, does give some information at least about some of the purposes of the designer: for instance, in the case of living beings, we can easily understand that the functions we observe in proteins are clearly tied to the metafunction of keeping cells and beings alive. So, even if we may not understand why the designer wants to have living beings, we do understand that he designs things for that purpose. So, what is bizarre in this reasoning? I thought my statement was clear enough in the context, being the end of a very long discussion (on which you seem not to comment at all). For instance, the phrase you quote from my #177 is in the context of a very detailed answer to Hoki, and sums up much reasoning I had already made in my long and detailed answer to you at #166, on which I am not aware of any comment from you. Is that your way to discuss? Ignore my answers and arguments, take a single phrase out of context, misunderstand it and just comment on that?gpuccio
April 30, 2009
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