There is an intuitive analogy between the basic operation of an electric circuit and how intelligent design works. In an electric circuit, a current flows in a load only if a generator provides voltage. In a system, organization can increase only if a generator of information provides intelligence. Consider the figure:
On the left we have an electric circuit, on the right intelligent design applied on a system. In the electric circuit an active component is necessary (generator) to power the passive component (load). Similarly, in the ID schema, an active agent (designer) is necessary to organize a passive object and make it a designed system. More generally, this ID model applies as well as to a problem to solve, a topic to examine in depth, a message to elaborate… whatever intelligence can create and illuminate.
The electric generator, when is disconnected from the circuit, shows a voltage (difference of potential). The ID generator (also called “designer”) shows potential intelligence when is at rest. Only when they are in operation, i.e. applied to a load or work, they cause a visible effect (electric current produced by the former, information injection produced by the latter). The electric current is a flow of electrons, information is a flow of bits.
For the electric circuit the Ohm’s law holds: current = voltage / resistance. Something similar holds for the ID circuit: information = intelligence / problem. Given a certain problem or system, more intelligent the generator, more the information it is able to provide to solve / design the problem / system.
Moral: who denies the ID inference for the natural systems showing organization is like who denies the necessity of a generator in a electric circuit. To affirm that “ID is not science” is like to affirm that electrical circuitry and its laws is not science. Moreover, who claims naturalistic origin of organization is like one absurdly claiming that in an electric circuit without generator a current could flow (see the figure below).
It is obvious that a load connected this way is not powered. In fact the “ground” symbol means voltage equal zero. A load, whose two terminals are both connected to zero volt, has null potential difference applied, then zero current. Similarly, an organized system cannot arise when it is connected only to “chance and necessity”, represented by the “ground” symbol, which in this case means no intelligence. No intelligence, then organizational information=0. If there is no information there is no organization. As Norbert Wiener said, “The amount of information in a system is a measure of its organization”.
Simple, powerful analogy. Where’s de EMF? Where’s de Designer? KF
niwrad:
Very good! I like it. 🙂
* Lightning strikes. *
Nice analogy niwrad.
Moreover, the ATP molecular machine (which is found at the bottom of the metabolic pathway diagram) is found to be 100% efficient (far exceeding man’s capabilities):
At the 14:00 minute mark of the following video, Chris Ashcraft, PhD – molecular biology, gives us an overview of the Citric Acid Cycle, which is, after the 10 step Glycolysis Pathway, also involved in ATP production:
Thanks kairosfocus and gpuccio,
“Where’s de Designer?”
The electric analogy stands on also about the ultimate source. Any battery of a circuit gets its energy/voltage from a power plant, in turn the power plant gets it from the earth’s energy, in turn earth’s energy comes from the sun, sun’s energy comes from an initial cosmos’ energy.
Similarly, any information source comes from a parent source, until arriving to an ultimate Intelligent Source (called “Designer”).
The electric / ID analogy is only an example of the universal paradigm of the “source / cause” that applies to everything.
Thanks Reciprocating Bill and bornagain77,
“* Lightning strikes. *”
Of course also lightning is no exception to the model. By the way, in the cartoons iconography, the arise of an intelligent idea is indeed symbolized by an electric light bulb turned on on the head. 🙂
Niw, lightning depends on energy-driven separation of charges, then of course spark discharge in a context of ionisation. (cf Wiki here.) KF
Reciprocating Bill you state
Now I suppose you threw this out there because you believe lightning strikes to be ‘natural’. But lightning strikes are not natural in the sense that they can not be explained without appeal to God. For instance,,
Perhaps RB you may claim this is just a ‘God of the gaps’ argument, but, as Lennox points out “God is not a God of the gaps, He is God of the whole show!”. And it turns out that naturalists cannot explain the existence of a single photon in a lightning bolt without recourse to a ‘non-local’ beyond space and time cause. Quantum Mechanics has now been extended to falsify local realism (reductive materialism) without even using quantum entanglement to do it:
Of related interest; Rainbows are formed by what are called ‘Quantum Catastrophes’. Thus, since I find Quantum Mechanical phenomena to be thoroughly Theistic, as to the necessity of providing a coherent non-local (beyond space and time) causation, that does not dissolve into absurdity as postulated ‘non-reductive’ materialistic causes do, then yes I actually do think God does form rainbows;
Verse and music
http://imgc-cn.artprintimages......artoon.jpg
Nikola Tesla – reading amidst lightning bolts
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_u3D7.....tation.jpg
NIKOLA TESLA – The Genius Who Lit the World – video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoY_7mbm5ng
Nikola Tesla was born on 10 July (O.S. 28 June) 1856 to Serbian parents in the village of Smiljan, Austrian Empire (modern-day Croatia). His father, Milutin Tesla, was a Serbian Orthodox priest.[15] Tesla’s mother, Duka Tesla (née Mandic), whose father was also a Serbian Orthodox priest,[16] had a talent for making home craft tools, mechanical appliances, and the ability to memorize Serbian epic poems. Duka had never received a formal education.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N......931885.29
Seems atheists, despite all their false bravado in ‘science’, are conspicuously missing from the honor roll of the men who harnessed electricity
Michael Faraday
Excerpt: Faraday remained absolutely committed to Biblical truth from early childhood throughout his long life. He would have been considered a “fundamentalist” Christian, had the term existed in his day. Nothing, not even the rising tide of skepticism in Britain leading up to the Darwinian revolution, shook his confidence in the word of God. ,,,
Start listing the things that run on electric motors – automobiles, fans, clocks, airplanes, pumps, vacuum cleaners, and so much more – and you begin to get a hint of what Faraday’s work brought forth. Add to the list generators, transformers, electrolysis devices, electromagnets, and many other products of his lab, and Faraday’s importance to the history of science and technology starts to come into focus. It has been said that the wealth generated by the inventions based on Faraday’s discoveries exceed the value of the British stock exchange.
http://crev.info/?scientists=michael-faraday
James Clerk Maxwell
Excerpt: no matter what other way you examine his life – intellect, personality, creativity, wit, work ethic, Christian character, integrity, breadth and depth of knowledge and accomplishments – Maxwell comes out on top. He pursued science with exuberance, and with grace and charm and unselfishness, giving glory to God. In his too-brief life of 48 years, Maxwell changed the world.
Do you use a cell phone? A pager? A remote control for your TV? A radio? Television? You owe these inventions in large part to Maxwell. Radar, satellite, spacecraft and aircraft communications – any and every means of transferring information through thin air or the vacuum of space, comes out of his work. The inventors of all these devices all built on Maxwell’s exceptional discoveries in electromagnetism, discoveries that required the best in experimental method with the best in mathematics and theory. Maxwell discovered many things, as we shall see, but his crowning achievement was the summation of all electromagnetic phenomena in four differential equations, appropriately named Maxwell’s Equations in his honor.
http://crev.info/?scientists=james-clerk-maxwell
In his forties, Maxwell devoted himself to building the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge, named for the pioneering physicist who in 1798 first measured the gravitational constant G. This laboratory was destined to become the hub of many major discoveries in atomic and nuclear physics in the coming century. –
Over the main entrance of the Cavendish Laboratory, the home of the Department of Physics in the University of Cambridge, is an inscription:
‘The works of the Lord are great; sought out of all them that have pleasure therein’.,,,
The passage was placed there at the suggestion of Andrew Briggs, who was a PhD student at the time. Briggs is now Professor of Nanomaterials at Oxford University. He appreciated the Latin inscription of Psalm 111 verse 2 carved on the doors of the first Cavendish Laboratory, almost certainly at the instigation of the first Cavendish Professor, James Clark Maxwell.
http://scienceandbelief.files......ption1.jpg
http://scienceandbelief.org/tag/psalm-111/
Voltage is required to complete an electric circuit.
Therefore, an intelligent designer is required to produce information!
It doesn’t work for me.
///To affirm that “ID is not science” is like to affirm that electrical circuitry and its laws is not science. ///
Electricity can be observed, studied and tested.
Your intelligent designer has never been observed, studied or tested. It is just a figment of imagination.
Of trivia note, electricity was harnessed by a counter-intuitive ‘top down’ approach, not by a bottom up materialistic approach
Evolve @13
“Therefore, an intelligent designer is required to produce information!
It doesn’t work for me.”
Evidently!
Evolve, how’s that for quote mining? ????
Don’t forget Tesla.
Unintelligent Designers are a cult, pure and simple.
As they are on the basis of their belief in Ex Nihilo Creationism – just in case we wanted to give them the benefit of any doubt. Thoughtful of them, really. I wonder what survival value such apparent philanthropy will give them?
Perhaps ‘ex nihilo creationism’ would haven a more correct way of expressing it.
Ev:
1 –> What drives an electric ckt is EMF, an electricity pump, that uses an energy source to separate charges that flow around a loop through a load.
2 –> Electric charge carriers, especially electrons, are invisible . . . we visualise based on effects only credibly accountable through such.
3 –> If electricity is observable, so are designers, to at least a comparable extent. Such as ourselves and beavers.
4 –> Further to this, we can characterise causal factors and trace their consequences, such as blind mechanical necessity manifesting laws similar to F = m*a, and blind chance processes leading to credibly undirected contingency.
5 –> It is easy to see that such cannot credibly account for functionally specific complex organisation and associated information, FSCO/I. Such as, the text of posts in this thread.
6 –> Only one causal factor is seen to be adequate, and is plausible on blind sampling of very large associated config spaces — design. Which strongly tends to come with intelligent designers.
7 –> Kindly cf info-graphic and discussion here.
8 –> So, we are empirically entitled to confidently infer from FSCO/I as sign, to design as credible cause.
9 –> Now, too, you say:
10 –> More accurately, the remote past of origins is not observable, we see only traces. We must infer to an explanatory model on inductive inference to best explanation.
11 –> Where, the vera causa principle that we explain traces in light of observed adequate and characteristic cause obtains. Where, too, the only empirically observed, search challenge plausible cause of FSCO/I is design.
12 –> So, we are fully entitled to infer on sign to design as causal process that then points to designers as sources of designs. Pretty much as we do not dismiss electrons as figments of imagination.
KF
Evolve claims
Which is an interesting claim for a Darwinisan atheist to make since,,
and
It seems that since all Darwinian evidence turns out to be merely imagination, then Darwinists would be in prime position to endorse god if he were imaginary. But alas, since God is not imaginary, but upholds the universe in it continued existence, then it must be the ‘material’ which is ultimately ‘imaginary’, (i.e. illusory), when compared to God! And that is exactly what modern science reveals:
PS: Pardon, EMF means elecro-motive force, e.g. a solar cell, electrochemical battery of cells, or electromagnetic induction using alternator driven by a prime mover. EMF is such a dominant abbreviation I forgot to expand it.
Ev, in re:
BA77 reminded me that when design objectors dismiss intelligent designers working in the context of origins as figments of imagination, they primarily have in mind God. To whom they tend to be extremely hostile.
Let’s set a few things straight:
1 –> Inference to design on the world of life is not equal to inference to God as designer of that world.
2 –> Yes, NOT. Freely conceded by design thinkers since Thaxton et al in TMLO in 1984. That’s the FIRST technical ID book. (As in it’s not wise to get your understanding of ID from circles of critics who are not scrupulous on duties of care to accuracy, truth and fairness. NCSE et al, this means YOU . . . on copious documentation.)
3 –> As I have OFTEN stated, what we see in the world of cell based life on earth could be adequately accounted for on an advanced molecular nanotech lab some generations beyond Venter et al. Who are already showing that design of life forms is actuality not speculation.
4 –> By contrast there is no sound empirical evidence that FSCO/I — ubiquitous in cell based life, up to and including CODES and ALGORITHMS and nanomachines to execute same — is adequately accounted for on blind chance and mechanical necessity. (Again, cf. here.)
5 –> The real issue that points to design beyond our cosmos is cosmological fine tuning that sets up a world in which the first four most abundant elements across 90 bn LY worth of space are H, He, O and C with N coming close. Stars, the elements, Water, Organic Chemistry, proteins. Just like that, bang bang bang bang bang. You should be suspicious!
6 –> Or, as lifelong agnostic and Nobel-equivalent prize-holding Astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle said on the record:
7 –> Never heard of that before, or a LOT more like it — not even the joke about Sir Fred Hoyle, agnostic lead evangelist of the First Church of God, Big Bang at Caltech, no less? [cf. here and onwards) — did you? That’s likely, and you should be deeply suspicious about why you have not heard that.
8 –> Even through a multiverse speculation, given the narrowness of the operating point of our cosmos’ physics we are looking at serious evidence pointing to a tack-driving cosmos-building sharpshooter.
9 –> And as for pulling a cosmos out of a non-existent hat labelled nothing . . . see what happened to CRD on that here.
Let’s just say, there is a whole ‘nother side to the story.
KF
PS: If you want to see some’at on how one may build a reasonable theistic view try here on. Dis duppy leanin’ ‘pon de fence does say: BOO!
Kairosfocus,
///If electricity is observable, so are designers, to at least a comparable extent. Such as ourselves and beavers. ///
Humans produce skyscrapers. Okay.
Beavers produce beaver dams. Okay.
But that wouldn’t mean somebody produced the grand canyon.
You must be able to relate a particular phenomenon with a particular cause.
You cannot say that since A was responsible for B, C must be responsible for D.
Observation is critical here.
Humans and Beavers are known identities who have been observed to produce some objects. We further observe that man-made objects can be strictly correlated with humans, since those objects don’t exist without humans and they cannot arise or sustain themselves without intervention by their designers.
Thus there is a lot of physical evidence linking man-made objects with their designers.
But, as far as we can see, living things grow, sustain and evolve all by themselves, without any external intervention.
No physical evidence links living things to any designer whatsoever.
Now, observation doesn’t mean we have to see facts in the here and now.
For e.g: we don’t have to see an electron to link it with electricity.
We can observe its effect on the surroundings, infer its properties, then make testable predictions based on those properties and check whether our predictions are vindicated. We can measure the effect of an electron and chart its course. Thus, even without seeing the electron, we can pin it down to a set of principles.
But no such thing is possible for your intelligent designer.
No physical evidence exists for his presence. Nothing can be inferred about him or his properties, either directly or indirectly. No testable predictions can be made. Your designer cannot be pinned down to a set of principles. As such, intelligent design is not a scientific endeavour by any stretch of imagination.
Evolve
There is no need to see by eyes the voltage generator if I see a current flowing in a load. It is certain that somewhere the generator exists. The laws of electricity grant the inference.
Analogously, there is no need to see the designer if I see a design. Somewhere an organization source must exist.
Ev: You have more than adequate evidence and inductive reasoning before you already. I suggest a pause, stopping the head-tape repetitive playing of selectively hyperskeptical talking points, and a rethink. Sorry if that sounds short and sharpish, but at this point this weekend I am not going to go into a loop of repeated efforts to get the proverbial unwilling horse to drink. You got adequate evidence once, and that’s enough. KF
niwrad:
Analogously, there is no need to see the designer if I see a design. Somewhere an organization source must exist.
Just as those who see Jesus on a piece of toast infer an external designer beyond nature
PS: I’ll give you one hint. If you see deer tracks, but did not see a deer, why is it reasonable to at least consider that tracks point to deer? Generalise that to inductive inference on tested sign.
Because deer tracks match the feet of deers – well known entities. We can say with near certainty that it belongs to a deer and not to a horse, because a strong correlation can be made.
Now what feature of life links it to which designer?
You have to define your designer first, lay down its/his/her’s properties, predict what it/he/she is likely to do and then look for telltale signs of his handiwork.
That’s what we do to identify deer tracks or dinosaur tracks or man-made tools.
You’re doing nothing of this sort, yet calling ID science!
Evolve objects:
The materialistic/naturalistic and Theistic philosophy make, and have made, several ‘natural’ contradictory predictions about what evidence we will find. These predictions, and the evidence we have found, can be tested against one another to see which worldview is correct:
here are a few predictions tested against each other:
Supplemental quote:
Now you”ve confused him again, KF!!!
Velikovskys, do you believe that probably the smartest aggregate group of people in the world, the Jesuits and Domninicans rely on toast marks, cloud formations, etc, for their belief?
Or indeed, the unworldly but devout people who are wont to see such banal and, frankly, usually misshapen, phenomena as images of Christ or an angel or the like, depend on such for their faith? Hardly.
They are looking for a little comfort and reassurance in a world that is no too well-disposed towards them, EXACTLY like you people – although arguably less foolishly than you people – when you fantasize about fossil fragments, a multiverse, unquestionably intricately-designed items as being random assemblies of parts that only look as if they were designed, as a whole and in their parts.
Never mind that empirical science is supposed to be ‘what it says on the packet’, i.e. that it relates to a study of entities materially substantial enough to be measured by some means.
YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE!!! Yet you are entertained on here – all right, covertly as jesters – as if you were more worldly-wise than the toast-mark and cloud-shape people!
Ev:
Passed by, saw this . . . I doubt you realise the inadvertent force of what you are saying:
Sorry on a messed up b-quote
In the second figure, there is a current flow, it is Gaussian statistical noise current proportional to R and T, R includes the conductor.
This is termed Johnson or thermal noise and you can look up the spectral density.
Johnson noise spectral density fits the curve it does because it is the low end range of blackbody radiation, and so that is why the spectral density can be calculated by the well know blackbody radiation formula. Which would show why the spectral density is independent of R, just as blackbody spectrum is independent of surface area.
And the beat goes on…
ScienceDaily site http://www.sciencedaily.com/re… in an article titled “New Discovery in Living Cell Signalling”……..
EXCERPT The cellular signaling networks of living cells start with receptor proteins residing on a cell’s surface that detect and interact with the environment. Signals from these receptors are transmitted to chemical networks within the cell that process the incoming information, make decisions, and direct subsequent cellular activities.
“Although cellular signaling networks perform logical operations like a computer microprocessor, they do not operate in the same way,” Groves says. “The individual computational steps in a standard computer are deterministic;the outcome is determined by the inputs. For the chemical reactions that compose a cellular signaling network, however, the molecular level outcomes are defined by probabilities only. This means that the same input can lead to different outcomes.”
For cellular signaling networks involving large numbers of protein molecules, the outcome can be directly determined by the process of averaging. Even though the behavior of an individual protein is intrinsically variable, the average behavior from a large group of identical proteins is precisely determined by molecular level probabilities. Ras activation in a living cell, however, involves a relatively small number of SOS molecules, making it impossible to average the variable behavior of the individual molecules. This variation is referred to as stochastic “noise” and has been widely viewed by scientists as an error a cell must overcome.
“Our study showed that, in fact, an important aspect of the SOS signal that activates Ras is encoded in the noise,” says Groves. “The protein’s dynamic fluctuations between different states of activity transmit information, which means we have found a regulatory coupling in a protein signaling reaction that is entirely based on dynamics, without any trace of the signal being seen in the average behavior.” END EXCERPT
Note that the signal is encoded in what was considered erroneous “noise.” Just as “junk” DNA that supposedly served no purpose is increasingly found to have function.
Prediction: The more we know about biology, the less “noise” and “junk” will be found. The “Evolution of the gaps” will become smaller and smaller as science advances.
Sorry, I am having troubling copying the site. It is from 3 July 2014. Maybe this will work:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/re.....151823.htm
Evolve #29
For a mere design inference it is not necessary to perfectly know the designer. Before a computer also a layman, without knowing informatics and how programmers work, understands it is designed.
Likewise, to claim that the electricity in your home is powered by a generator, you have not to know it in detail. Do you know all of the electric power station powering your area? Nevertheless you can affirm with certainty that your home electricity has a source.
groovamos #35
Also thermal noise currents imply a noise voltage generator. The thermal agitation of the charge carriers in the matter causes this noise voltage (typically 1nV for 50 Ohm at room temperature). So, the electric model continues to hold, of course. In general noise fluctuations of all kinds belong to “randomness”, which is able to cause neither ordered electric current nor — much less — organizational information.
niwrad 39
What I find amazing is that the cell encodes information in the dynamics of the noise.
Axel,
Velikovskys, do you believe that probably the smartest aggregate group of people in the world, the Jesuits and Domninicans rely on toast marks, cloud formations, etc, for their belief?
First,having been taught by Jesuits for five years,high IQ does not seem to be a mandatory for membership in the order
Second, as I recall St.Ignatius had his own toast moment with a divine apparition.
Third, as I recall from catechism ,Jesuits rely on Faith.
Or indeed, the unworldly but devout people who are wont to see such banal and, frankly, usually misshapen, phenomena as images of Christ or an angel or the like, depend on such for their faith? Hardly.
While this has nothing to do with my point , are you saying that religious faith causes one to see patterns with religious content?
They are looking for a little comfort and reassurance in a world that is no too well-disposed towards them, EXACTLY like you people
Maybe they should complain to the Author of that world.
although arguably less foolishly than you people – when you fantasize about fossil fragments, a multiverse, unquestionably intricately-designed items as being random assemblies of parts that only look as if they were designed, as a whole and in their parts.
At least get it straight, the assumption of methodological naturalism is that the design we see is created by natural processes, your BELIEF is that it requires an external agent as a primary cause.
Those Intelligent Jesuit accept the the divine is capable of working thru those processes of nature to reach His goals, therefore evolution and natural processes are compatible. You apparently believe that the divine is incapable of acting as a secondary cause
Never mind that empirical science is supposed to be ‘what it says on the packet’, i.e. that it relates to a study of entities materially substantial enough to be measured by some means.
Then that would exclude any divine participation, correct?
YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE!!! Yet you are entertained on here – all right, covertly as jesters – as if you were more worldly-wise than the toast-mark and cloud-shape people!
Mildly entertained, again you miss the point. If the only criterion for something to be designed is to look designed(per niwrad) then there is an organizing source for the image of Jesus on toast.
KF,
Naaah , we showed such things routinely come about in our observation by blind chance and necessity . . .
Are you saying a deer choose the shape of the imprint of his hoof?
VS: Deer tracks are a reliable sign of deer walking by. FSCO/I, of intelligent designers acting — as outlined in 19 and 22, sophomoric strawman games notwitstanding. KF