Faded Glory finally gets it! He writes that he agrees that the ID inference is not illogical if it “applies to life we can actually investigate.” [Is it just me or can anyone else hear the melodious strains of Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus playing in the background?] Who says these internet debates never make progress?
Not unexpectedly, however, there is a fly in the proverbial ointment. FG notes that ID is “agnostic” regarding causes that cannot be investigated, and of this he writes, “I think it is a rather unexpected conclusion but I have no quarrel with it.”
This is the most astonishing statement I have heard in a long time.
Why is this unexpected? ID proponents have been saying all along that ID [qua ID] does not speculate beyond the data. It does not ask, “What is the ultimate source of design?” It asks only “Is this particular thing designed?” As those who have been following this debate know, we have been saying this repeatedly, over and over, constantly, time after time, repetitively, ad nauseam, I think you get the picture.
How is it possible that this could surprise anyone? I can only speculate, but I think it probably has something to do with the fact that many people assume that ID proponents are inveterate liars when they say they are not trying to prove the existence of God. Interestingly, this charge comes from both sides of the theological divide. ID is neither an apologetic nor creationism. Yet theistic Darwinists deride ID as a failed apologetic (as johnnyb points out here), and atheists say ID is “creationism in a cheap tuxedo” (as Nick Matzke said here).
There is a common assumption among the theistic Darwinists and the atheists – that ID proponents are being disingenuous when they say that ID confines itself only to inferences from the observable data and refuses to speculate about what lies beyond the data. Now it is certainly true that some people will take ID’s conclusions and leap from there to the existence of God, just as it is true that some people will take Darwinism’s conclusions and leap from there to the non-existence of God. Everyone should agree, however, that it is not a valid scientific criticism of Darwinism to say that it might lead to more atheism. Therefore, everyone should agree that it is not a valid scientific criticism of ID to say that it might lead to more theism.
One might be excused for assuming that arch-atheist scientists like Richard Dawkins take their atheism first and their science second. This assumption might lead one to refuse to take Dawkins’ scientific arguments at face value and instead try to discredit his conclusions on the basis of his atheistic motivations rather than because the conclusions fail to account for the data. And that would be wrong. Simple charity demands that we assume our opponents are acting in good faith, and this requires us to deal with their arguments at face value. I am certain this is how they would want to be treated, and I hope that someday they will apply the golden rule and extend the same charity to us, instead of simply assuming we are liars and attacking us on that basis alone.
Barry,
I am glad that you like my reply. You must be one of the few who do, lol!
I am still not sure you fully realise that my position is actually not ‘what is the ultimate source of design’. My position is that your argument contains a fatal logical flaw that is exposed when one tries to use it on first life. These things are really not the same, imo.
Barry Arrington’s responses to FG are in BOLD:
FG writes: “My position is that your argument contains a fatal logical flaw that is exposed when one tries to use it on first life.”
Translation: “Your argument contains a fatal logical flaw when it is a different argument than the one you are making.”
FG, give it a rest will ya.
Also note that I have not said that the ID inference is valid when applied to life we can actually investigate. I have merely agreed that your particular argument does not logically blow up if you restrict it to things you can actually investigate, and stay far from using it to explain what generated first life.
Fair enough. I have modified the OP accordingly.
It may not suffer from a fatal logical flaw under such conditions, but that does not automatically mean it is valid. I have other concerns about it but that is a different topic.
Also, I am not sure that all ID proponents would agree that your argument should not be used to decide if first life was designed or not. From what I read here, my impression is that several posters claim that it demonstrates that first life was caused by an uncaused necessary being (whatever that may be).
Please understand the distinction between metaphysical arguments and scientific arguments on this blog. ID proponents make both kinds of arguments, but when they are making the former they are NOT making ID arguments.
You may want to engage these people in discussion and see if you can convince them that your argument shouldn’t be applied that way.
I do not think that ID supporters argue in bad faith, but I do think that there sometimes is confusion about terminology, and that there are some poorly defined concepts, occasional circularity, and a dose of over-extrapolation. So no, I am not a supporter, but I can enjoy a constructive and pleasant debate about these things.
Cheers,
fG
There is also a problem Barry, with your repeated (ad nauseam!) claim that
It’s an absolutely useless question.
If you want to figure out whether at thing is designed or not, or, even, what the signature of design is, you have to ask something about the design process
Otherwise your argument is circular: it is says: an pattern like this could not have come about by non-design therefore it was designed.
And to do that you have to find out what kinds of patterns can be generated by non-design processes! Confining them to those that can be regularly generated by tossing dice is useless, because nobody is even suggesting that the patterns you guys attribute to design might have been generated by some celestial roulette lottery number generator.
So first question ought to be: what kind of design process would generate a design like that observed?
In other words, you have to ask about the “source of the design”, because otherwise all you have is: this wasn’t made by monkeys with typewriters.
Which we already know!
This isn’t “speculating beyond the data” – it’s doing regular science, i.e. fitting models to data.
Until you fit a model you haven’t even begun!
Barry,
Thanks for updating the OP to better reflect my views.
You also say:
“Please understand the distinction between metaphysical arguments and scientific arguments on this blog. ID proponents make both kinds of arguments, but when they are making the former they are NOT making ID arguments.”
Barry, I think I understand the difference between metaphysical and scientific arguments fairly well. The problem is that, from the look of it, not all ID proponents understand it.
fG
To Ms. Liddle: Sorry. Your conclusion is not only false, but it is easy to demonstrate that it is false.
I am certain you will agree that your comment at [2] is designed. And I am certain you will agree that an investigator [let’s call him John] who reads your comment at [2] will be justified in concluding that it is the result of intelligent agency and not the random typing of monkeys.
But your logic would say that John’s design inference is invalid unless he can also explain the process by which you produced your comment at [2], which, of course, is nonsense.
Barry,
Lizzie can speak for herself, but I think the answer is something like this.
When John concludes that Lizzie’s post is designed, he does not do so by just looking at Lizzie’s post and ignoring all context. I think what he does, although quite possibly subconsciously, is weigh the probability of various alternative hypotheses and pronounce the most likely as the actual one.
Knowing the context of the internet, computers, message boards and people, he will conclude that the probability that the post is written by a person is very high. On the other hand, an alternative cause such as a bunch of monkeys having taken over a keyboard and by sheer chance producing the post is very low. As will other alternative options be. So he concludes that the most probable origin of the post is that it was written by a person, and voila, the design inference.
Now, trying to do this on features of living creature is more problematic. On the one hand nobody claims that we know all there is to know about the origins of complex features in living beings, so it is very hard to put a probability on the option that the features have a ‘natural’ origin (I put quotes around the word becauese this is one of those horrible confusing and poorly defined terms – I mean one without involvement of an intentional mind).
On the other hand it is probably even more difficult to estimate the probability of an unspecified designer we can only speculate on (but when we do so, we get told off lol). We have zero empirical evidence for the existence of such a designer apart from the complex feaures themselves, and invoking those as evidence would be fatally circular.
So, given that the probability of either option is very hard to quantify, I don’t think making a definitive choice is warranted. All that can be done is work the science and try to clarify the probabilities. In other words, investigate the possible mechanisms for the origin of the features. Biology tries to do this for the ‘natural’ option – but who is doing it for the ‘intelligent’ option?
fG
Pardon the typo’s – those d*mn monkeys!
fG
FG, writes: “Knowing the context of the internet, computers, message boards and people, he will conclude that the probability that [Liddle’s comment at 2] is written by a person is very high. On the other hand, an alternative cause such as a bunch of monkeys having taken over a keyboard and by sheer chance producing the post is very low. As will other alternative options be. So he concludes that the most probable origin of the post is that it was written by a person, and voila, the design inference.”
In the first sentence you state that we can know the comment was written by a person because it is on the internet and only people post on the internet. Wrong. The design inference does not depend on the text being on the internet. We can know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the comment is produced by an intelligent agent even if it were written in sand on a beach. Why? Because if we saw the comment written on the beach we would know that the probability that chance and/or necessity caused the letters to appear on the beach in that order is effectively zero. We would then quite naturally conclude that the letters were scratched on the beach by an intelligent agent even if we know absolutely nothing about the “process” she used to place them there.
Conclusion: The design inference is valid without regard to context. CSI is CSI whether it appears on the beach or on the internet.
No Barry, it always has to be a weighing of probabilities, even if one doesn’t explicitly formulate them. There is very little, if anything, in the world that could not possibly be explained in more than one way. Inferring something is deciding which of all those potential options is the most likely one.
fG
FG writes: “No Barry, it always has to be a weighing of probabilities.”
I am not sure we are disagreeing FG. I wholeheartedly agree that the design inference consists of a weighing of probabilities. Take my message on the beach example. The probability that chance and/or necessity caused the letters to be arranged in that order on the beach is effectively nil. On the other hand, we routinely observe letters arranged in a similar fashion by intelligent agents. Therefore, we weight the probabilities and conclude that the probability of the chance/necessity hypothesis being true is nil and conversely the probability of the “act of intelligent agent” hypothesis being true is 1.
True, there is some weighing of probabilities of other possible explanations (which there always has to be), but there is an important presumptive side to the design inference. Namely, our repeated and uniform experience that, for example, complex, integrated, functional systems come *only* from a process of planning, coordination and design. We see such systems designed regularly; we never see them come about by chance and necessity.
The *only* reason anyone is even arguing about whether the physical systems we see in life are designed (Darwinists regularly admit they look designed and they have to keep reminding themselves that they aren’t designed) is because either (i) folks have a philosophical objection to them being designed, or (ii) they imagine that some unknown, unspecified, as-yet-undiscovered, natural process in the distant past is an exception to our repeated and uniform experience and can somehow create the illusion something was designed even though it wasn’t actually designed.
If we want to talk about weighing probabilities, it isn’t even close. Unless, of course, we have that nastly little philosophical hangup . . .
Barry:
Of course. But John is a human being who understands English, not to mention the whole business of blogposts etc. So John knows quite a lot about the likely provenance of the post. And that’s the point – to make a design inference about a pattern you have to look at more than just the pattern – you have to say: what kind of design process might have produced this pattern?
For John, it’s easy, because he can see, immediately, that it is in English. If John was an alien, and all he had was my post, beamed out from search engines into space, and devoid of all context, how would he know?
Well, with a little more context, he might be able to spot something interesting about it I guess, and particularly if he found some interesting effects of the pattern – a flurry of responses, perhaps – and might ask himself: do these patterns correlated with some of these effects? And, if so, what kind of processes might lead to such a pattern?
It’s not that it would be invalid, but that it would not be possible. Unless John knows something about the processes by which such things are created, from the message alone, whether it’s a blog comment post or a strand of DNA, he’s not going to be able to tell whether it’s designed or not.
And if he has more information – information about candidate designers and their habits, maybe, or simply correlation between pattern and effect, then what he can do is to figure out what the correlation between pattern and effect is, and try to figure out what kind of process might be responsible for that kind of pattern.
One answer might be: something with a brain. Another answer might be: something a bit like a brain, in that it is a deeply nested contingency system, but maybe lacking foresight.
In the case of a living cell, if I were John, I’d say the latter.
And if I were Lizzie, which I am, I’d say the latter too 🙂
Barry,
What if the intelligent agent was produced by chance and necessity? Wouldn’t the letters on the beach –which the intelligent agent wrote–then be the (indirect) result of chance and necessity?
In other words..
You are assuming your conclusion (chance and necessity could not have produced life) in your argument.
^
is a key point.
What do ID proponents mean by Intelligence? By at least one definition (given by Dembski) Darwinian processes qualify.
Barry:
“I am not sure we are disagreeing FG.”
It looks like we’re not, lol.
I gues I said ‘No’ because I disagree with you that we don’t need context. For an internet message the context is that we know about internet, computers, etc.
For a message on a beach we know the context of people visitng the beach, and alternatively the action of waves and flowing water. All this alows us to weigh alternatives and make an inference.
Biological CSI lacks the context of understanding what the causal history is. We understand some of the potential biological history, and can make informed guesses on as yet unexplained bits, but we understand absolutely nothing of an unspecified designer. How can we ever hope to make a balanced judgement under such conditions? Why would an unspecified designer for which there is no independent evidence rate as more probable than biological mechanisms of which we have at least some understanding, even if highly incomplete? It makes no sense to me.
fG
To all of my interlocutors, thank you for your interesting comments. I will address them one by one.
Ms. Liddle writes: “John knows quite a lot about the likely provenance of the post. And that’s the point – to make a design inference about a pattern you have to look at more than just the pattern – you have to say: what kind of design process might have produced this pattern?”
Barry responds: You must have missed my response to this precise argument at [7]. Please review. As I demonstrated there, a design inference is valid even if we know nothing of the “provenance” of the design. CSI is CSI in whatever context it appears.
Perhaps this will make it clearer. In the movie 2001 explorers find an monolith on the moon. They knew the monolith was designed even though they did not have the faintest idea how it came to be there. The design inference was not only valid, it was glaringly obvious. You can go on repeating your “we have to know how the designer did it” mantra (and I use that term advisedly, because your devotion to metaphysical materialism is just as fervent as any religious belief I have ever seen) until you are blue in the face. As I have demonstrated twice now, the statement is not only false but obviously false. I am surprised an educated person would continue to advance it.
Ms. Liddle writes: “For John, it’s easy, because he can see, immediately, that it is in English. If John was an alien, and all he had was my post, beamed out from search engines into space, and devoid of all context, how would he know?”
Barry responds: He might not. Nothing in ID theory suggests that every design will be detected. Indeed, ID predicts false negatives, so your objection has no force.
Ms. Liddle writes: “Unless John knows something about the processes by which such things are created, from the message alone, whether it’s a blog comment post or a strand of DNA, he’s not going to be able to tell whether it’s designed or not.”
Barry responds. This is just another version of your mantra. I have already demolished the argument twice. No need to demolish it again.
lastyearon writes: “What if the intelligent agent was produced by chance and necessity? Wouldn’t the letters on the beach –which the intelligent agent wrote–then be the (indirect) result of chance and necessity?”
Barry responds: Yes, that is true. So what?
In her next post Ms. Liddle writes: “What do ID proponents mean by Intelligence?:
Barry responds: Kindly consult the UD glossary. We put a lot of work into it and it is there to answer questions exactly like this. It’s only one click away after all.
Eric Anderson:
“True, there is some weighing of probabilities of other possible explanations (which there always has to be), but there is an important presumptive side to the design inference. Namely, our repeated and uniform experience that, for example, complex, integrated, functional systems come *only* from a process of planning, coordination and design. We see such systems designed regularly; we never see them come about by chance and necessity.”
————-
I think you are assuming your conclusion. If ID is incorrect, we are actually looking at complex, integrated, functional systems that have come about without ID all the time – every time we look at biological complexity!
How do you know we are not, without assuming your conclusion? How do you know that an ID causal history is more probable than a non-ID one, if you haven’t got the slightest idea what the ID causal history might be? Why does similarity in form and function imply similarity in causal history, when we know very well that the mechanisms of producing human desin artefacts are totally different from the processes by which biological CSI come into being, namely procreation and development?
I think this is an example of unwarranted over-extrapolation.
fG
FG writes: “For a message on a beach we know the context of people visiting the beach, and alternatively the action of waves and flowing water. All this allows us to weigh alternatives and make an inference.”
Barry responds: Seriously? You seem like a fairly intelligent person, so I can only conclude you wrote this response off the cuff and did not think it through.
In my beach example isn’t it clear that we know people visited the beach because there is a message scratched on it and not the other way around?
Faded Glory writes: “we know very well that the mechanisms of producing human design artifacts are totally different from the processes by which biological CSI come into being, namely procreation and development?”
Barry responds: Again, seriously? You don’t believe that CSI came into being through procreation and development do you? If you do, so far as I know you are alone. ID proponents don’t believe that. Darwinists don’t believe that. It is self-evidently false and it makes me weary to refute really bad arguments, so I won’t bother.
Barry, if you never knew what people are in the first place, you couldn’t possibly conclude that they wrote the message on the beach.
That is the context I mean.
fG
Barry, I presume you consider brains to contain CSI?
How do brains originate? Through procreation and development. Correct?
I think we are touching here on another of those mildly irritating woolly ID concepts.
fG
Barry, you said..
So what? So the information contained in the message on the beach arose through chance and necessity. So your whole argument is invalidated.
Ms. Liddle,
You wrote:
“If John was an alien, and all he had was my post, beamed out from search engines into space, and devoid of all context, how would he know?”
What if John were an archaeologist who found a shard of clay with unidentified, pre- Rosetta stone scribbles on it?
Barry:
Barry, there is no need to be tart. I appreciate your reference to your glossary, but I assume that the UD blog does not define “intelligence” for all ID propononents, and, indeed, the one given there is not the one given by Dembski here:
“…by intelligence I mean the power and facility to choose between options–this coincides with the Latin etymology of “intelligence,” namely, “to choose between”
which is much more precise, but which would in fact include evolutionary processes.
Actually, I think Dembski is correct; I think patterns that display “complex, specified” information do reliably result from systems with the “power and facility to choose between options” which is why things that emerge from replication with variance in heritable ability to survive in the current environment display those patterns.
Actually, I think it’s an important insight, and I wish more people would take it seriously.
In contrast, your glossary gives this:
and I see no need to infer Intelligence, by that definition, from complex, specified patterns.
“which is much more precise, but which would in fact include evolutionary processes.”
Which evolutionary process has the facility to make a choice between alternate options?
Hey, this leads us into interesting territory.
If we saw a spider web for the first time, and didn’t know about the existence of spiders, would we infer an intelligent agent?
Do spider webs contain CSI?
I am not joking, can anyone give me an answer to that? And I promise I won’t ask you to measure it, lol.
If they don’t, are they the product of chance + necessity?
If they do – do we infer ID?
Do spiders have the capability to reason? Do spiders plan? Do spiders solve problems? Do spiders think abstractly, comprehend ideas, use language, do spiders learn?
I think they do one of these, maybe, just maybe, two – but no more.
Hmmm.
fG
Most definitions of intelligence leave out intent or purposefulness, perhaps because it’s so obvious as to not need mentioning.
If we attribute intelligence to objects following natural laws with no intent of their own then intelligence becomes a meaningless word. A drop of rain that hits my window was acting intelligently by finding its way there, and is now acting intelligently by running down the glass.
If it could ever be demonstrated that any such natural process could mimic intelligence then the debate would end. That it continues speaks volumes to the gap between the claims and the evidence.
Do spiders have the power and facility to choose between options?
fG
Barry:
Yes, we did cross-post; however I dispute your claim that you demonstrated that a design inference is valid even if we know nothing of the provenance of the design.
You assert that CSI is CSI regardless of context, but you do not explain how to compute it without context. You merely say:
and we can’t “know” that without computing it! In order to compute the probability of something (and CSI is a probability calculation) you need to specify the probability under your null.
That’s the big problem with CSI as I see it. The null is, IMO, inadequately modeled.
Well, I’d probably grant that the monolith-on-the-moon was designed, even though, IIRC, it doesn’t actually have CSI (it’s not complex, for a start, even though it’s highly compressible). We’d certainly could rule out evolutionary processes because the thing doesn’t reproduce. We could consider geological processes, but we should also entertain the possibility of alien monolith designers. We know that monolith designers are possible because we are monolith designers ourselves. So it seems like a reasonable inference.
I have no problem with making design inferences, I just think CSI is a useless tool, and gives both false positives (unless we use Dembski’s definition of Intelligence) and false negatives (as in the case of the monolith).
Well, it has some force!
Well, I’m afraid I don’t agree that my argument has been demolished 🙂
I don’t actually think you’ve addressed it, which is possibly because I didn’t articulate it clearly enough. I hope I have now done so.
Faded Glory writes: “Barry, if you never knew what people are in the first place, you couldn’t possibly conclude that they wrote the message on the beach. That is the context I mean.”
Barry responds: Not true. Suppose one night your radio picked up a signal consisting of nothing but dots and dashes. At first you don’t see anything significant about the signal, but as you study it more you come to understand that various dots and dashes represent numbers and the whole pattern is the set of prime numbers between 1 and 100. [Obviously, I am describing the movie “Contact”].
Now, even an arch-atheist like Carl Sagan knew that a the design in the code could be detected, and that design could be detected notwithstanding the fact that he knew nothing about the designer.
Now you might respond, but the designer could send out a radio signal and that is the context clue that allows us to detect design. Not so. Chance and necessity can send out radio signals too. The universe is full of background radiation in the radio wave band of the electromagnetic spectrum. For that reason this example is the perfect destruction of your and Ms. Liddle’s “you gotta know the designer” mantra.
Nature can do a radio signal. But it can’t do a radio signal that expresses the prime numbers between one and zero. The only thing we know about the designer of the signal with a pattern is that he/she/it can send out a radio signal. Well, so can nature. Then how do we know that the signal is not a product of chance and necessity – because it exhibits CSI and for that reason alone.
Your and Ms. Liddle’s “you gotta know the designer to make a design inference” argument has been refuted. Prediction: At least one of you (and probably both of you) will continue to push it nevertheless.
ScottAndrews,
I think Lizzie is refering to the problem-solving bit. In fact that is what I think spiders do too, and rather impressively as well.
Your raindrop doesn’t solve any problems (not for itself, anyway).
So I agree that your example wouldn’t be considered intelligent by many people.
But how about those spiders, then? Do they weave with intent and purpose?
Or is there no CSI in a spider web?
fG
ScottAndrews:
Well, interestingly, Dembski specifically excluded it, as being not a question of science. I disagree, I think it is a question of science, and I think it is perfectly possible to distinguish (at least in principle) between the results of intentional processes and the results of non-intentional processes (“did he fall or was he pushed?”).
So it certainly needs mentioning, and considering IMO. I think biological systems reveal the mark of an “intelligent” system (in the Dembskian system but actually conspicuously lack the hallmarks of an “intentional” system.
Right. So probably best not to use that word. Nonetheless, natural selection, which is a lot more fancy than raindrops flowing down a window, is difficult to exclude from Dembski’s definition without some extra clauses. My position is that those clauses are not necessary. The results of deeply nested decision-trees “look like” design because in a very real sense they are designed by just the kinds of deeply nested decision-tree processes that our own brains use. They also look “unintentionally designed” however, because there is while there plenty of evidence of retrofitting there is a conspicuous lack of evidence of foresight.
Although even that isn’t strictly true – because selection (which means choice, after all) can operate above the level of the individual, then to some extent even limited “foresight” is a capacity of evolution, at least if we think in terms of the neural equivalents. The real difference, I would say, is that evolutionary processes do not simulate, whereas we do, and our capacity to make forward models and feed back the simulated results as input into our decisions is what gives us, I would argue, the capacity for “abstract thought” and “reasoning” referred to in the glossary definition. These are not evident in evolutionary processes, and, I would argue, it shows.
No, it wouldn’t end 🙂 People would just insist that it hadn’t been demonstrated!
Which is why the debate continues….
fg,
I don’t think an uninformed observer could immediately determine whether the spider itself was intelligent or whether it was intelligently programmed to behave that way.
But there’s a great deal of information put to use.
This is a rough illustration: take a tiny mechanical spider that can produce spider silk (leaving aside the information involved in the design of the spider and its silk.)
Next, write a program enabling it to perceive its surroundings and devise the strategy to create its web. This includes an initial connection and observance of wind direction so that it can produce a strand that will blow to another connection point. And so on – it continues through the steps until the web is complete.
Then it moves to the center and must detect vibrations along the web, etc.
I don’t mean to carry on with whole spider story. But what would be the information content of that program? The degree to which it could be compressed would depend on the language interpreter, so if the program gets smaller the interpreter gets bigger.
Between the two of them, how big would the program be? A megabyte? Several? Certainly well beyond 100 bits.
Barry,
If we received such radio signals, all we could say about whoever generated them is that they have some relation with prime numbers. Maybe they are gifted mathematicians, or maybe they are spiders whose biological makeup contains an organ that sends out strong radio signals pulsed as prime numbers. Without invstigating them further, who can tell?
We certainly would not be justified to conclude that the sender has capacities to reason, to plan, to solve problems, to think abstractly, to comprehend ideas, to use language, and to learn.
What justification would you have to infer any of those, apart from prematurely jumping to the conclusion that they would be somehow similar to ourselves?
I predict that you will relish your prediction coming true 🙂
fG
lastyearon (12)
But in that case it is still the direct result of intelligence, not chance and necessity. If you conclude that we have detected actual intelligent design in the evolution of life, you are free to enter the metaphysical realm and argue that that intelligence was naturally developed, so that ultimately it was law and chance at the heart of it. But that does not affect the validity of the original empirical design detection in biology. From what I can tell, the argument made here is philosophical and has nothing to do with ID.
I wouldn’t necessarily dispute that a spider web contains CSI, as I wouldn’t necessarily dispute that spiders can make choices, plan ahead, etc.
I believe that all creatures possess a degree of agency, but to what degree is uncertain. The appearance of agency may have limiting factors, such as the range or type of perception, and the physical or intellectual tools with which to affect outcomes.
However I see no reason to resist that many faculties of the human intellect are available to other creatures as well, albeit in varying proportions.
Elizabeth,
Nonetheless, natural selection, which is a lot more fancy than raindrops flowing down a window, is difficult to exclude from Dembski’s definition without some extra clauses.
IOW, if natural selection can produce something indistinguishable from intelligent design, then isn’t it intelligent?
No. Rather, if it’s ever determined that natural selection could do such a thing then it would falsify ID.
Likewise, if the raindrop on my window writes a haiku, that will also falsify ID.
We’re having this discussion because neither has happened.
Are spiders creating information such as the information we see in a life???
Bioinformatics: The Information in Life – Donald Johnson – video
http://vimeo.com/11314902
On a slide in the preceding video, entitled ‘Information Systems In Life’, Dr. Johnson points out that:
* the genetic system is a pre-existing operating system;
* the specific genetic program (genome) is an application;
* the native language has codon-based encryption system;
* the codes are read by enzyme computers with their own operating system;
* each enzyme’s output is to another operating system in a ribosome;
* codes are decrypted and output to tRNA computers;
* each codon-specified amino acid is transported to a protein construction site; and
* in each cell, there are multiple operating systems, multiple programming languages, encoding/decoding hardware and software, specialized communications systems, error detection/correction systems, specialized input/output for organelle control and feedback, and a variety of specialized “devices” to accomplish the tasks of life.
Does Bill Gates study spider webs in the hope of programming computers better?
Welcome to CoSBi – (Computational and Systems Biology)
Excerpt: Biological systems are the most parallel systems ever studied and we hope to use our better understanding of how living systems handle information to design new computational paradigms, programming languages and software development environments. The net result would be the design and implementation of better applications firmly grounded on new computational, massively parallel paradigms in many different areas.
http://www.cosbi.eu/index.php/.....rticle/171
The Coding Found In DNA Surpasses Man’s Ability To Code – Stephen Meyer – video
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4050638
Extreme Software Design In Cells – Stephen Meyer – video
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5495397/
Stephen C. Meyer – The Scientific Basis For Intelligent Design – video
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4104651/
The DNA Code – Solid Scientific Proof Of Intelligent Design – Perry Marshall – video
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4060532
Codes and Axioms are always the result of mental intention, not material processes
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1PrE2Syt5SJUxeh2YBBBWrrPailC3uTFMdqPMFrzvwDY
Faded Glory in [35] now says that if I received a radio signal expressing the prime numbers between 1 and 100 I would have no reason to conclude that it was sent by an intelligent agent. This, of course, is self-evidently pure gibberish that requires no response other than for me to take back my comment in [19] that you seem like a fairly intelligent person.
I never cease to be amazed how rapidly materialist will retreat into irrationality.
You would have some reason, Barry, but I’d say you’d be better off concluding more cautiously that the source was a system of deeply nested contingencies 🙂
That would include intentional intelligence but it could include non-intentional systems.
Ms. Liddle writes: “selection (which means choice, after all) can operate above the level of the individual, then to some extent even limited “foresight” is a capacity of evolution . . .”
Barry responds: You never cease to astonish. You are literally saying, “I believe agency is responsible for the nested hierarchies we see in living things, so long as by “agency” you mean “chance and necessity.”” Give me a break.
You ascribe agency to a process that, by definition, is driven ONLY by the interaction of chance and mechanical necessity, and you wonder why no one takes you seriously.
FG (14)
So what if we look up one day and see the stars of the galaxy rearranged to say “Hello”. We wouldn’t have the slightest idea how that was accomplished, but we would know it is designed, right? We know that intelligence can create fCSI; what the heck do the mechanisms used to display the fCSI have to do with this?
Even with your beach example, there are dozens (or thousands? millions?) of ways to write a message in the sand. Use a stick, your hand, your foot, a rock, a robotic arm, a vacuum tube, compressed air, a shovel, etc. I’m sure you could use some forensics to maybe narrow the list down or even identify a likely explanation, but you don’t need that forensic analysis to conclude that it was designed.
As predicted, now both Liddle and FG say that if I received a radio signal expressing the prime numbers between 1 and 100 I could not certainly ascribe the signal to an intelligent agent.
Once commenters descend into self-evident irrationality and deny the un-deniable, I am always tempted to throw them off the site. But I will leave Liddle and FG to demonstrate the utter vacuity and intellectual bankruptcy of the materialist program.
So Liddle and FG, comment away. The more you say, the stronger the case for ID appears.
I have more to say to Liz and FG about this, but I don’t have time right now to type it out. Be back later
That raises a question that goes back to an old sci-fi short story.
Suppose you’re captured by aliens and placed in a cage. You desperately want to convince them that you’re intelligent, but they interpret everything you do as some bizarre instinct. Without speech, how do you convince them that you’re intelligent?
ScottAndrews:
By some definitions, yes. But if you want to make concepts like “intention” intrinsic to “intelligent” now. I don’t think rm+ns is “an “intentional system. I think intention is a higher order property. And, as I say, it shows – while in many senses, the products of rm+ns are far more exquisite than anything we could produce, life is full, I would argue, of mistakes a human designer simply wouldn’t make, but which are entirely explicable given the limits of a highly “intelligent-but-non-intentional” system.
Well, those of us on the other side of the fence would say that it has, over and over! To the extent that AI systems almost invariably use evolutionary algorithms for learning. Indeed, as a neuroscientist, I am acutely aware that the brain itself uses evolutionary algorithms! It’s a great system.
Well, not unless you have a pretty awesome window pane. You are going to need a lot more deeply nested contingencies than that before you get an intentional system, and you are going to need an intentional system, I suggest, to write Haiku. But I guess if Turing is right, you could make a brain out of raindrops 🙂
No, we are having this discussion because of the Mind/Body problem 🙂
It all comes back to the Mind/Body problem in the end.
Now to lastyearon.
lastyear on initially wrote: “What if the intelligent agent was produced by chance and necessity? Wouldn’t the letters on the beach –which the intelligent agent wrote–then be the (indirect) result of chance and necessity?”
Barry responded: Yes, that is true. So what?”
To which lastyearon responded: “So what? So the information contained in the message on the beach arose through chance and necessity. So your whole argument is invalidated.”
Barry responds: No, it does not. In your original comment you did nothing more than set up a tautology. A tautology is, by definition, true, but it proves nothing.
Barry,
Keep it civil, will you?
Have you heard of Fibonacci numbers?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_number
By definition, the first two Fibonacci numbers are 0 and 1, and each subsequent number is the sum of the previous two. Like this:
0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144,…
Here is the interesting bit: nature is full of Fibonacci numbers. Many plants have regular features in their physiology that are Fibonnacci numbers. Pine cones, pineapples, flower petals – the list goes on.
http://www.maths.surrey.ac.uk/.....ibnat.html
Are plants now intelligent?
Does this make the idea of encountering prime numbers in nature a bit less far fetched?
fG
I’d be curious to know if our opponents could articulate what evidence they would accept as evidence for a designing intelligence, apart from humans and other earth-bound life forms.
I often wonder what concessions they would offer which would allow for Intelligent Design to be considered legitimate.
Barry, oddly enough I was at boarding school with the sister of Jocelyn Bell, right at the time when Jocelyn first heard from her “Little Green Men”.
Yes indeed 🙂 I’m a materialist, right? I think that we, human designers, are intelligent agents, and the brains that fuel our intelligent designs run on the fuel of “chance and necessity”.
So obviously I think that!
I think that higher order systems, including intelligent systems, have properties that are quite different from their parts, and those properties include intention, planning, and design (also love and altruism, actually).
That’s why, IMO, the Mind/Body problem is not actually a problem – accounting for the mind in terms of mechanics does not reduce it to mechanics because the clever stuff resides in the interactions, not an inventory of the parts. You could even call that aspect of us “immaterial”.
But I do think the capacity to form an “intention” requires a pretty special kind of contingency system, not possessed by rm+ns. So if we want to reserve teleological language for intentional agents, then rm+ns does not “select” at all.
But it does something almost as good, and in some respects, better.
Also, lt’s not get carried away with all these outlandish fictional examples. After all, if someone can invoke the stars moving in the sky to spell out a message, I don’t see why I can’t invoke spiders emitting prime number signals lol.
So let’s get back to the earlier part of the discussion: inference is basically a weighting of probabilities.
Using the ID definition of intelligence, we have to weight the probability that an unidentified designer, of which we literally know nothing whatsover apart from the capacity to produce CSI, has capacities to reason, to plan, to solve problems, to think abstractly, to comprehend ideas, to use language, and to learn – versus the probability that only partial understood ‘natural’ processes may be able to produce said CSI.
Good luck with that.
And how about those spiderwebs? Do they contain CSI? What does that tell us about the spiders?
fG
MI:
If we are specifically looking for evidence of intentional design, I’d say I’d be looking for evidence of “forward modelling”. For example, in a biological system, for evidence of a solution derived from one design lineage applied wholesale to a different lineage (bird lungs in mammals is a nice example). I’d also look for things like evidence of “front-loading” in the genome – evidence for highly conserved sequences that seem to be protected from mutations but have no apparent function in some species, but which, in parallel lineages, have a clear function.
But I’d always be a bit cautious of inferring design from self-replicators because we know that rm+ns works, given self-replication.
So if I found that moon monolith, I’d be a lot more impressed.
As for evidence of some immaterial designer I guess I’d be impressed if someone found statistically significant effects for prayer – evidence that our signals were being interpreted and responded to by an intelligent but apparently immaterial agent.
I can probably think of a few more if I sleep on it. I was even moderately impressed by the Turin Shroud until I found it had been washed a few times! Although oddly, the trick there is to prove that it wasn’t intelligently designed!
I can certainly think of a few (but it’s a bit late to be inspired). I mean, as a neuroscientist, the nature of intelligence is my field, so I get a bit annoyed when people say ID isn’t science! It certainly can be.
…That spiders are intelligent?
What do I win? xp
EL, so by forward modelling, do you mean that which suggests foresight?
I wouldn’t have thought it would be too difficult to think of a set of fairly simple natural contingencies that would absorb non-prime numbers and reject the primes. Like buckyball numbers fell out of carbon molecular weights.
But as I said, it would be quite exciting to get such a signal. Although in the end, what Jocelyn found was almost as exciting!
MI:
“I’d be curious to know if our opponents could articulate what evidence they would accept as evidence for a designing intelligence, apart from humans and other earth-bound life forms.
I often wonder what concessions they would offer which would allow for Intelligent Design to be considered legitimate.”
———–
I assume that you are talking about ID being accepted as legitimate science?
This is what you would have to do:
You need to develop ID theory to the point where it is explicit enough to produce testable hypotheses that entail significant different predictions from evolutionary theory. Be very clear on definitions, concepts and terminology, remove ambiguity, state your assumptions, develop your hypotheses.
You would then need to go out and do field and lab work, and present empirical results that corroborate your predictions whilst contradicting the predictions from evolutionary theory.
At that point I would sit up and take notice.
If you merely want to know what it would take for me to accept ID as legitimate metaphysics, my answer is simple: nothing at all.
I already consider ID to be perfectly valid metaphysics.
fG
“Does this make the idea of encountering prime numbers in nature a bit less far fetched?”
You mean when they are encoded in radio transmissions, or just laying around in the garden?
Anyway, I’m off to bed now, I hope I won’t dream of intelligent prime number emitting spiders lol.
G’nite all
fG
“You need to develop ID theory to the point where it is explicit enough to produce testable hypotheses that entail significant different predictions from evolutionary theory.”
Here we have the ‘ID is anti-evolution’ strawman.
“Be very clear on definitions, concepts and terminology, remove ambiguity, state your assumptions, develop your hypotheses.”
Here we have the ‘ID does not have the precision of physics, mathematics, and neo-darwinism’ strawman.
“You would then need to go out and do field and lab work”
Here we have the ‘ID doesn’t research’ strawman.
…and present empirical results that corroborate your predictions
Here we have the ‘I don’t know the difference between studying events in the deep past versus boiling water’ strawman.
“whilst contradicting the predictions from evolutionary theory”
Here we have proof that a good “ID is ani-evolution’ strawman is a terrible thing to waste.
“At that point I would sit up and take notice.”
So you answered the question by lying to yourself thoughout. Nice job.
UPD: can you explain in what sense “ID is anti-evolution” is a straw man?
Are you using “evolution” in its broadest sense to mean “change over time”?
In which case, I don’t think that’s what faded-Glory was talking about. I think he is right that ID needs to make testable predictions that differ from evolutionary theory, but obviously only in some aspect from which it differs!
And if it differs, then it’s not a straw man to say so.
“I think he is right that ID needs to make testable predictions that differ from evolutionary theory”
Tell me what it is about the detection of design in nature that should contradict the idea that things change over time.
Can you do that Liddle?
Elizabeth,
At that point I would sit up and take notice.
What does taking notice look like, if not dozens of posts debating a subject?
You repeatedly make assertive statements such as “We know that rm+ns works,” but the discussion continues in part because we don’t know that.
Hello Mr Andrews,
I think you may have been referring to FG at 57.
Shoot. I hate it when I do that.
That was actually my cat walking across the keyboard. If that post had been deliberately typed then it wouldn’t make any sense to have addressed it to the wrong person.
fg you have GOT to be kidding when you state:
Are plants now intelligent?
fg, Fibonacci Numbers are a transcendent mathematical structure that is found imposed ONTO our material reality. i.e. Fibonacci Numbers do not arise FROM material reality but are imposed, transcendentally, from outside of our temporal material reality; ONTO it;
Fibonacci Numbers – The Fingerprint of God – video
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5988843/
Perhaps Fibonacci Numbers are not clear enough for you fg, in revealing their transcendent dominance of reality. If so, here is another much clearer example of mathematical logic being imposed ONTO material reality from the outside;
Finely Tuned Big Bang, Elvis In The Multiverse, and the Schroedinger Equation – Granville Sewell – audio
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4233012
At the 4:00 minute mark of the preceding audio, Dr. Sewell comments on the ‘transcendent’ and ‘constant’ Schroedinger’s Equation;
‘In chapter 2, I talk at some length on the Schroedinger Equation which is called the fundamental equation of chemistry. It’s the equation that governs the behavior of the basic atomic particles subject to the basic forces of physics. This equation is a partial differential equation with a complex valued solution. By complex valued I don’t mean complicated, I mean involving solutions that are complex numbers, a+b^i, which is extraordinary that the governing equation, basic equation, of physics, of chemistry, is a partial differential equation with complex valued solutions. There is absolutely no reason why the basic particles should obey such a equation that I can think of except that it results in elements and chemical compounds with extremely rich and useful chemical properties. In fact I don’t think anyone familiar with quantum mechanics would believe that we’re ever going to find a reason why it should obey such an equation, they just do! So we have this basic, really elegant mathematical equation, partial differential equation, which is my field of expertise, that governs the most basic particles of nature and there is absolutely no reason why, anyone knows of, why it does, it just does. British physicist Sir James Jeans said “From the intrinsic evidence of His creation, the great architect of the universe begins to appear as a pure mathematician”, so God is a mathematician to’.
i.e. the Materialist is at a complete loss to explain why this should be so, whereas the Christian Theist presupposes such ‘transcendent’ control,,,
John 1:1
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
of note; ‘the Word’ is translated from the Greek word ‘Logos’. Logos happens to be the word from which we derive our modern word ‘Logic’.
fg here is another clear example of mathematical logic being imposed onto material reality:
To solidify Dr. Sewell’s observation that transcendent ‘math’ is found to be foundational to reality, I note this equation:
0 = 1 + e ^(i*pi) — Euler
Believe it or not, the five most important numbers in mathematics are tied together, through the complex domain in Euler’s number, And that points, ever so subtly but strongly, to a world of reality beyond the immediately physical. Many people resist the implications, but there the compass needle points to a transcendent reality that governs our 3D ‘physical’ reality.
God by the Numbers – Connecting the constants
Excerpt: The final number comes from theoretical mathematics. It is Euler’s (pronounced “Oiler’s”) number: e*pi*i. This number is equal to -1, so when the formula is written e*pi*i+1 = 0, it connects the five most important constants in mathematics (e, pi, i, 0, and 1) along with three of the most important mathematical operations (addition, multiplication, and exponentiation). These five constants symbolize the four major branches of classical mathematics: arithmetic, represented by 1 and 0; algebra, by i; geometry, by pi; and analysis, by e, the base of the natural log. e*pi*i+1 = 0 has been called “the most famous of all formulas,” because, as one textbook says, “It appeals equally to the mystic, the scientist, the philosopher, and the mathematician.”
http://www.christianitytoday.c.....ml?start=3
(of note; Euler’s Number (equation) is more properly called Euler’s Identity in math circles.)
Moreover Euler’s Identity, rather than just being the most enigmatic equation in math, finds striking correlation to how our 3D reality is actually structured,,,
The following picture, Bible verse, and video are very interesting since, with the discovery of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR), the universe is found to actually be a circular sphere which ‘coincidentally’ corresponds to the circle of pi within Euler’s identity:
Picture of CMBR
https://webspace.utexas.edu/reyesr/SolarSystem/cmbr.jpg
Proverbs 8:26-27
While as yet He had not made the earth or the fields, or the primeval dust of the world. When He prepared the heavens, I was there, when He drew a circle on the face of the deep,
The Known Universe by AMNH – video – (please note the ‘centrality’ of the Earth in the universe in the video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17jymDn0W6U
The flatness of the ‘entire’ universe, which ‘coincidentally’ corresponds to the diameter of pi in Euler’s identity, is found on this following site; (of note this flatness of the universe is an extremely finely tuned condition for the universe that could have, in reality, been a multitude of different values than ‘flat’):
Did the Universe Hyperinflate? – Hugh Ross – April 2010
Excerpt: Perfect geometric flatness is where the space-time surface of the universe exhibits zero curvature (see figure 3). Two meaningful measurements of the universe’s curvature parameter, ½k, exist. Analysis of the 5-year database from WMAP establishes that -0.0170 < ½k < 0.0068.4 Weak gravitational lensing of distant quasars by intervening galaxies places -0.031 < ½k < 0.009.5 Both measurements confirm the universe indeed manifests zero or very close to zero geometric curvature,,,
http://www.reasons.org/did-universe-hyperinflate
This following video shows that the universe also has a primary characteristic of expanding/growing equally in all places,, which 'coincidentally' strongly corresponds to e in Euler's identity. e is the constant used in all sorts of equations of math for finding what the true rates of growth and decay are for any given problem trying to find as such:
Every 3D Place Is Center In This Universe – 4D space/time – video
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3991873/
Towards the end of the following video, Michael Denton speaks of the square root of negative 1 being necessary to understand the foundational quantum behavior of this universe. The square root of -1 is 'coincidentally' found in Euler's identity:
Michael Denton – Mathematical Truths Are Transcendent And Beautiful – Square root of -1 is built into the fabric of reality – video
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4003918"
I find it extremely strange that the enigmatic Euler's identity would find such striking correlation to reality. In pi we have correlation to the 'sphere of the universe' as revealed by the Cosmic Background radiation, as well pi correlates to the finely-tuned 'geometric flatness' within the 'sphere of the universe' that has now been found. In e we have the fundamental constant that is used for ascertaining exponential growth in math that strongly correlates to the fact that space-time is 'expanding/growing equally' in all places of the universe. In the square root of -1 we have what is termed a 'imaginary number', which was first proposed to help solve equations like x2+ 1 = 0 back in the 17th century, yet now, as Michael Denton pointed out in the preceding video, it is found that the square root of -1 is required to explain the behavior of quantum mechanics in this universe. The correlation of Euler's identity, to the foundational characteristics of how this universe is constructed and operates, points overwhelmingly to a transcendent Intelligence, with a capital I, which created this universe! It should also be noted that these universal constants, pi,e, and square root -1, were at first thought by many to be completely transcendent of any material basis, to find that these transcendent constants of Euler's identity in fact 'govern' material reality, in such a foundational way, should be enough to send shivers down any mathematicians spine. Further discussion can be found here relating Euler's identity to General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics:
http://www.uncommondescent.com.....ent-364379
"Like a Shakespearean sonnet that captures the very essence of love, or a painting that brings out the beauty of the human form that is far more than just skin deep, Euler's Equation reaches down into the very depths of existence."
Stanford University mathematics professor – Dr. Keith Devlin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.....cal_beauty
Here is a very well done video, showing the stringent 'mathematical proofs' of Euler's Identity:
Euler's identity – video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zApx1UlkpNs
The mystery doesn’t stop there, this following video shows how pi and e are found in Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1
Euler’s Identity – God Created Mathematics – video
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4003905
This following website, and video, has the complete working out of the math of Pi and e in the Bible, in the Hebrew and Greek languages respectively, for Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1:
http://www.biblemaths.com/pag03_pie/
Fascinating Bible code – Pi and natural log – Amazing – video (of note: correct exponent for base of Nat Log found in John 1:1 is 10^40, not 10^65 as stated in the video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wg9LiiSVae
Over time, the liddle lies add up.
Tell us something, Dr. Liddle.
Is natural selection the cause or is natural selection the effect.
Do you believe that traits are selected for by natural selection?
And if natural selection is the effect, how is it that you can assert that natural selection chooses or selects anything at all?
fg, here is another clear example of transcendent mathematical logic being imposed ONTO material reality from outside/above material reality:
Wheeler’s Classic Delayed Choice Experiment:
Excerpt: Now, for many billions of years the photon is in transit in region 3. Yet we can choose (many billions of years later) which experimental set up to employ – the single wide-focus, or the two narrowly focused instruments. We have chosen whether to know which side of the galaxy the photon passed by (by choosing whether to use the two-telescope set up or not, which are the instruments that would give us the information about which side of the galaxy the photon passed). We have delayed this choice until a time long after the particles “have passed by one side of the galaxy, or the other side of the galaxy, or both sides of the galaxy,” so to speak. Yet, it seems paradoxically that our later choice of whether to obtain this information determines which side of the galaxy the light passed, so to speak, billions of years ago. So it seems that time has nothing to do with effects of quantum mechanics. And, indeed, the original thought experiment was not based on any analysis of how particles evolve and behave over time – it was based on the mathematics. This is what the mathematics predicted for a result, and this is exactly the result obtained in the laboratory.
http://www.bottomlayer.com/bot.....choice.htm
“I think he is right that ID needs to make testable predictions that differ from evolutionary theory, but obviously only in some aspect from which it differs!”
Biological intelligent design predicts that the type iii secretory system arose directly from the bacterial flagellum, rather than either (a) the flagellum arose from the T3SS, or (b) the flagellum and the T3SS share a common ancestor. Option a may be ruled out on the grounds that T3SS are restricted to only a few gram-negative bacteria, which means that it’s very unlikely that the flagellum evolved directly from the T3SS. Thus, the only two possibilities for the origin of the T3SS is that (a) it arose from the flagellum, or (b) the T3SS and the flagellum share a common ancestor. Intelligent design predicts the former, because if the T3SS and the flagellum share a common ancestor, this implies that the bacterial flagellum evolved. This is a prediction exclusive to intelligent design, and it is testable. Darwinian evolution is of no predictive value here, however, since any of the two options would be predicted by Darwinian evolution.
Elizabeth –
I think you are over-stepping what Dembski meant by the particular definition he gave in this context. What he left out from the etymology of the word are all of the references to understanding and comprehension.
By the limited definition Dembski gave there, “replication with variance in heritable ability” certainly is able to mimic that aspect of intelligence. But it obviously does not fully mimic all aspects of intelligence, especially human intelligence. We are able to discern, to comprehend, to understand, and therefore our actual intelligence is distinguishable from the hallmarks of replication with variance of heritable traits. There certainly is a difference in these two, and we contend that it is empirically discernible.
I haven’t read that article from Demsbki, but perhaps that definition of intelligence was satisfactory for his needs in that context. Perhaps he only needed that portion of the etymology of the word to illustrate the point he was trying to make.
It’s like if I’m defining what “water” is. If I’m in a chemistry class, maybe I say it has 2 hydrogen atoms, one oxygen atom and has a molecular weight of 15.9949 g/mol. But if I’m talking to a 2 year old maybe I describe it as “wet” or “cold” or “clear”. So someone hears me say water is wet, cold and clear, and they extrapolate this to mean that I’m saying it does not have 2 hydrogen atoms, etc.
Or perhaps you highlighted an error that he would want to change. But in this debate a definition of intelligence is needed that differentiates between human-like intelligence and, say, natural selection (because there IS a difference! Please don’t tell me you disagree with that statement…).
Now maybe you would argue that all of biology is explicable with Dembski’s limited definition of intelligence, but we would argue that it takes more than “replication with variance of heritable traits” to produce what exists in biology. And that is the essence of this debate. What is happening here is that you want us to adopt a definition of intelligence that systematically encompasses Darwinian mechanisms, when clearly human intelligence exhibits characteristics not exhibited by those mechanisms. I don’t find this to be a very helpful suggestion, other than to aid in the any-means-necessary acceptance of neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory.
bornagain, you beat me to the Fibonacci-in-nature=these-things-arise-naturally rebuttal. Its presence in nature is not emergent, it is imposed. And it is also perfect for many of its applications.
In case anyone missed the post on the home page of this site a few weeks ago, here is a must-see 3-1/2 minute video (computer animation) on the subject from Cristobal Vila. Remarkable stuff
Nature by Numbers Movie
Livingstone, I don’t know if I agree with that assessment. ID is does not reject the possibility of common descent and/or evolution. It simply rejects that neo-Darwinian mechanisms are responsible for the origination of all (or even much of anything, if you ask most of us) that is found in biology.
Eric (10), I’d like to recognize your comment, for it is a wrecking ball of reason.
Bravo. I would love for Elizabeth and faded_Glory to respond by explaining how they do not fall in either category (i) or (ii) of your comment. I’d also like to add a third category, which is that:
(iii) they have confirmed a natural process that creates such systems and have yet to share the discovery with us.
faded_Glory, I am not the slightest bit impressed by your comment #18, which is supposed to be your answer to Eric:
Then prove that ID is incorrect and SHOW US these supposed natural mechanisms creating these systems! That is the entire point! Until a better explanation can be provided, we should favor the current best explanation. So in this case…
PHENOMENA: Complex, integrated, functional systems in biology
KNOWN CAUSES OF SUCH PHENOMENA IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE:
1.) Intelligent design
2.) N/A
What is the best explanation here?
I am flabbergasted by the reasoning that, until we hypothesize about the designer, we cannot infer design. Elizabeth and faded_Glory, you have not offered a single reasonable argument for why this should be the case, and I consider myself very open-minded and have even defended you, Liz, on this site before.
Where does it end? So if someone hypothesizes a designer identity or at least the design methods…well where did THOSE come from?? We didn’t need a hypothesis for how a Big Bang could occur in order to infer that there was a Big Bang.
faded, you dodged my hypothetical in your comment #52 for no good reason:
Yes, it is an outlandish and fictional scenario, but it is catastrophic to your claim that we must know/hypothesize ANYTHING about the designer or the design methods. If that ridiculous scenario were to happen, we would not have a clue about designer identity or design methods, yet no sane person would conclude “not designed” or even “possibly not designed”. I know the scenario is ridiculous, but it clearly demonstrates the falsity of your claims.
We already have a hypothesis for the explanation of CSI and/or complex, integrated functionality: intelligence. We have a plethora of evidence that intelligence can produce these phenomena, and a vacuum of evidence that anything else can, even after a decades (centuries?) trying to find this other source(s).
Elizabeth (30)
We are also rotary motor designers, so is it not a reasonable inference that a bacterial flagellum designer is possible since those are essentially rotary motors?
These rebuttals remind me of the ridiculousness that was referenced here a few days ago from the Evolving Thoughts commentator, who was reviewing James Shapiro’s book Evolution: A View From the 21st Century. He said this about human engineers:
Anyone who denies that engineers do not accomplish defined functional goals have absolutely given up on reality. I’m not saying that people here are making that claim, but I have reached similar levels of incredulity reading comments in this thread as I did reading that bit of nonsense.
uoflcard,
I am happy to explain (again) why I think the design inference is risky if it is made in the absence of data, or at least models, on the nature of the designer (or the design process) for observations where we can’t accept the trivial solution that they are designed by people. In such cases I believe there is a particlarly lethal danger of false positives, and a scientifically much more rigorous approach would be to keep options open and work with multiple competing models and hypotheses.
It goes back again to the point that making an inference is, or should be imo at least, an informed choice between competing probabilities. I doubt if there is anything in the world that could not at least in prnciple be explained in various ways, if one puts one’s mind to it. The more unusual the observation, and the less we know about its origin, the more freedom there is to postulate alternative explanations.
In such cases, reasoning by analog with other, known, phenomena to reach firm conclusions is insufficiently rigorous and very prone to false positives, in my view.
To estimate probabilities you need models. If an observation is so unusual that we can’t think of any models to explain it, we should declare it ‘unknown’ and work to get more data or try to think about it in different ways that may perhaps give us enough insights to build models after all. It doesn’t do any good to pronounce the truth of any particular explanation if we haven’t actually made the informed choice between various possible solutions, based on our estimate of their relative probabilities.
Sure, there will be many cases where it is instantly obvious to everybody which way the probabilities swing. The classic example of Stonehenge, for instance. We understand enough about geology and human history to make a swift, probably even subconscious choice between the stones being man-made or having somehow originated in situ. Stonehenge is trivial, a non-issue. Unless, of course, one estimates the probabiity that the stones were emplaced by aliens even higher than that they were emplaced by people. I am sure nobody here thinks this, but there are people who do, and this neatly illustrates that there are always other options to consider and weigh alongside our own personal favourite.
Things are by no means that clear cut in biology. This is a problem for both sides, because estimating the probabilities of ‘natural’ (I hate that word) explanations can’t be done to the fullest. At the same time, estimating probabilities for ID is even more difficult UNLESS we have some handle on the designer. That handle doesn’t have to be hard data, but it must at least be a model with some definition, even if it is sketchy.
Now here is the heart of the problem: by not having any data, by not making any assumptions or models on the designer or design process, by not constraining its capabilities and powers in any way whatsoever, the probability for intelligent design as a possible explanation becomes 1! Unless you know for sure what the ‘natural’ pathway is (in which case there wouldn’t be a problem to resolve, of course), unconstrained ID will always win out in the probabilistic beauty contest. The question after all is not ‘did it happen this way or that way’, the question is ‘could it have happened this way or that way’.
If one works with totally unconstrained ID, the answer to that question is always ‘Yes, it could be ID’. This makes ID indistinguishable from invoking an omnipotent deity, and therefore indistinguishable from metaphysics. I hasten to say, surely not by intent, but even so, in effect it is.
——-
Right. In addition to this problem I find a several other issues with the ID inference. As I said in vjtorley’s quiz, ID suffers from insufficient rigour in its terminology and definitions. The sidebar definition of Intelligence is particularly useless when it comes to unknown and unspecified designers. It is simply laughable to suggest that when we find an interstellar radiosource emitting series of prime numbers, we can conclude that the originator of the signal has the ability for abstract thought, understanding, communication, reasoning, learning, planning, emotional intelligence and problem solving – all that without ever investigating it or knowing anything at all about it, except from the fact that it has the ability to send out such signals. Gentlemen, if we do that we are not doing science. It is difficult enough to establish such properties when we actually have a study object available to us to investigate, let alone when it is lightyears away and we have never observed it!
———–
I am sure you will disagree with much I have said here, but these are my honestly held views and I think they are perfectly reasonable. The basic issue is that, in my view, science should progress by offering, comparing and eliminating competing models, and not by jumping to conclusions based just on analogs. False positives will abound.
fG
uoflcard:
You missed the part where I noted that the monolith does not appear to self-replicate.
Look, I have no problem, as I’ve said, with the idea of inferring design. I’d even be prepared to infer an invisible designer if it seemed warranted.
But each candidate designed entity offers a different set of clues from which we can derive different hypotheses which we can then test.
That’s the way science works.
You don’t do science by saying: hey, this thing looks designed, therefore it must have been designed.
And then stop.
That monolith could maybe have turned out to be a crystal – that’s a testable hypothesis.
And it isn’t very complex (CSI would come up with a false negative). In fact one way we regularly distinguish artefacts from “natural” objects in earth is by their crudity (“is it real? Oh, no, it’s just plastic.”).
What I would actually do, given an interesting object of unknown provenance is try to figure out what kinds of processes would tend to give rise to that sort of object.
Those processes could well include the processes by which intelligent agents design things. Or they could include the processes by which non-intentional filtering systems with feedback loops produce patterns (rm+ns; crystalisation; weather systems, etc).
And I’d consider each in turn, derive testable hypotheses and test them against new data.
My beef is not against inferring design; it’s against inferring intentional design from the pattern exhibited by an object alone and refusing to investigate what other processes, including non-intentional “design” process are also candidates. And refusing also to consider the importance of priors: we know that material, embodied, brain-possessing designers can exist; positing a material, embodied, brain-possessing designer may well be the best inference if you’ve ruled out non-intentional design (crystalisatioin, rm+ns, etc), and even if you haven’t.
But as we have no evidence at all for immaterial, non-embodied, non-brain-possessing designers, positing one as the likely origin of living things, despite the fact that we have a perfectly good candidate (rm+ns) is hugely unwarranted, and the least you could do to support it is show some curiosity as to the nature of the designer – which we can infer, in fact, from the data:
Slow
Can retrofit
Uses inheritance
Does not transfer solutions from one lineage to another.
Can’t forward model
Doesn’t care about things hurting other things
90% of designs ultimately fail.
Now, leaving aside the obvious observation that this description fits rn_ns to a t, if it’s a description of an intentional intelligent designer it’s the description of a not-very intelligent, if nonetheless doggedly persistent and diligent, designer, and certainly not a very benign one.
Indeed, the only way you can make it fit anything remotely God-like (a God worthy of worship anyway) is by doing Dembski’s sin-backwards-in-time-trick, which is a retrofit to crown all retrofits!
And, of course, would be assuming the consequent.
Is evidenced primarily by phenomena for which no other proposed mechanism seems plausible
Intervenes to p
And faded_Glory at 81 puts it better.
“Indeed, the only way you can make it fit anything remotely God-like (a God worthy of worship anyway) is by doing Dembski’s sin-backwards-in-time-trick, which is a retrofit to crown all retrofits!”
====
Yes I’ve often wondered why there is a denial of any connection to a God(especially biblical) when the facts are clear that members of Christendom are behind the Intelligent Design movement. I believe they have all the same EXACT problems and issues that Evolutionists have regarding the PROOF of actual mechanics used to result in any arrival of any living past or present organism.
As to this comment:
“Indeed, the only way you can make it fit anything remotely God-like (a God worthy of worship anyway) is by doing Dembski’s sin-backwards-in-time-trick, which is a retrofit to crown all retrofits!”
Which is a comment referencing Dr. Dembski’s book on Theodicy,
‘The End Of Christianity’,
(excerpted portions here:)
http://www.designinference.com.....of_xty.pdf
Actually, this ‘retrofit’ of Dr. Dembski’s, as far as logic, and reality, are concerned, is not a contrived ‘retrofit’ at all. It is a very straightforward interpretation of morality as to the dramatic consequences of sin in that the effects of sin on reality i.e. that the effects of sin go far beyond the material realm and reach directly into the timeless, ‘eternal’, realm,,, for the ‘effects of sin’ do indeed have timeless, and thus ‘eternal’ consequences! Perhaps the atheist will say ‘but we have no ‘scientific evidence’ of a reality that reflects this ‘eternal, or timeless, realm that is ‘above’ this material realm’ that could have such dramatic ‘retrofit’ effect, but the atheist would be severely mistaken in that presumption:
notes:
Reflections on the ‘infinite transcendent information’ framework, as well as on the ‘eternal’ and ‘temporal’ frameworks:
The weight of mass becomes infinite at the speed of light, thus mass will never go the speed of light. Yet, mass would disappear from our sight if it could go the speed of light, because, from our non-speed of light perspective, distance in direction of travel will shrink to zero for the mass going the speed of light. Whereas conversely, if mass could travel at the speed of light, its size will stay the same while all other frames of reference not traveling the speed of light will disappear from its sight.
Special Relativity – Time Dilation and Length Contraction – video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSRIyDfo_mY
Moreover time, as we understand it, would come to a complete stop at the speed of light. To grasp the whole ‘time coming to a complete stop at the speed of light’ concept a little more easily, imagine moving away from the face of a clock at the speed of light. Would not the hands on the clock stay stationary as you moved away from the face of the clock at the speed of light? Moving away from the face of a clock at the speed of light happens to be the same ‘thought experiment’ that gave Einstein his breakthrough insight into e=mc2.
Albert Einstein – Special Relativity – Insight Into Eternity – ‘thought experiment’ video
http://www.metacafe.com/w/6545941/
,,,Yet, even though light has this ‘eternal’ attribute in regards to our temporal framework of time, for us to hypothetically travel at the speed of light, in this universe, will still only get us to first base as far as quantum entanglement, or teleportation, is concerned.
Light and Quantum Entanglement Reflect Some Characteristics Of God – video
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4102182
That is to say, traveling at the speed of light will only get us to the place where time, as we understand it, comes to complete stop for light, i.e. gets us to the eternal, ‘past and future folding into now’, framework of time. This higher dimension, ‘eternal’, inference for the time framework of light is warranted because light is not ‘frozen within time’ yet it is shown that time, as we understand it, does not pass for light.
“I’ve just developed a new theory of eternity.”
Albert Einstein – The Einstein Factor – Reader’s Digest
“The laws of relativity have changed timeless existence from a theological claim to a physical reality. Light, you see, is outside of time, a fact of nature proven in thousands of experiments at hundreds of universities. I don’t pretend to know how tomorrow can exist simultaneously with today and yesterday. But at the speed of light they actually and rigorously do. Time does not pass.”
Richard Swenson – More Than Meets The Eye, Chpt. 12
Experimental confirmation of Time Dilation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T.....nfirmation
It is also that we have two different qualities of ‘eternality of time’ revealed by our time dialation experiments;
Time dilation
Excerpt: Time dilation: special vs. general theories of relativity:
In Albert Einstein’s theories of relativity, time dilation in these two circumstances can be summarized:
1. –In special relativity (or, hypothetically far from all gravitational mass), clocks that are moving with respect to an inertial system of observation are measured to be running slower. (i.e. For any observer accelerating, hypothetically, to the speed of light, time, as we understand it, will come to a complete stop).
2.–In general relativity, clocks at lower potentials in a gravitational field—such as in closer proximity to a planet—are found to be running slower.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation
(i.e. As with any observer accelerating to the speed of light, it is found that any observer falling into the event horizon of a black hole, that time, as we understand it, will come to a complete stop). — But of particular interest to the ‘eternal framework’ found for General Relativity at black holes;… It is interesting to note that entropic decay, which is the primary reason why things grow old and eventually die in this universe, is found to be greatest at black holes. Thus the ‘eternality of time’ at black holes can rightly be called ‘eternalities of decay’.
— Entropy of the Universe – Hugh Ross – May 2010
Excerpt: Egan and Lineweaver found that supermassive black holes are the largest contributor to the observable universe’s entropy. They showed that these supermassive black holes contribute about 30 times more entropy than what the previous research teams estimated.
http://www.reasons.org/entropy-universe
i.e. Black Holes are singularities of destruction and disorder rather than singularities of creation and order such as the extreme order we see at the creation event of the Big Bang.
It is also very interesting to note that this strange higher dimensional, eternal, framework for time, found in special relativity, and general relativity, finds corroboration in Near Death Experience testimonies:
‘In the ‘spirit world,,, instantly, there was no sense of time. See, everything on earth is related to time. You got up this morning, you are going to go to bed tonight. Something is new, it will get old. Something is born, it’s going to die. Everything on the physical plane is relative to time, but everything in the spiritual plane is relative to eternity. Instantly I was in total consciousness and awareness of eternity, and you and I as we live in this earth cannot even comprehend it, because everything that we have here is filled within the veil of the temporal life. In the spirit life that is more real than anything else and it is awesome. Eternity as a concept is awesome. There is no such thing as time. I knew that whatever happened was going to go on and on.’
Mickey Robinson – Near Death Experience testimony
‘When you die, you enter eternity. It feels like you were always there, and you will always be there. You realize that existence on Earth is only just a brief instant.’
Dr. Ken Ring – has extensively studied Near Death Experiences
‘Earthly time has no meaning in the spirit realm. There is no concept of before or after. Everything – past, present, future – exists simultaneously.’ – Kimberly Clark Sharp – NDE Experiencer
‘There is no way to tell whether minutes, hours or years go by. Existence is the only reality and it is inseparable from the eternal now.’ – John Star – NDE Experiencer
It is also very interesting to point out that the ‘light at the end of the tunnel’, reported in many Near Death Experiences(NDEs), is also corroborated by Special Relativity when considering the optical effects for traveling at the speed of light. Please compare the similarity of the optical effect, noted at the 3:22 minute mark of the following video, when the 3-Dimensional world ‘folds and collapses’ into a tunnel shape around the direction of travel as an observer moves towards the ‘higher dimension’ of the speed of light, with the ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ reported in very many Near Death Experiences:
Traveling At The Speed Of Light – Optical Effects – video
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5733303/
Here is the interactive website (with link to the math) related to the preceding video;
Seeing Relativity
http://www.anu.edu.au/Physics/Searle/
The NDE and the Tunnel – Kevin Williams’ research conclusions
Excerpt: I started to move toward the light. The way I moved, the physics, was completely different than it is here on Earth. It was something I had never felt before and never felt since. It was a whole different sensation of motion. I obviously wasn’t walking or skipping or crawling. I was not floating. I was flowing. I was flowing toward the light. I was accelerating and I knew I was accelerating, but then again, I didn’t really feel the acceleration. I just knew I was accelerating toward the light. Again, the physics was different – the physics of motion of time, space, travel. It was completely different in that tunnel, than it is here on Earth. I came out into the light and when I came out into the light, I realized that I was in heaven.(Barbara Springer)
Near Death Experience – The Tunnel, The Light, The Life Review – video
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4200200/
As to this comment:
“Indeed, the only way you can make it fit anything remotely God-like (a God worthy of worship anyway) is by doing Dembski’s sin-backwards-in-time-trick, which is a retrofit to crown all retrofits!”
Which is a comment referencing Dr. Dembski’s book on Theodicy,
‘The End Of Christianity’,
(excerpted portions here:)
http://www.designinference.com.....of_xty.pdf
Actually, this ‘retrofit’ of Dr. Dembski’s, as far as logic, and reality, are concerned, is not a contrived ‘retrofit’ at all. It is a very straightforward interpretation of morality as to the dramatic consequences of sin in that the effects of sin on reality i.e. that the effects of sin go far beyond the material realm and reach directly into the timeless, ‘eternal’, realm,,, for the ‘effects of sin’ do indeed have timeless, and thus ‘eternal’ consequences! Perhaps the atheist will say ‘but we have no ‘scientific evidence’ of a reality that reflects this ‘eternal, or timeless, realm that is ‘above’ this material realm’ that could have such dramatic ‘retrofit’ effect, but the atheist would be severely mistaken in that presumption:
notes:
Reflections on the ‘infinite transcendent information’ framework, as well as on the ‘eternal’ and ‘temporal’ frameworks:
The weight of mass becomes infinite at the speed of light, thus mass will never go the speed of light. Yet, mass would disappear from our sight if it could go the speed of light, because, from our non-speed of light perspective, distance in direction of travel will shrink to zero for the mass going the speed of light. Whereas conversely, if mass could travel at the speed of light, its size will stay the same while all other frames of reference not traveling the speed of light will disappear from its sight.
Special Relativity – Time Dilation and Length Contraction – video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSRIyDfo_mY
Moreover time, as we understand it, would come to a complete stop at the speed of light. To grasp the whole ‘time coming to a complete stop at the speed of light’ concept a little more easily, imagine moving away from the face of a clock at the speed of light. Would not the hands on the clock stay stationary as you moved away from the face of the clock at the speed of light? Moving away from the face of a clock at the speed of light happens to be the same ‘thought experiment’ that gave Einstein his breakthrough insight into e=mc2.
Albert Einstein – Special Relativity – Insight Into Eternity – ‘thought experiment’ video
http://www.metacafe.com/w/6545941/
,,,Yet, even though light has this ‘eternal’ attribute in regards to our temporal framework of time, for us to hypothetically travel at the speed of light, in this universe, will still only get us to first base as far as quantum entanglement, or teleportation, is concerned.
Light and Quantum Entanglement Reflect Some Characteristics Of God – video
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4102182
That is to say, traveling at the speed of light will only get us to the place where time, as we understand it, comes to complete stop for light, i.e. gets us to the eternal, ‘past and future folding into now’, framework of time. This higher dimension, ‘eternal’, inference for the time framework of light is warranted because light is not ‘frozen within time’ yet it is shown that time, as we understand it, does not pass for light.
“I’ve just developed a new theory of eternity.”
Albert Einstein – The Einstein Factor – Reader’s Digest
“The laws of relativity have changed timeless existence from a theological claim to a physical reality. Light, you see, is outside of time, a fact of nature proven in thousands of experiments at hundreds of universities. I don’t pretend to know how tomorrow can exist simultaneously with today and yesterday. But at the speed of light they actually and rigorously do. Time does not pass.”
Richard Swenson – More Than Meets The Eye, Chpt. 12
Experimental confirmation of Time Dilation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T.....nfirmation
It is also very interesting to note that we have two very different qualities of ‘eternality of time’ revealed by our time dilation experiments;
Time dilation
Excerpt: Time dilation: special vs. general theories of relativity:
In Albert Einstein’s theories of relativity, time dilation in these two circumstances can be summarized:
1. –In special relativity (or, hypothetically far from all gravitational mass), clocks that are moving with respect to an inertial system of observation are measured to be running slower. (i.e. For any observer accelerating, hypothetically, to the speed of light, time, as we understand it, will come to a complete stop).
2.–In general relativity, clocks at lower potentials in a gravitational field—such as in closer proximity to a planet—are found to be running slower.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation
i.e. As with any observer accelerating to the speed of light, it is found that any observer falling into the event horizon of a black hole, that time, as we understand it, will come to a complete stop. — But of particular interest to the ‘eternal framework’ found for General Relativity at black holes;… It is interesting to note that entropic decay, which is the primary reason why things grow old and eventually die in this universe, is found to be greatest at black holes. Thus the ‘eternality of time’ at black holes can rightly be called ‘eternalities of decay and/or destruction’.
Entropy of the Universe – Hugh Ross – May 2010
Excerpt: Egan and Lineweaver found that supermassive black holes are the largest contributor to the observable universe’s entropy. They showed that these supermassive black holes contribute about 30 times more entropy than what the previous research teams estimated.
http://www.reasons.org/entropy-universe
i.e. Black Holes are singularities of destruction and disorder rather than singularities of creation and order such as the extreme order we see at the creation event of the Big Bang.
It is also very interesting to note that this strange higher dimensional, eternal, framework for time, found in special relativity, and general relativity, finds corroboration in Near Death Experience testimonies:
‘In the ‘spirit world,,, instantly, there was no sense of time. See, everything on earth is related to time. You got up this morning, you are going to go to bed tonight. Something is new, it will get old. Something is born, it’s going to die. Everything on the physical plane is relative to time, but everything in the spiritual plane is relative to eternity. Instantly I was in total consciousness and awareness of eternity, and you and I as we live in this earth cannot even comprehend it, because everything that we have here is filled within the veil of the temporal life. In the spirit life that is more real than anything else and it is awesome. Eternity as a concept is awesome. There is no such thing as time. I knew that whatever happened was going to go on and on.’
Mickey Robinson – Near Death Experience testimony
‘When you die, you enter eternity. It feels like you were always there, and you will always be there. You realize that existence on Earth is only just a brief instant.’
Dr. Ken Ring – has extensively studied Near Death Experiences
‘Earthly time has no meaning in the spirit realm. There is no concept of before or after. Everything – past, present, future – exists simultaneously.’ – Kimberly Clark Sharp – NDE Experiencer
‘There is no way to tell whether minutes, hours or years go by. Existence is the only reality and it is inseparable from the eternal now.’ – John Star – NDE Experiencer
It is also very interesting to point out that the ‘light at the end of the tunnel’, reported in many Near Death Experiences(NDEs), is also corroborated by Special Relativity when considering the optical effects for traveling at the speed of light. Please compare the similarity of the optical effect, noted at the 3:22 minute mark of the following video, when the 3-Dimensional world ‘folds and collapses’ into a tunnel shape around the direction of travel as an observer moves towards the ‘higher dimension’ of the speed of light, with the ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ reported in very many Near Death Experiences:
Traveling At The Speed Of Light – Optical Effects – video
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5733303/
Here is the interactive website (with link to the math) related to the preceding video;
Seeing Relativity
http://www.anu.edu.au/Physics/Searle/
The NDE and the Tunnel – Kevin Williams’ research conclusions
Excerpt: I started to move toward the light. The way I moved, the physics, was completely different than it is here on Earth. It was something I had never felt before and never felt since. It was a whole different sensation of motion. I obviously wasn’t walking or skipping or crawling. I was not floating. I was flowing. I was flowing toward the light. I was accelerating and I knew I was accelerating, but then again, I didn’t really feel the acceleration. I just knew I was accelerating toward the light. Again, the physics was different – the physics of motion of time, space, travel. It was completely different in that tunnel, than it is here on Earth. I came out into the light and when I came out into the light, I realized that I was in heaven.(Barbara Springer)
Near Death Experience – The Tunnel, The Light, The Life Review – video
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4200200/
=================
Further notes:
If God, Why Evil? (Norman Geisler) – video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtOOPaNmJFY
23 Minutes In Hell – Bill Wiese- video
http://www.vimeo.com/16641462
Erasing Hell by Francis Chan – We can’t afford to get this wrong – video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnrJVTSYLr8
FG at 81:
Novice here. If the question or comment is stupid I apologize.
You wrote:
…by not constraining its capabilities and powers in any way whatsoever, the probability for intelligent design as a possible explanation becomes 1! Unless you know for sure what the ‘natural’ pathway is (in which case there wouldn’t be a problem to resolve, of course), unconstrained ID will always win out in the probabilistic beauty contest. The question after all is not ‘did it happen this way or that way’, the question is ‘could it have happened this way or that way’.”
That could be re written as follows:
by not constraining its capabilities and powers in any way whatsoever, the probability for nature/evolution as a possible explanation becomes 1! Unless you know for sure what the ‘intelligently designed’ pathway is (in which case there wouldn’t be a problem to resolve, of course), unconstrained nature/evolution will always win out in the probabilistic beauty contest. The question after all is not ‘did it happen this way or that way’, the question is ‘could it have happened this way or that way’.
Aren’t metaphysics at work anway?
EL: “We know that monolith designers are possible because we are monolith designers ourselves. So it seems like a reasonable inference.”
So, it seems, the Darwinistic argument goes like this: BECAUSE we know that some humans have designed/built monoliths, THEREFORE when we encounter an previously unknown monolith it is probably a reasonable inference that some intelligence designed the monolith. HOWEVER, if it were not known that some humans have designed/built monoliths, THEN it would not be a reasonable interence about some newly discovered monolith that it was designed by an intelligence; RATHER, we would be forced to conclude that “it just happened.”
Apparently, should the day ever come that humans are known to “design living organisms”, THEN we might be allowed to see the biological design that’s right in front of our noses.
Still, this all does seem a bit opposite the (ahem) argument Darwinists have been making ever since Darwin, which goes like this — since we know that human beings have engaged in selective breeding of organisms, and thereby produce specialized breeds of a species, therefore the only reasonable conclusion is that the UIND (un-intelligent non-design) engages in breeding selection, and thereby produces novel species characteristics.
H’mm:
Hasn’t Venter been doing something along those lines?
In any case, unfortunately, we have already seen that FOR DR LIDDLE, A 196 ASCII CHARACTER COPYRIGHT NOTICE PLACED IN A GENOME WOULD NOT BE ADEQUATE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN OF THE ORGANISM BEARING IT.
Game over.
The issue (in that light) is not evidence, but imposed preconceptions.
That is what has to be faced and addressed.
GEM of TKI
Ah! So the issue is selective hyperskepticism, which is to say, intellectual dishonesty.
Selective hyperskepticism (Cf here on when it crosses the threshold.)
Elizabeth Liddle:
And that’s an intellectually dishonest view of ID and CSI and IC.
And you should be ashamed to even put it forth as an accurate representation of ID. You should know better.
Heck, I’d be curious to know if they think anything at all is designed and how they could tell if it was.
I love asking that question. The typical response is silence.
Yet the interesting thing is, they assert that their mechanism can mimic intelligent design.
Yet they refuse to say how they know that.
But the numbers and the series are in the plants. And the same numbers and the same series are in different plants at that.
Elizabeth Liddle:
As if in Darwinism caring is good and hurting other things is bad. What a joke.
And if humans care and think hurting other things is bad, I guess that means humans did not evolve by a Darwinian process.
And what is this claim even doing in a scientific theory?
Elizabeth Liddle:
This is false.
Mung (96),
“This is false.”
No, it’s actually an underestimate. More than 99% of all species that ever existed have gone extinct. So if you consider species to have been designed then their extinction is their ultimate failure.
Mung you state:
‘But the numbers and the series are in the plants. And the same numbers and the same series are in different plants at that.’
Okie Dokie mung, show how the same spiral Fibonacci number that shows up in galaxies, explaining Dark matter while your at it so as to explain why some galaxies are spiral, show how this number was also programmed by purely material processes to produce such a spiral in different plants.
Grunty:
I suppose you know this from that oh so spotty and unreliable fossil record?
Do you know how many non-extinct species exist on this planet right now?
Elizabeth Liddle and FadedGlory
In response to your query about finding a monolith and inferring design, please see these two posts of mine:
http://www.uncommondescent.com.....formation/
(In this post, I calculated the CSI of a scanner as an astronomically large number – much larger than the 500-it cutoff point – and concluded that if some astronauts came across the monolith they would e justified in inferring design, even if they had only a basic knowledge of lunar geological processes and no knowledge of the monolith’s history.)
http://www.uncommondescent.com.....-csi-lite/
(This was a follow-up post tying together the various kinds of cases – from fine-tuning to Mt. Rushmore to bacterial flagella – in which we infer design, and why we are justified in doing so.)
If I came across an interstellar source of the first 100 primes, then yes, I certainly would infer that it was produced by someone with a capacity for abstract thought, language and problem solving (I’m not sure about emotional intelligence).
Elizabeth, you raise a number pf good questions about the designer in #82. I believe they’re soluble, and will respond to them when I get some more free time.
Hope that helps.
Thank you vjtorley.
I look forward to your response to my #82 as well.
I will now address your post on the Humpty Dumpty thread.
Cheers
Lizzie
Drs Liddle and Torley:
I have done a monolith optically flat surface information content calc here in the Humpty thread, at 27. It does not rely on frequentist themes or the like, but does rely on engineering/scientific knowledge of what an optical flat requires, through it is actually a bit loose.
there is a reason why such things are very expensive.
Bottomline, is that a monolith would be easily recognisable as designed, and the “simple” flat surfaces are not so simple to get, once you are dealing with something polycrystalline. Do you remember the days before float glass, and the wavy surfaces of glass sheets? Do you know how hard it is to machine or mill a truly flat surface?
An object made to high precision based on flat surfaces forming a prism, that is not monocrystalline [like a huge piece of quartz or the like], would be an instant giveaway case of design.
GEM of TKI
Dr Liddle:
Re 82 above. It seems you need to make re-acquaintance with this post here (again . . . ), on the subject of how design is to be inferred.
Design is only inferred after two defaults have been considered on a per aspect basis: necessity [as in how a crystal is made] and chance [as in how a matrix of crystals like granite is formed in a random pattern]. And that has been on the table since Orgel first identified the issue of specified complexity in 1973.
Let me clip Orgel:
So, something is plainly quite wrong if, in the teeth of repeated highlighting and correction of the error, you keep going back to it.
Let me therefore clip and correct the offensive remarks in 82 above, in hopes that this will now never recur.
Please understand that at this point I feel quite annoyed at having to go over this ground yet again:
This is sad, and sadly revealing.
Please, do better than this.
GEM of TKI