The Designer Apparently Designs Like Humans Do

_{May 5, 2009

Intelligent Design}

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Here at UD we’ve heard over and over again that unless we “know” who the Designer is, then we can’t infer design. For example, if we were to argue that we’ve never seen the ancient Native Americans who fashioned arrowheads from stone, yet we are able to infer design in arrowheads nonetheless, the Darwinian side would respond saying, “Yes, but that’s because the Native Americans are humans like ourselves.”

PhysOrg.com has an article about the microRNA, miR-7, which has been found to regulate a network which brings about uniformity among humans. The article is interesting in itself, but most interesting is this comment by one of the lead authors, Richard W. Carthew:

When something is changed, say the genetic sequence of a molecule or the temperature of the organism, the network responds to compensate for the change and keep things intact. . . . This design is similar to the principle that engineers use to design safety features into products.”

Unless some Darwinist can mount some kind of sensible objection, then I guess we here at UD can safely, and reasonably, conclude that whoever the Designer is, he ‘designs’ like human engineers do. Thusly, the opposite is true: if we find human engineering-like design in biological systems, then we can conclude that we have encountered the/a Designer. And Darwinists can kindly drop this type of argument from their repetoire.

Comments

Nakashima, I suggest further reading. If the sequencing of nucleotides is physico-dynamically inert - showing absolutely no order in that sequencing (but choice contingency for function instead), then what aspect of order are you suggesting is fit to create the sequencing necessary? - - - - - - - If I remember correctly, you are familiar with these two papers, but choose to ignore them or not address there conclusions forthrightly. I post them here for others who might be more open to the a rational discussion. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=1208958&blobtype=pdf http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=2662469&blobtype=pdf - - - - - - By the way Nakashima, you are certainly welcome to address any of the three questions I raised in #40Upright BiPed_{May 6, 2009
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Yes, but a deductive inference is as good as a direct observation, in my opinion. Otherwise, all of science would come to naught. In fact, direct observation of the external world is a convenient myth. Everything is inferred when you stop to think about it.
I agree that inference is valuable but it is not the same as direct observation. I do not think ID is any less because it is inference. It has to be by its nature. Without direct observation just about everything is inference. (The Darwinian explanation is all inference and it drives me up the wall to hear people say otherwise). I have a lot of respect for ID so please don't get me wrong. But the difference between inference and absolute certainty is important because of what Upright Biped challenged me on just a few posts earlier. While I usually find myself in agreement with him, I do not in this case. Inference is different from certainty because inference must take into account what we don't know, when certainty does not. We can point to the "best available" explanation, and that is no small thing, but it is still the best available explanation, not THE answer. This is not to "ignore" what we know now, as Upright suggested I was implying, but a simple acknowledgment of humility. Putting ourselves in an either/or situation when knowledge is not 100% is folly, I believe. I believe the ID movement should be very careful about this and not claim they have the absolute answers. I believe it to be an exciting endeavor and very much worth the effort and resources but if one is asking for academic freedom and the cutting loose of dogma, they need to be supplying such things as well.Tommy V_{May 6, 2009
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Mr BiPed, And yet, there are respected theories in OOL research that focus on crystallization as an important process of biological precursors. I don't have to infer design if alternatives involving simple non-random processes can contribute significantly to the biology we see today.Nakashima_{May 6, 2009
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Tommy V @35:
I think the greatest damage the dogma of Darwinism has done is that the bulk of biology has stopped looking for any process that does not follow in the line of natural selection as the primary mechanism. They have tons of ideas that complement selection but any idea that might uproot it is actually vilified and targeted for destruction.
The reason has to do with the hatred of religion that is shared by many scientists. The truth is caught in the middle.
ID will always be inference, I think, because we will not ever be able to rule out what we don’t know. We can rule out randomness from the Darwinian perspective, but can we rule out a process that we don’t know even exists? So it will probably always be a scientific venture that seeks to improve certainty, but never obtain that 100%.
Yes, but a deductive inference is as good as a direct observation, in my opinion. Otherwise, all of science would come to naught. In fact, direct observation of the external world is a convenient myth. Everything is inferred when you stop to think about it.Mapou_{May 6, 2009
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Nakashima, what you prescribe is order. Order is as far from what is observed in molecular biology as it can get. (careful not conflate order with organization or coordination, they are nowhere near the same thing)Upright BiPed_{May 6, 2009
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Hello, Tommy If I hold up an apple and ask you what it is, you will say a word, "apple". Now, an apple did not come out of your mouth, a word did - a representation, a meaning, a symbol that respresents something else. For you and I to understand what has just happened we must first agree that the word "apple", annunciated a-p-p-l-e, means that red -or sometimes green- fruit that is white in the center and looks like this and smells like this and taste like this. The word does not have to be "apple" it could be "dumpklif". There is no physicality involved. It could be WHATEVER we both agree that it is. It is a representation without physical contigency whatsoever. In other words, a non-physical choice arrangenment has been made (between meaning and symbol) in order to create a langauge from chaos (between you and I). This is exactly the same dynamic scenario at work in the language and meaning that exist inside the information that animates inanimate matter into functioning living tissue. To explain this, we have what we know. Its idle to speculate wildly on what we may know someday in order to patently ignore what we already know today. Given that we know there is no physical necessity involved, that leaves chance to account for the agreement within the symbol system, not to mention the vast organizational information to follow. In a post on an earlier thread I asked these questions. I leave them here for you to consider: 1) Is Life the result of (functionalized by) a physically-inert symbol system of information embedded into living tissue that builds, organizes, and coordinates discreet chemical objects and activities? 2) Chance has been observed to only operate at maximum uncertainty (this is the very definition of chance). Does any individual chance result ever lead to the next chance result not operating at maximum uncertainty? 3) What aspect of a mechanism that only repeats maximum uncertainty is expected to not only build complex discreet objects, but to organize and coordinate those discreet objects into a complex functioning whole?Upright BiPed_{May 6, 2009
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Mr BiPed, Sorry, that's all there is - an example of a natural process that is not random. Isn't that what you wanted?Nakashima_{May 6, 2009
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I'm listening Nakashima...go ahead.Upright BiPed_{May 6, 2009
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Mr BiPed, Have anything specific in mind? Can you even offer, say, even a wild conceptualization of what it might be? Crystallization?Nakashima_{May 6, 2009
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Mr PaV, Thusly, the opposite is true: if we find human engineering-like design in biological systems, then we can conclude that we have encountered the/a Designer. So from the first time humans imitated nature, the Designer could be inferred? You need to find some way of eliminating bio-mimesis as an issue. Further, you seem to be positing features as simple as "feedback" as design. I think that is quite overstated.Nakashima_{May 6, 2009
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Upright: What I think, at least I hope, BVZ is trying to say there is that there might be natural processes that we do not have a full understanding of yet. Which I think is true. If we don't know about them, then it is hard to imagine them until someone initially does. Someone has to do it first. I think the greatest damage the dogma of Darwinism has done is that the bulk of biology has stopped looking for any process that does not follow in the line of natural selection as the primary mechanism. They have tons of ideas that complement selection but any idea that might uproot it is actually vilified and targeted for destruction. ID will always be inference, I think, because we will not ever be able to rule out what we don't know. We can rule out randomness from the Darwinian perspective, but can we rule out a process that we don't know even exists? So it will probably always be a scientific venture that seeks to improve certainty, but never obtain that 100%.Tommy V_{May 6, 2009
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Mr Magnan, Since Darwinism can’t be falsified, the Darwinists will naturally claim that this (like anything and everything else) somehow came about purely through RV + selection. You really should say KJV + selection, since the RV was only published in 1881-1895.Nakashima_{May 6, 2009
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BVZ,
"Even if you rule out random processes, all you have shown is that the object could not have come into existence through a random process. This does not leave design as the only alternative, because (for instance) the object could have come about through a natural process that is NOT random.
You've bit off quite a bite there. Have anything specific in mind? Can you even offer, say, even a wild conceptualization of what it might be? And while you are drumming up your wild conceptualization, please remind yourself how design proponents make unfounded assumptions.Upright BiPed_{May 6, 2009
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BVZ - hope you don't get a hernia - your trying to make something very light very heavy. Straining at gnats. I mean if you are going to suggest that Mt. Rushmore is only able to be inferred to design or a watch or etc. etc. all day long - then you are really trying hard more to justify something than making a salient point.alan_{May 6, 2009
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BVZ, No, it does not leave design as the only alternative. But it does leave it as an alternative. No one claims ID is definitive, only a path of inquiry worth pursuing. Please remember that evolution itself is actually only inferred. We observe certain data and facts and infer a chain of events over the last billion years that we did not actually witness. Design Inference is done every day on many levels. It is itself not controversial. The hostility towards this ID is simply a hostility towards religion itself. I have only been on this blog for a few months, but it really is amazing how many people come on here thinking they're bringing up clever points that no one has ever thought of! The same questions every few weeks and then the slow progression to cutesy attitude and hostility. I will never understand the controversy of trying to determine what exactly nature is capable of creating on its own and what, if anything, would require outside agency. It seems a valid and worthwhile question. To say otherwise seems to require a vast assumption that nothing is outside the powers of nature's undirected forces. A giant assumption indeed, considering how little we actually understand about these processes. That might eventually prove to be true (I suspect it will), but to state it as indisputable fact seems to me more a belief system and an assertion of a greater truth than an honest pursuit of the truth. I personally believe nature will ultimately prove the culprit here, probably in a mechanism that we may have yet to even imagine, but the idea that these questions are not valid ones or that the design inference is somehow unreasonable and not worth pursuing seems a rather shallow and dogmatic approach to science.Tommy V_{May 6, 2009
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Tommmy V @ 18 "Awesome! I have been posting lightly for a few months now and this is the first time I have actually been attacked." Tommy V...Interestingly, the only people who consider design a "silly argument" are those who aren't open to where the evidence best points. It goes something like this. The ID critic starts with making tired accusations of ID being religious. This of course introduces a theological component to the discussion, so that ID can then be claimed to be "religious". When no religious premise can be demonstrated, all of a sudden ID proponents themselves are accused of having a Christian agenda. When it is then shown that some ID advocates are Jewish, agnostic and atheist, then all of a sudden it becomes "irrelevant" and "silly". When faced with the obvious implication from what is known, (yes, the data!) that intelligence always begets other intelligence, and that intelligent agents routinely do what nature cannot, unaided, do...then the argument becomes "silly". Right? When the dogmatic ID critic's ways are publicized, the ID critic then "assumes the position", and resorts to a most irrational, unscientific bias toward faith (yes, faith!) in chance, undirected natural causes that in some cases would require a miracle to occur. Is that more or less silly than simply acknowledging that some features of the universe and in nature are best explained by design? And finally, when this willful bias against ID (and favoring chance miracles) is exposed...all of a sudden the ID critic erupts into emotional appeal to others as if they are the ones who are being oppressed. FYI, there are some here to simply call it as they see it. You'll have to excuse my being honest with you, and with myself. Tommy V again at 18 "Bantay, I am honestly not sure what you’re accusing me of. Do you not think design can be discussed with someone until they believe in God? Do you not think someone can be sympathetic to another’s search for a designer without first believing in God themselves?" I'm not accusing you of anything. I respect your faith in chance, naturalistic miracles. As a layman ID supporter, I simply ask for your faith to not be imposed on the rest of humanity, at least not without being held to the same standard of "evidence" that ID is held to. Now, to answer your questions. #1. You asked "Do you not think design can be discussed with someone until they believe in God?" My answer...I think ID can be discussed without introducing a theological component. Let's be imaginitive here. You assume your car is designed because previous data indicates that only intelligent agents design cars. You don't need to know the exact identity of the designer to know this. Likewise, previous data shows that only intelligent agents produce meaningful, semantic information that represents something other than itself. DNA has just this type of information. There is no reasonable reason to necessarily exclude design in this case, just because it is an organic object. Neither the case of the car, or of DNA, requires knowledge of the exact identity of the designer, yet in both cases design is the best inference based on the data. Your other question... "Do you not think someone can be sympathetic to another’s search for a designer without first believing in God themselves?" My answer....It is well known that some ID supporters are atheist and agnostic. Thus, I don't think that "believing in God first" is even an issue. I am more supportive(or sympathetic?) toward anyone who is honest about whether they are searching for truth regardless of it's implications, or just some reassuring, naturalistic explanation that avoids ultimate moral accountability. In other words, I think it's important to determine if one's "search for a designer" is not merely a search for any explanation EXCEPT God.Bantay_{May 6, 2009
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BVZ, ID requires two things before design is inferred: 1- Complexity- enough to rule out necessity, high and intermediate probabilities 2- Specification Then we dig deeper. We try to find out if agency involvement was really necessary by testing it against what nature, operating freely, can do.Joseph_{May 6, 2009
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BVZ:
My point is that before you can infer (infer is indeed more accurate, thanks for the correction) that design has taken place, you need to either assume, or observe something about the designer you are invoking. Without this knowledge, you are left with something that ‘looks’ designed, but is not neccesarily designed.
1- We can test the premise of "it looks designed but was not". We do that by figuring out what it takes to produce what we are observing. If it is reducible to matter, energy, chance and necessity then the design inference is not warranted. 2- We can assume anything we want to about the designer(s)- namely that it was capable of producing what we are observing. As for SETI they look for things that nature, operating freely would not or could not produce. If something like that is found they then dig deeper. To sum it up we can assume that as with all successful designers, the designer(s) tat we don't know about had the capability of designing what it is they designed. We test that against our experience with what nature, operating freely, is capable of- we know what agencies can do with nature.Joseph_{May 6, 2009
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Tommy V:
ID looks for enough complexity in the natural system so to rule out randomness. Snowflakes may look designed, but they do not exhibit any kind of complexity in the information that would rule out natural processes.
Even if you rule out random processes, all you have shown is that the object could not have come into existence through a random process. This does not leave design as the only alternative, because (for instance) the object could have come about through a natural process that is NOT random.BVZ_{May 6, 2009
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Joseph: Thank you for your response. I agree with everything you said. My point is that before you can infer (infer is indeed more accurate, thanks for the correction) that design has taken place, you need to either assume, or observe something about the designer you are invoking. Without this knowledge, you are left with something that 'looks' designed, but is not neccesarily designed. For instance, look at SETI. Before they can even BEGIN to look for ID in the iniverse, they have to assume a list of things about the designers they are looking for. And even if they find something, they can only infer design as long as they hold on to these assumptions. The strength of thier assumptions should be well supported, because whatever they find (if they ever do) can only be supported as well as they can support thier assumptions. If you want to infer design from an object, you cannot do so without first gaining knowledge about the designer, even if you have to assume said knowledge. Ask yourself, why are ID supporters ridiculed so much more than SETI? The only real difference lies in the assumptions. Where SETI base thier assumptions about the intelligence they are looking for on knowledged gathered from nature, ID supporters don't.BVZ_{May 6, 2009
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BVZ: ID is not "if something looks designed then it probably is." which your questions imply. ID looks for enough complexity in the natural system so to rule out randomness. Snowflakes may look designed, but they do not exhibit any kind of complexity in the information that would rule out natural processes.Tommy V_{May 6, 2009
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Also we INFER design, not conclude. And as with ALL scientific inferences future research can either confirm or refute it. Science cannot and does not wait for what the future may or may not bring. We go with the knowledge at hand. And experience has taught us that it matters a great deal to any investigation whether or not that which is being investigated arose by nature, operating freely or agency involvement.Joseph_{May 6, 2009
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BVZ, In the absence of direct observation or designer input, the ONLY possible way to make ANY scientific determination about the designer(s) or the specific processes used, is by studying the design in question. That is the way it works in ALL design-centric venues. If we knew the designer of an object then we wouldn't be trying to figure out whether or not the object was designed- design would be a given. That said when an object "looks designed" we must be allowed to look into that possibility- that it was designed by some agency. Now to refute the design inference for something that "looks designed" all one has to do is demonstrate that nature, operating freely, can account for it.Joseph_{May 6, 2009
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@20
I am not so sure. Maybe the designer had the look of snowflakes in mind when he/she designed oxygen and hydrogen atoms. Just a thought.
I agree that this is possible. However, you need to assume knowledge about the designer (that he designed oxygen and hydrogen because he wanted snowflakes). In other words, snowflakes may very well be designed, but not without first assuming that the designer wants snowflakes. Read the OP again. The whole point the OP tries to make is that no knowledge about the designer is nessesary. My point is that it is neccesary if you want to reach 'the object is designed'. Without knowledge (assumed or otherwise) about the designer you can only reach 'the object LOOKS designed'. That is my only point.BVZ_{May 6, 2009
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Its is truly hard to believe that anyone is still arguing over snowflakes.Upright BiPed_{May 6, 2009
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Snowflakes LOOK designed, but they are not.
I am not so sure. Maybe the designer had the look of snowflakes in mind when he/she designed oxygen and hydrogen atoms. Just a thought.Mapou_{May 6, 2009
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Without knowing who or what the designer is, the best you can possibly do is concluding that something LOOKS designed, but you will not be able to conclude that it HAS BEEN. If you disagree, give me an example with the following requirements: Identify design in an object but: 1) You should not know if it has been designed or not before you apply ID to it. 2) ID should conclude that it has been designed, not that it LOOKS designed. 3) No information about the designer must be available. 4) None of your premises should be your conclusion. Can you do this? Note: resons for requirements 1) If you already know the object has been designed, ID is useless. 2) Snowflakes LOOK designed, but they are not. 3) To address the claim made in the OP. 4) This would be a circular argument.BVZ_{May 5, 2009
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Bantay & rvb8: Awesome! I have been posting lightly for a few months now and this is the first time I have actually been attacked. Though I must say I'm not sure why. Bantay, I am honestly not sure what you're accusing me of. Do you not think design can be discussed with someone until they believe in God? Do you not think someone can be sympathetic to another's search for a designer without first believing in God themselves? I'm not sure what you're getting at. I do think it's an interesting dilemma. I can see design in the pattern, and I'm curious about the work others might perform later down the line to create more certainty, but I am still unable to draw the same conclusion of design because of my inability to comprehend a designer. This is part of the human experience and I don't think it deserves to be attacked. It is very much an aspect of this discussion. RVB8, you seem to think I am so sympathetic to God that I must be lying and really do believe. Because why, exactly? I don't feel the need to crush or mock those who do posit a designer? So I must be lying about my faith (or lack of). Because no one could possibly respect someone who has different views of the world than themselves? They must secretly share them? You can still find ID as silly as want, my respect for it should have no bearing on your disdain. For some reason you are threatened by a non-believer having respect for ID. I'm not sure why that is. I don't think I deserve the hostility I received from either one of you. I mean no offense by this, but I think your comments reveal far more about the baggage you bring to the discussion than they reveal about me.Tommy V_{May 5, 2009
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The Designer Apparently Designs Like Humans Do
I've heard that there are valid reports about the designer employing non-human aka super-natural techniques. In addition, the designer created self reproducing entities which is quite different from common human design.sparc_{May 5, 2009
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Tommy V @ 1 "It’s a silly argument and I don’t think it really needs to be addressed all that much." I hear that denial is a powerful influence. Tommy V @ 11 "The reason I do not believe in God or a designer is that my imagination cannot fathom such a thing. But I am not so bold to think that the universe is somehow limited by what I can or cannot imagine. A finite imagination cannot possibly comprehend the full reality of an infinite God." That could be true. However, a rational mind can comprehend that intelligence begets intelligence, and that in all of human history, intelligent minds do things that nature, by itself, does not do. "Until then I am open to all reasonable assertions and possibilities."....You mean, all reasonable assertions and possibilities....except design. Right? Tommy V....software programs do not spontaneously come into existence unaided by intelligent agents. Likewise, a rational, intelligent message does not come from an irrational, unintelligent source. Consider that the next time you look at a DNA double-helix.Bantay_{May 5, 2009
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