Discussion of "intelligent design" (uncapitalized, AlanF)

by AuldSoul 153 Replies latest members adult

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  AuldSoul

  AlanF: except that the fuzzy 'goal' is survival long enough to reproduce.

  This is a 'goal' that we have subjectively superimposed on a phenomenon we witnessed. There is to my knowledge no evidence that single-celled life has survival to reproduce as a goal, 'fuzzy' or otherwise. If you have evidence to the contrary, evidence that shows survival to reproduce is a goal of single-celled life and not simply a result that we have observed and attributed 'fuzzy' intent to, I would be delighted to consider such evidence.

  I don't think it is an accident that when we come to the point of discussing the actual process of self-perpetuation, the portion accounted for by natural selection, as opposed to design, suddenly becomes fuzzy.

  Keep in mind what you wrote about that circuit you are working on. That will become very key later on. Just because you don't know what the outcome will be does not mean you did not employ intelligence in the changes you chose to make to increase the likelihood of the desired outcome and minimize the likelihood of a disastrous outcome, correct?

  You have stated, but have provided no evidence, that "natural selection" can have goals, as though "natural selection" is a thinking and planning entity. I think this is an assumption to which I have never agreed and cannot agree without proof being presented to substantiate it. I disagree that natural selection has any sort of goal, it is only something that occurs. Wind changes a lot of things, but it has no goals, no objectives, 'fuzzy' or otherwise.

  In a moment, after I see what you use to prove that natural selection has a goal of some kind, I will bring up expanded total capacity for DNA code sets and ask you to explain that in terms that don't smack of design and intent (albeit with some unpredicted consequences).
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  moshe

  I will never fully comprehend Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle or Chaos Theory, but they exist and run the Universe and because of them it is not possible for God to be a creator as the Bible defines it. It does not seem logical that present day man is the product of several billion years of accumulated chances, and for that reason alone it is the right answer. I've said enough.
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  dilaceratus

  If one is going to start arguing design, it's hard to get around the fact that almost every single species that has ever existed is extinct. This is a worse record than small French restaurants with a hint of Indonesian have.
  Everything that currently exists is successful, by its very definition. Even so, most creatures lead lives of relative desperation and brutal trauma. (Did a Designer love bacteria and beetles so much that he made them so populous, or hate them so much he makes so many of them suffer starvation and predation?) Human life was fairly horrible for even the most prosperous until a few hundred years ago. People died young from disease, toothache, arthritis, starvation, and infection. Life is still nearly unbearably grim for half the human population of the world.
  
  The human spine works, but is obviously not designed for an upright posture. Any Designer who chose to use anything other than the abundant metals of the earth to construct (at minimum) the joints of land mammals would be slaughtered in the courts for malfeasance. A human immune system that can't cope with smallpox, tetanus, plague, tuberculosis, HIV, syphilis, or various cancers may be giving it the old college try, but is hardly consistent with forethought-- unless you imagine lots of competing Designers at work, in an Olympian "BattleBots" scenario.
  
  In this same vein, retroviruses are engineering marvels, able to wipe out entire populations in short order. The wonder of the eagle's sharp vision must thrill the rabbit as its neck is snapped. Fiddler spiders must gasp in amazement as the fascinating life-cycle of the wasp is demonstrated once again, when the wasp lays its eggs inside the spider, so that it can be consumed from within by the hatchlings. The red-billed tropic bird must wonder that its Designer loved it so much it allowed it to soar for long distances with only the slightest effort, but then wonder what it could done to have deserved legs that are absolutely useless when it has to drag itself on the ground in order to breed. Slugs and snails have their eyes on flexible stalks, which should give them a huge advantage; unfortunately, the eyes at the ends of those stalks can barely tell light from dark. Skinks that look like snakes with tiny, Thalidomide limbs... whales with residual hipbones... an ocean floor piled high with trilobites that couldn't make the grade...
  
  Like Microsoft, good design doesn't win; it helps, but winning wins. Other strategies include faster, cheaper, meaner, slower, and hornier. Notice that the definition of a successful organism is survival until it can reproduce: This is why so many computer programmers have invested in cryogenics.
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  ackack

  ID is *not* science, plain and simple. Science deals with falsifiable hypothesises, and one cannot formulate a hypothesis about ID. The argument that because we can't explain something, therefore its probably God is a fallacy known as an argument from ignorance.

  The question of ID is a faith-based question, but certainly, there is nothing that science can really say about ID aside from the obvious, that is, it is not science. Other ID arguments, are just thinly veiled creationism, and attempts to rally against them often result in special pleading or any other number of logical fallacies.

  Its lamentable, that schools in the USA what to teach this sort of thing, and internationally, its interesting how these school boards (and often the USA) becomes the laughingstock of the entire world.

  ackack
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  ackack

  Auldsoul, you wrote, "I won't be drawn into a discussion of the nature of the designer(s). I am looking for specific indicators of design"

  These two concepts cannot be disentangled. To look for specific indicators of design is to assume qualities of the designer itself.

  ackack
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  stillajwexelder

  I will never fully comprehend Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle

  Let me attempt to explain in simple terms - the mere measuring of a property alters it. Let me explain with electrical current. To measure a voltage (potential difference) you need to draw current (and yes I know you can put a very high resistance in the circuit to limit the current drawn but ---) by drawing current you very slightly must reduce the potential to supply that current and hence the potential difference measured in volts (and vica versa).

  Heisenbergs uncertainty principle in essence says when you try and ascertain the position of an electron you can not with 100.0000000% accuracy determine its angular momentum. Same principle.
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  outoftheorg

  This is going to be interesting. I have my own ideas, questions?? But never the opportunity to pursue an education in the areas discussed on this thread.

  It is difficult to be rid of a religious belief and trying to juggle two possibly correct claims on the beginnings of humans.

  I will probably end up thinking that there are truths and errors on both discussions. But I will gain wanted knowledge.

  Thanks for the opportunity.

  Outoftheorg
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  stillajwexelder

  Which by the way is different than Pauli's exclusion principle which basically says that no two electrons can have the same set of quantum numbers - Principal, Azimuthal, Orbital Angular Momentum and Spin
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  AlanF

  AuldSoul wrote:

  : AlanF: except that the fuzzy 'goal' is survival long enough to reproduce.

  : This is a 'goal' that we have subjectively superimposed on a phenomenon we witnessed.

  Precisely my point! That's why I put the word in single-quotation marks. It means that I'm using the word in a non-standard way, a way that I tried to define by giving examples. Let me say it another way: a result of trial and error experiments can properly be called a 'goal', with hindsight, as long as you understand that it's not a true goal in the sense of having been a pre-determined and pre-desired result. I specifically stated, "Natural selection has no a priori goals."

  : There is to my knowledge no evidence that single-celled life has survival to reproduce as a goal, 'fuzzy' or otherwise.

  That's right, it's not a goal in the sense that a cell knows what it's doing. It most certainly does, though, have a built-in tendency to survive. That's why it takes in food and energy, often attempts to evade its predators, and so on. When we get to higher life forms, this tendency to survive is a good deal more developed. The life forms that are better able to survive tend to reproduce more of their kind, so in a very real way, the tendency to try to survive results in a tendency for the better survivors to reproduce more. Calling that tendency a 'goal' is simply a manner of speaking. Let's not get bogged down in semantics.

  : I don't think it is an accident that when we come to the point of discussing the actual process of self-perpetuation, the portion accounted for by natural selection, as opposed to design, suddenly becomes fuzzy.

  You've lost me.

  : Keep in mind what you wrote about that circuit you are working on. That will become very key later on.

  Indeed it will, and I'm going to show you why I introduced it. That's why I suggested that you be careful where you're going with this line of argument.

  : Just because you don't know what the outcome will be does not mean you did not employ intelligence in the changes you chose to make to increase the likelihood of the desired outcome and minimize the likelihood of a disastrous outcome, correct?

  That's correct, but not the whole story. And you missed the critical point that sometimes I don't know in which direction to move a component value, so I try a whole slew of them, and pick whichever one works best.

  The reason I introduced this example is that simple circuit design can actually be done by a computer program selecting components at random, testing the result against some template, discarding what tends away from the template and retaining what gets closer. Several years ago I read a Scientific American article where some researchers set up a fairly simple program that was to design a circuit that performed a simple task. The program literally picked devices at random, picked random ways to interconnect them, and tested the results against a template. After a long time and zillions of trials, a working circuit resulted. In fact, it turned out to be better than any that regular engineers had ever designed. Moreover, no one understood how it worked. I looked at the schematic, and it looked like gobbledegoop. Many other similar experiments have been carried out, where these so-called genetic algorithms have been used to design things that work better than any engineer has managed.

  Natural selection is a good deal more complicated, since there is no preset template other than the extremely fuzzy "to survive", and the conditions under which the selection occurs are constantly changing. As I've said several times, the tendency to survive, which results in the accumulation of better survivors over the long haul, which comes as a result of better survivors reproducing more of their kind, can be called a fuzzy 'goal' in the sense that this result, with hindsight, is a sort of goal. This fuzzy 'goal' exists in place of a preset template. No matter what words you want to use to describe these processes, they go on, and they work.

  : You have stated, but have provided no evidence, that "natural selection" can have goals,

  I said no such thing. I specifically stated, "Natural selection has no a priori goals."

  : . . . I disagree that natural selection has any sort of goal, it is only something that occurs. Wind changes a lot of things, but it has no goals, no objectives, 'fuzzy' or otherwise.

  That's right, in the strict sense that you mean, but you're not getting the sense of what I'm saying. I'm not saying that natural selection has true, a priori goals. I'm saying that one can, with the clarity of hindsight, view the results of any trial and error process as a fuzzy 'goal', with the provisos I've explained in several posts.

  : In a moment, after I see what you use to prove that natural selection has a goal of some kind, I will bring up expanded total capacity for DNA code sets and ask you to explain that in terms that don't smack of design and intent (albeit with some unpredicted consequences).

  Bring it on. I'm going to have to bone up on this stuff, though. I'm far from an expert, so the answers may take some time.

  AlanF
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  AlanF

  I should clarify your statement a bit, stillajwexelder: Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle is not actually about measurement disturbing a system. This notion is often used to illustrate it, but that's not really what it says. What it says is more subtle, and much more profound: certain pairs of "complementary" quantities, such as position and momentum, inherently do not have a definite value when measured together. A result of this is the usual explanation that if you try to measure a particle's postion more and more accurately, you're going to lose accuracy when you measure its momentum. Why this works this way is one of the fundamental mysteries of physics.

  AlanF