Sean Pitman and nested hierarchy
John Harshman
one. This combines two posts.]
Seanpit wrote:
> On Feb 19, 5:56 pm, John Harshman <jharshman.diespam...@pacbell.net>
> wrote:
>>> It should be intuitively obvious. I really don't know what more
>>> you're looking for?
>> I'm looking for something more than "It should be intuitively
>> obvious." If it's so obvious you should be able to make some kind
>> of explicit argument why one (design is involved) implies the other
>> (no common descent).
>
> I've given you several explicit arguments - just as explicit as any
> you have provided.
I have missed them. Could you repeat them in one handy spot?
> As far as I've been able to tell, your argument is basically that a
> nested hierarchical pattern implies common descent in all cases where
> it is found. This hypothesis does seem to hold true, as far as I can
> tell, for non-deliberate processes. It seems that non-deliberate
> processes cannot make a nested hierarchical pattern without the use of
> common descent. In fact, this particular hypothesis, is actually
> falsifiable. All one has to do to falsify this hypothesis is show a
> non-deliberate process producing a nested pattern without using common
> descent and this hypothesis would be falsified.
>
> However, this very predictable limitation is demonstrably *not* a
> necessity when intelligent design is involved.
I agree. Since there are no limits on intelligent design, anything is
possible and science is futile. I can't understand why you still cling
to it.
> In order to try to
> make it a necessity for when ID is demonstrably involved, you propose
> various limitations to all intelligent designers. You suggest that no
> intelligent designer would ever produce a nested pattern. You ask for
> a reason why an intelligent designer would create such a pattern.
> Don't you see, this is like asking why Picasso refuses to paint in the
> style of Michelangelo? It makes absolutely no sense to ask this
> question. If you don't see that, there simply is no further
> argument. It should be enough to speak for itself.
I agree. It makes absolutely no sense to ask any questions at all, given
your assumptions. We can't know anything through examination of the world.
> Your efforts to presuppose limits on all intelligent designers, even
> ones you do not know, reduces your hypothesis to a position of non-
> falsifiability. Given they way you describe your position, it is true
> by definition. It cannot be challenged, even in theory, because you
> defined what a designer can and cannot do.
No, in fact I haven't. Consider this in a likelihoodist framework: A
designer (hey, can I save typing by calling him "god" from now on?
Thanks.) has a flat probability distribution of expected result,
infinitely wide -- i.e. he could do anything. This means that the
probability of any one outcome -- e.g. a nested hierarchy -- is
arbitrarily close to zero. The likelihood of the data given the god
model is almost nil. Then again, the distribution for common descent is
sharply peaked; we strongly expect a nested hierarchy and little else.
So the likelihood of the nested hierarchy data given the common descent
model is quite high. In a likelihoodist framework we clearly pick common
descent as an explanation of the data. Similar reasoning would produce
similar results in bayesian or frequentist frameworks.
Or we could talk about specified information. A nested hierarchy is
specified information. If we see a particular pattern that we expect to
find resulting from X, we don't invoke some other process that has no
expectation. The probability of getting that specified result from
chance, or from an unpredictable god, are close to zero.
You actually use this reasoning yourself in other contexts. You only
invoke god when convenient, and reject one when you think a natural
model applies. Recently you claimed that the geological record is
clearly the product of a catastrophic event. I said you couldn't rule
out god creating the record. And your response was that since natural
processes could explain the record, god was unnecessary. You reject god
as an explanation purely because there is a natural explanation, because
the probability of god producing a result that happens to mimic a
natural process is, in your mind, very low. And this reasoning doesn't
come from a constraint put on god; quite the opposite: it comes from a
total lack of constraint, which makes the probability of any particular
result almost zero.
Similarly, you have already agreed that nested hierarchies are a
predicted product of common descent; we have no need of god to explain
that hierarchy just as we have no need of god to explain the
stratigraphic record.
Yet you reject common descent but accept stratigraphy. Why the
difference? Simple, it's the elephant in the room that you won't
mention. You have a prior template into which all conclusions must fit:
biblical inerrancy. You know that common descent is false because
Genesis says kinds were separately created. But you know strata weren't
created because Genesis says (or is interpreted as implying) that the
strata formed naturally from the Flood. All your argument is in service
to that hidden agenda. And that's where the difference comes from.
Nowhere else. Have the honesty to realize that.
> Let's consider the dog species. Dogs show a nested pattern. It is
> therefore theorized that all dogs share a single common doggy ancestor
> - the wolf. The mechanism of producing the wide variety of dog
> morphologies is known - i.e., Mendelian variation. It is also known
> that this mechanism does not require the input of outside information
> in the form of intelligent manipulation or otherwise. So, the
> mechanism compliments the hypothesis since it is known that no non-
> deliberate process can produce such a pattern without the use of
> common descent. For argument's sake though, let's just suppose what
> would happen to the theory of doggy common descent if it was known
> that each variety of dog required intelligent input to produce. The
> nested pattern would still be the same. However, the notion that this
> pattern had to have been the product of common descent is not longer
> true. The intelligent designer could have produced the pattern over
> time via common descent or via any other process he/she/it wanted -
> even de novo sudden creation. There simply is no limit to what a
> designer could have done to produce such a pattern given that a
> designer was required to produce the differences. Therefore, the
> hypothesis of common descent given such a scenario looses a great deal
> of predictive value.
Agreed. There is no limit. And this applies to the stratigraphic record
exactly as it applies to the nested hierarchy of life. No more and no
less. It applies to everything or nothing. If it applies, all science is
impossible. If it doesn't apply, a natural explanation of the nested
hierarchy is preferable to "goddidit".
> Your argument that such a designer would have likely limits that would
> require the use of common descent is no more supported by predictive
> value than wishful thinking. You simply cannot predict how an
> intelligent designer that you do not personally know would or would
> not choose to create a particular pattern. That notion is pure
> nonsense.
That is not my argument. I hope you now understand what my argument
really is. You reject creation of strata because there is a natural
explanation. By the same token you must reject creation of kinds because
there is a natural explanation, or explain why the systems are
different. Note that you are still free to accept creation of adaptive
systems, your "more than 1000 fairly specified residues" because (at
least according to you) there is no natural explanation. But no matter
how hard you try, guilt by association doesn't turn that into creation
of separate kinds.
> If you do not recognize this, I really see no further point in
> continuing to discuss this point. I'm not convinced by your assertion
> of likely limitations on unknown designers or the non-falsifiability
> of your position. Sorry. It just isn't science.
I don't intend to convince you. I know that's impossible. But I at least
hope to get you to understand my argument, which so far you don't. I
agree that something around here isn't science, but you are confused
about where the non-science comes from. It comes from your
(inconsistently applied) idea that a god capable of producing any
observed data makes some things unfalsifiable (though paradoxically not
other things).
[another post tacked on here]
> The difference between the nested pattern in living things and the
> stratigraphic pattern is that all the key differences in the nested
> pattern of life require ID.
Irrelevant even if true, because we are talking about an aspect (the
nested hierarchy itself) that we both agree doesn't require ID. Unless
you are arguing for guilt by association, everything you say about this
doesn't matter.
> This is not true of any aspect of the
> layers of rock. None of the features of layered geologic column
> require outside intelligent input. That is why the pattern itself,
> for layered rock, strongly suggest that the limited mechanisms
> available to non-deliberate processes to produce certain types of
> patterns is the most likely explanation when no ID is required for any
> aspect of the pattern in question.
Again, this is merely an attempt to apply some principle of contagion or
guilt by association. You are saying that because some aspect of life
require ID (you think), other unrelated aspects must also. But there is
no reason for that claim, and you use it selectively. You aren't, for
example, claiming that the development of individual embryos requires
ID. You aren't claiming that such random mutations as even you agree
happen require ID. So why does a nested hierarchy? You agree in fact
that it doesn't, but you nevertheless hold the position that the
hierarchy isn't due to common descent. Of course, as I've said, we know
why; it's because your interpretation of Genesis requires you to think
that, and you invent reasons so as to sound scientific. Without that
hidden theme there is no consistency at all to your argument.
> This is quite different from the "tree of life" pattern where just
> about all the branches of the tree require intelligent input. Given
> that intelligent input is in fact required to produce most of the
> differences in the tree, the overall pattern is in fact the result of
> ID.
Sorry, that doesn't follow. It's like saying that because apples grow on
trees, and an apple pie is mostly apples, then apple pies must grow on
trees.
> This brings us to your conclusion that the intelligent designer
> would have to have used common descent to produce such a pattern.
> That's not true or even necessarily likely given that you don't even
> know the designer.
No matter how many times I explicitly deny that this is my conclusion,
you keep repeating it. Why? I think it's to avoid addressing my real
argument, which you have conveniently snipped. [But which I restored above]
> In other words, the conclusion of the usual natural mechansim given a
> phenomenon where no intelligent input is required is quite resonable.
> The conclusion of the usual natural mechansim, given the required
> input of ID to produce all of the key features of the pattern in
> question, is not nearly on the same logical basis. There simply is no
> "exact" correlation like you suggest.
This is only the case if you artificially conflate common descent with
adaptation. You seem unable to separate them, even for a second. There
is no logical basis for assuming that one aspect of life must share the
same cause as another, independent aspect.
> One is known to require intelligent design to produce the pattern
> while the other does not require intelligent design to produce the
> pattern.
Again, you make this work only by confusing what pattern we're talking
about. No intelligent design is required to produce the pattern of
nested hierarchy, as you yourself admit.
> The one that does not require intelligent design to produce
> the pattern is far more predictable as to its actual origin because,
> so far as we known, non-intelligent physical laws of this universe are
> very consistent and therefore quite predictable in the patterns that
> they produce (i.e., nested patterns produced by non-deliberate
> processes are always the result of common descent). In comparison,
> creative intelligences, especially ones that you don't know and have
> never met, are notoriously unpredictable.
>
> That is why your position that a nested pattern indicates common
> descent, given that ID from an unknown entity or "God" is in fact
> required to produce the pattern, is not testable in a falsifiable
> manner and is therefore not scientific. Period. There simply is no
> argument here.
There's no argument because you snipped it without replying, and merely
repeated your previous claims as if I had said nothing.
> The only way your position might become scientific is if you could
> find out something about the intelligent agent or "God" in question so
> as to have some basis as to his likes, dislikes, and general pattern
> of doing creative things. Otherwise, you really have no basis
> whatsoever for suggesting any limits as to what this "God" might or
> might not like to do.
And indeed I have not suggested any such limits. Let me know when you're
ready to respond to my actual argument. It might help if you didn't snip
the whole thing.
John Harshman
Perplexed in Peoria
"John Harshman" <jharshman....@pacbell.net> wrote
(quoting Pitman):
> > As far as I've been able to tell, your argument is basically that a
> > nested hierarchical pattern implies common descent in all cases where
> > it is found. This hypothesis does seem to hold true, as far as I can
> > tell, for non-deliberate processes. It seems that non-deliberate
> > processes cannot make a nested hierarchical pattern without the use of
> > common descent. In fact, this particular hypothesis, is actually
> > falsifiable. All one has to do to falsify this hypothesis is show a
> > non-deliberate process producing a nested pattern without using common
> > descent and this hypothesis would be falsified.
Ok. I'll bite. Is alphabetical order a kind of nested heirarchy? Seems
to me that it is. Words beginning with the same letter are in the same
phylum. Words beginning with the same pair of letters are in the
same order. Etc.
Now, if you accept that this is a nested heirarchy, then please notice
that the heirarchy itself is in the mind of the systematizer, rather than
in the process which generates the words - whether deliberate or not.
[snip]
John Harshman
So what you have there is a deliberate process imposing a nested
hierarchy on data that aren't inherently hierarchical. What was your
purpose in doing that? It doesn't seem to be arguing either for or
against anything Sean said.
Ernest Major
<jharshman....@pacbell.net> writes
being a strawman. PiP took it at face value.
For many sets of objects you can define a nested hierarchy (a
dichotomising or polychotomising key) but restricting your consideration
to selected data (in PiP's example the spelling, ignoring part of
speech, word length, syllable count, source language, semantic
clustering, gender, etc.) Life, as you know, is different in the
correlation of the hierarchies inferred from different data sets.
Most people understand this distinction, and we would overlook the
wording as the intent is clear in the context. When conversing with Sean
it's probably wise to make the distinction explicit.
--
alias Ernest Major
TomS
<3LqWokBl...@meden.invalid>, Ernest Major stated..."
It seems to me that any given finite set of data can be
arranged in just about any pre-determined finite pattern.
The interesting thing is when there is an open-endedness
to the data.
Living things are open-ended in two ways: One, that there
are always more things to be considered and discovered
about them, and DNA is one major discovery that fell into
the same tree structure; The other, that there are always
new species being discovered (both living and fossil).
Another way of putting this might be to say that the
"nested hierarchy" of life makes predictions about what
will be discovered about life.
It makes me think of the discovery of the periodic table
of elements. What is interesting about the periodic table
is that it makes predictions of both kinds: About the
properties of the elements which were not used to
determine their position in the table; About elements
not-yet-discovered (as I recall, Mendeleev predicted the
element germanium to fill a gap in the table).
Without this open-ended, predictive power of the pattern,
the pattern seems no more interesting than a mnemonic
device.
--
---Tom S.
"As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand."
attributed to Josh Billings
John Harshman
But that wasn't Sean's argument (much less mine).
> For many sets of objects you can define a nested hierarchy (a
> dichotomising or polychotomising key) but restricting your consideration
> to selected data (in PiP's example the spelling, ignoring part of
> speech, word length, syllable count, source language, semantic
> clustering, gender, etc.) Life, as you know, is different in the
> correlation of the hierarchies inferred from different data sets.
>
> Most people understand this distinction, and we would overlook the
> wording as the intent is clear in the context. When conversing with Sean
> it's probably wise to make the distinction explicit.
Sean has not raised this question. And nothing in the quoted argument is
relevant to it. He said nothing about a deliberate process imposing a
nested hierarchy. He asked for a non-deliberate process producing a
nested hierarchy without common descent. He in fact has agreed that
common descent is the only *natural* explanation of a nested hierarchy.
We are merely arguing about whether you can infer common descent from
such a hierarchy. He says you can't because god might have made it that way.
TomS
<HLexj.59195$Pv2....@newssvr23.news.prodigy.net>, John Harshman stated..."
And, I believe, you pointed out that anything at all is an
equally possible state of affairs given "intelligent design".
A nested hierarchy is no more (or less) likely than any other
pattern.
After all, if there is any point to the concept "intelligent
design", it is that it accommodates more things than "natural
causes" (and even more than "chance").
Perplexed in Peoria
"John Harshman" <jharshman....@pacbell.net> wrote in message news:r94xj.4949$Mh2...@nlpi069.nbdc.sbc.com...
My purpose here is simply to explore how strongly the observation
of a nested heirarchy suggests the hypothesis of common descent.
I accept the point made by several people that my alphabetical-order
example was flawed mostly because the heirarchy gets built based
on a single criterion. Whereas the biological nested heirarchy used
as evidence for common descent has the property that the tree is
'robust' in that you get pretty much the same tree whatever criterion
you choose at each stage. That 'robustness' is what gives the tree
its predictive power.
So the question I want to look at this time is whether the existence
of this kind of robust classification heirarchy is necessarily evidence
for common descent.
Let us consider the classification of books in a bookstore by genre.
Phylum 'fiction'. Order 'F&SF'. Family 'Sword and Sorcery'. Is
the Heirarchy 'natural'? I think so. Is it predictive? I can probably
make a pretty good guess as to whether a book belongs in this
category just by looking at the cover art.
Now, is this heirachy the result of common descent or intelligent
design?
To be honest, I'm coming to the opinion that an OEC
doesn't really need to be an omphalist in order to have no fear
of the nested heirarchy evidence, per se. Of course, the actual
sequence data provides too many examples of non-adaptive
features that also fit the heirarchy. Those do indeed tend to argue
against ID. But I think we need another name for these bits
of evidence - another name beyond Nested Heirarchy.
John Harshman
I think not. Genre is moderately arbitrary, and classifying the books by
genre is itself arbitrary. Why not by author, or subject, or color?
> Is it predictive? I can probably
> make a pretty good guess as to whether a book belongs in this
> category just by looking at the cover art.
>
> Now, is this heirachy the result of common descent or intelligent
> design?
It's the result of imposing a hierarchy on non-hierarchical data (the
books themselves), same as the alphabetical order example.
> To be honest, I'm coming to the opinion that an OEC
> doesn't really need to be an omphalist in order to have no fear
> of the nested heirarchy evidence, per se.
You will have to explain more clearly why this is.
> Of course, the actual
> sequence data provides too many examples of non-adaptive
> features that also fit the heirarchy.
Why should that matter? And why do you emphasize "non-adaptive"?
> Those do indeed tend to argue
> against ID. But I think we need another name for these bits
> of evidence - another name beyond Nested Heirarchy.
I'm still at a loss to determine why you think so.
Ernest Major
in Peoria <jimme...@sbcglobal.net> writes
Pigeon-holing books into genre categories, except as somewhat arbitrary
marketing labels, is not to my mind as clear cut as you appear to think.
The inability of people to agree whether books are science fiction or
fantasy is a perennial topic of discussion over as rec.art.sf.written.
More specifically there was a person lamenting the "romance" cover on a
mil-SF book.
Is Gemmell's Troy trilogy fantasy or historical fiction? Is Narnia
fantasy or religious allegory? Is 1984 science fiction? Is Animal Farm
fantasy? Is Frankenstein horror or science fiction? When do historical
mysteries finish, and vanilla mysteries start? Why is alternative
history classified as science fiction?
(BTW, you seem to have a minor brainworm - it's hierarchy, not
heirarchy.)
>
>Now, is this heirachy the result of common descent or intelligent
>design?
Or neither? It seems to me not unreasonable to draw an analogy between
genres and colours - both are rather arbitrary divisions of a continuum,
and both can be presented as a nested hierarchy (e.g. phylum red, family
scarlet).
>
>To be honest, I'm coming to the opinion that an OEC
>doesn't really need to be an omphalist in order to have no fear
>of the nested heirarchy evidence, per se. Of course, the actual
>sequence data provides too many examples of non-adaptive
>features that also fit the heirarchy. Those do indeed tend to argue
>against ID. But I think we need another name for these bits
>of evidence - another name beyond Nested Heirarchy.
>
Commonalities, similarities, vestiges and contrivances.
--
alias Ernest Major
KlausH
I detest the ambiguity between fact and fiction. I think all books,
films, and television programs that extensively blend historical
personages and events with fiction should sport very prominent
disclaimers at the beginning. Disney movies like Anastasia and
Pocohontas are very good examples, as well as Braveheart.
<snip rest>
Perplexed in Peoria
"KlausH" <badgerbad...@badger.net> wrote in message news:Gnyxj.15192$Ch6....@newssvr11.news.prodigy.net...
Whoops. <blush>
> I detest the ambiguity between fact and fiction. I think all books,
> films, and television programs that extensively blend historical
> personages and events with fiction should sport very prominent
> disclaimers at the beginning. Disney movies like Anastasia and
> Pocohontas are very good examples, as well as Braveheart.
Hmmm. This thread seems to be setting a record for speed of
shift in focus. Well, your diatribe - however far from the original
thread and newsgroup topic - has its own interest and deserves
comment.
I understand your concern about historical fiction, but I would
like to see an even more prominent warning lable on historical
non-fiction.
Warning! While some care was take in getting the facts
right, be forewarned that this story, like all history, got here
after transmission from generation to generation by people
with agendas. Apart from any distortion that this might have
caused, you should also note that the current author is only
passing on this story because she considers it to be didactically
valuable, dramatically interesting, politically relevant, or of some
other commercial value. It just might be fact, but it is selected
fact.
Perplexed in Peoria
"John Harshman" <jharshman....@pacbell.net> wrote in message news:jXkxj.8176$xq2....@newssvr21.news.prodigy.net...
<Smile> I took this objection seriously enough to think long and hard
about what feature of the biological nested heirarchy protects it from the
charge that it too is 'arbitrary'. And the answer I came up with is that
in the case of biology there is a 'true tree' - however difficult it may be
to discern the true tree given the evidence available.
But this observation is a bit useless (and circular) in the never-ending
struggle against Pitman. </smile>
>> Is it predictive? I can probably
>> make a pretty good guess as to whether a book belongs in this
>> category just by looking at the cover art.
>>
>> Now, is this heirachy the result of common descent or intelligent
>> design?
>
> It's the result of imposing a hierarchy on non-hierarchical data (the
> books themselves), same as the alphabetical order example.
And the same as the biology example. The hierarchy is ALWAYS
imposed - but one hopes it is imposed using 'natural' criteria. And
that the hierarchy may be able to tell us something about the original
source of our data. My impression is that this genre classification
of books suggests the hypothesis that authors frequently write with
a particular genre in mind.
>> To be honest, I'm coming to the opinion that an OEC
>> doesn't really need to be an omphalist in order to have no fear
>> of the nested heirarchy evidence, per se.
>
> You will have to explain more clearly why this is.
I hope I have made it a little clearer.
>> Of course, the actual
>> sequence data provides too many examples of non-adaptive
>> features that also fit the heirarchy.
>
> Why should that matter? And why do you emphasize "non-adaptive"?
Because people who like the ID hypothesis have a perfectly
adequate explanation for why adaptive features might prove to fit
naturally into a hierarchy. But they are stuck with omphalism as the
non-common-descent explanation for the natural fit of non-adaptive
features into a hierarchy.
>> Those do indeed tend to argue
>> against ID. But I think we need another name for these bits
>> of evidence - another name beyond Nested Heirarchy.
>
> I'm still at a loss to determine why you think so.
I hope you are a bit less lost now. ;-)
TomS
<b0zxj.14274$R84....@newssvr25.news.prodigy.net>, Perplexed in Peoria
stated..."
[...snip...]
>Because people who like the ID hypothesis have a perfectly
>adequate explanation for why adaptive features might prove to fit
>naturally into a hierarchy. But they are stuck with omphalism as the
>non-common-descent explanation for the natural fit of non-adaptive
>features into a hierarchy.
No, the pro-ID people do not have an explanation.
They have nothing which distinguishes between "this" and
"that". And distinguishing is one of the things that an
explanation does. An explanation tells us why things are
this way, rather than something else.
Any pattern fits with ID just as well as does the
nested hierarchy. There is no reason, for example, why
the features of the world of life are not arranged in
the same way that the periodic table of the elements
are arranged (isn't that a product of "design", too?);
or in a symmetry such as displayed by some crystals
(maybe like a snowflake); or (to get historical about
this, see "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation"),
in a scheme of pentads; or in the "Great Scale of Being".
(There are other signature traits of explanations which
ID doesn't even come close to having, but this one lack
seems most appropriate to this discussion.)
Greg Guarino
<jimme...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>Because people who like the ID hypothesis have a perfectly
>adequate explanation for why adaptive features might prove to fit
>naturally into a hierarchy.
I disagree. Birds that fly, birds that don't fly, and even birds that
swim use feathers for locomotion and insulation. Why doesn't even one
mammal have them? Why do humans and fish, who occupy very different
environments, share a basic eye design, while fish and octopi do not?
The only ID hypothesis that makes any sense at all to explain this
pattern is what I call the Tinkerer, which still includes Common
Descent, albeit with the odd advantageous mutation thrown in.
Otherwise you're reduced to the "God can do anything he wants"
defense.
Greg Guarino
John Harshman
It's more useless than you imagine. Pitman agrees that there is a nested
hierarchy of life, and that it's non-arbitrary. So you are not arguing
with Pitman at all here. You're arguing with me about something we both
(Pitman and I, that is) agree on.
And the answer *I* come of with is that in the case of biology the data
really are hierarchal, and that this hierarchy is discovered rather than
imposed, and that it can be approached from many directions with the
same result. Now it's true that some aspects of the tree are easier to
find and agree upon than others. So? There are enough easy problems for
our purposes, including the all-important (to creationists) question of
human relationships.
>>> Is it predictive? I can probably
>>> make a pretty good guess as to whether a book belongs in this
>>> category just by looking at the cover art.
>>>
>>> Now, is this heirachy the result of common descent or intelligent
>>> design?
>> It's the result of imposing a hierarchy on non-hierarchical data (the
>> books themselves), same as the alphabetical order example.
>
> And the same as the biology example. The hierarchy is ALWAYS
> imposed - but one hopes it is imposed using 'natural' criteria. And
> that the hierarchy may be able to tell us something about the original
> source of our data. My impression is that this genre classification
> of books suggests the hypothesis that authors frequently write with
> a particular genre in mind.
All very nice. But the hierarchy of life is *not* imposed. It's inherent
in the data.
>>> To be honest, I'm coming to the opinion that an OEC
>>> doesn't really need to be an omphalist in order to have no fear
>>> of the nested heirarchy evidence, per se.
>> You will have to explain more clearly why this is.
>
> I hope I have made it a little clearer.
A little. Not enough, though. And not to the extent that I find your
claims valid.
>>> Of course, the actual
>>> sequence data provides too many examples of non-adaptive
>>> features that also fit the heirarchy.
>> Why should that matter? And why do you emphasize "non-adaptive"?
>
> Because people who like the ID hypothesis have a perfectly
> adequate explanation for why adaptive features might prove to fit
> naturally into a hierarchy. But they are stuck with omphalism as the
> non-common-descent explanation for the natural fit of non-adaptive
> features into a hierarchy.
What is that perfectly adequate explanation?
>>> Those do indeed tend to argue
>>> against ID. But I think we need another name for these bits
>>> of evidence - another name beyond Nested Heirarchy.
>> I'm still at a loss to determine why you think so.
>
> I hope you are a bit less lost now. ;-)
We're making some progress.
Seanpit
> > Your efforts to presuppose limits on all intelligent designers, even
> > ones you do not know, reduces your hypothesis to a position of non-
> > by definition. It cannot be challenged, even in theory, because you
> > defined what a designer can and cannot do.
> John Harshman wrote:
> No, in fact I haven't. Consider this in a likelihoodist framework: A
> designer (hey, can I save typing by calling him "god" from now on?
> Thanks.) has a flat probability distribution of expected result,
> infinitely wide -- i.e. he could do anything. This means that the
> probability of any one outcome -- e.g. a nested hierarchy -- is
> arbitrarily close to zero. The likelihood of the data given the god
> model is almost nil. Then again, the distribution for common descent is
> sharply peaked; we strongly expect a nested hierarchy and little else.
> So the likelihood of the nested hierarchy data given the common descent
> model is quite high. In a likelihoodist framework we clearly pick common
> descent as an explanation of the data. Similar reasoning would produce
> similar results in bayesian or frequentist frameworks.
Sean Pitman wrote:
Let's say that we know the nested hierarchical pattern (NHP) was in
fact designed, but we don't know the method of design. Given this
scenario, you seem to be suggesting that, even given that ID produced
the NHP, odds are the creative method chosen by the intelligent
creator was common descent (CD)? - because only CD has a sharp
likelihood peak given a NHP?
What is interesting here is that this notion is testable and it's
outcome is not "almost nil" as you suggest. For example, give a bunch
of people, from artists to housewives, a piece of paper and a pencil
and tell them to sketch out various objects according to a NHP. Do
you actually think that none of them will use any other method besides
common descent to produce the NHP?
Not according to Michael Leyton, Dept. of Psychology, Rutgers
University. In his book, Lyton argues that the "human perceptual
system is organized as a nested hierarchy of symmetries." He goes on
to argue that "architects exploit this psychological fact in the
structure of their buildings" . . . and that the "same is true of
painters, and of composers."
http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~mleyton/arch0.html
It seems only natural then that we humans tend to use NHP in our own
creations without being told to do so and that we do not always use CD
to produce our buildings, paintings, or other "compositions". In
other words, the odds that a NHP, that is known to be designed, is the
produce of CD is not "essentially 100%" as you suggest.
> Or we could talk about specified information. A nested hierarchy is
> specified information. If we see a particular pattern that we expect to
> find resulting from X, we don't invoke some other process that has no
> expectation. The probability of getting that specified result from
> chance, or from an unpredictable god, are close to zero.
Not if you know that ID was *required* to produce the NHP. We know
enough about the abilities of our own intelligence to know that we can
easily skip the common descent steps and produce the NHP directly - de
novo. In fact, this is often done in various creations that exhibit
the NHP (as noted above).
> You actually use this reasoning yourself in other contexts. You only
> invoke god when convenient, and reject one when you think a natural
> model applies.
I wouldn't call this "convenient". I would call this a necessity. I
invoke ID only when it seems to me that there is no other viable
option. This is in fact the basis of the ID-only hypothesis - the same
basis used by SETI scientists in their search for ID in the form of ET-
produced "artifacts".
> Recently you claimed that the geological record is
> clearly the product of a catastrophic event. I said you couldn't rule
> out god creating the record. And your response was that since natural
> processes could explain the record, god was unnecessary.
What I reject is the notion that only ID could produce such a
phenomenon. I do not reject the possibility that ID was involved. It
is just that this notion cannot be adequately supported by the
available data in this particular case.
> You reject god
> as an explanation purely because there is a natural explanation, because
> the probability of god producing a result that happens to mimic a
> natural process is, in your mind, very low.
That's not my reasoning at all. The probability of an intelligent
agent mimicking a non-deliberate process of nature is not "essentially
nil" as you suggest. We humans do it all the time. We make "natural
gardens" and "natural rocks" to go in these gardens and paint natural
scenes and produce the sounds of nature. We copy nature all the time
- deliberately. So, unlike you, I do not reject the potential of ID
for any phenomenon. What I reject is the notion that only ID could
have done the job for certain phenomena - like the Grand Canyon or the
geologic column. Other non-ID mechanisms could also do the job
without my being able to tell the difference.
> And this reasoning doesn't
> come from a constraint put on god; quite the opposite: it comes from a
> total lack of constraint, which makes the probability of any particular
> result almost zero.
Nope.
> Similarly, you have already agreed that nested hierarchies are a
> predicted product of common descent;
Only given that non-deliberate natural processes could produce the
various key differences in the various elements that make up the NHP.
> we have no need of god to explain
> that hierarchy just as we have no need of god to explain the
> stratigraphic record.
Not all NHP are created equal in that not all of them can be explained
without the use of ID. For example, the NHP observed in certain
architectural structures, paintings, and compositions require ID. They
cannot be produced without ID. Such creations which demonstrate NHPs
are demonstrably independent of the need for CD much of the time.
> Yet you reject common descent but accept stratigraphy. Why the
> difference? Simple, it's the elephant in the room that you won't
> mention. You have a prior template into which all conclusions must fit:
> biblical inerrancy. You know that common descent is false because
> Genesis says kinds were separately created. But you know strata weren't
> created because Genesis says (or is interpreted as implying) that the
> strata formed naturally from the Flood. All your argument is in service
> to that hidden agenda. And that's where the difference comes from.
> Nowhere else. Have the honesty to realize that.
I know that the key differences between the various "kinds" of
creatures required ID. This is not true of stratigraphy. The various
aspects of stratigraphy do not *require* ID. That's the difference.
This observation has nothing to do with the Bible. I'd be an IDist
without the Bible. In fact, I thought that the ToE was quite
reasonable for quite some time. It wasn't until after medical school
when I was in the army that I discovered that the evolutionary
mechanism simply didn't work beyond very low levels of functional
complexity. It wasn't until then that I really started reconsidering
the ToE.
< snip repetitive >
> > The difference between the nested pattern in living things and the
> > stratigraphic pattern is that all the key differences in the nested
> > pattern of life require ID.
>
> Irrelevant even if true, because we are talking about an aspect (the
> nested hierarchy itself) that we both agree doesn't require ID. Unless
> you are arguing for guilt by association, everything you say about this
> doesn't matter.
It is not irrelevant if true. All you have to do to see the relevance
is ask a bunch of people to deliberately create something that
expresses a NHP and see if they use CD as a mechanism. You see, when
ID is known to be involved, it is also known that NHPs are often
produced without the need for CD.
< snip >
> > This is quite different from the "tree of life" pattern where just
> > about all the branches of the tree require intelligent input. Given
> > that intelligent input is in fact required to produce most of the
> > differences in the tree, the overall pattern is in fact the result of
> > ID.
>
> Sorry, that doesn't follow. It's like saying that because apples grow on
> trees, and an apple pie is mostly apples, then apple pies must grow on
> trees.
Nope. It is like saying that when a NHP is a known product of ID,
common descent is often bypassed to get to the final creation faster.
You see, intelligent minds can progress through all the CD steps to
the end product within the mind - without having to produce each step
separately. The end product that exhibits a NHP can be produced right
away without the need to physically use the process of CD.
< snip >
> > One is known to require intelligent design to produce the pattern
> > while the other does not require intelligent design to produce the
> > pattern.
>
> Again, you make this work only by confusing what pattern we're talking
> about. No intelligent design is required to produce the pattern of
> nested hierarchy, as you yourself admit.
Again, not all phenomena that exhibit a NHP can be produced without
the input of ID. Those creations the exhibit NHP and are also that
are known to require ID can be and often are produced without the use
of CD.
< snip repetitive >
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Greg Guarino
wrote:
>It seems only natural then that we humans tend to use NHP in our own
>creations without being told to do so and that we do not always use CD
>to produce our buildings, paintings, or other "compositions". In
>other words, the odds that a NHP, that is known to be designed, is the
>produce of CD is not "essentially 100%" as you suggest.
Could you give concrete examples of buildings, paintings or other
compositions that exhibit a nested hierarchical pattern without a
common descent scenario? Because I am hard-pressed to think of any.
We may find such a pattern in human cultural creations where tribes
split from time to time and afterward have little contact with each
other. Thus their spear points, basket patterns, hut designs and
language will tend to have features that follow lineages, and are not
found in other lineages. Thie is a direct result of common descent
without (much) horizontal transfer.
To whatever degree horizontal transfer exists, it corrupts the
hierarchical structure. So we find words like "kamikaze" or
"zeitgeist" used in English. Likewise noodles outside of China and
hamburgers inside of China.
Wherever contact exists, the only intelligent designers we know (homo
sapiens) quickly incoporate ideas from outside their own "lineage".
This inevitably happens even when we put deliberate impediments into
the process (secrecy, patents).
To take architecture for an example, there have been "schools" of
architecture, whose progressions and splits into subgenres can tend to
form a nested hierarchy, at least when viewed from a certain limited
perspective. But but beneath the stylistic details specific to each
school, once an innovation proves useful, e.g. 1.6 gallon toilets,
they will quickly be found in buildings of every style. Lithium
batteries have spread to products of various types made by hundreds of
manufacturers.
Such horizontal transfer, the incorporation of ideas and technologies
from various sources, is the hallmark of design, at least where
communication allows the designer to see technologies outside his
company, field, or locality.
This would certainly be the case in the case of a single Designer,
designing all the "kinds" of creatures Himself. Yet we don't see the
sort of mixing of advantageous features that we would expect when it
comes to living things. Feathers are used by birds that fly, swim and
run, yet no mammal has them in any environment. No (multicellular)
animal uses photosynthesis.
Looked at from different perspective, no known designer would
restrict himself to making GPS units by repurposing auto radio parts,
so it is dificult to see why any sort of designer would fashion
inner-ear components from reshaped jaw bones. Some people seem to
believe that that is exactly what the Designer did, but even they
believe He did so gradually, following lines of common descent.
>> Or we could talk about specified information. A nested hierarchy is
>> specified information. If we see a particular pattern that we expect to
>> find resulting from X, we don't invoke some other process that has no
>> expectation. The probability of getting that specified result from
>> chance, or from an unpredictable god, are close to zero.
>
>Not if you know that ID was *required* to produce the NHP. We know
>enough about the abilities of our own intelligence to know that we can
>easily skip the common descent steps and produce the NHP directly - de
>novo.
I don't think so. How would we keep such a system straight in our
heads without at least imagining a branching lineage? And moreover,
except to "fake" common descent, who would do such a thing?
>In fact, this is often done in various creations that exhibit
>the NHP (as noted above).
Noted, perhaps, but no examples given. Can you think of any?
Greg Guarino
John Harshman
>> > Sean Pitman wrote:
>> > Your efforts to presuppose limits on all intelligent designers, even
>> > ones you do not know, reduces your hypothesis to a position of non-
>> > falsifiability. Given the way you describe your position, it is true
>> > by definition. It cannot be challenged, even in theory, because you
>> > defined what a designer can and cannot do.
>
>> John Harshman wrote:
>> No, in fact I haven't. Consider this in a likelihoodist framework: A
>> designer (hey, can I save typing by calling him "god" from now on?
>> Thanks.) has a flat probability distribution of expected result,
>> infinitely wide -- i.e. he could do anything. This means that the
>> probability of any one outcome -- e.g. a nested hierarchy -- is
>> arbitrarily close to zero. The likelihood of the data given the god
>> model is almost nil. Then again, the distribution for common descent is
>> sharply peaked; we strongly expect a nested hierarchy and little else.
>> So the likelihood of the nested hierarchy data given the common descent
>> model is quite high. In a likelihoodist framework we clearly pick common
>> descent as an explanation of the data. Similar reasoning would produce
>> similar results in bayesian or frequentist frameworks.
>
> Sean Pitman wrote:
> Let's say that we know the nested hierarchical pattern (NHP) was in
> fact designed, but we don't know the method of design.
Stop right there. Once more you are conflating the nested hierarchy with
the character differences that make it up. You seem unable to avoid
this. I agree that if the nested hierarchy were designed, it would be
designed. But I don't agree that if differences among species were
designed, that means the nested hierarchy was designed. It just means
that god dropped certain mutations (perhaps even macromutations or whole
sequences of mutations) into the tree at certain points. That says
nothing about the tree, except that it gives us an idea of the tree
structure, just as random mutations would do.
> Given this
> scenario, you seem to be suggesting that, even given that ID produced
> the NHP, odds are the creative method chosen by the intelligent
> creator was common descent (CD)? - because only CD has a sharp
> likelihood peak given a NHP?
No, this is a silly way of stating the problem, because you are still
conflating two separate questions.
> What is interesting here is that this notion is testable and it's
> outcome is not "almost nil" as you suggest. For example, give a bunch
> of people, from artists to housewives, a piece of paper and a pencil
> and tell them to sketch out various objects according to a NHP. Do
> you actually think that none of them will use any other method besides
> common descent to produce the NHP?
I will agree that human beings can simulate common descent, if indeed
the goal is to produce a simulation of common descent. Similarly, a
deceitful god is always a live hypothesis if you want to go there.
> Not according to Michael Leyton, Dept. of Psychology, Rutgers
> University. In his book, Lyton argues that the "human perceptual
> system is organized as a nested hierarchy of symmetries." He goes on
> to argue that "architects exploit this psychological fact in the
> structure of their buildings" . . . and that the "same is true of
> painters, and of composers."
>
> http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~mleyton/arch0.html
Google is a wonderful thing. It lets you find all manner of stuff using
keywords, even if the keywords are used in quite different ways from
what you're looking for. And this is just such a case. This is not at
all the sort of thing we're talking about here when we say "nested
hierarchy". (By the way, I would like to point out that, even in the
example Leyton uses, one could arrange the hierarchy in multiple
different ways to produce the same end result; this is not a natural
hierarchy that arises from examination of the elements themselves.)
> It seems only natural then that we humans tend to use NHP in our own
> creations without being told to do so and that we do not always use CD
> to produce our buildings, paintings, or other "compositions". In
> other words, the odds that a NHP, that is known to be designed, is the
> produce of CD is not "essentially 100%" as you suggest.
Again, you conflate the design of features of species with the design of
the nested hierarchy. That's merely assuming what you intend to prove.
>> Or we could talk about specified information. A nested hierarchy is
>> specified information. If we see a particular pattern that we expect to
>> find resulting from X, we don't invoke some other process that has no
>> expectation. The probability of getting that specified result from
>> chance, or from an unpredictable god, are close to zero.
>
> Not if you know that ID was *required* to produce the NHP. We know
> enough about the abilities of our own intelligence to know that we can
> easily skip the common descent steps and produce the NHP directly - de
> novo. In fact, this is often done in various creations that exhibit
> the NHP (as noted above).
No, the article you noted above has nothing to do with nested hierarchy
in the sense we're using it here. Google is not always your friend.
>> You actually use this reasoning yourself in other contexts. You only
>> invoke god when convenient, and reject one when you think a natural
>> model applies.
>
> I wouldn't call this "convenient". I would call this a necessity. I
> invoke ID only when it seems to me that there is no other viable
> option. This is in fact the basis of the ID-only hypothesis - the same
> basis used by SETI scientists in their search for ID in the form of ET-
> produced "artifacts".
Again, this reasoning only works if you assume that all aspects of life
must be created if any aspects are created. Why make that assumption?
>> Recently you claimed that the geological record is
>> clearly the product of a catastrophic event. I said you couldn't rule
>> out god creating the record. And your response was that since natural
>> processes could explain the record, god was unnecessary.
>
> What I reject is the notion that only ID could produce such a
> phenomenon. I do not reject the possibility that ID was involved. It
> is just that this notion cannot be adequately supported by the
> available data in this particular case.
How could that notion be supported, or, more importantly, rejected, by
any data whatsoever?
>> You reject god
>> as an explanation purely because there is a natural explanation, because
>> the probability of god producing a result that happens to mimic a
>> natural process is, in your mind, very low.
>
> That's not my reasoning at all. The probability of an intelligent
> agent mimicking a non-deliberate process of nature is not "essentially
> nil" as you suggest. We humans do it all the time. We make "natural
> gardens" and "natural rocks" to go in these gardens and paint natural
> scenes and produce the sounds of nature. We copy nature all the time
> - deliberately. So, unlike you, I do not reject the potential of ID
> for any phenomenon. What I reject is the notion that only ID could
> have done the job for certain phenomena - like the Grand Canyon or the
> geologic column. Other non-ID mechanisms could also do the job
> without my being able to tell the difference.
So why is ID necessary for the nested hierarchy, which we both agree
could have resulted naturally through a process of common descent?
>> And this reasoning doesn't
>> come from a constraint put on god; quite the opposite: it comes from a
>> total lack of constraint, which makes the probability of any particular
>> result almost zero.
>
> Nope.
Now that was a convincing argument.
>> Similarly, you have already agreed that nested hierarchies are a
>> predicted product of common descent;
>
> Only given that non-deliberate natural processes could produce the
> various key differences in the various elements that make up the NHP.
Why? I must remind you that it's quite possible for deliberate processes
to produce key differences even if the hierarchy is a product of common
descent. We simply end up with a model in which god intervenes at
various points in the tree to produce particular mutations. Again, you
seem unable to avoid conflation of hypotheses.
>> we have no need of god to explain
>> that hierarchy just as we have no need of god to explain the
>> stratigraphic record.
>
> Not all NHP are created equal in that not all of them can be explained
> without the use of ID. For example, the NHP observed in certain
> architectural structures, paintings, and compositions require ID. They
> cannot be produced without ID. Such creations which demonstrate NHPs
> are demonstrably independent of the need for CD much of the time.
This is all irrelevant, since we both agree that the nested hierarchy of
life could be produced by common descent. (Note that this does not
require a non-deliberate source for differences among species.)
>> Yet you reject common descent but accept stratigraphy. Why the
>> difference? Simple, it's the elephant in the room that you won't
>> mention. You have a prior template into which all conclusions must fit:
>> biblical inerrancy. You know that common descent is false because
>> Genesis says kinds were separately created. But you know strata weren't
>> created because Genesis says (or is interpreted as implying) that the
>> strata formed naturally from the Flood. All your argument is in service
>> to that hidden agenda. And that's where the difference comes from.
>> Nowhere else. Have the honesty to realize that.
>
> I know that the key differences between the various "kinds" of
> creatures required ID. This is not true of stratigraphy. The various
> aspects of stratigraphy do not *require* ID. That's the difference.
Again, this makes sense only if you conflate the source of variation
with the process of descent and branching, which is an invalid thing to do.
> This observation has nothing to do with the Bible. I'd be an IDist
> without the Bible. In fact, I thought that the ToE was quite
> reasonable for quite some time. It wasn't until after medical school
> when I was in the army that I discovered that the evolutionary
> mechanism simply didn't work beyond very low levels of functional
> complexity. It wasn't until then that I really started reconsidering
> the ToE.
Please try not to strain my credulity too much. It's delicate. At any
rate, your reasoning was faulty. If RM + NS don't work beyond yadda
yadda that says nothing at all about the presence or absence of common
descent. You have to glue them together in some way to make your case,
and so far all you're using for glue is the assertion that they're
connected. (Or, most often, just the tacit assumption that they're the
same thing.)
> < snip repetitive >
>
>> > The difference between the nested pattern in living things and the
>> > stratigraphic pattern is that all the key differences in the nested
>> > pattern of life require ID.
>>
>> Irrelevant even if true, because we are talking about an aspect (the
>> nested hierarchy itself) that we both agree doesn't require ID. Unless
>> you are arguing for guilt by association, everything you say about this
>> doesn't matter.
>
> It is not irrelevant if true. All you have to do to see the relevance
> is ask a bunch of people to deliberately create something that
> expresses a NHP and see if they use CD as a mechanism. You see, when
> ID is known to be involved, it is also known that NHPs are often
> produced without the need for CD.
Actually, I'd like to see this experiment. I bet the most common method
used would be to make an "ancestral" pattern, vary it, and keep varying
it some more until you had a nested set of variations. I doubt you would
be likely to end up with such a detailed simulation of common descent in
any other way. Of course, god can do anything.
> < snip >
>
>> > This is quite different from the "tree of life" pattern where just
>> > about all the branches of the tree require intelligent input. Given
>> > that intelligent input is in fact required to produce most of the
>> > differences in the tree, the overall pattern is in fact the result of
>> > ID.
>>
>> Sorry, that doesn't follow. It's like saying that because apples grow on
>> trees, and an apple pie is mostly apples, then apple pies must grow on
>> trees.
>
> Nope. It is like saying that when a NHP is a known product of ID,
> common descent is often bypassed to get to the final creation faster.
> You see, intelligent minds can progress through all the CD steps to
> the end product within the mind - without having to produce each step
> separately. The end product that exhibits a NHP can be produced right
> away without the need to physically use the process of CD.
You are still failing to make the necessary connection between the idea
that intelligence has been active in the history of life and the idea
that common descent was not involved. We agree that god could have
bypassed any steps he wanted. He can do anything. That's not relevant.
>> > One is known to require intelligent design to produce the pattern
>> > while the other does not require intelligent design to produce the
>> > pattern.
>>
>> Again, you make this work only by confusing what pattern we're talking
>> about. No intelligent design is required to produce the pattern of
>> nested hierarchy, as you yourself admit.
>
> Again, not all phenomena that exhibit a NHP can be produced without
> the input of ID. Those creations the exhibit NHP and are also that
> are known to require ID can be and often are produced without the use
> of CD.
Please present some examples. Your architectural find doesn't really
show nested hierarchy in the sense we mean it here, and your
extrapolations to all aspects of human existence are without foundation.
Let's see a nested hierarchy (a natural one, not one artificially
imposed) that's produced without common descent.
And again you are conflating the nested hierarchy of life with the
phenomena (organisms?) that exhibit that hierarchy. It's still guilt by
association, and you have provided no reason why we should accept this
conflation.
Seanpit
wrote:
That' isn't the question here. The question is: If you know a
particular NHP is designed, what is the likelihood that the designer
used CD as the mechanism of design?
In short, the creative methods to which mindless nature is limited are
not the same methodological limitations of intelligent agents - even
when it comes to deliberately simulating natural creations (which
happens all the time). By your argument a "natural garden" or a
painting of a "natural scene" would be an evil deception?
> But I don't agree that if differences among species were
> designed, that means the nested hierarchy was designed.
It certainly is possible to use the method of CD by design to produce
the NHP - but not overwhelmingly likely. Given that the NHP was in
fact designed, the question is, would most designers choose to produce
a NHP with the use of CD?
I think not. I think that most intelligent designers would choose to
skip the whole time consuming process of actually using CD to create
the overall pattern. This is especially true for those designers who
are primary interested in the final outcome of the overall creation.
> It just means
> that god dropped certain mutations (perhaps even macromutations or whole
> sequences of mutations) into the tree at certain points. That says
> nothing about the tree, except that it gives us an idea of the tree
> structure, just as random mutations would do.
>
> > Given this
> > scenario, you seem to be suggesting, even given that ID produced
> > the NHP, that the odds overwhelmingly favor the choosing of
> > common descent (CD) as the creative method? - because only
> > CD has a sharp likelihood peak given a NHP?
>
> No, this is a silly way of stating the problem, because you are still
> conflating two separate questions.
Not at all . . . You are in fact saying that even given knowledge
that ID was used to produce the key aspects of the NHP in question,
that the method the designer used would be CD in *every* instance -
that the odds of the designer using any other method are "essentially
nil". That is in fact your basic argument - as far as I can tell.
> > What is interesting here is that this notion is testable and it's
> > outcome is not "almost nil" as you suggest. For example, give a bunch
> > of people, from artists to housewives, a piece of paper and a pencil
> > and tell them to sketch out various objects according to a NHP. Do
> > you actually think that none of them will use any other method besides
> > common descent to produce the NHP?
>
> I will agree that human beings can simulate common descent, if indeed
> the goal is to produce a simulation of common descent. Similarly, a
> deceitful god is always a live hypothesis if you want to go there.
The goal is not to simulate common descent. That's a method. The
goal here is to produce a NHP with any *method* the intelligent
designer chooses. Given that the goal is to produce a NHP will an
intelligent designer always choose to use the CD method? I think
not. You seem agree with this last point.
So, given that we know a particular NHP was in fact designed, I do not
accept the notion that it was clearly designed via CD. That notion is
demonstrably not very reliable.
> > Not according to Michael Leyton, Dept. of Psychology, Rutgers
> > University. In his book, Lyton argues that the "human perceptual
> > system is organized as a nested hierarchy of symmetries." He goes on
> > to argue that "architects exploit this psychological fact in the
> > structure of their buildings" . . . and that the "same is true of
> > painters, and of composers."
>
> >http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~mleyton/arch0.html
>
> Google is a wonderful thing. It lets you find all manner of stuff using
> keywords, even if the keywords are used in quite different ways from
> what you're looking for. And this is just such a case. This is not at
> all the sort of thing we're talking about here when we say "nested
> hierarchy". (By the way, I would like to point out that, even in the
> example Leyton uses, one could arrange the hierarchy in multiple
> different ways to produce the same end result; this is not a natural
> hierarchy that arises from examination of the elements themselves.)
How is that? How is a highly symmetrical column, or colonnade made up
of a bunch of columns, in high symmetry, not an example of a true NHP?
- arising from examination of the elements themselves?
> > It seems only natural then that we humans tend to use NHP in our own
> > creations without being told to do so and that we do not always use CD
> > to produce our buildings, paintings, or other "compositions". In
> > other words, the odds that a NHP, that is known to be designed, is the
> > produce of CD is not "essentially 100%" as you suggest.
>
> Again, you conflate the design of features of species with the design of
> the nested hierarchy. That's merely assuming what you intend to prove.
Tell me, how can you deliberately design every single distinguishing
feature in every aspect of a system and not be responsible for the
design of the overall pattern as well?
> >> Or we could talk about specified information. A nested hierarchy is
> >> specified information. If we see a particular pattern that we expect to
> >> find resulting from X, we don't invoke some other process that has no
> >> expectation. The probability of getting that specified result from
> >> chance, or from an unpredictable god, are close to zero.
>
> > Not if you know that ID was *required* to produce the NHP. We know
> > enough about the abilities of our own intelligence to know that we can
> > easily skip the common descent steps and produce the NHP directly - de
> > novo. In fact, this is often done in various creations that exhibit
> > the NHP (as noted above).
>
> No, the article you noted above has nothing to do with nested hierarchy
> in the sense we're using it here. Google is not always your friend.
You're mistaken - on at least the first account . . .
> >> You actually use this reasoning yourself in other contexts. You only
> >> invoke god when convenient, and reject one when you think a natural
> >> model applies.
>
> > I wouldn't call this "convenient". I would call this a necessity. I
> > invoke ID only when it seems to me that there is no other viable
> > option. This is in fact the basis of the ID-only hypothesis - the same
> > basis used by SETI scientists in their search for ID in the form of ET-
> > produced "artifacts".
>
> Again, this reasoning only works if you assume that all aspects of life
> must be created if any aspects are created. Why make that assumption?
I don't assume that all aspects of every living thing required ID. My
position is that only those functional aspects that required at least
1000 specified aa working together at minimum clearly required ID.
> >> Recently you claimed that the geological record is
> >> clearly the product of a catastrophic event. I said you couldn't rule
> >> out god creating the record. And your response was that since natural
> >> processes could explain the record, god was unnecessary.
>
> > What I reject is the notion that only ID could produce such a
> > phenomenon. I do not reject the possibility that ID was involved. It
> > is just that this notion cannot be adequately supported by the
> > available data in this particular case.
>
> How could that notion be supported, or, more importantly, rejected, by
> any data whatsoever?
By showing a process which is agreed to be non-deliberate in nature
giving rise to the phenomenon in question. That demonstration would
neatly falsify the ID-only hypothesis. The same thing is true of the
radiosignal SETI scientists are looking for. All you have to do to
falsify their hypothesis that such a signal would be clear evidence of
ET would be to show a non-deliberate natural process producing the
same type of signal.
> >> You reject god
> >> as an explanation purely because there is a natural explanation, because
> >> the probability of god producing a result that happens to mimic a
> >> natural process is, in your mind, very low.
>
> > That's not my reasoning at all. The probability of an intelligent
> > agent mimicking a non-deliberate process of nature is not "essentially
> > nil" as you suggest. We humans do it all the time. We make "natural
> > gardens" and "natural rocks" to go in these gardens and paint natural
> > scenes and produce the sounds of nature. We copy nature all the time
> > - deliberately. So, unlike you, I do not reject the potential of ID
> > for any phenomenon. What I reject is the notion that only ID could
> > have done the job for certain phenomena - like the Grand Canyon or the
> > geologic column. Other non-ID mechanisms could also do the job
> > without my being able to tell the difference.
>
> So why is ID necessary for the nested hierarchy, which we both agree
> could have resulted naturally through a process of common descent?
ID isn't necessary for the NHP, but for the key differences of the
various elements that make up the pattern. Given that ID is required
for every key aspect of what makes up the overall pattern in question,
in this particular case, the overall NHP itself is logically the
result of ID. The question is, did this NHP, which is know to be
deliberately produced by ID, the product of the CD mechanism? Was the
intelligent agent required, statistically, to use CD as his only
option to create such a NHP? - as you suggest?
> >> And this reasoning doesn't
> >> come from a constraint put on god; quite the opposite: it comes from a
> >> total lack of constraint, which makes the probability of any particular
> >> result almost zero.
>
> > Nope.
>
> Now that was a convincing argument.
It was a response to a repetitive statement that was already answered
earlier . . .
> >> Similarly, you have already agreed that nested hierarchies are a
> >> predicted product of common descent;
>
> > Only given that non-deliberate natural processes could produce the
> > various key differences in the various elements that make up the NHP.
>
> Why? I must remind you that it's quite possible for deliberate processes
> to produce key differences even if the hierarchy is a product of common
> descent.
How possible is "quite possible"? Hmmmmm? Initially you indicated
that it wasn't just quite possible, it was "virtually certain" - i.e.,
~100%. Are you backing off of this assertion just a bit here by uses
the equivocation "quite possible"? That sounds a bit more wobbly to
me.
> We simply end up with a model in which god intervenes at
> various points in the tree to produce particular mutations. Again, you
> seem unable to avoid conflation of hypotheses.
Again, you seem unable to see that there is no "conflation".
> >> we have no need of god to explain
> >> that hierarchy just as we have no need of god to explain the
> >> stratigraphic record.
>
> > Not all NHP are created equal in that not all of them can be explained
> > without the use of ID. For example, the NHP observed in certain
> > architectural structures, paintings, and compositions require ID. They
> > cannot be produced without ID. Such creations which demonstrate NHPs
> > are demonstrably independent of the need for CD much of the time.
>
> This is all irrelevant, since we both agree that the nested hierarchy of
> life could be produced by common descent. (Note that this does not
> require a non-deliberate source for differences among species.)
The thing is, it is known that non-deliberate sources can only produce
NHPs via CD. It is also known that CD is not required or even
commonly used by intelligent agents to produce NHPs. That's the
difference in a nutshell.
> >> Yet you reject common descent but accept stratigraphy. Why the
> >> difference? Simple, it's the elephant in the room that you won't
> >> mention. You have a prior template into which all conclusions must fit:
> >> biblical inerrancy. You know that common descent is false because
> >> Genesis says kinds were separately created. But you know strata weren't
> >> created because Genesis says (or is interpreted as implying) that the
> >> strata formed naturally from the Flood. All your argument is in service
> >> to that hidden agenda. And that's where the difference comes from.
> >> Nowhere else. Have the honesty to realize that.
>
> > I know that the key differences between the various "kinds" of
> > creatures required ID. This is not true of stratigraphy. The various
> > aspects of stratigraphy do not *require* ID. That's the difference.
>
> Again, this makes sense only if you conflate the source of variation
> with the process of descent and branching, which is an invalid thing to do.
It is not invalid at all. Given that the source of variation for a
particular NHP is known to include non-ID processes, CD is the only
known option. However, given that the source of the all variation in
a NHP is *known* to *require* ID, CD is not the only known or even the
most common mechanism used.
> > This observation has nothing to do with the Bible. I'd be an IDist
> > without the Bible. In fact, I thought that the ToE was quite
> > reasonable for quite some time. It wasn't until after medical school
> > when I was in the army that I discovered that the evolutionary
> > mechanism simply didn't work beyond very low levels of functional
> > complexity. It wasn't until then that I really started reconsidering
> > the ToE.
>
> Please try not to strain my credulity too much. It's delicate.
Whatever - it's the truth.
> At any
> rate, your reasoning was faulty. If RM + NS don't work beyond yadda
> yadda that says nothing at all about the presence or absence of common
> descent.
It says a great deal. It says that all the key differences between
different living things definitely required ID. If one agrees to
this, the notion that CD was definitely the mechanism used to produce
these differences is no longer the only reasonable default assumption
because it is know that intelligent agents can and do use other
methods besides CD to produce NHPs.
I repeat: The creative methods to which mindless nature is limited
are not the same methodological limitations of intelligent agents -
even when it comes to deliberately simulating natural creations (which
happens all the time). By your argument a "natural garden" or a
painting of a "natural scene" would be an evil deception?
> You have to glue them together in some way to make your case,
> and so far all you're using for glue is the assertion that they're
> connected. (Or, most often, just the tacit assumption that they're the
> same thing.)
You are the one who is asserting, without any appeal to a falsifiable
test, that there is no association. You argue that it doesn't matter
if every aspect of a NHP is known to be designed, CD is still the
clear method that was used simply because it is the overwhelming
choice of mindless nature? That's just nonsense given the known
requirement for ID to produce a particular NHP.
> > < snip repetitive >
>
> >> > The difference between the nested pattern in living things and the
> >> > stratigraphic pattern is that all the key differences in the nested
> >> > pattern of life require ID.
>
> >> Irrelevant even if true, because we are talking about an aspect (the
> >> nested hierarchy itself) that we both agree doesn't require ID. Unless
> >> you are arguing for guilt by association, everything you say about this
> >> doesn't matter.
>
> > It is not irrelevant if true. All you have to do to see the relevance
> > is ask a bunch of people to deliberately create something that
> > expresses a NHP and see if they use CD as a mechanism. You see, when
> > ID is known to be involved, it is also known that NHPs are often
> > produced without the need for CD.
>
> Actually, I'd like to see this experiment.
Me too! I'm betting the outcome would not be nearly the 100% like you
originally suggested.
> I bet the most common method
> used would be to make an "ancestral" pattern, vary it, and keep varying
> it some more until you had a nested set of variations.
Well, that certainly is a falsifiable hypothesis. Good luck with the
actual test and your prediction of essentially 100% use of the CD
method.
> I doubt you would
> be likely to end up with such a detailed simulation of common descent in
> any other way. Of course, god can do anything.
Your doubts are not backed up by any actual test. I doubt that most
intelligent designers would go through all the hassle of going through
all the CD steps to produce the final pattern. I sure wouldn't want
to do it this way. That's what's so neat about having access to an
intelligent mind. You can skip many steps that non-intelligent
natural processes cannot skip. Why then would anyone feel forced to
used the same mindless mechanism that nature is forced to use? That's
what your brain is for . . . to skip steps.
< snip rest >
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Perplexed in Peoria
"Greg Guarino" <gr...@risky-biz.com> wrote in message news:47jds3hj64tdj3tec...@4ax.com...
I'm not sure that is the *only* ID hypothesis that makes sense.
I offered the analogy of literary genres. In some sense, it can
be said that all Gothic romances are 'descended' directly or
indirectly from Wurthering Heights. But this is a kind of intellectual
common descent rather than a physical one. There was not
actual plagiarism (with an odd advantageous mutation thrown in).
Only some ideas and patterns were taken and reused. A tinkering
Designer - yes. A designer who doesn't do all of His creating at
the same time - definitely. But not necessarily one who makes
use of common descent.
In fact, if it weren't for Wallace's 'Sarawak law', it is not clear that
the biological nested hierarchy would convince anyone of common
descent. In fact, before Wallace published this law in 1855, there
was apparently only one rather reticent fellow who was convinced.
But once Wallace pointed out that the Designer had apparently
only created new species in *the same location* as the preexisting
species which had provided the inspiration, then the inference to
common physical descent becomes strong and the alternative
hypothesis of mere intellectual inspiration becomes hard to
maintain.
To get a convincing case for common descent, you need *both*
the nested hierarchy (visible in the current biosphere) and
the Sarawak Law (visible primarily in the fossil record).
John Harshman
why. The designer could of course create species sequentially ex nihilo,
using each previous species as an exact template to which to add some
variations. But that would be an exact simulation of common descent,
whose only purpose would be a simulation of common descent. Now since he
could also do this ex nihilo creation in the same spot as the template
species was living, I don't see why the Sarawak Law would convince you
if the hierarchy itself were not already convincing.
John Harshman
There again you are conflating separate phenomena. Whether a particular
NHP is designed is what we're arguing about. You don't say you know the
NHP is designed. You only say you know some of the differences beteween
species out of which the NHP is made (though in fact not even the bulk
of those differences) are designed. The fact that you can't see the
difference is frustrating.
> In short, the creative methods to which mindless nature is limited are
> not the same methodological limitations of intelligent agents - even
> when it comes to deliberately simulating natural creations (which
> happens all the time). By your argument a "natural garden" or a
> painting of a "natural scene" would be an evil deception?
No, not by my argument.
>> But I don't agree that if differences among species were
>> designed, that means the nested hierarchy was designed.
>
> It certainly is possible to use the method of CD by design to produce
> the NHP - but not overwhelmingly likely. Given that the NHP was in
> fact designed, the question is, would most designers choose to produce
> a NHP with the use of CD?
Why is it given that the NHP was designed? You have never made that
claim, nor could you back it up if you tried. You have only claimed that
certain complex features of various organisms were designed. I say that
it's simpler to suppose that if so, they were designed once, somewhere
on a tree of common descent. Why not?
> I think not. I think that most intelligent designers would choose to
> skip the whole time consuming process of actually using CD to create
> the overall pattern. This is especially true for those designers who
> are primary interested in the final outcome of the overall creation.
Ah, so you are constraining the operation of god. Why should god care
about how time-consuming a process was? Who are you to tell him he has
to work by the fastest possible method?
>> It just means
>> that god dropped certain mutations (perhaps even macromutations or whole
>> sequences of mutations) into the tree at certain points. That says
>> nothing about the tree, except that it gives us an idea of the tree
>> structure, just as random mutations would do.
>>
>>> Given this
>>> scenario, you seem to be suggesting, even given that ID produced
>>> the NHP, that the odds overwhelmingly favor the choosing of
>>> common descent (CD) as the creative method? - because only
>>> CD has a sharp likelihood peak given a NHP?
>> No, this is a silly way of stating the problem, because you are still
>> conflating two separate questions.
>
> Not at all . . . You are in fact saying that even given knowledge
> that ID was used to produce the key aspects of the NHP in question,
> that the method the designer used would be CD in *every* instance -
> that the odds of the designer using any other method are "essentially
> nil". That is in fact your basic argument - as far as I can tell.
No, god doesn't have to "use" common descent. Common descent just
happens. He merely has to intervene whenever he feels like it. Rather
than a painstaking simulation of common descent, he can just let the
real thing happen. Why not?
>>> What is interesting here is that this notion is testable and it's
>>> outcome is not "almost nil" as you suggest. For example, give a bunch
>>> of people, from artists to housewives, a piece of paper and a pencil
>>> and tell them to sketch out various objects according to a NHP. Do
>>> you actually think that none of them will use any other method besides
>>> common descent to produce the NHP?
>> I will agree that human beings can simulate common descent, if indeed
>> the goal is to produce a simulation of common descent. Similarly, a
>> deceitful god is always a live hypothesis if you want to go there.
>
> The goal is not to simulate common descent. That's a method. The
> goal here is to produce a NHP with any *method* the intelligent
> designer chooses. Given that the goal is to produce a NHP will an
> intelligent designer always choose to use the CD method? I think
> not. You seem agree with this last point.
I agree that we can't say what god would or would not do. So why are you
so sure he didn't use common descent?
> So, given that we know a particular NHP was in fact designed, I do not
> accept the notion that it was clearly designed via CD. That notion is
> demonstrably not very reliable.
That's only because you are conflating separate issues and can't seem to
separate them even for an instant.
>>> Not according to Michael Leyton, Dept. of Psychology, Rutgers
>>> University. In his book, Lyton argues that the "human perceptual
>>> system is organized as a nested hierarchy of symmetries." He goes on
>>> to argue that "architects exploit this psychological fact in the
>>> structure of their buildings" . . . and that the "same is true of
>>> painters, and of composers."
>>> http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~mleyton/arch0.html
>> Google is a wonderful thing. It lets you find all manner of stuff using
>> keywords, even if the keywords are used in quite different ways from
>> what you're looking for. And this is just such a case. This is not at
>> all the sort of thing we're talking about here when we say "nested
>> hierarchy". (By the way, I would like to point out that, even in the
>> example Leyton uses, one could arrange the hierarchy in multiple
>> different ways to produce the same end result; this is not a natural
>> hierarchy that arises from examination of the elements themselves.)
>
> How is that? How is a highly symmetrical column, or colonnade made up
> of a bunch of columns, in high symmetry, not an example of a true NHP?
> - arising from examination of the elements themselves?
Because I could have performed the same operations in several different
orders and arrived at the same result. The hierarchy he chooses is
arbitrary. For example, I could have made a circle on the ground,
duplicated it in a plane in two directions (in either order), and then
raised each column in the third dimension. Same operations, different order.
>>> It seems only natural then that we humans tend to use NHP in our own
>>> creations without being told to do so and that we do not always use CD
>>> to produce our buildings, paintings, or other "compositions". In
>>> other words, the odds that a NHP, that is known to be designed, is the
>>> produce of CD is not "essentially 100%" as you suggest.
>> Again, you conflate the design of features of species with the design of
>> the nested hierarchy. That's merely assuming what you intend to prove.
>
> Tell me, how can you deliberately design every single distinguishing
> feature in every aspect of a system and not be responsible for the
> design of the overall pattern as well?
Easily. One watches organisms reproduce and arranges to be the sole
source of mutation. But of course not even you claim that every single
feature of every aspect is designed. Even you think there are random
mutations...don't you? And even you think that some features could
easily have evolved through random mutation and natural
selection...don't you?
>>>> Or we could talk about specified information. A nested hierarchy is
>>>> specified information. If we see a particular pattern that we expect to
>>>> find resulting from X, we don't invoke some other process that has no
>>>> expectation. The probability of getting that specified result from
>>>> chance, or from an unpredictable god, are close to zero.
>>> Not if you know that ID was *required* to produce the NHP. We know
>>> enough about the abilities of our own intelligence to know that we can
>>> easily skip the common descent steps and produce the NHP directly - de
>>> novo. In fact, this is often done in various creations that exhibit
>>> the NHP (as noted above).
>> No, the article you noted above has nothing to do with nested hierarchy
>> in the sense we're using it here. Google is not always your friend.
>
> You're mistaken - on at least the first account . . .
Perhaps if you actually read the article?
>>>> You actually use this reasoning yourself in other contexts. You only
>>>> invoke god when convenient, and reject one when you think a natural
>>>> model applies.
>>> I wouldn't call this "convenient". I would call this a necessity. I
>>> invoke ID only when it seems to me that there is no other viable
>>> option. This is in fact the basis of the ID-only hypothesis - the same
>>> basis used by SETI scientists in their search for ID in the form of ET-
>>> produced "artifacts".
>> Again, this reasoning only works if you assume that all aspects of life
>> must be created if any aspects are created. Why make that assumption?
>
> I don't assume that all aspects of every living thing required ID. My
> position is that only those functional aspects that required at least
> 1000 specified aa working together at minimum clearly required ID.
Exactly. So why assume that if those 1000 specified yadda yadda are
created, then so was the nested hierarchy?
>>>> Recently you claimed that the geological record is
>>>> clearly the product of a catastrophic event. I said you couldn't rule
>>>> out god creating the record. And your response was that since natural
>>>> processes could explain the record, god was unnecessary.
>>> What I reject is the notion that only ID could produce such a
>>> phenomenon. I do not reject the possibility that ID was involved. It
>>> is just that this notion cannot be adequately supported by the
>>> available data in this particular case.
>> How could that notion be supported, or, more importantly, rejected, by
>> any data whatsoever?
>
> By showing a process which is agreed to be non-deliberate in nature
> giving rise to the phenomenon in question. That demonstration would
> neatly falsify the ID-only hypothesis. The same thing is true of the
> radiosignal SETI scientists are looking for. All you have to do to
> falsify their hypothesis that such a signal would be clear evidence of
> ET would be to show a non-deliberate natural process producing the
> same type of signal.
But you have agreed that nested hierarchies can be produced by
non-deliberate processes. Doesn't your argument then disappear?
>>>> You reject god
>>>> as an explanation purely because there is a natural explanation, because
>>>> the probability of god producing a result that happens to mimic a
>>>> natural process is, in your mind, very low.
>>> That's not my reasoning at all. The probability of an intelligent
>>> agent mimicking a non-deliberate process of nature is not "essentially
>>> nil" as you suggest. We humans do it all the time. We make "natural
>>> gardens" and "natural rocks" to go in these gardens and paint natural
>>> scenes and produce the sounds of nature. We copy nature all the time
>>> - deliberately. So, unlike you, I do not reject the potential of ID
>>> for any phenomenon. What I reject is the notion that only ID could
>>> have done the job for certain phenomena - like the Grand Canyon or the
>>> geologic column. Other non-ID mechanisms could also do the job
>>> without my being able to tell the difference.
>> So why is ID necessary for the nested hierarchy, which we both agree
>> could have resulted naturally through a process of common descent?
>
> ID isn't necessary for the NHP, but for the key differences of the
> various elements that make up the pattern. Given that ID is required
> for every key aspect of what makes up the overall pattern in question,
> in this particular case, the overall NHP itself is logically the
> result of ID.
Not unless you can give a reason for why it's "logically" so. Just
proclaiming that it's logical isn't a reason.
> The question is, did this NHP, which is know to be
> deliberately produced by ID, the product of the CD mechanism? Was the
> intelligent agent required, statistically, to use CD as his only
> option to create such a NHP? - as you suggest?
Again, you seem to rely wholly on guilt by association, but selectively.
God created life, therefore he created the nested hierarchy of life. But
you reject the identical syllogism that god created the earth, therefore
he created the stratigraphic layering of the earth.
>>>> And this reasoning doesn't
>>>> come from a constraint put on god; quite the opposite: it comes from a
>>>> total lack of constraint, which makes the probability of any particular
>>>> result almost zero.
>>> Nope.
>> Now that was a convincing argument.
>
> It was a response to a repetitive statement that was already answered
> earlier . . .
Nope.
>>>> Similarly, you have already agreed that nested hierarchies are a
>>>> predicted product of common descent;
>>> Only given that non-deliberate natural processes could produce the
>>> various key differences in the various elements that make up the NHP.
>> Why? I must remind you that it's quite possible for deliberate processes
>> to produce key differences even if the hierarchy is a product of common
>> descent.
>
> How possible is "quite possible"? Hmmmmm? Initially you indicated
> that it wasn't just quite possible, it was "virtually certain" - i.e.,
> ~100%. Are you backing off of this assertion just a bit here by uses
> the equivocation "quite possible"? That sounds a bit more wobbly to
> me.
No. You are merely very confused about what I just said, specifically
about what's the "if" and what's the "then" of an if-then clause.
>> We simply end up with a model in which god intervenes at
>> various points in the tree to produce particular mutations. Again, you
>> seem unable to avoid conflation of hypotheses.
>
> Again, you seem unable to see that there is no "conflation".
I certainly am unable. Why don't you provide a reason?
>>>> we have no need of god to explain
>>>> that hierarchy just as we have no need of god to explain the
>>>> stratigraphic record.
>>> Not all NHP are created equal in that not all of them can be explained
>>> without the use of ID. For example, the NHP observed in certain
>>> architectural structures, paintings, and compositions require ID. They
>>> cannot be produced without ID. Such creations which demonstrate NHPs
>>> are demonstrably independent of the need for CD much of the time.
>> This is all irrelevant, since we both agree that the nested hierarchy of
>> life could be produced by common descent. (Note that this does not
>> require a non-deliberate source for differences among species.)
>
> The thing is, it is known that non-deliberate sources can only produce
> NHPs via CD. It is also known that CD is not required or even
> commonly used by intelligent agents to produce NHPs. That's the
> difference in a nutshell.
It's clear that CD is not required, since god can do anything by any
means he likes. But who says that intelligent agents (meaning, of
course, humans, those being the only intelligent agents we know of)
commonly produce NHPs without common descent? Let's see the examples.
>>>> Yet you reject common descent but accept stratigraphy. Why the
>>>> difference? Simple, it's the elephant in the room that you won't
>>>> mention. You have a prior template into which all conclusions must fit:
>>>> biblical inerrancy. You know that common descent is false because
>>>> Genesis says kinds were separately created. But you know strata weren't
>>>> created because Genesis says (or is interpreted as implying) that the
>>>> strata formed naturally from the Flood. All your argument is in service
>>>> to that hidden agenda. And that's where the difference comes from.
>>>> Nowhere else. Have the honesty to realize that.
>>> I know that the key differences between the various "kinds" of
>>> creatures required ID. This is not true of stratigraphy. The various
>>> aspects of stratigraphy do not *require* ID. That's the difference.
>> Again, this makes sense only if you conflate the source of variation
>> with the process of descent and branching, which is an invalid thing to do.
>
> It is not invalid at all. Given that the source of variation for a
> particular NHP is known to include non-ID processes, CD is the only
> known option. However, given that the source of the all variation in
> a NHP is *known* to *require* ID, CD is not the only known or even the
> most common mechanism used.
Repetitive.
>>> This observation has nothing to do with the Bible. I'd be an IDist
>>> without the Bible. In fact, I thought that the ToE was quite
>>> reasonable for quite some time. It wasn't until after medical school
>>> when I was in the army that I discovered that the evolutionary
>>> mechanism simply didn't work beyond very low levels of functional
>>> complexity. It wasn't until then that I really started reconsidering
>>> the ToE.
>> Please try not to strain my credulity too much. It's delicate.
>
> Whatever - it's the truth.
Let's merely assume I don't believe you and leave it at that.
>> At any
>> rate, your reasoning was faulty. If RM + NS don't work beyond yadda
>> yadda that says nothing at all about the presence or absence of common
>> descent.
>
> It says a great deal. It says that all the key differences between
> different living things definitely required ID. If one agrees to
> this, the notion that CD was definitely the mechanism used to produce
> these differences is no longer the only reasonable default assumption
> because it is know that intelligent agents can and do use other
> methods besides CD to produce NHPs.
Please give an example.
> I repeat: The creative methods to which mindless nature is limited
> are not the same methodological limitations of intelligent agents -
> even when it comes to deliberately simulating natural creations (which
> happens all the time). By your argument a "natural garden" or a
> painting of a "natural scene" would be an evil deception?
Only if it were intended to fool us into thinking it was a natural
event, and the penalty for thinking so were eternal damnation.
>> You have to glue them together in some way to make your case,
>> and so far all you're using for glue is the assertion that they're
>> connected. (Or, most often, just the tacit assumption that they're the
>> same thing.)
>
> You are the one who is asserting, without any appeal to a falsifiable
> test, that there is no association. You argue that it doesn't matter
> if every aspect of a NHP is known to be designed, CD is still the
> clear method that was used simply because it is the overwhelming
> choice of mindless nature? That's just nonsense given the known
> requirement for ID to produce a particular NHP.
I'll keep trying, but your inability to separate two different
phenomena, even for an instant, makes it hard to argue with you.
>>> < snip repetitive >
>>>> > The difference between the nested pattern in living things and the
>>>> > stratigraphic pattern is that all the key differences in the nested
>>>> > pattern of life require ID.
>>>> Irrelevant even if true, because we are talking about an aspect (the
>>>> nested hierarchy itself) that we both agree doesn't require ID. Unless
>>>> you are arguing for guilt by association, everything you say about this
>>>> doesn't matter.
>>> It is not irrelevant if true. All you have to do to see the relevance
>>> is ask a bunch of people to deliberately create something that
>>> expresses a NHP and see if they use CD as a mechanism. You see, when
>>> ID is known to be involved, it is also known that NHPs are often
>>> produced without the need for CD.
>> Actually, I'd like to see this experiment.
>
> Me too! I'm betting the outcome would not be nearly the 100% like you
> originally suggested.
Go to it. (Of course we still must wonder why the subjects are being
called upon to produce a nested hierarchy rather than the infinite
variety of other potentially pleasing patterns.)
>> I bet the most common method
>> used would be to make an "ancestral" pattern, vary it, and keep varying
>> it some more until you had a nested set of variations.
>
> Well, that certainly is a falsifiable hypothesis. Good luck with the
> actual test and your prediction of essentially 100% use of the CD
> method.
I thought you were doing the test.
>> I doubt you would
>> be likely to end up with such a detailed simulation of common descent in
>> any other way. Of course, god can do anything.
>
> Your doubts are not backed up by any actual test.
Nor are your non-doubts.
> I doubt that most
> intelligent designers would go through all the hassle of going through
> all the CD steps to produce the final pattern. I sure wouldn't want
> to do it this way. That's what's so neat about having access to an
> intelligent mind. You can skip many steps that non-intelligent
> natural processes cannot skip. Why then would anyone feel forced to
> used the same mindless mechanism that nature is forced to use? That's
> what your brain is for . . . to skip steps.
I agree. What intelligent designer who wanted to produce miles of
geological strata would go through the primitive mechanism of a
worldwide catastrophic flood when he could just have laid them down in
the beginning?
R. Baldwin
news:686d010d-7202-4130...@s13g2000prd.googlegroups.com...
Having spent a quarter century in design engineering, I can tell you from
direct personal experience and broad reading on the subject that design does
result in a nested hierarchy, but that the nested hierarchy is not designed.
The human acts that produce the nested hierarchy are most often random with
respect to each other and not well planned.
Designers reuse features all the time. This saves time and trouble. Reuse
equals descent, and a nested hierarchy results. A complete designed
hierarchy of reusable features, however, requires such investment and
foresight to create that it would be obsolete by the time it was created.
Sometimes bits and pieces of one are planned, but this is not the general
rule.
[snip rest]
Seanpit
wrote:
> "Seanpit" <sean...@gmail.com> wrote in message
It may not be the general rule, but it is often seen in carefully
planned creations - like Greek architecture. The Parthenon, for
example, exhibits nested hierarchy in its construction. So do the
great cathedrals of Europe.
So, while a nested pattern is not always directly created when design
is involved, it often is directly used in creative works without the
aid of common descent.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Seanpit
wrote:
>
> > That' isn't the question here. The question is: If you know a
> > particular NHP is designed, what is the likelihood that the designer
> > used CD as the mechanism of design?
>
> There again you are conflating separate phenomena. Whether a particular
> NHP is designed is what we're arguing about. You don't say you know the
> species out of which the NHP is made (though in fact not even the bulk
> of those differences) are designed. The fact that you can't see the
> difference is frustrating.
All the key differences, the overwhelming "bulk", require ID. That
means that every key aspect of the pattern was designed. Now, does
this mean that the overall NHP was also designed? No. Not
necessarily. The overall pattern could still have involved the use of
CD. But, you don't know that the original goal wasn't to create a NHP
from the get go. We humans often start out with the goal to create
an aesthetically pleasing work that often incorporates a NHP. And,
when this overall pattern is the goal, CD is not usually used.
In fact, those who first classified living things and discovered the
overall nested pattern thought that the overall order, symmetry, and
beauty of the pattern itself reflected the order, symmetry, and beauty
of the creator's mind itself.
> > In short, the creative methods to which mindless nature is limited are
> > not the same methodological limitations of intelligent agents - even
> > when it comes to deliberately simulating natural creations (which
> > happens all the time). By your argument a "natural garden" or a
> > painting of a "natural scene" would be an evil deception?
>
> No, not by my argument.
You're the one who suggested that a designer who incorporates any
aspect of what can happen naturally into a particular work is being
"deceptive". You did use that word, "deceptive" - did you not?
> >> But I don't agree that if differences among species were
> >> designed, that means the nested hierarchy was designed.
>
> > It certainly is possible to use the method of CD by design to produce
> > the NHP - but not overwhelmingly likely. Given that the NHP was in
> > fact designed, the question is, would most designers choose to produce
> > a NHP with the use of CD?
>
> Why is it given that the NHP was designed? You have never made that
> claim, nor could you back it up if you tried. You have only claimed that
> certain complex features of various organisms were designed. I say that
> it's simpler to suppose that if so, they were designed once, somewhere
> on a tree of common descent. Why not?
I think that the minute detail required to produce the differences
between living things, and the overall beauty of their shared
interaction, took a great deal of care and creative genius. Whoever
created vast range of different interacting creatures in an overall
system that works and interacts with itself very closely, was very
interested in every aspect of this creation. I do not see it as being
very likely that such obvious interest in minute detail and vast
creative genius would dilly dally around to figure things out as it
went along. I think it far more consistent that such a work would
have been completed in the "drawing room" first and then created
without the need to use common descent - to tweak things slowing over
time in a fumbling muddled sort of way that only mindless nature is
required to follow. An genius mind is not required to use such a slow
cumbersome method of creation that is, by the way, extremely painful
given that this genius mind actually cared about the feelings of the
sentient creatures being manipulated.
> > I think not. I think that most intelligent designers would choose to
> > skip the whole time consuming process of actually using CD to create
> > the overall pattern. This is especially true for those designers who
> > are primary interested in the final outcome of the overall creation.
>
> Ah, so you are constraining the operation of god. Why should god care
> about how time-consuming a process was? Who are you to tell him he has
> to work by the fastest possible method?
You are also constraining the designer. Why should he not care about
how he created sentient creatures? I mean really, wouldn't you care
if you set off to create sentient creatures? - or even a highly
complex interactive system of any kind? It is only reasonable, from a
human perspective, that if we would care about the actual process used
that the one who created us would also care in at least a similar
manner.
> > Not at all . . . You are in fact saying that even given knowledge
> > that ID was used to produce the key aspects of the NHP in question,
> > that the method the designer used would be CD in *every* instance -
> > that the odds of the designer using any other method are "essentially
> > nil". That is in fact your basic argument - as far as I can tell.
>
> No, god doesn't have to "use" common descent. Common descent just
> happens. He merely has to intervene whenever he feels like it. Rather
> than a painstaking simulation of common descent, he can just let the
> real thing happen. Why not?
Common descent doesn't "just happen". That's the problem. All of the
key differences of every living thing require ID. That means that if
the designer created life in its vast diversity over millions and
billions of years, it would have been a very painstaking process
indeed - pain being the key word here (for both the creator and the
created).
> > The goal is not to simulate common descent. That's a method. The
> > goal here is to produce a NHP with any *method* the intelligent
> > designer chooses. Given that the goal is to produce a NHP will an
> > intelligent designer always choose to use the CD method? I think
> > not. You seem agree with this last point.
>
> I agree that we can't say what god would or would not do. So why are you
> so sure he didn't use common descent?
Why are you so sure that he did? I mean really, I've just explained
to you that we humans tend to skip the CD steps when we create since
we do not have to follow the methods nature is *required* to use. We
can copy a certain feature of nature without using the same method
nature used. I dare say that any intelligent designer wouldn't feel
obligated to use the natural CD method either when producing an
otherwise "natural" pattern.
> > So, given that we know a particular NHP was in fact designed, I do not
> > accept the notion that it was clearly designed via CD. That notion is
> > demonstrably not very reliable.
>
> That's only because you are conflating separate issues and can't seem to
> separate them even for an instant.
You are separating issues that are very much related - and you can't
seem to realize that for an instant.
> > How is that? How is a highly symmetrical column, or colonnade made up
> > of a bunch of columns, in high symmetry, not an example of a true NHP?
> > - arising from examination of the elements themselves?
>
> Because I could have performed the same operations in several different
> orders and arrived at the same result. The hierarchy he chooses is
> arbitrary. For example, I could have made a circle on the ground,
> duplicated it in a plane in two directions (in either order), and then
> raised each column in the third dimension. Same operations, different order.
It's still a NHP given the order that is observed in a highly
symmetrical colonnade. It doesn't matter if you can use the same
operations to produce a non-NHP. The fact is that many of the
patterns that are observed in human-made structures, paintings, and
other creations do indeed produce NHP without the use of CD.
> > Tell me, how can you deliberately design every single distinguishing
> > feature in every aspect of a system and not be responsible for the
> > design of the overall pattern as well?
>
> Easily. One watches organisms reproduce and arranges to be the sole
> source of mutation. But of course not even you claim that every single
> feature of every aspect is designed. Even you think there are random
> mutations...don't you? And even you think that some features could
> easily have evolved through random mutation and natural
> selection...don't you?
Yes, I do believe that some minor functional differences can evolve.
But, that really isn't the point here. The point is that if the vast
majority of all the features of a pattern were designed, you are
suggesting that the designer had to follow the mechanism of CD.
That's nonsense. Not even we humans use CD all the time in the
formation of NHPs. In fact, we predictably skip the exhausting steps,
the trial and error, of CD to go straight to the finished NHP
directly.
> >> No, the article you noted above has nothing to do with nested hierarchy
> >> in the sense we're using it here. Google is not always your friend.
>
> > You're mistaken - on at least the first account . . .
>
> Perhaps if you actually read the article?
> > I don't assume that all aspects of every living thing required ID. My
> > position is that only those functional aspects that required at least
> > 1000 specified aa working together at minimum clearly required ID.
>
> Exactly. So why assume that if those 1000 specified yadda yadda are
> created, then so was the nested hierarchy?
Because that is how we humans often create - without having to use
trial and error all the time - unlike what mindless nature is required
to do.
> > By showing a process which is agreed to be non-deliberate in nature
> > giving rise to the phenomenon in question. That demonstration would
> > neatly falsify the ID-only hypothesis. The same thing is true of the
> > radiosignal SETI scientists are looking for. All you have to do to
> > falsify their hypothesis that such a signal would be clear evidence of
> > ET would be to show a non-deliberate natural process producing the
> > same type of signal.
>
> But you have agreed that nested hierarchies can be produced by
> non-deliberate processes. Doesn't your argument then disappear?
Radiosignals can also be produced by non-deliberate processes - just
not the type of radiosignals SETI is looking for. The same thing is
true of NHPs. It is true that NHPs can be produced by nature - but
not the type of NHP that is seen in living things. The NHP of living
things carry other particular aspects that cannot be produced
naturally and obviously required ID. Like the radiosignals SETI
scientists are looking for, this aspect of the pattern of living
things strongly indicates the careful involvement of a highly
intelligent mind for every key difference of every living thing. This
aspect of the NHP is what requires ID and ID only. The same thing is
true for SETI. It is this aspect that would be falsified if any non-
deliberate process of nature could be found producing these particular
features of the overall NHP.
< snip repetitive >
> > The question is, did this NHP, which is known to be
> > deliberately produced by ID, the product of the CD mechanism? Was the
> > intelligent agent required, statistically, to use CD as his only
> > option to create such a NHP? - as you suggest?
>
> Again, you seem to rely wholly on guilt by association, but selectively.
> God created life, therefore he created the nested hierarchy of life. But
> you reject the identical syllogism that god created the earth, therefore
> he created the stratigraphic layering of the earth.
As I've explained to you before, the ID-only hypothesis is falsified
in your latter example, but not the former. God created life because
only God could have created life. God might also have created the
stratigraphic layering of the Earth, but it seems quite clear that God
isn't the only one able to produce such a phenomenon. Therefore, the
ID-only hypothesis is falsified in this case. How is that such a hard
concept to grasp for you?
> >>>> And this reasoning doesn't
> >>>> come from a constraint put on god; quite the opposite: it comes from a
> >>>> total lack of constraint, which makes the probability of any particular
> >>>> result almost zero.
> >>> Nope.
> >> Now that was a convincing argument.
>
> > It was a response to a repetitive statement that was already answered
> > earlier . . .
>
> Nope.
Yep . . . ; )
< snip >
> > The thing is, it is known that non-deliberate sources can only produce
> > NHPs via CD. It is also known that CD is not required or even
> > commonly used by intelligent agents to produce NHPs. That's the
> > difference in a nutshell.
>
> It's clear that CD is not required, since god can do anything by any
> means he likes. But who says that intelligent agents (meaning, of
> course, humans, those being the only intelligent agents we know of)
> commonly produce NHPs without common descent? Let's see the examples.
I've already given you some. It is far greater than "essentially nil"
- that's for sure.
> > I repeat: The creative methods to which mindless nature is limited
> > are not the same methodological limitations of intelligent agents -
> > even when it comes to deliberately simulating natural creations (which
> > happens all the time). By your argument a "natural garden" or a
> > painting of a "natural scene" would be an evil deception?
>
> Only if it were intended to fool us into thinking it was a natural
> event, and the penalty for thinking so were eternal damnation.
See, you just said it again - creating any aspect of what nature can
also produce is defined by you as being "deceptive" - a deliberate
effort to be somehow sinister. That's nonsense. We humans
incorporate various features of nature all the time in our creations
without anyone being accused of sinister motives.
Also, where on Earth do you get this idea of some sort of "penalty" of
"eternal damnation" for believing in common descent or any other
aspect of evolutionary thought? That's also nonsense. No God that is
actually worth worshiping would be so petty. No one is going to be
lost for being honestly tricked into believing the wrong thing. The
only evil that someone can be truly accused of is the evil of knowing
what is right and deliberately doing the opposite. For example, say
that you know it is wrong to murder, but you decide that your wife's
life insurance is just too tempting so you do it anyway. Now that, my
friend, is evil by anyone's definition of the term.
It is for true evil, not for honestly believing the wrong thing that
we will be judged.
> >> Actually, I'd like to see this experiment.
>
> > Me too! I'm betting the outcome would not be nearly the 100% like you
> > originally suggested.
>
> Go to it. (Of course we still must wonder why the subjects are being
> called upon to produce a nested hierarchy rather than the infinite
> variety of other potentially pleasing patterns.)
Why design a colonnade in a NHP when there are so many other ways to
do it? Yet, we humans have done it and continue to use this pattern
all the time.
> >> I bet the most common method
> >> used would be to make an "ancestral" pattern, vary it, and keep varying
> >> it some more until you had a nested set of variations.
>
> > Well, that certainly is a falsifiable hypothesis. Good luck with the
> > actual test and your prediction of essentially 100% use of the CD
> > method.
>
> I thought you were doing the test.
You are the one claiming I'm wrong here. Go ahead and prove me
wrong. Falsify my position.
> >> I doubt you would
> >> be likely to end up with such a detailed simulation of common descent in
> >> any other way. Of course, god can do anything.
>
> > Your doubts are not backed up by any actual test.
>
> Nor are your non-doubts.
At least mine are in fact falsifiable - yours are not. So, at least
my position meets the requirements of a scientific proposal while
yours does not.
> > I doubt that most
> > intelligent designers would go through all the hassle of going through
> > all the CD steps to produce the final pattern. I sure wouldn't want
> > to do it this way. That's what's so neat about having access to an
> > intelligent mind. You can skip many steps that non-intelligent
> > natural processes cannot skip. Why then would anyone feel forced to
> > used the same mindless mechanism that nature is forced to use? That's
> > what your brain is for . . . to skip steps.
>
> I agree. What intelligent designer who wanted to produce miles of
> geological strata would go through the primitive mechanism of a
> worldwide catastrophic flood when he could just have laid them down in
> the beginning?
Nothing about stratigraphy requires ID. That's the difference. It is
easy to make something when no thought is really required. It is a
different story when a great deal of thought and effort is required.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Perplexed in Peoria
"John Harshman" <jharshman....@pacbell.net> wrote in message news:Df3yj.5475$Mh2...@nlpi069.nbdc.sbc.com...
Yes. An omnipotent Creator who carefully simulates common descent
without actually practicing it is a logical possibility. But not one that a
serious person would ever prefer to common descent.
But the notion of a non-omnipotent but nearly omniscient creator or
class of creative entities may be a more reasonable hypothesis. On
the analogy of the creation of books on this planet, by intelligent
authors who steal ideas from their predecessors, and thus create
something that looks a bit like a nested hierarchy without any
omphalist malice at all - on that analogy I can hypothesize that
our biosphere was intelligently designed by a series of designers
who simply and repeatedly improved upon prior designs. However,
beyond the sheer Linnaean fact of a nested hierarchy, there are
two other bits of evidence available. One is the Sarawak law -
which fits better with the common descent hypothesis than with
the incremental design hypothesis. The other is the fact - obvious
in the sequence data - that a lot of non-functional (junk) information
has been preserved along with the functional stuff in the structure
of the hierarchy. Again, it is easy to see how this would happen
under the common descent hypothesis, but much harder to shoehorn
into an incremental design hypothesis.
So my claim is that nested hierarchy, by itself, is not strong and
conclusive evidence for common descent. But add in either the
Sarawak law or the existence of junk in the phylogenetic 'signal' -
with either of those added you have a much more convincing
case for common descent.
Surely you have noticed that our friend Glenn is eager to deny
that 'junk' even exists. And surely you already instinctively
grasp why he is eager. Because a nested heirarchy composed
of junk is strong evidence for common descent and evolution
under natural selection. But a nested hierarchy, all parts of
which have subtle functions, might be just as well explained
by an incremental designer.
John Harshman
This is something Sean found on the web, always a dangerous practice.
It's nonsense, really. What it means is that the shape of the Parthenon
can be generated through a series of operations involving the
replication of features, which some guy on the web is calling a nested
hierarchy. Of course there are many different sequences that could be
used to generate the same shape, so the nested hierarchy, if any, is
arbitrary.
> So, while a nested pattern is not always directly created when design
> is involved, it often is directly used in creative works without the
> aid of common descent.
This is unfortunately expanding the meaning of "nested hierarchy" far
beyond what is useful, and certainly a much different sort of thing than
the hierarchy of life. I'm sure this momentary enthusiasm of Sean's will
pass, but we have to deal with it while it lasts.
John Harshman
Sure. But you also have to postulate designers who only rely on a single
prior design as the template for each improvement. Why this limitation?
Human designers steal from multiple sources and combine them, which
doesn't give a nested hierarchy. Books do *not* form a nested hierarchy
for precisely this reason.
> However,
> beyond the sheer Linnaean fact of a nested hierarchy, there are
> two other bits of evidence available.
I agree that there is other information available. But you seem to think
that without the other information, there is no convincing case for
common descent. And this is what I object to.
> One is the Sarawak law -
> which fits better with the common descent hypothesis than with
> the incremental design hypothesis.
Why? All you have to postulate is that the designer is limited in space
as well as in time. All your objections to the nested hierarchy itself
as evidence apply equally well, which is to say equally poorly, to the
Sarawak Law.
> The other is the fact - obvious
> in the sequence data - that a lot of non-functional (junk) information
> has been preserved along with the functional stuff in the structure
> of the hierarchy. Again, it is easy to see how this would happen
> under the common descent hypothesis, but much harder to shoehorn
> into an incremental design hypothesis.
I believe Sean's approach is to deny that there is any such thing as
non-functional information. But why should functional information follow
a nested hierarchy either, absent common descent?
> So my claim is that nested hierarchy, by itself, is not strong and
> conclusive evidence for common descent. But add in either the
> Sarawak law or the existence of junk in the phylogenetic 'signal' -
> with either of those added you have a much more convincing
> case for common descent.
I know what your claim is. I'm merely asking what argument you have to
support that claim, which so far seems to be, I'm afraid, none.
> Surely you have noticed that our friend Glenn is eager to deny
> that 'junk' even exists. And surely you already instinctively
> grasp why he is eager. Because a nested heirarchy composed
> of junk is strong evidence for common descent and evolution
> under natural selection. But a nested hierarchy, all parts of
> which have subtle functions, might be just as well explained
> by an incremental designer.
Only by an extraordinarily myopic incremental designer, who asks how he
can adapt a particular design to some new function without reference to
any other designs he may also have produced. Human designers just don't
limit themselves to nested hierarchies. As I've said, you have to
postulate an extremely odd and limited designer for this trope to work,
and what you end up in essence is a strict simulation of common descent,
which characteristics hypothesized purely because they simulate common
descent.
John Harshman
> On Feb 29, 6:58 pm, John Harshman <jharshman.diespam...@pacbell.net>
> wrote:
>>> That' isn't the question here. The question is: If you know a
>>> particular NHP is designed, what is the likelihood that the designer
>>> used CD as the mechanism of design?
>> There again you are conflating separate phenomena. Whether a particular
>> NHP is designed is what we're arguing about. You don't say you know the
>> NHP is designed. You only say you know some of the differences between
>> species out of which the NHP is made (though in fact not even the bulk
>> of those differences) are designed. The fact that you can't see the
>> difference is frustrating.
>
> All the key differences, the overwhelming "bulk", require ID. That
> means that every key aspect of the pattern was designed.
No it doesn't. The pattern arises not from the designed elements
themselves, but from the way they are distributed among species. You are
once again conflating particular changes with the nested hierarchy into
which they can be sorted. They are not the same thing. You can't equate
them.
> Now, does
> this mean that the overall NHP was also designed? No. Not
> necessarily. The overall pattern could still have involved the use of
> CD. But, you don't know that the original goal wasn't to create a NHP
> from the get go. We humans often start out with the goal to create
> an aesthetically pleasing work that often incorporates a NHP. And,
> when this overall pattern is the goal, CD is not usually used.
We do no such thing. Give an example if you disagree. The Parthenon is
not an example of a nested hierarchy in any relevant sense.
> In fact, those who first classified living things and discovered the
> overall nested pattern thought that the overall order, symmetry, and
> beauty of the pattern itself reflected the order, symmetry, and beauty
> of the creator's mind itself.
Yes, because they couldn't immediately think of another explanation, and
because their preconceptions were directed that way. But of course so
did the Quinarians and various other schools that proposed different
sorts of beautiful patterns that were not nested hierarchies. The
problem is that the creator's orderly, symmetrical, and beautiful mind
could be reflected in an infinite number of patterns, of which a nested
hierarchy is just one, and one that happens to be the expectation of
common descent.
>>> In short, the creative methods to which mindless nature is limited are
>>> not the same methodological limitations of intelligent agents - even
>>> when it comes to deliberately simulating natural creations (which
>>> happens all the time). By your argument a "natural garden" or a
>>> painting of a "natural scene" would be an evil deception?
>> No, not by my argument.
>
> You're the one who suggested that a designer who incorporates any
> aspect of what can happen naturally into a particular work is being
> "deceptive". You did use that word, "deceptive" - did you not?
Yes, but not in quite the way that your strawman above does it.
>>>> But I don't agree that if differences among species were
>>>> designed, that means the nested hierarchy was designed.
>>> It certainly is possible to use the method of CD by design to produce
>>> the NHP - but not overwhelmingly likely. Given that the NHP was in
>>> fact designed, the question is, would most designers choose to produce
>>> a NHP with the use of CD?
>> Why is it given that the NHP was designed? You have never made that
>> claim, nor could you back it up if you tried. You have only claimed that
>> certain complex features of various organisms were designed. I say that
>> it's simpler to suppose that if so, they were designed once, somewhere
>> on a tree of common descent. Why not?
>
> I think that the minute detail required to produce the differences
> between living things, and the overall beauty of their shared
> interaction, took a great deal of care and creative genius. Whoever
> created vast range of different interacting creatures in an overall
> system that works and interacts with itself very closely, was very
> interested in every aspect of this creation.
Though not, apparently, in its geology. I wonder why that would be.
> I do not see it as being
> very likely that such obvious interest in minute detail and vast
> creative genius would dilly dally around to figure things out as it
> went along.
So you are placing limits on god's creative process.
> I think it far more consistent that such a work would
> have been completed in the "drawing room" first and then created
> without the need to use common descent - to tweak things slowing over
> time in a fumbling muddled sort of way that only mindless nature is
> required to follow. An genius mind is not required to use such a slow
> cumbersome method of creation that is, by the way, extremely painful
> given that this genius mind actually cared about the feelings of the
> sentient creatures being manipulated.
What evidence do you have that this unspecified designer cared about the
feelings of sentient creatures?
>>> I think not. I think that most intelligent designers would choose to
>>> skip the whole time consuming process of actually using CD to create
>>> the overall pattern. This is especially true for those designers who
>>> are primary interested in the final outcome of the overall creation.
>> Ah, so you are constraining the operation of god. Why should god care
>> about how time-consuming a process was? Who are you to tell him he has
>> to work by the fastest possible method?
>
> You are also constraining the designer.
By using the word "also", you are apparently agreeing that you have
placed such limits. Right? But you have claimed previously that doing so
is invalid.
> Why should he not care about
> how he created sentient creatures?
Why should he? What evidence is there that he would? I thought your
designer was an unspecified entity or entities, possibly even space aliens.
> I mean really, wouldn't you care
> if you set off to create sentient creatures? - or even a highly
> complex interactive system of any kind? It is only reasonable, from a
> human perspective, that if we would care about the actual process used
> that the one who created us would also care in at least a similar
> manner.
Objection. Calls for speculation. And on a subject that you have
explicitly claimed (when I tried it) that we can't speculate about.
>>> Not at all . . . You are in fact saying that even given knowledge
>>> that ID was used to produce the key aspects of the NHP in question,
>>> that the method the designer used would be CD in *every* instance -
>>> that the odds of the designer using any other method are "essentially
>>> nil". That is in fact your basic argument - as far as I can tell.
>> No, god doesn't have to "use" common descent. Common descent just
>> happens. He merely has to intervene whenever he feels like it. Rather
>> than a painstaking simulation of common descent, he can just let the
>> real thing happen. Why not?
>
> Common descent doesn't "just happen". That's the problem. All of the
> key differences of every living thing require ID.
You really can't separate the two in your mind, even for an instant, can
you? Key differences are not common descent. Common descent is the tree.
The key differences are events sprinkled over the tree. The key
differences don't create the tree, and the tree doesn't create the key
differences.
> That means that if
> the designer created life in its vast diversity over millions and
> billions of years, it would have been a very painstaking process
> indeed - pain being the key word here (for both the creator and the
> created).
Your use of multiple meanings of "pain" makes this sentence nearly
impossible to interpret. What sort of pain is a creator feeling? If he's
omnipotent, surely the sense of "taking pains" is irrelevant, since he
would not find any procedure at all to be more difficult than any other.
If we're talking about suffering, what evidence is there that the
unspecified designer cares about suffering? (I'll have to say that he
seems to have incorporated a lot of it into his designs. Doubtless the
caterpillar parasitized by wasp larvae is learning a valuable lesson
through being eaten alive.)
>>> The goal is not to simulate common descent. That's a method. The
>>> goal here is to produce a NHP with any *method* the intelligent
>>> designer chooses. Given that the goal is to produce a NHP will an
>>> intelligent designer always choose to use the CD method? I think
>>> not. You seem agree with this last point.
>> I agree that we can't say what god would or would not do. So why are you
>> so sure he didn't use common descent?
>
> Why are you so sure that he did?
Simply because that's the simplest interpretation of the evidence,
notably that nested hierarchy.
> I mean really, I've just explained
> to you that we humans tend to skip the CD steps when we create since
> we do not have to follow the methods nature is *required* to use. We
> can copy a certain feature of nature without using the same method
> nature used. I dare say that any intelligent designer wouldn't feel
> obligated to use the natural CD method either when producing an
> otherwise "natural" pattern.
This leads directly to Last Thursdayism, unfortunately. But we don't
have to go all the way along that path. It's enough to note again that
this applies equally to stratigraphy; why should an intelligent designer
feel obligated to go through all that tedious erosion, deposition, etc.
when producing the otherwise "natural" pattern of layered rocks?
>>> So, given that we know a particular NHP was in fact designed, I do not
>>> accept the notion that it was clearly designed via CD. That notion is
>>> demonstrably not very reliable.
>> That's only because you are conflating separate issues and can't seem to
>> separate them even for an instant.
>
> You are separating issues that are very much related - and you can't
> seem to realize that for an instant.
You must explain why they are related, which you have so far been unable
to do. All you can say is that the nested hierarchy and the "key
differences" are both aspects of life and must therefore have the same
cause. But "therefore" doesn't work in that sentence.
>>> How is that? How is a highly symmetrical column, or colonnade made up
>>> of a bunch of columns, in high symmetry, not an example of a true NHP?
>>> - arising from examination of the elements themselves?
>> Because I could have performed the same operations in several different
>> orders and arrived at the same result. The hierarchy he chooses is
>> arbitrary. For example, I could have made a circle on the ground,
>> duplicated it in a plane in two directions (in either order), and then
>> raised each column in the third dimension. Same operations, different order.
>
> It's still a NHP given the order that is observed in a highly
> symmetrical colonnade. It doesn't matter if you can use the same
> operations to produce a non-NHP. The fact is that many of the
> patterns that are observed in human-made structures, paintings, and
> other creations do indeed produce NHP without the use of CD.
You are confused. The point is that you can use the same operations in a
different order to produce the same result. That means it *isn't* a
nested hierarchy in the same way that life is. It's an arbitrary
hierarchy. We can't reconstruct the hierarchy by observing the end
product. We can reconstruct a great many different hierarchies, none of
them preferable to another. Drop this momentary obsession; it leads nowhere.
>>> Tell me, how can you deliberately design every single distinguishing
>>> feature in every aspect of a system and not be responsible for the
>>> design of the overall pattern as well?
>> Easily. One watches organisms reproduce and arranges to be the sole
>> source of mutation. But of course not even you claim that every single
>> feature of every aspect is designed. Even you think there are random
>> mutations...don't you? And even you think that some features could
>> easily have evolved through random mutation and natural
>> selection...don't you?
>
> Yes, I do believe that some minor functional differences can evolve.
> But, that really isn't the point here. The point is that if the vast
> majority of all the features of a pattern were designed, you are
> suggesting that the designer had to follow the mechanism of CD.
No, I'm suggesting that the simplest explantion for the pattern is that
the designer (if any) did follow CD. He of course didn't have to do
anything.
> That's nonsense. Not even we humans use CD all the time in the
> formation of NHPs. In fact, we predictably skip the exhausting steps,
> the trial and error, of CD to go straight to the finished NHP
> directly.
So you claim, but you have presented no examples of such a practice,
despite numerous requests.
>>>> No, the article you noted above has nothing to do with nested hierarchy
>>>> in the sense we're using it here. Google is not always your friend.
>>> You're mistaken - on at least the first account . . .
>> Perhaps if you actually read the article?
>
>>> I don't assume that all aspects of every living thing required ID. My
>>> position is that only those functional aspects that required at least
>>> 1000 specified aa working together at minimum clearly required ID.
>> Exactly. So why assume that if those 1000 specified yadda yadda are
>> created, then so was the nested hierarchy?
>
> Because that is how we humans often create - without having to use
> trial and error all the time - unlike what mindless nature is required
> to do.
If you're using humans as an analogy (and thus limiting the creator), we
seldom create nested hierarchies at all, simply because they are so
limiting. When we make new things, we borrow and combine elements from
whatever seems useful or appropriate. When anyone brings this up, you
disclaim all analogies to human processes. You are selective indeed in
your use of analogy; apparently it only works when you do it.
>>> By showing a process which is agreed to be non-deliberate in nature
>>> giving rise to the phenomenon in question. That demonstration would
>>> neatly falsify the ID-only hypothesis. The same thing is true of the
>>> radiosignal SETI scientists are looking for. All you have to do to
>>> falsify their hypothesis that such a signal would be clear evidence of
>>> ET would be to show a non-deliberate natural process producing the
>>> same type of signal.
>> But you have agreed that nested hierarchies can be produced by
>> non-deliberate processes. Doesn't your argument then disappear?
>
> Radiosignals can also be produced by non-deliberate processes - just
> not the type of radiosignals SETI is looking for. The same thing is
> true of NHPs. It is true that NHPs can be produced by nature - but
> not the type of NHP that is seen in living things. The NHP of living
> things carry other particular aspects that cannot be produced
> naturally and obviously required ID. Like the radiosignals SETI
> scientists are looking for, this aspect of the pattern of living
> things strongly indicates the careful involvement of a highly
> intelligent mind for every key difference of every living thing. This
> aspect of the NHP is what requires ID and ID only. The same thing is
> true for SETI. It is this aspect that would be falsified if any non-
> deliberate process of nature could be found producing these particular
> features of the overall NHP.
Once again, you confuse the hierarchy with the various characters that
display it. They are separate. We can easily produce a model in which
the hierarchy is entirely natural though all the characters are
designed. You have provided no reason to reject this model except that
it doesn't seem right to you.
> < snip repetitive >
>
>>> The question is, did this NHP, which is known to be
>>> deliberately produced by ID, the product of the CD mechanism? Was the
>>> intelligent agent required, statistically, to use CD as his only
>>> option to create such a NHP? - as you suggest?
>> Again, you seem to rely wholly on guilt by association, but selectively.
>> God created life, therefore he created the nested hierarchy of life. But
>> you reject the identical syllogism that god created the earth, therefore
>> he created the stratigraphic layering of the earth.
>
> As I've explained to you before, the ID-only hypothesis is falsified
> in your latter example, but not the former. God created life because
> only God could have created life.
We aren't talking about life. We're talking about the nested hierarchy
of life, which is a different thing.
> God might also have created the
> stratigraphic layering of the Earth, but it seems quite clear that God
> isn't the only one able to produce such a phenomenon.
Ah, but god created the earth, right? Only god could have created the
earth, so the stratigraphic layering, being a feature of the earth (and
impossible without the existence of the earth itself) must also have
been created. QED.
> Therefore, the
> ID-only hypothesis is falsified in this case. How is that such a hard
> concept to grasp for you?
Because you are incapable of noticing your own bait-and-switch here. If
we accept that only god could have created life, that says nothing about
creation of the nested hierarchy. We all agree that even if god created
life, and even if he created every single difference among species, the
nested hierarchy could be wholly natural. We agree that given an
omnipotent designer, it could be wholly non-natural too. But we agree
that the ID-only hypothesis is indeed falsified in the case of the
nested hierarchy of life. This is true even if the ID-only hypothesis is
not falsified in the origin of life itself.
>>>>>> And this reasoning doesn't
>>>>>> come from a constraint put on god; quite the opposite: it comes from a
>>>>>> total lack of constraint, which makes the probability of any particular
>>>>>> result almost zero.
>>>>> Nope.
>>>> Now that was a convincing argument.
>>> It was a response to a repetitive statement that was already answered
>>> earlier . . .
>> Nope.
>
> Yep . . . ; )
>
> < snip >
>
>>> The thing is, it is known that non-deliberate sources can only produce
>>> NHPs via CD. It is also known that CD is not required or even
>>> commonly used by intelligent agents to produce NHPs. That's the
>>> difference in a nutshell.
>> It's clear that CD is not required, since god can do anything by any
>> means he likes. But who says that intelligent agents (meaning, of
>> course, humans, those being the only intelligent agents we know of)
>> commonly produce NHPs without common descent? Let's see the examples.
>
> I've already given you some. It is far greater than "essentially nil"
> - that's for sure.
For some reason I can't remember any of these examples. Could you repeat
them. Please don't use the Parthenon, because it isn't an example.
>>> I repeat: The creative methods to which mindless nature is limited
>>> are not the same methodological limitations of intelligent agents -
>>> even when it comes to deliberately simulating natural creations (which
>>> happens all the time). By your argument a "natural garden" or a
>>> painting of a "natural scene" would be an evil deception?
>> Only if it were intended to fool us into thinking it was a natural
>> event, and the penalty for thinking so were eternal damnation.
>
> See, you just said it again - creating any aspect of what nature can
> also produce is defined by you as being "deceptive" - a deliberate
> effort to be somehow sinister. That's nonsense. We humans
> incorporate various features of nature all the time in our creations
> without anyone being accused of sinister motives.
This is a digression. Motives are sinister if they are sinister. If, for
example, you make a diamond in the lab and try to sell it as a natural
diamond, that's a sinister motive. A god who creates a pattern that is
most easily interpreted as being natural is hiding his existence; if
acceptance of that existence is important to us, that's sinister behavior.
> Also, where on Earth do you get this idea of some sort of "penalty" of
> "eternal damnation" for believing in common descent or any other
> aspect of evolutionary thought? That's also nonsense. No God that is
> actually worth worshiping would be so petty.
I agree. But creationists generally don't. I'm pleasantly surprised that
you don't believe in Hell.
> No one is going to be
> lost for being honestly tricked into believing the wrong thing. The
> only evil that someone can be truly accused of is the evil of knowing
> what is right and deliberately doing the opposite. For example, say
> that you know it is wrong to murder, but you decide that your wife's
> life insurance is just too tempting so you do it anyway. Now that, my
> friend, is evil by anyone's definition of the term.
>
> It is for true evil, not for honestly believing the wrong thing that
> we will be judged.
That seems like heresy to me. I thought that nobody who didn't believe
in Jesus as his own personal savior could go to heaven, regardless of
good works. But this is a digression.
>>>> Actually, I'd like to see this experiment.
>>> Me too! I'm betting the outcome would not be nearly the 100% like you
>>> originally suggested.
>> Go to it. (Of course we still must wonder why the subjects are being
>> called upon to produce a nested hierarchy rather than the infinite
>> variety of other potentially pleasing patterns.)
>
> Why design a colonnade in a NHP when there are so many other ways to
> do it? Yet, we humans have done it and continue to use this pattern
> all the time.
Mere repetition of elements is not a nested hierarchy. Sorry.
>>>> I bet the most common method
>>>> used would be to make an "ancestral" pattern, vary it, and keep varying
>>>> it some more until you had a nested set of variations.
>>> Well, that certainly is a falsifiable hypothesis. Good luck with the
>>> actual test and your prediction of essentially 100% use of the CD
>>> method.
>> I thought you were doing the test.
>
> You are the one claiming I'm wrong here. Go ahead and prove me
> wrong. Falsify my position.
You're the one making the positive claim. It's actually your job to
present evidence for that claim.
>>>> I doubt you would
>>>> be likely to end up with such a detailed simulation of common descent in
>>>> any other way. Of course, god can do anything.
>>> Your doubts are not backed up by any actual test.
>> Nor are your non-doubts.
>
> At least mine are in fact falsifiable - yours are not. So, at least
> my position meets the requirements of a scientific proposal while
> yours does not.
?
>>> I doubt that most
>>> intelligent designers would go through all the hassle of going through
>>> all the CD steps to produce the final pattern. I sure wouldn't want
>>> to do it this way. That's what's so neat about having access to an
>>> intelligent mind. You can skip many steps that non-intelligent
>>> natural processes cannot skip. Why then would anyone feel forced to
>>> used the same mindless mechanism that nature is forced to use? That's
>>> what your brain is for . . . to skip steps.
>> I agree. What intelligent designer who wanted to produce miles of
>> geological strata would go through the primitive mechanism of a
>> worldwide catastrophic flood when he could just have laid them down in
>> the beginning?
>
> Nothing about stratigraphy requires ID. That's the difference.
But it's not a difference. We both agree that nothing about nested
hierarchy requires ID.
> It is
> easy to make something when no thought is really required. It is a
> different story when a great deal of thought and effort is required.
What? You seem to be claiming that some things are easy for god while
others are difficult. I don't understand.
R. Baldwin
Try reading for comprehension. I already stated that design results in
nested hierarchy, didn't I?
>
> So, while a nested pattern is not always directly created when design
> is involved, it often is directly used in creative works without the
> aid of common descent.
>
Again, try reading for comprehension. Small pieces of a design hierarchy may
be planned, but most of a design hierarchy is random.
This might help you understand why: the designers of the Parthenon used
principles and techniques developed over centuries by other designers who
were already dead and could not be consulted. They depended on countless
design choices initially made for forgotten reasons, which were uncorrelated
to the design choices made during the design of the Parthenon. The Parthenon
is the culmination of Doric order architecture. It's features relied on
previous Doric order buildings, most of which were in wide use long before
the designers of the Parthenon were born. The earliest Doric order buildings
had to rely on older techniques for erecting columns, laying supports,
leveling floors, and other design choices derived from older architectures.
MOST of the features in ANY nested hierarchy for a human design are
uncorrelated and random with respect to each other. No designer has the time
or energy to go back through (mostly unavailable) history to ask such
questions as why is the diameter of a #4 screw the way it is, why is 9600
baud one of the data rates for RS-232, why aircraft fuselages are
semi-monocoque, etc. They use shortcuts and adopt existing standards and
common practices, rather than coming up with a complete hierarchy of
decisions on their own. To design any other way is uneconomical. Except for
the very simplest of objects, which were generally designed in pre-history,
every design derives from older designs in a non-designed nested hierarchy.
There is an apocryphal story about the Space Shuttle and Roman war chariots
that, while largely untrue, effectively illustrates this phenomenon:
http://www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.asp
R. Baldwin
I went back and looked at the article - it seems rather specious. The
transormations Leyton described are only one path out of many possible paths
capable of generating the symmetry he described. He has not demonstrated
that the geometric hierarchy is nested. He just says it is. Neither has
Leyton demonstrated that architechts actually generate designs by making the
series of transformations he describes. Nor has he demonstrated that the
series of geometric transformations in a building design is entirely the
work of the architect. Usually, it is not - most of them are derived from
the work of previous architects, and some of them are for physical reasons.
But, even if we allow Leyton's argument, Sean seems to have leaped to the
conclusion that, because architects and painters exploit "perceptual
organization as nested control", they must be doing so consciously and
deliberately. Leyton does not seem to make that point, and his description
of his psychological experiments in the 1980's imply that this is more of an
unconscious process based on association - so even if there is a nested
hierarchy of geometric tansformations, the hierarchy itself is probably not
designed.
Seanpit
wrote:
>
> > It may not be the general rule, but it is often seen in carefully
> > planned creations - like Greek architecture. The Parthenon, for
> > example, exhibits nested hierarchy in its construction. So do the
> > great cathedrals of Europe.
>
> Try reading for comprehension. I already stated that design results in
> nested hierarchy, didn't I?
Yes, you did, but how is a colonnade or the Parthenon "mostly random"?
> > So, while a nested pattern is not always directly created when design
> > is involved, it often is directly used in creative works without the
> > aid of common descent.
>
> Again, try reading for comprehension. Small pieces of a design hierarchy may
> be planned, but most of a design hierarchy is random.
>
> This might help you understand why: the designers of the Parthenon used
> principles and techniques developed over centuries by other designers who
> were already dead and could not be consulted. They depended on countless
> design choices initially made for forgotten reasons, which were uncorrelated
> to the design choices made during the design of the Parthenon. The Parthenon
> is the culmination of Doric order architecture. It's features relied on
> previous Doric order buildings, most of which were in wide use long before
> the designers of the Parthenon were born. The earliest Doric order buildings
> had to rely on older techniques for erecting columns, laying supports,
> leveling floors, and other design choices derived from older architectures.
The Parthenon shows a nested hierarchy relative to itself - not just
to previous buildings or designs. It matters not that various
designed techniques may have been borrowed. The building of a
colonnade, for example, demonstrates, within itself, a nested
hierarchy of geometric design.
> MOST of the features in ANY nested hierarchy for a human design are
> uncorrelated and random with respect to each other.
Not true of certain types of NHP of human design - like the design of
the military power structure, mathematically designed fractals (like
Sierpinski's Gasket or the Monger Sponge).
> No designer has the time
> or energy to go back through (mostly unavailable) history to ask such
> questions as why is the diameter of a #4 screw the way it is, why is 9600
> baud one of the data rates for RS-232, why aircraft fuselages are
> semi-monocoque, etc. They use shortcuts and adopt existing standards and
> common practices, rather than coming up with a complete hierarchy of
> decisions on their own. To design any other way is uneconomical. Except for
> the very simplest of objects, which were generally designed in pre-history,
> every design derives from older designs in a non-designed nested hierarchy.
You don't seem to understand the concept of designing a NHP without
reference to past patterns. The NHP that I'm talking about exists
entirely within the system itself. For example, living things that
are alive right now are said to show a short of nested hierarchical
pattern right now - without reference to their history or actual
origin. The same thing is true of a colonnade, military
infrastructure, or the Monger Sponge.
> There is an apocryphal story about the Space Shuttle and Roman war chariots
> that, while largely untrue, effectively illustrates this phenomenon:
> http://www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.asp
This is really besides the point at hand.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
R. Baldwin
> On Mar 1, 11:08 am, "R. Baldwin" <res0k...@nozirevBACKWARDS.net>
> wrote:
>>
>> > It may not be the general rule, but it is often seen in carefully
>> > planned creations - like Greek architecture. The Parthenon, for
>> > example, exhibits nested hierarchy in its construction. So do the
>> > great cathedrals of Europe.
>>
>> Try reading for comprehension. I already stated that design results in
>> nested hierarchy, didn't I?
>
> Yes, you did, but how is a colonnade or the Parthenon "mostly random"?
I didn't say they were. I said design hierarchies are.
Baloney. The building of a colonnade demonstrates that ancient architects
once cut down trees.
>
>> MOST of the features in ANY nested hierarchy for a human design are
>> uncorrelated and random with respect to each other.
>
> Not true of certain types of NHP of human design - like the design of
> the military power structure, mathematically designed fractals (like
> Sierpinski's Gasket or the Monger Sponge).
The military power structure is a perfect example of a design lineage.
Current military power structures derive from older, simpler ones.
Are you trying to suggest the Parthenon is fractal?
>
>> No designer has the time
>> or energy to go back through (mostly unavailable) history to ask such
>> questions as why is the diameter of a #4 screw the way it is, why is 9600
>> baud one of the data rates for RS-232, why aircraft fuselages are
>> semi-monocoque, etc. They use shortcuts and adopt existing standards and
>> common practices, rather than coming up with a complete hierarchy of
>> decisions on their own. To design any other way is uneconomical. Except
>> for
>> the very simplest of objects, which were generally designed in
>> pre-history,
>> every design derives from older designs in a non-designed nested
>> hierarchy.
>
> You don't seem to understand the concept of designing a NHP without
> reference to past patterns. The NHP that I'm talking about exists
> entirely within the system itself. For example, living things that
> are alive right now are said to show a short of nested hierarchical
> pattern right now - without reference to their history or actual
> origin. The same thing is true of a colonnade, military
> infrastructure, or the Monger Sponge.
You are being quite silly.
>
>> There is an apocryphal story about the Space Shuttle and Roman war
>> chariots
>> that, while largely untrue, effectively illustrates this phenomenon:
>> http://www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.asp
>
> This is really besides the point at hand.
>
Facts always are, when it is your point at hand.
Seanpit
wrote:
>
> > All the key differences, the overwhelming "bulk", require ID. That
> > means that every key aspect of the pattern was designed.
< snip >
> > Now, does
> > this mean that the overall NHP was also designed? No. Not
> > necessarily. The overall pattern could still have involved the use of
> > CD. But, you don't know that the original goal wasn't to create a NHP
> > from the get go. We humans often start out with the goal to create
> > an aesthetically pleasing work that often incorporates a NHP. And,
> > when this overall pattern is the goal, CD is not usually used.
>
> We do no such thing. Give an example if you disagree. The Parthenon is
> not an example of a nested hierarchy in any relevant sense.
Nested hierarchies involve levels which consist of, and contain, lower
levels. Non-nested hierarchies are more general in that the
requirement of containment of lower levels is relaxed. A common
example of a nested hierarchy (outside of biology) is an army. An army
consists of a collection of soldiers and is made up of them. "Thus an
army is a nested hierarchy". After this, it is also commonly pointed
out that "the general at the top of a military command does not
consist of his soldiers and so the military command is a non-nested
hierarchy with regard to the soldiers in the army." But this isn't
exactly true.
http://www.isss.org/hierarchy.htm
As some have pointed out, this illustration isn't entirely coherent.
A military general is "in some sense made up of his men. As a set of
power relations - a realm of semiotics - an army is a nested
hierarchical system." In this sense then, the power structure of the
military is a good example of an intelligently designed nested
hierarchy that does not require the use of CD to achieve. A military
hierarchy can be created, de novo, without having to use CD. The same
thing is true of mathematically designed fractals (like Sierpinski's
Gasket or the Monger Sponge).
http://www.dichotomistic.com/hierarchies_intro.html
This last point is especially interesting. Fractals form nested
hierarchies because each higher level in a fractal contains every
aspect of every lower layer. This is not true of living things. While
it certainly is true that living things form a sort of "Tree of Life",
it isn't quite like a real tree in its fractal appearance. With a
real tree I can take of a few twigs, given them to you, and ask you to
tell me where on the tree those twigs would have to be placed. Of
course, since there is no essential difference between one twig and
the next on the tree, you really couldn't tell me. This is unlike the
tree of life were one twig would look way out of place it were to
replace a twig on the opposite side of the tree (at the same
hierarchical level). You just can't mix and match the branches or
twigs of the tree of life without really screwing things up. This is
not true of a true fractal where any part at a given level can replace
any other without a noticeable difference in the appearance of the
fractal.
You see, every different kind of living thing has unique features
about it that no other living thing has. What is "nested" and
"hierarchical" about living things are their similarities. Their
differences, on the other hand, are not always maintained from one
level to the next as is the case for a fractal hierarchical system.
For example, Wikipedia explains that the term "nested hierarchy refers
to the way taxonomic groups fit neatly and completely inside other
taxonomic groups. For instance, all bats (order Chiroptera) are
mammals. All mammals are vertebrates. Likewise, all whales (order
Cetacea) are also mammals, and thus also vertebrates."
http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Nested_Hierarchy
Notice that this list is a list of similarities, not differences. The
similarities do fit fairly well into other taxonomic groups - but not
so much the differences. For example, not all "mammals" have flippers
or hooves or the ability to use sonar. These differences are not part
of the hierarchical classification of mammals.
The Wikipedia article continues:
"Taxonomic groups are defined by traits and it should be possible
to mix traits from multiple defined groups. An example from classical
mythology is the Pegasus, a creature with features defined as both
mammal (produces milk like a horse) and bird (has feathers). Mammals
and birds are both orders, so, if Pegasus existed, it would be a
violation of the nested hierarchy, a creature that belonged to two
separate groups. Likewise for satyrs (human torso, goats legs),
jackalopes (rabbit body with an antelope head) and crocoducks
(crocodile head, body of a duck)."
Of course, this article fails to mention the platypus. The platypus is
classified as a mammal - the "monotreme" version. The monotremes are
the only order of mammals to lay eggs; in this, the platypus is
similar to reptiles. Also like reptiles, platypus produce vitamin C in
the liver and has poisonous spurs on its feet. Yet, because the
platypus produces milk to feed its young (like all mammals) and has
fur (also like mammals) it is classified as a mammal - even though it
has a few traits of reptiles and a bill like a duck. Given this, I'm
not so sure if Pegasus would actually be thought of as violating
"nested hierarchy" like this Wiki article indicates.
The Wiki article goes on to suggest that "Life, however, shows a
clear nested hierarchy, at least with regards to multicellular
organisms. An animal that produces milk (Mammals), will also have
hair, have four limbs, be endothermic (warmblooded) plus possess many
other characteristics. Why should this be? Why do no other animals or
plants produce milk? Why do no mammals have four limbs plus a pair of
wings, like the Pegasus or angels? This fits easily with the idea of
common descent, but is not what would be expected from special
creation (although it isn't completely at odds with creation either,
as the creator(s) could create life in any configuration
imaginable)."
What is interesting here is that other creatures, besides mammals, do
produce milk to feed their young. Some species of cockroach, for
example, produce milk to feed their young in utero and deliver their
young live. Also, the platypus produces milk while having features
that are usually associated with other non-mammalian species.
Of course, the overall similarities of various groups do nest fairly
well. Again though, this is a classification based on shared
similarities without taking into account the unique differences that
are not shared or that may be shared with other vastly different "non-
mammalian" creatures.
> > In fact, those who first classified living things and discovered the
> > overall nested pattern thought that the overall order, symmetry, and
> > beauty of the pattern itself reflected the order, symmetry, and beauty
> > of the creator's mind itself.
>
> Yes, because they couldn't immediately think of another explanation, and
> because their preconceptions were directed that way. But of course so
> did the Quinarians and various other schools that proposed different
> sorts of beautiful patterns that were not nested hierarchies. The
> problem is that the creator's orderly, symmetrical, and beautiful mind
> could be reflected in an infinite number of patterns, of which a nested
> hierarchy is just one, and one that happens to be the expectation of
> common descent.
Again, common descent is only a fairly perfect expectation given a NHP
of the type that can be produced by a non-deliberate process. A
highly symmetrical Monger Sponge carved into the material of, say,
granite would be an example of a NHP that could only have been the
result of ID and is unlikely to have required the use of common
descent in the development of the NHP in this particular situation.
So, you see, a NHP, by itself, is not enough to assume common
descent. Some NHPs require the extensive input of ID for most if not
all of their key features. Such NHPs do not require the use of CD -
the laborious steps of which are often bypassed in real life.
> >>> In short, the creative methods to which mindless nature is limited are
> >>> not the same methodological limitations of intelligent agents - even
> >>> when it comes to deliberately simulating natural creations (which
> >>> happens all the time). By your argument a "natural garden" or a
> >>> painting of a "natural scene" would be an evil deception?
> >> No, not by my argument.
>
> > You're the one who suggested that a designer who incorporates any
> > aspect of what can happen naturally into a particular work is being
> > "deceptive". You did use that word, "deceptive" - did you not?
>
> Yes, but not in quite the way that your strawman above does it.
What is the key difference in your use of the term "deceptive"?
> > I think that the minute detail required to produce the differences
> > between living things, and the overall beauty of their shared
> > interaction, took a great deal of care and creative genius. Whoever
> > created vast range of different interacting creatures in an overall
> > system that works and interacts with itself very closely, was very
> > interested in every aspect of this creation.
>
> Though not, apparently, in its geology. I wonder why that would be.
Geology does not *require* ID. You don't seem to understand the
concept of the ID-only hypothesis. The requirement for ID is
different than the potential for ID. The key differences of all
living things require ID while the key differences in geology do not.
> > I do not see it as being
> > very likely that such obvious interest in minute detail and vast
> > creative genius would dilly dally around to figure things out as it
> > went along.
>
> So you are placing limits on god's creative process.
Not at all. God could have dilly dallied around all he wanted. I
just don't see that as likely given that we are the way we are and he
created us. I wouldn't like dilly dallying around too much if I was
actually interested in the final product of my interactive creation -
would you?
> > I think it far more consistent that such a work would
> > have been completed in the "drawing room" first and then created
> > without the need to use common descent - to tweak things slowing over
> > time in a fumbling muddled sort of way that only mindless nature is
> > required to follow. An genius mind is not required to use such a slow
> > cumbersome method of creation that is, by the way, extremely painful
> > given that this genius mind actually cared about the feelings of the
> > sentient creatures being manipulated.
>
> What evidence do you have that this unspecified designer cared about the
> feelings of sentient creatures?
One doesn't usually put a great deal of creative effort into something
one doesn't care a lick about.
> >>> I think not. I think that most intelligent designers would choose to
> >>> skip the whole time consuming process of actually using CD to create
> >>> the overall pattern. This is especially true for those designers who
> >>> are primary interested in the final outcome of the overall creation.
> >>
> >> Ah, so you are constraining the operation of god. Why should god care
> >> about how time-consuming a process was? Who are you to tell him he has
> >> to work by the fastest possible method?
>
> > You are also constraining the designer.
>
> By using the word "also", you are apparently agreeing that you have
> placed such limits. Right? But you have claimed previously that doing so
> is invalid.
You are claiming that a God would have to create using the very same
mechanism that limits non-deliberate natural processes. I'm showing
you reasons why an intelligent designer could use a different process
besides common descent - reasons why an designer wouldn't necessarily
be as limited as you suggest. You're the one suggesting limitations
here. I'm the one suggesting that not only can CD be used by ID,
other processes can and indeed are often used by ID to produce NHPs.
Your notion is that the odds an intelligent designer would use any
other process besides CD are "essentially nil" are not backed up by
what we know of ID. Intelligent agents, even human ones, are not
limited by what limits non-deliberate processes of nature. Even we
humans can go beyond the restricted us of CD to produce NHP - and we
often do. Why? Because, obviously, it's quicker and less wasteful of
resources. From the perspective of God, it seems reasonable that it
would also be less wasteful of unnecessary pain and suffering of the
sentient creatures he had spent a great deal of creative effort
producing.
> > Why should he not care about
> > how he created sentient creatures?
>
> Why should he? What evidence is there that he would? I thought your
> designer was an unspecified entity or entities, possibly even space aliens.
Could be - but not very likely given the degree of effort that went
into producing the vast array of life that exists and has existed on
this planet.
> > I mean really, wouldn't you care
> > if you set off to create sentient creatures? - or even a highly
> > complex interactive system of any kind? It is only reasonable, from a
> > human perspective, that if we would care about the actual process used
> > that the one who created us would also care in at least a similar
> > manner.
>
> Objection. Calls for speculation. And on a subject that you have
> explicitly claimed (when I tried it) that we can't speculate about.
Your "speculation" was that an intelligent designer would have to be
limited to the same mechanism from producing a NHP that non-
intelligent natural processes must use. I'm only showing you that
this notion of yours isn't necessarily true or even likely. It
certainly isn't true for humans.
> > Common descent doesn't "just happen". That's the problem. All of the
> > key differences of every living thing require ID.
>
> You really can't separate the two in your mind, even for an instant, can
> you? Key differences are not common descent. Common descent is the tree.
No. Common descent is a mechanism. It isn't the tree.
> The key differences are events sprinkled over the tree. The key
> differences don't create the tree, and the tree doesn't create the key
> differences.
The tree is made up of the key differences - which do indeed define
the tree. Common descent is not the tree. The NHP is the tree.
Common descent is a mechanism that could have been used to produce the
tree. It isn't the tree itself. And it isn't the only mechanism that
could be used to produce the tree.
What are you talking about when you say that I can't separate the
"two" in my mind? You don't seem to understand a key point here -
that CD is NOT the tree. It is just one possible method of producing
a NHP or "tree".
< snip >
> >> I agree that we can't say what god would or would not do. So why are you
> >> so sure he didn't use common descent?
>
> > Why are you so sure that he did?
>
> Simply because that's the simplest interpretation of the evidence,
> notably that nested hierarchy.
That is indeed the overwhelming interpretation of the evidence only
from a non-intelligent perspective - not from an ID perspective.
> > I mean really, I've just explained
> > to you that we humans tend to skip the CD steps when we create since
> > we do not have to follow the methods nature is *required* to use. We
> > can copy a certain feature of nature without using the same method
> > nature used. I dare say that any intelligent designer wouldn't feel
> > obligated to use the natural CD method either when producing an
> > otherwise "natural" pattern.
>
> This leads directly to Last Thursdayism, unfortunately.
You are talking about the evidence of the pattern alone here - not any
additional evidence of apparent time. Given the pattern of a NHP
alone, Last Thursdayism doesn't apply.
> But we don't
> have to go all the way along that path. It's enough to note again that
> this applies equally to stratigraphy; why should an intelligent designer
> feel obligated to go through all that tedious erosion, deposition, etc.
> when producing the otherwise "natural" pattern of layered rocks?
Because, as I've explained several times before now, no aspect of the
layered rocks requires ID - unlike the key differences in the pattern
of life.
> >>> So, given that we know a particular NHP was in fact designed, I do not
> >>> accept the notion that it was clearly designed via CD. That notion is
> >>> demonstrably not very reliable.
> >> That's only because you are conflating separate issues and can't seem to
> >> separate them even for an instant.
>
> > You are separating issues that are very much related - and you can't
> > seem to realize that for an instant.
>
> You must explain why they are related, which you have so far been unable
> to do. All you can say is that the nested hierarchy and the "key
> differences" are both aspects of life and must therefore have the same
> cause. But "therefore" doesn't work in that sentence.
You don't seem to understand that CD is not the tree - it is the
mechanism. The key differences are what form the NHP. They create
the tree. Whoever created these key differences created the NHP as
well. Could an intelligent creator have also used CD as the chosen
mechanism to produce the tree? Sure. But, is an intelligent creator
limited to this mechanism so that any other option is "essentially
nil"? - not remotely. CD is by no means the only viable option for ID
when it comes to NHPs.
> You are confused. The point is that you can use the same operations in a
> different order to produce the same result. That means it *isn't* a
> nested hierarchy in the same way that life is. It's an arbitrary
> hierarchy. We can't reconstruct the hierarchy by observing the end
> product. We can reconstruct a great many different hierarchies, none of
> them preferable to another. Drop this momentary obsession; it leads nowhere.
Say you observe the end product of a fractal. How do you
"reconstruct" the hierarchy so that one is most "preferable" to the
others? You seem to be defining the pattern of life as a unique kind
of NHP that has a "preferable" construct while other NHPs do not have
a preferable construct. Is that correct? You think that there would
be no other reasonable way to build the NHP of the Tree of Life? -
Nothing that could "done first" instead of second in forming a
reasonable tree? Think again. Ever hear of non-rooted trees? It all
depends upon what features you are considering in your building of the
pattern or classification system. Often genetic classifications have
contradicted morphologic classifications - even when it comes to
fairly major branches of the tree. Making circles first before
columns can indeed happen in building a pattern to represent the Tree
of Life.
The thing is, you can't build a circle until you have a point and you
can't build a column until you have a line (geometrically). In other
words, you can't go 2D before you have 1D and you can't go 3D before
you have the right 2D shape. You might be able to build a bunch of 2D
circles before you build the columns, but this is just one step that
happens to be interchangeable with another step. And, you can't build
on top of the columns with other columns in horizontal or vertical
arrangement until you have the first layer columns in place.
The same thing is true in representing the Tree of Life. Some things
have to come before others, but not everything.
> > Yes, I do believe that some minor functional differences can evolve.
> > But, that really isn't the point here. The point is that if the vast
> > majority of all the features of a pattern were designed, you are
> > suggesting that the designer had to follow the mechanism of CD.
>
> No, I'm suggesting that the simplest explantion for the pattern is that
> the designer (if any) did follow CD. He of course didn't have to do
> anything.
You are doing a bit more. You are suggesting that it is essentially
impossible for an intelligent designer to have chosen any other method
besides CD to produce a NHP. You said that any other option had a
probability that is "essentially nil" - right? Well, that's
demonstrably false given that humans produce NHP's without common
descent with a rate that isn't "essentially nil".
> > That's nonsense. Not even we humans use CD all the time in the
> > formation of NHPs. In fact, we predictably skip the exhausting steps,
> > the trial and error, of CD to go straight to the finished NHP
> > directly.
>
> So you claim, but you have presented no examples of such a practice,
> despite numerous requests.
The NHP of military command or other forms of government or political
organization, fractals like Sierpinski's Gasket or the Monger Sponge,
and yes, colonnades, the Parthenon, and other geometrically based
architectural designs, paintings, and even musical compositions. Even
language systems are build on a NHP and can be produced without the
use of CD. Sure, most language systems have elements of CD. However,
language can be developed without the use of CD. For example, twin
infants have been known to develop their own language system de novo,
without the need for the slow evolution of meaning for words and
phrases over time. It is done by arbitrary definition. Sounds are
used to build words which are used to build phrases which are used to
build sentences - all in a NHP which doesn't need CD to achieve.
> >>>> No, the article you noted above has nothing to do with nested hierarchy
> >>>> in the sense we're using it here. Google is not always your friend.
> >>> You're mistaken - on at least the first account . . .
> >> Perhaps if you actually read the article?
>
> >>> I don't assume that all aspects of every living thing required ID. My
> >>> position is that only those functional aspects that required at least
> >>> 1000 specified aa working together at minimum clearly required ID.
> >> Exactly. So why assume that if those 1000 specified yadda yadda are
> >> created, then so was the nested hierarchy?
>
> > Because that is how we humans often create - without having to use
> > trial and error all the time - unlike what mindless nature is required
> > to do.
>
> If you're using humans as an analogy (and thus limiting the creator), we
> seldom create nested hierarchies at all, simply because they are so
> limiting. When we make new things, we borrow and combine elements from
> whatever seems useful or appropriate. When anyone brings this up, you
> disclaim all analogies to human processes. You are selective indeed in
> your use of analogy; apparently it only works when you do it.
I have never disclaimed analogies to human processes. I used such
analogies all the time myself since it is the most at-hand example of
ID that we have. Also, you don't seem to mind when elements are
borrowed and combined between creatures in evolutionary story
telling. You don't seem to mind the story of reptiles gaining
feathers. You wouldn't mind if some "mammals" had feathers either.
You'd just come up with some story about how they also shared an
original common ancestor with birds and split off from the rest of the
mammalian group early on closer to the most recent common ancestor
(MRCA). I mean really, you don't mind when mammals lay eggs, have
bills like a duck, or poison spurs. You see, evolution is a marvelous
story that can really predict anything - any "tree" in any NHP.
Beyond this, humans, when they do create NHP, do not limit themselves
to the use of CD to produce such patterns. That notion is what is
extremely restrictive and simply not likely given humans as examples
of creative intelligences.
> > Radiosignals can also be produced by non-deliberate processes - just
> > not the type of radiosignals SETI is looking for. The same thing is
> > true of NHPs. It is true that NHPs can be produced by nature - but
> > not the type of NHP that is seen in living things. The NHP of living
> > things carry other particular aspects that cannot be produced
> > naturally and obviously required ID. Like the radiosignals SETI
> > scientists are looking for, this aspect of the pattern of living
> > things strongly indicates the careful involvement of a highly
> > intelligent mind for every key difference of every living thing. This
> > aspect of the NHP is what requires ID and ID only. The same thing is
> > true for SETI. It is this aspect that would be falsified if any non-
> > deliberate process of nature could be found producing these particular
> > features of the overall NHP.
>
> Once again, you confuse the hierarchy with the various characters that
> display it. They are separate. We can easily produce a model in which
> the hierarchy is entirely natural though all the characters are
> designed. You have provided no reason to reject this model except that
> it doesn't seem right to you.
You cannot produce a model where are the differences in the emergent
pattern are designed while the overall pattern is natural. We aren't
talking about design of just the basic building-block characters
here. We are talking about the requirement for design of every
emergent step of the ladder of the NHP.
> >>> The question is, did this NHP, which is known to be
> >>> deliberately produced by ID, the product of the CD mechanism? Was the
> >>> intelligent agent required, statistically, to use CD as his only
> >>> option to create such a NHP? - as you suggest?
> >> Again, you seem to rely wholly on guilt by association, but selectively.
> >> God created life, therefore he created the nested hierarchy of life. But
> >> you reject the identical syllogism that god created the earth, therefore
> >> he created the stratigraphic layering of the earth.
>
> > As I've explained to you before, the ID-only hypothesis is falsified
> > in your latter example, but not the former. God created life because
> > only God could have created life.
>
> We aren't talking about life. We're talking about the nested hierarchy
> of life, which is a different thing.
You don't seem to realize that they are connected. The pattern of
life wouldn't exist without ID. This is not true of the pattern of
stratigraphic layering - which would exist without the requirement of
the input of ID into each step in the layering process. Do you really
not see the difference?
> > God might also have created the
> > stratigraphic layering of the Earth, but it seems quite clear that God
> > isn't the only one able to produce such a phenomenon.
>
> Ah, but god created the earth, right? Only god could have created the
> earth, so the stratigraphic layering, being a feature of the earth (and
> impossible without the existence of the earth itself) must also have
> been created. QED.
The stratigraphic layering is not a feature of the Earth that
*requires* ID. Life is a feature of this Earth that does *require* ID
at every emergent step.
> > Therefore, the
> > ID-only hypothesis is falsified in this case. How is that such a hard
> > concept to grasp for you?
>
> Because you are incapable of noticing your own bait-and-switch here. If
> we accept that only god could have created life, that says nothing about
> creation of the nested hierarchy.
Yes, it does. It says that CD is not the only possible mechanism or
even the overwhelming choice for an intelligent agent to use. Without
the ID *requirement* CD is the only viable option for the NHP that we
see. You see, with one there is a viable choice while with the other
there isn't any viable choice.
> We all agree that even if god created
> life, and even if he created every single difference among species, the
> nested hierarchy could be wholly natural. We agree that given an
> omnipotent designer, it could be wholly non-natural too.
If by "wholly natural" you mean "random", we agree. The overall NHP,
even if each individual emergent step were designed, could be the
result of a random use of CD. Could such a pattern be the result of
a deliberate use of CD acting in a random way that did not have the
end-pattern in mind? Yes. Is this the only viable or reasonable
mechanistic option in this case? No.
> But we agree
> that the ID-only hypothesis is
> indeed falsified in the case of the
> nested hierarchy of life.
> This is true even if the ID-only hypothesis is
> not falsified in the origin of life itself.
Again, ID need not deliberately direct the formation of the pattern
itself when producing each emergent step. That's true. The overall
pattern, in this sense, could be the result of the random application
of CD. That's also true. The question is: Is this the only viable
option given the required involvement of ID in each emergent step?
No. That's not true. It is only true for those cases of a NHP where
ID is not required in each step.
So, it is your position that CD is the only viable option for those
cases of NHPs requiring ID in each emergent step that is not supported
by the evidence at hand. It is based on your notion that God would be
limited to using a mechanism that mindless nature is required to use.
That notion depends upon your placing limitations on God which aren't
even placed on humans. How reasonable is that notion?
< snip >
> >>> I repeat: The creative methods to which mindless nature is limited
> >>> are not the same methodological limitations of intelligent agents -
> >>> even when it comes to deliberately simulating natural creations (which
> >>> happens all the time). By your argument a "natural garden" or a
> >>> painting of a "natural scene" would be an evil deception?
> >> Only if it were intended to fool us into thinking it was a natural
> >> event, and the penalty for thinking so were eternal damnation.
>
> > See, you just said it again - creating any aspect of what nature can
> > also produce is defined by you as being "deceptive" - a deliberate
> > effort to be somehow sinister. That's nonsense. We humans
> > incorporate various features of nature all the time in our creations
> > without anyone being accused of sinister motives.
>
> This is a digression. Motives are sinister if they are sinister. If, for
> example, you make a diamond in the lab and try to sell it as a natural
> diamond, that's a sinister motive. A god who creates a pattern that is
> most easily interpreted as being natural is hiding his existence; if
> acceptance of that existence is important to us, that's sinister behavior.
LOL - Was Michelangelo hiding his existence by carving the statue of
David? Or is a painter who paints a natural scene "hiding" his/her
existence? Please! That's a bizarre argument. God's existence is
clear in his creation, especially of life, because of those elements
of life that cannot be explained or "copied" by nature - which are
numerous. Looking at just one aspect of a creation and saying that
the entire creation is obviously natural is unreasonable. Do SETI
scientists only look at one aspect of radiosignals in their search for
ETI? Of course not.
> > Also, where on Earth do you get this idea of some sort of "penalty" of
> > "eternal damnation" for believing in common descent or any other
> > aspect of evolutionary thought? That's also nonsense. No God that is
> > actually worth worshiping would be so petty.
>
> I agree. But creationists generally don't. I'm pleasantly surprised that
> you don't believe in Hell.
I do believe in Hell. I don't believe in Hell like many who call
themselves Christians believe in Hell, but I do believe in a final
judgment of evil people. I just don't believe that being honestly
wrong is evil.
> > No one is going to be
> > lost for being honestly tricked into believing the wrong thing. The
> > only evil that someone can be truly accused of is the evil of knowing
> > what is right and deliberately doing the opposite. For example, say
> > that you know it is wrong to murder, but you decide that your wife's
> > life insurance is just too tempting so you do it anyway. Now that, my
> > friend, is evil by anyone's definition of the term.
>
> > It is for true evil, not for honestly believing the wrong thing, that
> > we will be judged.
>
> That seems like heresy to me. I thought that nobody who didn't believe
> in Jesus as his own personal savior could go to heaven, regardless of
> good works. But this is a digression.
I believe there will be a lot of very surprised atheists in heaven -
don't you? St. Paul says as much himself when he says that "when
Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the
law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the
law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on
their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their
thoughts now accusing, now even defending them. This will take place
on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as
my gospel declares."
Of course, "the law" spoken of here by Paul is the "Law of Love" - to
which Jesus referred. This is the law "which is written upon the
heart" and upon which "all will be judged"; not any sort of
understanding or misunderstanding of the origin of life or even of the
existence of Jesus or a God of any kind. Jesus said, "Many sheep have
I that are not of this fold". That means, to me anyway, that many who
have never even heard the name of Jesus or of God will be saved simply
because they lived according to the law of love which is written on
the hearts of every human being. Only by going contrary to that law
of love, by countering the "Golden Rule" will one be turning toward
the course of evil and be excluded from heaven with all those who love
hatred or indifference toward one's neighbor and what it leads to -
murder, theft, deliberate ruin of ones associates and the helpless,
etc. There simply is no excuse for such a life. But, there is a very
good excuse for the one who honestly never knew this or that piece of
information or lacked knowledge about "the Bible", "God", or his
work. This lack of knowledge is irrelevant to the question of if
someone lived as best as they knew how according to the "Golden
Rule".
The *only* question that will be asked in the Final Judgment is: Did
you love your neighbor as yourself?
And, who is your neighbor? Read the chapter on the "Good Samaritan"
to find out.
Seanpit
< snip >
> The military power structure is a perfect example of a design lineage.
> Current military power structures derive from older, simpler ones.
The military power structure is a NHP in and of itself without any
need to reference anything that came before. It can also be produced,
de novo, without having to build it up from via common descent each
and every time a new one is put together. Just because I might have
knowledge of a pattern that came before doesn't mean that the current
NHP that I produce right now is based on common descent in its own
particular origin.
For example, let's say, for argument's sake, that God knew of some
other system of life somewhere else in his universe which he had in
fact developed over a long period of time using common descent. Let's
say that he essentially copied that other pattern, with a few minor
changes, and placed it here on this Earth completely intact with all
the elements in place all at once. According to your position, this
system of life would be based on common descent - right? But, it
really wouldn't be based on common descent in the same way John
Harshman is arguing for. John is arguing that the NHP exhibited by
the Tree of Life on this planet is evidence, in itself, of CD on this
planet in the development of life on this planet over time - on this
planet. He is not arguing for the evolution of the idea of the
pattern over time via CD, which then can be placed intact here and
there. That's not what he is arguing. He is arguing that the NHP is
evidence of common descent for the particular system in question.
Clearly, a particular military hierarchy or government or political
structure can be instantly produced via ID without the need to apply
CD every time to produce a particular NHP. It doesn't matter if CD
was used before to produce other similar systems and patterns. What
matters is how the particular system and pattern in question was
produced.
R. Baldwin
> On Mar 1, 5:34 pm, "R. Baldwin" <res0k...@nozirevBACKWARDS.net> wrote:
>
> < snip >
>
>> The military power structure is a perfect example of a design lineage.
>> Current military power structures derive from older, simpler ones.
>
> The military power structure is a NHP in and of itself without any
> need to reference anything that came before. It can also be produced,
> de novo, without having to build it up from via common descent each
> and every time a new one is put together. Just because I might have
> knowledge of a pattern that came before doesn't mean that the current
> NHP that I produce right now is based on common descent in its own
> particular origin.
I disagree. Military Command and Control hierarchies developed over time.
They continue to be used because they are already known to work. There is no
instance of one springing up de novo. The military hierarchies in existence
all derive from prehistoric ones.
>
> For example, let's say, for argument's sake, that God knew of some
> other system of life somewhere else in his universe which he had in
> fact developed over a long period of time using common descent. Let's
> say that he essentially copied that other pattern, with a few minor
> changes, and placed it here on this Earth completely intact with all
> the elements in place all at once. According to your position, this
> system of life would be based on common descent - right? But, it
> really wouldn't be based on common descent in the same way John
> Harshman is arguing for. John is arguing that the NHP exhibited by
> the Tree of Life on this planet is evidence, in itself, of CD on this
> planet in the development of life on this planet over time - on this
> planet. He is not arguing for the evolution of the idea of the
> pattern over time via CD, which then can be placed intact here and
> there. That's not what he is arguing. He is arguing that the NHP is
> evidence of common descent for the particular system in question.
Are you certain this is Harshman's argument? I don't seem to find that
argument in his posts here. Certainly, a LACK of a nested hierarchy would be
evidence AGAINST common descent.
>
> Clearly, a particular military hierarchy or government or political
> structure can be instantly produced via ID without the need to apply
> CD every time to produce a particular NHP. It doesn't matter if CD
> was used before to produce other similar systems and patterns. What
> matters is how the particular system and pattern in question was
> produced.
Military hierarchies and governments produced instantly via ID don't work,
and they don't stick around. All the military hierarchies and governments in
existence are derived from earlier ones.
Perplexed in Peoria
"John Harshman" <jharshman....@pacbell.net> wrote in message news:4%eyj.4391$pl4....@newssvr22.news.prodigy.net...
Quite true. That is why creationists sometimes cite exceptions like the
platypus as disproofs of evolution. Since it both lays eggs and has hair,
it seems to have been designed by drawing from two sources. (Amazingly,
after citing this, a creationist will rapidly move on to the next objection
to evolution - no 'intermediate forms' in the present day). Of course,
biology is a science riddled with exceptions and it is not hard to find
other exceptions to hierarchy like the platypus. Not as many exceptions
to biological hierarchy as exist in the literary genre hierarchy, to be sure.
But the difference in 'hierarchialness' between the two is one of degree
rather than (forgive me) of kind.
>> However,
>> beyond the sheer Linnaean fact of a nested hierarchy, there are
>> two other bits of evidence available.
>
> I agree that there is other information available. But you seem to think
> that without the other information, there is no convincing case for
> common descent. And this is what I object to.
>
>> One is the Sarawak law -
>> which fits better with the common descent hypothesis than with
>> the incremental design hypothesis.
>
> Why? All you have to postulate is that the designer is limited in space
> as well as in time. All your objections to the nested hierarchy itself
> as evidence apply equally well, which is to say equally poorly, to the
> Sarawak Law.
>
>> The other is the fact - obvious
>> in the sequence data - that a lot of non-functional (junk) information
>> has been preserved along with the functional stuff in the structure
>> of the hierarchy. Again, it is easy to see how this would happen
>> under the common descent hypothesis, but much harder to shoehorn
>> into an incremental design hypothesis.
>
> I believe Sean's approach is to deny that there is any such thing as
> non-functional information. But why should functional information follow
> a nested hierarchy either, absent common descent?
Well, the intelligent designer obviously must know (better than we can at
present) what is functional and what is junk. He has no motivation for
copying non-functional features. And we are presuming that He doesn't
copy for convenience - that would be a kind of 'descent'. But He does
copy functional ideas from prior designs. And that copying of ideas often
looks suspiciously like blind copying only because potentially successful
implementations of those functional ideas are extremely rare in the structural
design space (thanks for the rational-sounding evasion, Sean).
>> So my claim is that nested hierarchy, by itself, is not strong and
>> conclusive evidence for common descent. But add in either the
>> Sarawak law or the existence of junk in the phylogenetic 'signal' -
>> with either of those added you have a much more convincing
>> case for common descent.
>
> I know what your claim is. I'm merely asking what argument you have to
> support that claim, which so far seems to be, I'm afraid, none.
There is not much point in you and I debating what we both know is a
contrary-to-fact hypothetical. The Sarawak law happens to be supported
by the fossil and biogeographic evidence. DNA sequence evidence for
phylogenetic junk exists. We are therefore both already convinced of
common descent.
But I am saying that some thoughtful, but uneducated, creationists might
fail to be convinced of common descent simply by the hierarchy, but
might be pushed over the line when they think about junk and Sarawak.
>> Surely you have noticed that our friend Glenn is eager to deny
>> that 'junk' even exists. And surely you already instinctively
>> grasp why he is eager. Because a nested heirarchy composed
>> of junk is strong evidence for common descent and evolution
>> under natural selection. But a nested hierarchy, all parts of
>> which have subtle functions, might be just as well explained
>> by an incremental designer.
>
> Only by an extraordinarily myopic incremental designer, who asks how he
> can adapt a particular design to some new function without reference to
> any other designs he may also have produced. Human designers just don't
> limit themselves to nested hierarchies. As I've said, you have to
> postulate an extremely odd and limited designer for this trope to work,
> and what you end up in essence is a strict simulation of common descent,
> which characteristics hypothesized purely because they simulate common
> descent.
I agree that a purely incremental designer would be an odd designer.
Less odd would be the hypothesis of a whole bunch of designers
each of whom designs (or improves) only one species. Such designers
might more plausibly be of severely bounded intelligence. This hypothesis
also suggests the reason why the design of the biosphere so frequently
seems to be working at cross-purposes (cats good at catching mice;
mice good at evading cats).
John Harshman
Whatever makes you think that platypuses/platypi/platypodes/whatever are
exceptions to nested hierarchy?
Ah, so you're not really serious about this. That's a relief.
>>> So my claim is that nested hierarchy, by itself, is not strong and
>>> conclusive evidence for common descent. But add in either the
>>> Sarawak law or the existence of junk in the phylogenetic 'signal' -
>>> with either of those added you have a much more convincing
>>> case for common descent.
>> I know what your claim is. I'm merely asking what argument you have to
>> support that claim, which so far seems to be, I'm afraid, none.
>
> There is not much point in you and I debating what we both know is a
> contrary-to-fact hypothetical. The Sarawak law happens to be supported
> by the fossil and biogeographic evidence. DNA sequence evidence for
> phylogenetic junk exists. We are therefore both already convinced of
> common descent.
I am already convinced of common descent without either of those. We are
arguing abouut whether the nested hierarchy alone is sufficient evidence
for common descent.
I am also arguing that if you don't accept that as sufficient evidence,
rejecting it because "god could have done it that way", none of the
other evidence is any good either.
> But I am saying that some thoughtful, but uneducated, creationists might
> fail to be convinced of common descent simply by the hierarchy, but
> might be pushed over the line when they think about junk and Sarawak.
Ah, so what you're saying is not that nested hierarchy is insufficient
evidence, just that other bits of evidence might be easier to understand.
>>> Surely you have noticed that our friend Glenn is eager to deny
>>> that 'junk' even exists. And surely you already instinctively
>>> grasp why he is eager. Because a nested heirarchy composed
>>> of junk is strong evidence for common descent and evolution
>>> under natural selection. But a nested hierarchy, all parts of
>>> which have subtle functions, might be just as well explained
>>> by an incremental designer.
>> Only by an extraordinarily myopic incremental designer, who asks how he
>> can adapt a particular design to some new function without reference to
>> any other designs he may also have produced. Human designers just don't
>> limit themselves to nested hierarchies. As I've said, you have to
>> postulate an extremely odd and limited designer for this trope to work,
>> and what you end up in essence is a strict simulation of common descent,
>> which characteristics hypothesized purely because they simulate common
>> descent.
>
> I agree that a purely incremental designer would be an odd designer.
> Less odd would be the hypothesis of a whole bunch of designers
> each of whom designs (or improves) only one species. Such designers
> might more plausibly be of severely bounded intelligence. This hypothesis
> also suggests the reason why the design of the biosphere so frequently
> seems to be working at cross-purposes (cats good at catching mice;
> mice good at evading cats).
The multiple-designer hypothesis has been advanced occasionally here. I
agree that it fits the facts better than the single-designer hypothesis.
But it still needs a tweak. We need in fact a family tree of
designers, one for each new species, with designers fissioning at each
supposed speciation. That is, a myopic and dedicated designer hypothesis
must incorporate some form of common descent, if only for the designers
themselves.
>
John Harshman
> On Mar 1, 8:36 am, John Harshman <jharshman.diespam...@pacbell.net>
> wrote:
>>> All the key differences, the overwhelming "bulk", require ID. That
>>> means that every key aspect of the pattern was designed.
>
> < snip >
>
>>> Now, does
>>> this mean that the overall NHP was also designed? No. Not
>>> necessarily. The overall pattern could still have involved the use of
>>> CD. But, you don't know that the original goal wasn't to create a NHP
>>> from the get go. We humans often start out with the goal to create
>>> an aesthetically pleasing work that often incorporates a NHP. And,
>>> when this overall pattern is the goal, CD is not usually used.
>> We do no such thing. Give an example if you disagree. The Parthenon is
>> not an example of a nested hierarchy in any relevant sense.
When he's lost, Sean resorts to regurgitation of vast numbers of quotes
he finds on the web, whether or not they advance any sort of point he's
trying to make. That is, we are out of the "dazzle 'em with brilliance"
stage.
That's because you are, at bottom, ignorant of biology and of the nested
hierarchy of life. The platypus doesn't violate the nested hierarchy
at all. The characters you mention are either primitive (egg-laying) or
unique to the platypus (poisonous spurs). (Whatever allowed you to make
the claim that poisonous spurs on the feet are a reptilian
characteristic?). As for the bill like a duck, that's just nonsense. A
platypus has a flattened, fleshy, toothless snout. It's similar to a
duck's bill about as much as a fiddlehead fern looks like the end of a
violin.
You haven't taken this tack for some time. For quite a while you have
agreed that the nested hierarchy of life actually exists. Now you're
back to denying it. Back and forth, back and forth.
> The Wiki article goes on to suggest that "Life, however, shows a
> clear nested hierarchy, at least with regards to multicellular
> organisms. An animal that produces milk (Mammals), will also have
> hair, have four limbs, be endothermic (warmblooded) plus possess many
> other characteristics. Why should this be? Why do no other animals or
> plants produce milk? Why do no mammals have four limbs plus a pair of
> wings, like the Pegasus or angels? This fits easily with the idea of
> common descent, but is not what would be expected from special
> creation (although it isn't completely at odds with creation either,
> as the creator(s) could create life in any configuration
> imaginable)."
>
> What is interesting here is that other creatures, besides mammals, do
> produce milk to feed their young. Some species of cockroach, for
> example, produce milk to feed their young in utero and deliver their
> young live. Also, the platypus produces milk while having features
> that are usually associated with other non-mammalian species.
Nonsense. It's not milk, unless by "milk" you mean any fluid produced in
the body and used to feed young. Which is stupid. All this fits
perfectly into the nested hierarchy.
> Of course, the overall similarities of various groups do nest fairly
> well. Again though, this is a classification based on shared
> similarities without taking into account the unique differences that
> are not shared or that may be shared with other vastly different "non-
> mammalian" creatures.
This is nonsense. It's the distribution of characters that determines
the hierarchy, both similarities and differences. A difference at one
level is a similarity at another. Mammals are different from each other
in various ways, but these differences are similarities of various
groups within mammals.
Yes, there is homoplasy. But much less than your mention of "cockroach
milk" would imply.
>>> In fact, those who first classified living things and discovered the
>>> overall nested pattern thought that the overall order, symmetry, and
>>> beauty of the pattern itself reflected the order, symmetry, and beauty
>>> of the creator's mind itself.
>> Yes, because they couldn't immediately think of another explanation, and
>> because their preconceptions were directed that way. But of course so
>> did the Quinarians and various other schools that proposed different
>> sorts of beautiful patterns that were not nested hierarchies. The
>> problem is that the creator's orderly, symmetrical, and beautiful mind
>> could be reflected in an infinite number of patterns, of which a nested
>> hierarchy is just one, and one that happens to be the expectation of
>> common descent.
>
> Again, common descent is only a fairly perfect expectation given a NHP
> of the type that can be produced by a non-deliberate process. A
> highly symmetrical Monger Sponge carved into the material of, say,
> granite would be an example of a NHP that could only have been the
> result of ID and is unlikely to have required the use of common
> descent in the development of the NHP in this particular situation.
A highly symmetrical Monger Sponge isn't an example of nested hierarchy
at all. Since we agree that life is capable of common descent and could
easily acquire its nested hierarchy that way, I don't see the point
you're trying to make.
> So, you see, a NHP, by itself, is not enough to assume common
> descent. Some NHPs require the extensive input of ID for most if not
> all of their key features. Such NHPs do not require the use of CD -
> the laborious steps of which are often bypassed in real life.
You still haven't presented an example of a nested hierarchy of the sort
life makes -- in which the hierarchy is determined by the elements
themselves, and is unique -- produced by methods other than common descent.
>>>>> In short, the creative methods to which mindless nature is limited are
>>>>> not the same methodological limitations of intelligent agents - even
>>>>> when it comes to deliberately simulating natural creations (which
>>>>> happens all the time). By your argument a "natural garden" or a
>>>>> painting of a "natural scene" would be an evil deception?
>>>> No, not by my argument.
>>> You're the one who suggested that a designer who incorporates any
>>> aspect of what can happen naturally into a particular work is being
>>> "deceptive". You did use that word, "deceptive" - did you not?
>> Yes, but not in quite the way that your strawman above does it.
>
> What is the key difference in your use of the term "deceptive"?
Simply that not every imitation is an attempt to deceive.
>>> I think that the minute detail required to produce the differences
>>> between living things, and the overall beauty of their shared
>>> interaction, took a great deal of care and creative genius. Whoever
>>> created vast range of different interacting creatures in an overall
>>> system that works and interacts with itself very closely, was very
>>> interested in every aspect of this creation.
>> Though not, apparently, in its geology. I wonder why that would be.
>
> Geology does not *require* ID. You don't seem to understand the
> concept of the ID-only hypothesis. The requirement for ID is
> different than the potential for ID. The key differences of all
> living things require ID while the key differences in geology do not.
Wait. You're claiming that the formation of the earth was purely natural?
Nor does nested hierarchy require ID. Only by conflating nested
hierarchy with other, separate aspects of life and rolling them up into
a big ball can you make your claim. It's a bait-and-switch. You say that
some of the differences among organisms require ID, and assume that
means that the nested hierarchy does too. But you offer no reason why
that should be true.
>>> I do not see it as being
>>> very likely that such obvious interest in minute detail and vast
>>> creative genius would dilly dally around to figure things out as it
>>> went along.
>> So you are placing limits on god's creative process.
>
> Not at all. God could have dilly dallied around all he wanted. I
> just don't see that as likely given that we are the way we are and he
> created us. I wouldn't like dilly dallying around too much if I was
> actually interested in the final product of my interactive creation -
> would you?
So you're placing probabilities on what god would or wouldn't do. Why
isn't that a limit? Who are you to say that god is like you in any
particular way? Because if so, I can raise a number of ways in which the
world is most certainly not like something you or I would have made. But
of course you will reject all those, saying that I'm trying to put
limits on god.
>>> I think it far more consistent that such a work would
>>> have been completed in the "drawing room" first and then created
>>> without the need to use common descent - to tweak things slowing over
>>> time in a fumbling muddled sort of way that only mindless nature is
>>> required to follow. An genius mind is not required to use such a slow
>>> cumbersome method of creation that is, by the way, extremely painful
>>> given that this genius mind actually cared about the feelings of the
>>> sentient creatures being manipulated.
>> What evidence do you have that this unspecified designer cared about the
>> feelings of sentient creatures?
>
> One doesn't usually put a great deal of creative effort into something
> one doesn't care a lick about.
What makes you think that an omnipotent being is capable of "effort".
Isn't everything as easy as everything else to him? (This assumes
omnipotence of course. If you want to deny that the creator is
omnipotent, do so now and we'll modify the discussion.) The other
counterargument here is that of course that what the creator appears to
care most about is beetles, if we're going by what he put effort into.
>>>>> I think not. I think that most intelligent designers would choose to
>>>>> skip the whole time consuming process of actually using CD to create
>>>>> the overall pattern. This is especially true for those designers who
>>>>> are primary interested in the final outcome of the overall creation.
>>>> Ah, so you are constraining the operation of god. Why should god care
>>>> about how time-consuming a process was? Who are you to tell him he has
>>>> to work by the fastest possible method?
>>> You are also constraining the designer.
>> By using the word "also", you are apparently agreeing that you have
>> placed such limits. Right? But you have claimed previously that doing so
>> is invalid.
>
> You are claiming that a God would have to create using the very same
> mechanism that limits non-deliberate natural processes.
No, I am not.
> I'm showing
> you reasons why an intelligent designer could use a different process
> besides common descent - reasons why an designer wouldn't necessarily
> be as limited as you suggest.
I have suggested no limits. You are the one suggesting limits. Your
limits, however, make no sense.
> You're the one suggesting limitations
> here. I'm the one suggesting that not only can CD be used by ID,
> other processes can and indeed are often used by ID to produce NHPs.
Yet you still have not given a single example.
> Your notion is that the odds an intelligent designer would use any
> other process besides CD are "essentially nil" are not backed up by
> what we know of ID. Intelligent agents, even human ones, are not
> limited by what limits non-deliberate processes of nature. Even we
> humans can go beyond the restricted us of CD to produce NHP - and we
> often do. Why? Because, obviously, it's quicker and less wasteful of
> resources. From the perspective of God, it seems reasonable that it
> would also be less wasteful of unnecessary pain and suffering of the
> sentient creatures he had spent a great deal of creative effort
> producing.
To repeat:
1. This assumes that the creator is capable of creative effort, and so
is not omnipotent. If you want to make that claim explicitly, do so.
2. This is the creator who, in order to punish sinful humanity, caused a
worldwide flood that killed every living thing not on the ark. And
you're talking about waste?
3. Who are you to say what god would or would not do, or what would be
reasonable for him to do?
4. What evidence do you have that the creator's interest lies in
avoiding pain and suffering? Life, in fact, seems admirably designed to
demonstrate pain and suffering. How do you know that's not a major
purpose? Remember the caterpillar?
>>> Why should he not care about
>>> how he created sentient creatures?
>> Why should he? What evidence is there that he would? I thought your
>> designer was an unspecified entity or entities, possibly even space aliens.
>
> Could be - but not very likely given the degree of effort that went
> into producing the vast array of life that exists and has existed on
> this planet.
You didn't answer the question. What if he produced all these sentient
creatures exactly so he could observe their pain and suffering as well
as their other behavior, for example?
>>> I mean really, wouldn't you care
>>> if you set off to create sentient creatures? - or even a highly
>>> complex interactive system of any kind? It is only reasonable, from a
>>> human perspective, that if we would care about the actual process used
>>> that the one who created us would also care in at least a similar
>>> manner.
>> Objection. Calls for speculation. And on a subject that you have
>> explicitly claimed (when I tried it) that we can't speculate about.
>
> Your "speculation" was that an intelligent designer would have to be
> limited to the same mechanism from producing a NHP that non-
> intelligent natural processes must use. I'm only showing you that
> this notion of yours isn't necessarily true or even likely. It
> certainly isn't true for humans.
1. That was not my speculation. You seem to ignore my persistent
denials, and snip all my explanations.
2. You still haven't provided an example of a nested hierarchy of the
sort displayed by life appearing as the result of anything other than
common descent.
>>> Common descent doesn't "just happen". That's the problem. All of the
>>> key differences of every living thing require ID.
>> You really can't separate the two in your mind, even for an instant, can
>> you? Key differences are not common descent. Common descent is the tree.
>
> No. Common descent is a mechanism. It isn't the tree.
Yes it is. Let's separate the tree from the hierarchy, which is a
pattern in the data. The tree (which is a history of branching descent)
does indeed produce the pattern.
>> The key differences are events sprinkled over the tree. The key
>> differences don't create the tree, and the tree doesn't create the key
>> differences.
>
> The tree is made up of the key differences - which do indeed define
> the tree. Common descent is not the tree. The NHP is the tree.
> Common descent is a mechanism that could have been used to produce the
> tree. It isn't the tree itself. And it isn't the only mechanism that
> could be used to produce the tree.
You are confused. A tree, as used here, is a history. We can infer that
history/tree from the pattern. But the tree is not the pattern and the
pattern is not the tree.
> What are you talking about when you say that I can't separate the
> "two" in my mind? You don't seem to understand a key point here -
> that CD is NOT the tree. It is just one possible method of producing
> a NHP or "tree".
No, I understand that the nested hierarchy is not the tree. But common
descent is the tree. If there is no common descent, there is no tree.
There might be a cladogram, which we might consider as merely a
graphical representation of a hierarchy. But a tree, as I'm using it, is
the actual history.
Now what "the two" are really should be clear by now. There is the
nested hierarchical pattern made by characters, and there is the
characters themselves. You are confusing those two. You say that if the
characters are created, that is very good evidence that the hierarchy
was created too. But you have no reason for this claim. It's quite
possible to have a system in which every single character was created
but the hierarchy evolved naturally, on a branching tree. This is
exactly what Michael Behe claims, for instance.
>>>> I agree that we can't say what god would or would not do. So why are you
>>>> so sure he didn't use common descent?
>>> Why are you so sure that he did?
>> Simply because that's the simplest interpretation of the evidence,
>> notably that nested hierarchy.
>
> That is indeed the overwhelming interpretation of the evidence only
> from a non-intelligent perspective - not from an ID perspective.
ID makes no difference, which is why you have never been able to justify
your claim.
>>> I mean really, I've just explained
>>> to you that we humans tend to skip the CD steps when we create since
>>> we do not have to follow the methods nature is *required* to use. We
>>> can copy a certain feature of nature without using the same method
>>> nature used. I dare say that any intelligent designer wouldn't feel
>>> obligated to use the natural CD method either when producing an
>>> otherwise "natural" pattern.
>> This leads directly to Last Thursdayism, unfortunately.
>
> You are talking about the evidence of the pattern alone here - not any
> additional evidence of apparent time. Given the pattern of a NHP
> alone, Last Thursdayism doesn't apply.
That made no sense. I'm merely saying that an intelligent designer
wouldn't feel obligated to use the natural "time passes" method in
creating a world that looks more than a week old. If appearances have no
value as evidence (which is what you're saying whether you realize it or
not), anything can be true.
>> But we don't
>> have to go all the way along that path. It's enough to note again that
>> this applies equally to stratigraphy; why should an intelligent designer
>> feel obligated to go through all that tedious erosion, deposition, etc.
>> when producing the otherwise "natural" pattern of layered rocks?
>
> Because, as I've explained several times before now, no aspect of the
> layered rocks requires ID - unlike the key differences in the pattern
> of life.
This is only because you feel free to define for yourself the boundaries
of any given system, as convenient. You say that the key differences and
the nested hierarchy are all part of a single entity, indivisible, which
must therefore share the feature of having been designed. But I say they
aren't. I say they're separable, which should be obvious. I have
explained, over and over, how they're separable. There are people who
actually hold the theory that key differences were created but the
hierarchy was not, e.g. Michael Behe. Is Behe's position logically
inconsistent? If not, you can't make the claim you do.
Now you feel free to suppose that the earth was created, but
stratigraphy was not. Why? Formally, earth/stratigraphy is identical to
life/hierarchy. The only difference is that you want to believe one but
not the other.
By the way, what about those differences that aren't "key"? You agree
that they could have been evolved. But according to your beliefs, they
must have been directly created too. Is tha correct?
>>>>> So, given that we know a particular NHP was in fact designed, I do not
>>>>> accept the notion that it was clearly designed via CD. That notion is
>>>>> demonstrably not very reliable.
>>>> That's only because you are conflating separate issues and can't seem to
>>>> separate them even for an instant.
>>> You are separating issues that are very much related - and you can't
>>> seem to realize that for an instant.
>> You must explain why they are related, which you have so far been unable
>> to do. All you can say is that the nested hierarchy and the "key
>> differences" are both aspects of life and must therefore have the same
>> cause. But "therefore" doesn't work in that sentence.
>
> You don't seem to understand that CD is not the tree - it is the
> mechanism.
This is a pointless quibble about terminology which I would prefer to
avoid. I would prefer to reserve the term "tree" to refer to the actual
history of descent, if any. What you are claiming is a nested hierarchy
without a tree. Can we agree on this? It merely clarifies terminology;
it doesn't concede any vital point to me.
Now we can infer a tree from a nested hierarchy. If you are correct,
that tree doesn't actually exist; it's merely notional. Is this an
acceptable use of terminology to you?
> The key differences are what form the NHP. They create
> the tree. Whoever created these key differences created the NHP as
> well. Could an intelligent creator have also used CD as the chosen
> mechanism to produce the tree? Sure. But, is an intelligent creator
> limited to this mechanism so that any other option is "essentially
> nil"? - not remotely. CD is by no means the only viable option for ID
> when it comes to NHPs.
I agree of course. An omnipotent creator can do anything, including
creating a nested hierarchy without there being a tree of common
descent. Or he can create any other pattern by any other means he likes.
Because he can do produce any pattern at all by any means at all there
is no way to determine anything about the past based on conditions
observable in the present. Science is impossible.
>> You are confused. The point is that you can use the same operations in a
>> different order to produce the same result. That means it *isn't* a
>> nested hierarchy in the same way that life is. It's an arbitrary
>> hierarchy. We can't reconstruct the hierarchy by observing the end
>> product. We can reconstruct a great many different hierarchies, none of
>> them preferable to another. Drop this momentary obsession; it leads nowhere.
>
> Say you observe the end product of a fractal. How do you
> "reconstruct" the hierarchy so that one is most "preferable" to the
> others?
I have no idea.
> You seem to be defining the pattern of life as a unique kind
> of NHP that has a "preferable" construct while other NHPs do not have
> a preferable construct. Is that correct? You think that there would
> be no other reasonable way to build the NHP of the Tree of Life? -
> Nothing that could "done first" instead of second in forming a
> reasonable tree? Think again. Ever hear of non-rooted trees? It all
> depends upon what features you are considering in your building of the
> pattern or classification system. Often genetic classifications have
> contradicted morphologic classifications - even when it comes to
> fairly major branches of the tree. Making circles first before
> columns can indeed happen in building a pattern to represent the Tree
> of Life.
Ah, so now you're back to denying that the nested hierarchy of life
exists. You go back and forth on this, but you haven't done this flip in
quite a while. I had hoped we had finally agreed on the existence of
this unique nested hierarchy. Because it is. The tree is rooted, so your
point about unrooted trees is moot. It's true that homoplasy exists; not
all problems of inferring the tree are easy. But disagreements are minor
blips in an overall single pattern. There is in fact one true nested
hierarchy (with the rare exceptions of hybridization and horizontal
transfer, which can themselves be identified). Do I have to start all
over again getting us back on common ground?
> The thing is, you can't build a circle until you have a point and you
> can't build a column until you have a line (geometrically). In other
> words, you can't go 2D before you have 1D and you can't go 3D before
> you have the right 2D shape. You might be able to build a bunch of 2D
> circles before you build the columns, but this is just one step that
> happens to be interchangeable with another step. And, you can't build
> on top of the columns with other columns in horizontal or vertical
> arrangement until you have the first layer columns in place.
>
> The same thing is true in representing the Tree of Life. Some things
> have to come before others, but not everything.
I have no idea what you think you are saying about the tree of life.
It's not a matter of procedural necessity, merely a matter of the order
in which things happen to have happened. Fish appear in the tree before
mammals, which appear before whales. You can't rearrange the tree so
that mammals are a subgroup of whales. It just doesn't fit that way.
>>> Yes, I do believe that some minor functional differences can evolve.
>>> But, that really isn't the point here. The point is that if the vast
>>> majority of all the features of a pattern were designed, you are
>>> suggesting that the designer had to follow the mechanism of CD.
>> No, I'm suggesting that the simplest explantion for the pattern is that
>> the designer (if any) did follow CD. He of course didn't have to do
>> anything.
>
> You are doing a bit more. You are suggesting that it is essentially
> impossible for an intelligent designer to have chosen any other method
> besides CD to produce a NHP. You said that any other option had a
> probability that is "essentially nil" - right? Well, that's
> demonstrably false given that humans produce NHP's without common
> descent with a rate that isn't "essentially nil".
You still haven't provided an example. You still don't understand my
argument. We have no reason to expect god to do or not do anything in
particular. We have no more reason to expect a nested hierarchy than we
do to expect any other pattern, or no pattern at all. The pattern of
life could have been a buckyball. Or a scala naturae. Do you have any
understanding of likelihood as a statistical philosophy? It measures the
probability of data given various models and chooses the model under
which the probability of the data is highest. The probability of a
nested hierarchy under common descent is very high. The probability of a
nested hierarchy under fiat creation is impossible to estimate -- we
have no way of assigning a greater probability to any outcome than to
any other outcome. Thus probabilities must be distributed among all
possible outcomes. This makes the probability of any one outcome very
low, simply because of the distribution. Now you may deny that this is
the proper distribution. But you must present reasons for the
distribution you choose. In doing so you are putting constraints on what
god would or would not be likely to do. I, on the other hand, by
assuming a flat distribution, place no constraints at all.
>>> That's nonsense. Not even we humans use CD all the time in the
>>> formation of NHPs. In fact, we predictably skip the exhausting steps,
>>> the trial and error, of CD to go straight to the finished NHP
>>> directly.
>> So you claim, but you have presented no examples of such a practice,
>> despite numerous requests.
>
> The NHP of military command or other forms of government or political
> organization, fractals like Sierpinski's Gasket or the Monger Sponge,
> and yes, colonnades, the Parthenon, and other geometrically based
> architectural designs, paintings, and even musical compositions. Even
> language systems are build on a NHP and can be produced without the
> use of CD. Sure, most language systems have elements of CD. However,
> language can be developed without the use of CD. For example, twin
> infants have been known to develop their own language system de novo,
> without the need for the slow evolution of meaning for words and
> phrases over time. It is done by arbitrary definition. Sounds are
> used to build words which are used to build phrases which are used to
> build sentences - all in a NHP which doesn't need CD to achieve.
None of these are nested hierarchies of the sort we see in life. They
are all arbitrary hierarchies. As the passages you quoted at the
beginning (and apparently have not read) say, "You just can't mix and
match the branches or twigs of the tree of life without really screwing
things up".
>>>>>> No, the article you noted above has nothing to do with nested hierarchy
>>>>>> in the sense we're using it here. Google is not always your friend.
>>>>> You're mistaken - on at least the first account . . .
>>>> Perhaps if you actually read the article?
>>>>> I don't assume that all aspects of every living thing required ID. My
>>>>> position is that only those functional aspects that required at least
>>>>> 1000 specified aa working together at minimum clearly required ID.
>>>> Exactly. So why assume that if those 1000 specified yadda yadda are
>>>> created, then so was the nested hierarchy?
>>> Because that is how we humans often create - without having to use
>>> trial and error all the time - unlike what mindless nature is required
>>> to do.
>> If you're using humans as an analogy (and thus limiting the creator), we
>> seldom create nested hierarchies at all, simply because they are so
>> limiting. When we make new things, we borrow and combine elements from
>> whatever seems useful or appropriate. When anyone brings this up, you
>> disclaim all analogies to human processes. You are selective indeed in
>> your use of analogy; apparently it only works when you do it.
>
> I have never disclaimed analogies to human processes. I used such
> analogies all the time myself since it is the most at-hand example of
> ID that we have. Also, you don't seem to mind when elements are
> borrowed and combined between creatures in evolutionary story
> telling. You don't seem to mind the story of reptiles gaining
> feathers. You wouldn't mind if some "mammals" had feathers either.
Move to strike. Assumes a conclusion not in evidence.
> You'd just come up with some story about how they also shared an
> original common ancestor with birds and split off from the rest of the
> mammalian group early on closer to the most recent common ancestor
> (MRCA). I mean really, you don't mind when mammals lay eggs, have
> bills like a duck, or poison spurs. You see, evolution is a marvelous
> story that can really predict anything - any "tree" in any NHP.
And round and round we go. Previously we had agreed that there was a
true nested hierarchy. Now you're back to denying that it exists. Round
and round.
Mammals with feathers would not fit into the same nested hierarchy as
all the other characters of mammals and birds imply. It would cause a
problem -- serious homoplasy. But of course mammals don't have feathers,
so we are not presented with this problem. Surely you must understand
that egg-laying is the primitive condition for mammals, and as such fits
perfectly into the standard nested hierarchy. No mammal has a bill like
a duck, any more than a seahorse has a head like a horse. I am at a loss
to figure out why you think poison spurs are a reptilian characteristic.
What reptiles have poison spurs?
You are babbling here.
> Beyond this, humans, when they do create NHP, do not limit themselves
> to the use of CD to produce such patterns. That notion is what is
> extremely restrictive and simply not likely given humans as examples
> of creative intelligences.
Humans do not create NHPs. They create nested hierarchies that are
arbitrary and imposed. Not patterns that display nested hierarchy, the
way the data of life do.
>>> Radiosignals can also be produced by non-deliberate processes - just
>>> not the type of radiosignals SETI is looking for. The same thing is
>>> true of NHPs. It is true that NHPs can be produced by nature - but
>>> not the type of NHP that is seen in living things. The NHP of living
>>> things carry other particular aspects that cannot be produced
>>> naturally and obviously required ID. Like the radiosignals SETI
>>> scientists are looking for, this aspect of the pattern of living
>>> things strongly indicates the careful involvement of a highly
>>> intelligent mind for every key difference of every living thing. This
>>> aspect of the NHP is what requires ID and ID only. The same thing is
>>> true for SETI. It is this aspect that would be falsified if any non-
>>> deliberate process of nature could be found producing these particular
>>> features of the overall NHP.
>> Once again, you confuse the hierarchy with the various characters that
>> display it. They are separate. We can easily produce a model in which
>> the hierarchy is entirely natural though all the characters are
>> designed. You have provided no reason to reject this model except that
>> it doesn't seem right to you.
>
> You cannot produce a model where are the differences in the emergent
> pattern are designed while the overall pattern is natural.
Of course I can. I've done so explicitly several times. Michael Behe
believes in exactly such a model. God watches life evolve, branching as
it goes, and injects particular important changes into particular
branches of the evolving tree. He gives hair and milk to the ancestral
mammal, for example, and this is inherited by all its descendants.
Perfectly possible, that is if we assume there is such a person.
> We aren't
> talking about design of just the basic building-block characters
> here. We are talking about the requirement for design of every
> emergent step of the ladder of the NHP.
So? All that's needed is that the proper character be added at the
proper time, to the proper branch of the tree.
>>>>> The question is, did this NHP, which is known to be
>>>>> deliberately produced by ID, the product of the CD mechanism? Was the
>>>>> intelligent agent required, statistically, to use CD as his only
>>>>> option to create such a NHP? - as you suggest?
>
>>>> Again, you seem to rely wholly on guilt by association, but selectively.
>>>> God created life, therefore he created the nested hierarchy of life. But
>>>> you reject the identical syllogism that god created the earth, therefore
>>>> he created the stratigraphic layering of the earth.
>>> As I've explained to you before, the ID-only hypothesis is falsified
>>> in your latter example, but not the former. God created life because
>>> only God could have created life.
>> We aren't talking about life. We're talking about the nested hierarchy
>> of life, which is a different thing.
>
> You don't seem to realize that they are connected. The pattern of
> life wouldn't exist without ID.
You are wrong. The pattern would exist, just with (if we accept your
premise) trivial characters that don't make any major innovations. We
would have a bunch of species without any "key differences". But they
would still display a nested hierarchy. It would merely consist of
"non-key" differences.
> This is not true of the pattern of
> stratigraphic layering - which would exist without the requirement of
> the input of ID into each step in the layering process. Do you really
> not see the difference?
Again, you can say this only because you are unable to separate the
hierarchical *distribution* of characters from the characters
themselves. Here's the mapping for you:
Geology Biology
stratigraphy nested hierarchy
creation of earth creation of life/key differences
Your claim is that because life and key differences were created, the
nested hierarchy must have been created too. The identical geological
claim is that because the planet earth was created, its stratigraphy
must have been created too. Now we agree that nested hierarchies and
stratigraphies can arise naturally. But because these particular
hierarchies/stratigraphies are parts of wholes that were themselves
created, they must have been created too. Your inconsistency here should
be obvious.
>>> God might also have created the
>>> stratigraphic layering of the Earth, but it seems quite clear that God
>>> isn't the only one able to produce such a phenomenon.
>> Ah, but god created the earth, right? Only god could have created the
>> earth, so the stratigraphic layering, being a feature of the earth (and
>> impossible without the existence of the earth itself) must also have
>> been created. QED.
>
> The stratigraphic layering is not a feature of the Earth that
> *requires* ID. Life is a feature of this Earth that does *require* ID
> at every emergent step.
See how you have conflated the nested hierarchy with life itself?
>>> Therefore, the
>>> ID-only hypothesis is falsified in this case. How is that such a hard
>>> concept to grasp for you?
>> Because you are incapable of noticing your own bait-and-switch here. If
>> we accept that only god could have created life, that says nothing about
>> creation of the nested hierarchy.
>
> Yes, it does. It says that CD is not the only possible mechanism or
> even the overwhelming choice for an intelligent agent to use. Without
> the ID *requirement* CD is the only viable option for the NHP that we
> see. You see, with one there is a viable choice while with the other
> there isn't any viable choice.
I agree that CD is not the only possible mechanism. I don't see how you
can say it's not the overwhelming choice, since that requires placing
constraints on what god would or would not do. But you are making a
positive claim here. You are saying that CD is unlikely given ID. That's
an even stronger constraint. Yet you also claim that one can't put
constraints on god. Go figure.
>> We all agree that even if god created
>> life, and even if he created every single difference among species, the
>> nested hierarchy could be wholly natural. We agree that given an
>> omnipotent designer, it could be wholly non-natural too.
>
> If by "wholly natural" you mean "random", we agree.
Of course I don't mean "random", unless by "random" you mean "wholly
non-natural". But you digress.
> The overall NHP,
> even if each individual emergent step were designed, could be the
> result of a random use of CD. Could such a pattern be the result of
> a deliberate use of CD acting in a random way that did not have the
> end-pattern in mind? Yes. Is this the only viable or reasonable
> mechanistic option in this case? No.
Could you please characterize the complete set of viable or reasonable
mechanistic options? They would seem to be infinite to me, with no means
of choosing among them (if we accept your starting premises).
>> But we agree
>> that the ID-only hypothesis is
>> indeed falsified in the case of the
>> nested hierarchy of life.
>> This is true even if the ID-only hypothesis is
>> not falsified in the origin of life itself.
>
> Again, ID need not deliberately direct the formation of the pattern
> itself when producing each emergent step. That's true. The overall
> pattern, in this sense, could be the result of the random application
> of CD. That's also true. The question is: Is this the only viable
> option given the required involvement of ID in each emergent step?
> No. That's not true. It is only true for those cases of a NHP where
> ID is not required in each step.
Once more you confuse the branching pattern -- the distribution of
characters among species -- with the characters themselves. It's fully
possible for each and every character to be designed without the
distribution being designed at all. I'm going to dedicate my life to
getting you to realize this simple fact.
> So, it is your position that CD is the only viable option for those
> cases of NHPs requiring ID in each emergent step that is not supported
> by the evidence at hand. It is based on your notion that God would be
> limited to using a mechanism that mindless nature is required to use.
> That notion depends upon your placing limitations on God which aren't
> even placed on humans. How reasonable is that notion?
Since it's not my notion, there is no point to the question. Please stop
with the strawmen.
>>>>> I repeat: The creative methods to which mindless nature is limited
>>>>> are not the same methodological limitations of intelligent agents -
>>>>> even when it comes to deliberately simulating natural creations (which
>>>>> happens all the time). By your argument a "natural garden" or a
>>>>> painting of a "natural scene" would be an evil deception?
>>>> Only if it were intended to fool us into thinking it was a natural
>>>> event, and the penalty for thinking so were eternal damnation.
>>> See, you just said it again - creating any aspect of what nature can
>>> also produce is defined by you as being "deceptive" - a deliberate
>>> effort to be somehow sinister. That's nonsense. We humans
>>> incorporate various features of nature all the time in our creations
>>> without anyone being accused of sinister motives.
>> This is a digression. Motives are sinister if they are sinister. If, for
>> example, you make a diamond in the lab and try to sell it as a natural
>> diamond, that's a sinister motive. A god who creates a pattern that is
>> most easily interpreted as being natural is hiding his existence; if
>> acceptance of that existence is important to us, that's sinister behavior.
>
> LOL - Was Michelangelo hiding his existence by carving the statue of
> David?
No. It was obviously a statue.
> Or is a painter who paints a natural scene "hiding" his/her
> existence?
No. It's obviously a painting.
> Please! That's a bizarre argument. God's existence is
> clear in his creation, especially of life, because of those elements
> of life that cannot be explained or "copied" by nature - which are
> numerous.
I agree, if we accept your assumption. I misspoke. What I should have
said is not that he's hiding his existence, but that he's hiding his
method of creation.
> Looking at just one aspect of a creation and saying that
> the entire creation is obviously natural is unreasonable.
I agree. Sorry for the error.
> Do SETI
> scientists only look at one aspect of radiosignals in their search for
> ETI? Of course not.
Actually, my understanding is that they do. But never mind.
>>> Also, where on Earth do you get this idea of some sort of "penalty" of
>>> "eternal damnation" for believing in common descent or any other
>>> aspect of evolutionary thought? That's also nonsense. No God that is
>>> actually worth worshiping would be so petty.
>> I agree. But creationists generally don't. I'm pleasantly surprised that
>> you don't believe in Hell.
>
> I do believe in Hell. I don't believe in Hell like many who call
> themselves Christians believe in Hell, but I do believe in a final
> judgment of evil people. I just don't believe that being honestly
> wrong is evil.
Really? So I'll go to heaven despite my atheism? (Assuming for the sake
of argument that I'm not evil.) Isn't that heresy?
>>> No one is going to be
>>> lost for being honestly tricked into believing the wrong thing. The
>>> only evil that someone can be truly accused of is the evil of knowing
>>> what is right and deliberately doing the opposite. For example, say
>>> that you know it is wrong to murder, but you decide that your wife's
>>> life insurance is just too tempting so you do it anyway. Now that, my
>>> friend, is evil by anyone's definition of the term.
>>> It is for true evil, not for honestly believing the wrong thing, that
>>> we will be judged.
>> That seems like heresy to me. I thought that nobody who didn't believe
>> in Jesus as his own personal savior could go to heaven, regardless of
>> good works. But this is a digression.
>
> I believe there will be a lot of very surprised atheists in heaven -
> don't you?
No. Of course not. I believe there will be a lot of unsurprised
Christians who no longer exist, anywhere. Just like the rest of us, when
we're dead.
We can continue discussing theology, but perhaps another thread. Hell,
even for evil people, seems to me a bit excessive. Infinite punishment
for finite sin, with no possibility of redemption? Does anyone, no
matter what they've done, deserve that? Now *that's* evil.
Ernest Major
in Peoria <jimme...@sbcglobal.net> writes
>
>Quite true. That is why creationists sometimes cite exceptions like
>the platypus as disproofs of evolution. Since it both lays eggs and
>has hair, it seems to have been designed by drawing from two sources.
>(Amazingly, after citing this, a creationist will rapidly move on to
>the next objection to evolution - no 'intermediate forms' in the
>present day). Of course, biology is a science riddled with exceptions
>and it is not hard to find other exceptions to hierarchy like the
>platypus. Not as many exceptions to biological hierarchy as exist in
>the literary genre hierarchy, to be sure. But the difference in
>'hierarchialness' between the two is one of degree rather than (forgive
>me) of kind.
>
biological hierarchy? (It isn't.)
--
alias Ernest Major
Perplexed in Peoria
"John Harshman" <jharshman....@pacbell.net> wrote in message news:_4zyj.12760$0o7....@newssvr13.news.prodigy.net...
Well, ok. The fact that it has hair and lays eggs doesn't by itself make it
an exception to nested hierarchy. As long as it is assumed to be the earliest
branching hairy beastie, and the common ancestor of all hairy beasts can
be consistently assumed to have layed eggs.
To cause problems in the hierarchy, I guess you need clear-cut examples of
convergent evolution. So, I quote from the wiki article on platypuses:
The bizarre appearance of this egg-laying, venomous, duck-billed,
beaver-tailed, otter-footed mammal baffled European naturalists
when they first encountered it, with some considering it an elaborate
fraud.
Somewhere in the bill, venom, tail, or foot, there must be something that
looks like an idea borrowed from outside the normal channels.
Nicely put. And that seems to be a characterization I could live with if
this 'dispute' were to end here.
Hmmmm. I don't see that we need a tree of designers - only a tree of
designer 'assignments'. However, we have to postulate that sometimes
you get two different designers assigned to the same species and they
have divergent ideas as to how that species can be improved.
John Harshman
Not especially, unless you're really reaching for convergence in order
to show that there is no nested hierarchy. Now if you want to know
something really weird, check into their sex chromosomes.
Now there are of course many cases of convergence in evolution, some of
them quite amazing. The platypus just isn't a good example. And
convergence doesn't really mess up the hierarchy very much. Tasmanian
wolves are clearly marsupials, not wolves, and nobody would ever propose
classifying them any other way.
So the designers are assigned new jobs after each species? I suppose
that would work. The simulation of descent arises only from the rigid
use of a single existing species as sole template for multiple new ones.
Friar Broccoli
wrote:
> Perplexed in Peoria wrote:
> > "John Harshman" <jharshman.diespam...@pacbell.net> wrote
> > (quoting Pitman):
> >>> As far as I've been able to tell, your argument is basically that a
> >>> nested hierarchical pattern implies common descent in all cases where
> >>> it is found. This hypothesis does seem to hold true, as far as I can
> >>> tell, for non-deliberate processes. It seems that non-deliberate
> >>> processes cannot make a nested hierarchical pattern without the use of
> >>> common descent. In fact, this particular hypothesis, is actually
> >>> falsifiable. All one has to do to falsify this hypothesis is show a
> >>> non-deliberate process producing a nested pattern without using common
> >>> descent and this hypothesis would be falsified.
>
> > Ok. I'll bite. Is alphabetical order a kind of nested heirarchy? Seems
> > to me that it is. Words beginning with the same letter are in the same
> > phylum. Words beginning with the same pair of letters are in the
> > same order. Etc.
> > Now, if you accept that this is a nested heirarchy, then please notice
> > that the heirarchy itself is in the mind of the systematizer, rather than
> > in the process which generates the words - whether deliberate or not.
>
> So what you have there is a deliberate process imposing a nested
> hierarchy on data that aren't inherently hierarchical. What was your
> purpose in doing that? It doesn't seem to be arguing either for or
> against anything Sean said.
What about snow flakes as fractals?
Charles Brenner
wrote:
> [I thought I'd start a new thread since Sean isn't replying in the old
> one. ..]
> Seanpit wrote:
>
> > On Feb 19, 5:56 pm, John Harshman <jharshman.diespam...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
> > In order to try to
> > make it a necessity for when ID is demonstrably involved, you propose
> > various limitations to all intelligent designers. You suggest that no
> > intelligent designer would ever produce a nested pattern. You ask for
> > a reason why an intelligent designer would create such a pattern.
> > Don't you see, this is like asking why Picasso refuses to paint in the
> > style of Michelangelo? It makes absolutely no sense to ask this
> > question. If you don't see that, there simply is no further
> > argument. It should be enough to speak for itself.
>
> I agree. It makes absolutely no sense to ask any questions at all, given
> your assumptions. We can't know anything through examination of the world.
>
> > Your efforts to presuppose limits on all intelligent designers, even
> > ones you do not know, reduces your hypothesis to a position of non-
> > falsifiability. Given they way you describe your position, it is true
> > by definition. It cannot be challenged, even in theory, because you
> > defined what a designer can and cannot do.
>
> No, in fact I haven't. Consider this in a likelihoodist framework: A
> designer (hey, can I save typing by calling him "god" from now on?
> Thanks.) has a flat probability distribution of expected result,
> infinitely wide -- i.e. he could do anything. This means that the
> probability of any one outcome -- e.g. a nested hierarchy -- is
> arbitrarily close to zero. The likelihood of the data given the god
> model is almost nil. Then again, the distribution for common descent is
> sharply peaked; we strongly expect a nested hierarchy and little else.
> So the likelihood of the nested hierarchy data given the common descent
> model is quite high. In a likelihoodist framework we clearly pick common
> descent as an explanation of the data. Similar reasoning would produce
> similar results in bayesian or frequentist frameworks.
I'm glad you introduced this point. For me it's the most sensible way
to think of evidence. I wasn't very surprised when Sean clipped it
though; I suppose to many people it comes across a incomprehensible
technical gobbledy-gook -- and in a way it is. My objection is to the
concept of a "flat probability distribution" across all possible
things God might do.
The idea may be worth stating without trying to be mathematical.
Surely the point is simple without any quantification: The observed
nested hierarchy (the "data") is an expected, even inevitable
consequence of evolution by natural selection, but is at best one of
many possible states of nature that might be observed if God did it.
To the extent that data is a more likely consequence of explanation NS
rather than explanation G it is evidence for natural selection rather
than Godly creation -- that's the "likelihood principle."
However, we really cannot put any kind of number on "more likely."
There's nothing to stop a Creation debater from believing, "Come to
think of it (now that I see the data) I realize that I should have
known all along that that is surely the only plausible mechanism God
could have used. It was preordained, had I but the wit to have
realized." Post hoc arguments generally sound pretty desperate but
that's subjective.
A Creationist who is (otherwise) a scientist has another, logical,
tack. That is to accept that the data is powerful evidence for NS but
to realize that powerful evidence does not amount to proof -- mainly
because there might be countervailing evidence that is even more
powerful. The "sad" article http://www.bryancore.org/bsg/opbsg/007.html
which you cited last month exemplifies this: comparison of DNA
sequences is powerful evidence for common origin but the infallible
words of the Bible are much stronger evidence to the contrary (in
Bayesian terms: overwhelming prior probability).
---- fnord?
wf3h
wrote:
> [I thought I'd start a new thread since Sean isn't replying in the old
>
> Yet you reject common descent but accept stratigraphy. Why the
> difference? Simple, it's the elephant in the room that you won't
> mention. You have a prior template into which all conclusions must fit:
> biblical inerrancy. You know that common descent is false because
> Genesis says kinds were separately created.
yeah i've dragged him screaming and kicking down the same path. he
wants a 'miracle' to be involved even though every miracle in history
has been due to natural processes. he says those were 'non
deliberative' even though people at the time...like he does
today...thought the hand of god was involved.
his logic seems to be:
1. god uses non natural processes to create species...thus proving
these processes exist
2. the existence of non natural processes proves god exists
3. even though we've never seen a miracle or a 'deliberative' process,
they exist because he says they do
4. no. 3 notwithstanding, he says we've never observed the evolution
of a 'complex functionality' beyond 1000aa so that proves evolution
doesn't exist.
5. intelligence is a force like gravity or electricity
how he squares 3 and 4 is beyond me. why he thinks HE gets to decide
what is/isn't a miracle...beyond merely saying he has that right...is
left unsaid.
in short, beyond special pleading and circular arguments, there's not
a whole lot to his position at all.
Seanpit
wrote:
< snip >
> > Your efforts to presuppose limits on all intelligent designers, even
> > ones you do not know, reduces your hypothesis to a position of non-
> > falsifiability. Given the way you describe your position, it is true
> > by definition. It cannot be challenged, even in theory, because you
> > defined what a designer can and cannot do.
>
> No, in fact I haven't. Consider this in a likelihoodist framework: A
> designer (hey, can I save typing by calling him "god" from now on?
> Thanks.) has a flat probability distribution of expected result,
> infinitely wide -- i.e. he could do anything. This means that the
> probability of any one outcome -- e.g. a nested hierarchy -- is
> arbitrarily close to zero. The likelihood of the data given the god
> model is almost nil. Then again, the distribution for common descent is
> sharply peaked; we strongly expect a nested hierarchy and little else.
> So the likelihood of the nested hierarchy data given the common descent
> model is quite high. In a likelihoodist framework we clearly pick common
> descent as an explanation of the data. Similar reasoning would produce
> similar results in bayesian or frequentist frameworks.
Let's say that we know the nested hierarchical pattern (NHP) was in
fact designed, but we don't know the method of design. Given this
scenario, you seem to be suggesting that, even given that ID produced
the NHP, odds are the creative method chosen by the intelligent
creator was common descent (CD)? - because only CD has a sharp
likelihood peak given a NHP?
What is interesting here is that this notion is testable and it's
outcome is not "almost nil" as you suggest. For example, give a bunch
of people, from artists to housewives, a piece of paper and a pencil
and tell them to sketch out various objects according to a NHP. Do
you actually think that none of them will use any other method besides
common descent to produce the NHP?
Not according to Michael Leyton, Dept. of Psychology, Rutgers
University. In his book, Leyton argues that the "human perceptual
system is organized as a nested hierarchy of symmetries." He goes on
to argue that "architects exploit this psychological fact in the
structure of their buildings" . . . and that the "same is true of
painters, and of composers."
http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~mleyton/arch0.html
It seems only natural then that we humans tend to use NHP in our own
creations without being told to do so and that we do not always use CD
to produce our buildings, paintings, or other "compositions". In
other words, the odds that a NHP, that is known to be designed, is the
produce of CD is not "essentially 100%" as you suggest.
> Or we could talk about specified information. A nested hierarchy is
> specified information. If we see a particular pattern that we expect to
> find resulting from X, we don't invoke some other process that has no
> expectation. The probability of getting that specified result from
> chance, or from an unpredictable god, are close to zero.
Not if you know that ID was *required* to produce the NHP. We know
enough about the abilities of our own intelligence to know that we can
easily skip the common descent steps and produce the NHP directly - de
novo. In fact, this is often done in various creations that exhibit
the NHP (as noted above).
> You actually use this reasoning yourself in other contexts. You only
> invoke god when convenient, and reject one when you think a natural
> model applies.
I wouldn't call this "convenient". I would call this a necessity. I
invoke ID only when it seems to me that there is no other viable
option. This is in fact the basis of the ID-only hypothesis - the same
basis used by SETI scientists in their search for ID in the form of ET-
produced "artifacts".
> Recently you claimed that the geological record is
> clearly the product of a catastrophic event. I said you couldn't rule
> out god creating the record. And your response was that since natural
> processes could explain the record, god was unnecessary.
What I reject is the notion that only ID could produce such a
phenomenon. I do not reject the possibility that ID was involved. It
is just that this notion cannot be adequately supported by the
available data in this particular case.
> You reject god
> as an explanation purely because there is a natural explanation, because
> the probability of god producing a result that happens to mimic a
> natural process is, in your mind, very low.
That's not my reasoning at all. The probability of an intelligent
agent mimicking a non-deliberate process of nature is not "essentially
nil" as you suggest. We humans do it all the time. We make "natural
gardens" and "natural rocks" to go in these gardens and paint natural
scenes and produce the sounds of nature. We copy nature all the time
- deliberately. So, unlike you, I do not reject the potential of ID
for any phenomenon. What I reject is the notion that only ID could
have done the job for certain phenomena - like the Grand Canyon or the
geologic column. Other non-ID mechanisms could also do the job
without my being able to tell the difference.
> And this reasoning doesn't
> come from a constraint put on god; quite the opposite: it comes from a
> total lack of constraint, which makes the probability of any particular
> result almost zero.
Nope.
> Similarly, you have already agreed that nested hierarchies are a
> predicted product of common descent;
Only given that non-deliberate natural processes could produce the
various key differences in the various elements that make up the NHP.
> we have no need of god to explain
> that hierarchy just as we have no need of god to explain the
> stratigraphic record.
Not all NHP are created equal in that not all of them can be explained
without the use of ID. For example, the NHP observed in certain
architectural structures, paintings, and compositions require ID. They
cannot be produced without ID. Such creations which demonstrate NHPs
are demonstrably independent of the need for CD much of the time.
> Yet you reject common descent but accept stratigraphy. Why the
> difference? Simple, it's the elephant in the room that you won't
> mention. You have a prior template into which all conclusions must fit:
> biblical inerrancy. You know that common descent is false because
> Genesis says kinds were separately created. But you know strata weren't
> created because Genesis says (or is interpreted as implying) that the
> strata formed naturally from the Flood. All your argument is in service
> to that hidden agenda. And that's where the difference comes from.
> Nowhere else. Have the honesty to realize that.
I know that the key differences between the various "kinds" of
creatures required ID. This is not true of stratigraphy. The various
aspects of stratigraphy do not *require* ID. That's the difference.
This observation has nothing to do with the Bible. I'd be an IDist
without the Bible. In fact, I thought that the ToE was quite
reasonable for quite some time. It wasn't until after medical school
when I was in the army that I discovered that the evolutionary
mechanism simply didn't work beyond very low levels of functional
complexity. It wasn't until then that I really started reconsidering
the ToE.
< snip repetitive >
> > The difference between the nested pattern in living things and the
> > stratigraphic pattern is that all the key differences in the nested
> > pattern of life require ID.
>
> Irrelevant even if true, because we are talking about an aspect (the
> nested hierarchy itself) that we both agree doesn't require ID. Unless
> you are arguing for guilt by association, everything you say about this
> doesn't matter.
It is not irrelevant if true. All you have to do to see the relevance
is ask a bunch of people to deliberately create something that
expresses a NHP and see if they use CD as a mechanism. You see, when
ID is known to be involved, it is also known that NHPs are often
produced without the need for CD.
< snip >
> > This is quite different from the "tree of life" pattern where just
> > about all the branches of the tree require intelligent input. Given
> > that intelligent input is in fact required to produce most of the
> > differences in the tree, the overall pattern is in fact the result of
> > ID.
>
> Sorry, that doesn't follow. It's like saying that because apples grow on
> trees, and an apple pie is mostly apples, then apple pies must grow on
> trees.
Nope. It is like saying that when a NHP is a known product of ID,
common descent is often bypassed to get to the final creation faster.
You see, intelligent minds can progress through all the CD steps to
the end product within the mind - without having to produce each step
separately. The end product that exhibits a NHP can be produced right
away without the need to physically use the process of CD.
< snip >
> > One is known to require intelligent design to produce the pattern
> > while the other does not require intelligent design to produce the
> > pattern.
>
> Again, you make this work only by confusing what pattern we're talking
> about. No intelligent design is required to produce the pattern of
> nested hierarchy, as you yourself admit.
Again, not all phenomena that exhibit a NHP can be produced without
the input of ID. Those creations the exhibit NHP and are also that
are known to require ID can be and often are produced without the use
of CD.
< snip repetitive >
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Seanpit
Seanpit
chris thompson
wrote:
> Perplexed in Peoria wrote:
> > "John Harshman" <jharshman.diespam...@pacbell.net> wrote in messagenews:r94xj.4949$Mh2...@nlpi069.nbdc.sbc.com...
> > of a nested heirarchy suggests the hypothesis of common descent.
> > I accept the point made by several people that my alphabetical-order
> > example was flawed mostly because the heirarchy gets built based
> > on a single criterion. Whereas the biological nested heirarchy used
> > as evidence for common descent has the property that the tree is
> > 'robust' in that you get pretty much the same tree whatever criterion
> > you choose at each stage. That 'robustness' is what gives the tree
> > its predictive power.
>
> > So the question I want to look at this time is whether the existence
> > of this kind of robust classification heirarchy is necessarily evidence
> > for common descent.
>
> > Let us consider the classification of books in a bookstore by genre.
> > Phylum 'fiction'. Order 'F&SF'. Family 'Sword and Sorcery'. Is
> > the Heirarchy 'natural'? I think so.
>
> I think not. Genre is moderately arbitrary, and classifying the books by
> genre is itself arbitrary. Why not by author, or subject, or color?
You can, of course, classify organisms by other criteria also. So
tanagers would be lumped with cardinals, bluebirds with blue jays, and
other sillinesses.
If, however, you wanted to make a meaningful hierarchichal
classification of books, you probably could do so. It would be really
messy, but just as a first approximation, you could start with
Asimov's Future History series, or his robot works, and attempt to
discern what subsequent works might be derived from those. Certainly
you could start with The Hobbit, proceed to The Fellowship of the
RIng, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. An obvious
descendant (started by J.R.R. but finished by Christopher) is The
Silmarillion. Somewhere, Farmer Giles of Ham fits in, as does Harvard
Lampoon's Bored of The Rings.
Just some silly thoughts.
>
> > Is it predictive? I can probably
> > make a pretty good guess as to whether a book belongs in this
> > category just by looking at the cover art.
>
> > Now, is this heirachy the result of common descent or intelligent
> > design?
>
> It's the result of imposing a hierarchy on non-hierarchical data (the
> books themselves), same as the alphabetical order example.
There are- or can be- hierarchichal relationships between books.
> > To be honest, I'm coming to the opinion that an OEC
> > doesn't really need to be an omphalist in order to have no fear
> > of the nested heirarchy evidence, per se.
>
> You will have to explain more clearly why this is.
>
> > Of course, the actual
> > sequence data provides too many examples of non-adaptive
> > features that also fit the heirarchy.
>
> Why should that matter? And why do you emphasize "non-adaptive"?
>
> > Those do indeed tend to argue
> > against ID. But I think we need another name for these bits
> > of evidence - another name beyond Nested Heirarchy.
>
> I'm still at a loss to determine why you think so.
Charles Brenner
<jharshman.diespam...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> [I thought I'd start a new thread since Sean isn't replying in the old
> Seanpit wrote:
>
> > On Feb 19, 5:56 pm, John Harshman <jharshman.diespam...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
> > In order to try to
> > make it a necessity for when ID is demonstrably involved, you propose
> > various limitations to all intelligent designers. You suggest that no
> > intelligent designer would ever produce a nested pattern. You ask for
> > a reason why an intelligent designer would create such a pattern.
> > Don't you see, this is like asking why Picasso refuses to paint in the
> > style of Michelangelo? It makes absolutely no sense to ask this
> > question. If you don't see that, there simply is no further
> > argument. It should be enough to speak for itself.
>
> I agree. It makes absolutely no sense to ask any questions at all, given
> your assumptions. We can't know anything through examination of the world.
>
> > Your efforts to presuppose limits on all intelligent designers, even
> > ones you do not know, reduces your hypothesis to a position of non-
> > falsifiability. Given they way you describe your position, it is true
> > by definition. It cannot be challenged, even in theory, because you
> > defined what a designer can and cannot do.
>
> No, in fact I haven't. Consider this in a likelihoodist framework: A
> designer (hey, can I save typing by calling him "god" from now on?
> Thanks.) has a flat probability distribution of expected result,
> infinitely wide -- i.e. he could do anything. This means that the
> probability of any one outcome -- e.g. a nested hierarchy -- is
> arbitrarily close to zero. The likelihood of the data given the god
> model is almost nil. Then again, the distribution for common descent is
> sharply peaked; we strongly expect a nested hierarchy and little else.
> So the likelihood of the nested hierarchy data given the common descent
> model is quite high. In a likelihoodist framework we clearly pick common
> descent as an explanation of the data. Similar reasoning would produce
> similar results in bayesian or frequentist frameworks.
I'm glad you introduced this point. For me it's the most sensible way
Seanpit
> > Your efforts to presuppose limits on all intelligent designers, even
> > ones you do not know, reduces your hypothesis to a position of non-
> > by definition. It cannot be challenged, even in theory, because you
> > defined what a designer can and cannot do.
> John Harshman wrote:
> No, in fact I haven't. Consider this in a likelihoodist framework: A
> designer (hey, can I save typing by calling him "god" from now on?
> Thanks.) has a flat probability distribution of expected result,
> infinitely wide -- i.e. he could do anything. This means that the
> probability of any one outcome -- e.g. a nested hierarchy -- is
> arbitrarily close to zero. The likelihood of the data given the god
> model is almost nil. Then again, the distribution for common descent is
> sharply peaked; we strongly expect a nested hierarchy and little else.
> So the likelihood of the nested hierarchy data given the common descent
> model is quite high. In a likelihoodist framework we clearly pick common
> descent as an explanation of the data. Similar reasoning would produce
> similar results in bayesian or frequentist frameworks.
Sean Pitman wrote:
Let's say that we know the nested hierarchical pattern (NHP) was in
fact designed, but we don't know the method of design. Given this
scenario, you seem to be suggesting that, even given that ID produced
the NHP, odds are the creative method chosen by the intelligent
creator was common descent (CD)? - because only CD has a sharp
likelihood peak given a NHP?
What is interesting here is that this notion is testable and it's
outcome is not "almost nil" as you suggest. For example, give a bunch
of people, from artists to housewives, a piece of paper and a pencil
and tell them to sketch out various objects according to a NHP. Do
you actually think that none of them will use any other method besides
common descent to produce the NHP?
Not according to Michael Leyton, Dept. of Psychology, Rutgers
University. In his book, Lyton argues that the "human perceptual
Seanpit
wrote:
> Seanpit wrote:
> >> > Sean Pitman wrote:
> >> > Your efforts to presuppose limits on all intelligent designers, even
> >> > ones you do not know, reduces your hypothesis to a position of non-
> >> > falsifiability. Given the way you describe your position, it is true
> >> > by definition. It cannot be challenged, even in theory, because you
> >> > defined what a designer can and cannot do.
>
> >> John Harshman wrote:
> >> No, in fact I haven't. Consider this in a likelihoodist framework: A
> >> designer (hey, can I save typing by calling him "god" from now on?
> >> Thanks.) has a flat probability distribution of expected result,
> >> infinitely wide -- i.e. he could do anything. This means that the
> >> probability of any one outcome -- e.g. a nested hierarchy -- is
> >> arbitrarily close to zero. The likelihood of the data given the god
> >> model is almost nil. Then again, the distribution for common descent is
> >> sharply peaked; we strongly expect a nested hierarchy and little else.
> >> So the likelihood of the nested hierarchy data given the common descent
> >> model is quite high. In a likelihoodist framework we clearly pick common
> >> descent as an explanation of the data. Similar reasoning would produce
> >> similar results in bayesian or frequentist frameworks.
>
> > Sean Pitman wrote:
> > Let's say that we know the nested hierarchical pattern (NHP) was in
> > fact designed, but we don't know the method of design.
>
> the character differences that make it up. You seem unable to avoid
> this. I agree that if the nested hierarchy were designed, it would be
> designed.
That' isn't the question here. The question is: If you know a
particular NHP is designed, what is the likelihood that the designer
used CD as the mechanism of design?
In short, the creative methods to which mindless nature is limited are
not the same methodological limitations of intelligent agents - even
when it comes to deliberately simulating natural creations (which
happens all the time). By your argument a "natural garden" or a
painting of a "natural scene" would be an evil deception?
> But I don't agree that if differences among species were
> designed, that means the nested hierarchy was designed.
It certainly is possible to use the method of CD by design to produce
the NHP - but not overwhelmingly likely. Given that the NHP was in
fact designed, the question is, would most designers choose to produce
a NHP with the use of CD?
I think not. I think that most intelligent designers would choose to
skip the whole time consuming process of actually using CD to create
the overall pattern. This is especially true for those designers who
are primary interested in the final outcome of the overall creation.
> It just means
> that god dropped certain mutations (perhaps even macromutations or whole
> sequences of mutations) into the tree at certain points. That says
> nothing about the tree, except that it gives us an idea of the tree
> structure, just as random mutations would do.
>
> > Given this
> > scenario, you seem to be suggesting, even given that ID produced
> > the NHP, that the odds overwhelmingly favor the choosing of
> > common descent (CD) as the creative method? - because only
> > CD has a sharp likelihood peak given a NHP?
>
> No, this is a silly way of stating the problem, because you are still
> conflating two separate questions.
Not at all . . . You are in fact saying that even given knowledge
that ID was used to produce the key aspects of the NHP in question,
that the method the designer used would be CD in *every* instance -
that the odds of the designer using any other method are "essentially
nil". That is in fact your basic argument - as far as I can tell.
> > What is interesting here is that this notion is testable and it's
> > outcome is not "almost nil" as you suggest. For example, give a bunch
> > of people, from artists to housewives, a piece of paper and a pencil
> > and tell them to sketch out various objects according to a NHP. Do
> > you actually think that none of them will use any other method besides
> > common descent to produce the NHP?
>
> I will agree that human beings can simulate common descent, if indeed
> the goal is to produce a simulation of common descent. Similarly, a
> deceitful god is always a live hypothesis if you want to go there.
The goal is not to simulate common descent. That's a method. The
goal here is to produce a NHP with any *method* the intelligent
designer chooses. Given that the goal is to produce a NHP will an
intelligent designer always choose to use the CD method? I think
not. You seem agree with this last point.
So, given that we know a particular NHP was in fact designed, I do not
accept the notion that it was clearly designed via CD. That notion is
demonstrably not very reliable.
> > Not according to Michael Leyton, Dept. of Psychology, Rutgers
> > University. In his book, Lyton argues that the "human perceptual
> > system is organized as a nested hierarchy of symmetries." He goes on
> > to argue that "architects exploit this psychological fact in the
> > structure of their buildings" . . . and that the "same is true of
> > painters, and of composers."
>
> >http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~mleyton/arch0.html
>
> Google is a wonderful thing. It lets you find all manner of stuff using
> keywords, even if the keywords are used in quite different ways from
> what you're looking for. And this is just such a case. This is not at
> all the sort of thing we're talking about here when we say "nested
> hierarchy". (By the way, I would like to point out that, even in the
> example Leyton uses, one could arrange the hierarchy in multiple
> different ways to produce the same end result; this is not a natural
> hierarchy that arises from examination of the elements themselves.)
How is that? How is a highly symmetrical column, or colonnade made up
of a bunch of columns, in high symmetry, not an example of a true NHP?
- arising from examination of the elements themselves?
> > It seems only natural then that we humans tend to use NHP in our own
> > creations without being told to do so and that we do not always use CD
> > to produce our buildings, paintings, or other "compositions". In
> > other words, the odds that a NHP, that is known to be designed, is the
> > produce of CD is not "essentially 100%" as you suggest.
>
> Again, you conflate the design of features of species with the design of
> the nested hierarchy. That's merely assuming what you intend to prove.
Tell me, how can you deliberately design every single distinguishing
feature in every aspect of a system and not be responsible for the
design of the overall pattern as well?
> >> Or we could talk about specified information. A nested hierarchy is
> >> specified information. If we see a particular pattern that we expect to
> >> find resulting from X, we don't invoke some other process that has no
> >> expectation. The probability of getting that specified result from
> >> chance, or from an unpredictable god, are close to zero.
>
> > Not if you know that ID was *required* to produce the NHP. We know
> > enough about the abilities of our own intelligence to know that we can
> > easily skip the common descent steps and produce the NHP directly - de
> > novo. In fact, this is often done in various creations that exhibit
> > the NHP (as noted above).
>
> No, the article you noted above has nothing to do with nested hierarchy
> in the sense we're using it here. Google is not always your friend.
You're mistaken - on at least the first account . . .
> >> You actually use this reasoning yourself in other contexts. You only
> >> invoke god when convenient, and reject one when you think a natural
> >> model applies.
>
> > I wouldn't call this "convenient". I would call this a necessity. I
> > invoke ID only when it seems to me that there is no other viable
> > option. This is in fact the basis of the ID-only hypothesis - the same
> > basis used by SETI scientists in their search for ID in the form of ET-
> > produced "artifacts".
>
> Again, this reasoning only works if you assume that all aspects of life
> must be created if any aspects are created. Why make that assumption?
I don't assume that all aspects of every living thing required ID. My
position is that only those functional aspects that required at least
1000 specified aa working together at minimum clearly required ID.
> >> Recently you claimed that the geological record is
> >> clearly the product of a catastrophic event. I said you couldn't rule
> >> out god creating the record. And your response was that since natural
> >> processes could explain the record, god was unnecessary.
>
> > What I reject is the notion that only ID could produce such a
> > phenomenon. I do not reject the possibility that ID was involved. It
> > is just that this notion cannot be adequately supported by the
> > available data in this particular case.
>
> How could that notion be supported, or, more importantly, rejected, by
> any data whatsoever?
By showing a process which is agreed to be non-deliberate in nature
giving rise to the phenomenon in question. That demonstration would
neatly falsify the ID-only hypothesis. The same thing is true of the
radiosignal SETI scientists are looking for. All you have to do to
falsify their hypothesis that such a signal would be clear evidence of
ET would be to show a non-deliberate natural process producing the
same type of signal.
> >> You reject god
> >> as an explanation purely because there is a natural explanation, because
> >> the probability of god producing a result that happens to mimic a
> >> natural process is, in your mind, very low.
>
> > That's not my reasoning at all. The probability of an intelligent
> > agent mimicking a non-deliberate process of nature is not "essentially
> > nil" as you suggest. We humans do it all the time. We make "natural
> > gardens" and "natural rocks" to go in these gardens and paint natural
> > scenes and produce the sounds of nature. We copy nature all the time
> > - deliberately. So, unlike you, I do not reject the potential of ID
> > for any phenomenon. What I reject is the notion that only ID could
> > have done the job for certain phenomena - like the Grand Canyon or the
> > geologic column. Other non-ID mechanisms could also do the job
> > without my being able to tell the difference.
>
> So why is ID necessary for the nested hierarchy, which we both agree
> could have resulted naturally through a process of common descent?
ID isn't necessary for the NHP, but for the key differences of the
various elements that make up the pattern. Given that ID is required
for every key aspect of what makes up the overall pattern in question,
in this particular case, the overall NHP itself is logically the
result of ID. The question is, did this NHP, which is know to be
deliberately produced by ID, the product of the CD mechanism? Was the
intelligent agent required, statistically, to use CD as his only
option to create such a NHP? - as you suggest?
> >> And this reasoning doesn't
> >> come from a constraint put on god; quite the opposite: it comes from a
> >> total lack of constraint, which makes the probability of any particular
> >> result almost zero.
>
> > Nope.
>
> Now that was a convincing argument.
It was a response to a repetitive statement that was already answered
earlier . . .
> >> Similarly, you have already agreed that nested hierarchies are a
> >> predicted product of common descent;
>
> > Only given that non-deliberate natural processes could produce the
> > various key differences in the various elements that make up the NHP.
>
> Why? I must remind you that it's quite possible for deliberate processes
> to produce key differences even if the hierarchy is a product of common
> descent.
How possible is "quite possible"? Hmmmmm? Initially you indicated
that it wasn't just quite possible, it was "virtually certain" - i.e.,
~100%. Are you backing off of this assertion just a bit here by uses
the equivocation "quite possible"? That sounds a bit more wobbly to
me.
> We simply end up with a model in which god intervenes at
> various points in the tree to produce particular mutations. Again, you
> seem unable to avoid conflation of hypotheses.
Again, you seem unable to see that there is no "conflation".
> >> we have no need of god to explain
> >> that hierarchy just as we have no need of god to explain the
> >> stratigraphic record.
>
> > Not all NHP are created equal in that not all of them can be explained
> > without the use of ID. For example, the NHP observed in certain
> > architectural structures, paintings, and compositions require ID. They
> > cannot be produced without ID. Such creations which demonstrate NHPs
> > are demonstrably independent of the need for CD much of the time.
>
> This is all irrelevant, since we both agree that the nested hierarchy of
> life could be produced by common descent. (Note that this does not
> require a non-deliberate source for differences among species.)
The thing is, it is known that non-deliberate sources can only produce
NHPs via CD. It is also known that CD is not required or even
commonly used by intelligent agents to produce NHPs. That's the
difference in a nutshell.
> >> Yet you reject common descent but accept stratigraphy. Why the
> >> difference? Simple, it's the elephant in the room that you won't
> >> mention. You have a prior template into which all conclusions must fit:
> >> biblical inerrancy. You know that common descent is false because
> >> Genesis says kinds were separately created. But you know strata weren't
> >> created because Genesis says (or is interpreted as implying) that the
> >> strata formed naturally from the Flood. All your argument is in service
> >> to that hidden agenda. And that's where the difference comes from.
> >> Nowhere else. Have the honesty to realize that.
>
> > I know that the key differences between the various "kinds" of
> > creatures required ID. This is not true of stratigraphy. The various
> > aspects of stratigraphy do not *require* ID. That's the difference.
>
> Again, this makes sense only if you conflate the source of variation
> with the process of descent and branching, which is an invalid thing to do.
It is not invalid at all. Given that the source of variation for a
particular NHP is known to include non-ID processes, CD is the only
known option. However, given that the source of the all variation in
a NHP is *known* to *require* ID, CD is not the only known or even the
most common mechanism used.
> > This observation has nothing to do with the Bible. I'd be an IDist
> > without the Bible. In fact, I thought that the ToE was quite
> > reasonable for quite some time. It wasn't until after medical school
> > when I was in the army that I discovered that the evolutionary
> > mechanism simply didn't work beyond very low levels of functional
> > complexity. It wasn't until then that I really started reconsidering
> > the ToE.
>
> Please try not to strain my credulity too much. It's delicate.
Whatever - it's the truth.
> At any
> rate, your reasoning was faulty. If RM + NS don't work beyond yadda
> yadda that says nothing at all about the presence or absence of common
> descent.
It says a great deal. It says that all the key differences between
different living things definitely required ID. If one agrees to
this, the notion that CD was definitely the mechanism used to produce
these differences is no longer the only reasonable default assumption
because it is know that intelligent agents can and do use other
methods besides CD to produce NHPs.
I repeat: The creative methods to which mindless nature is limited
are not the same methodological limitations of intelligent agents -
even when it comes to deliberately simulating natural creations (which
happens all the time). By your argument a "natural garden" or a
painting of a "natural scene" would be an evil deception?
> You have to glue them together in some way to make your case,
> and so far all you're using for glue is the assertion that they're
> connected. (Or, most often, just the tacit assumption that they're the
> same thing.)
You are the one who is asserting, without any appeal to a falsifiable
test, that there is no association. You argue that it doesn't matter
if every aspect of a NHP is known to be designed, CD is still the
clear method that was used simply because it is the overwhelming
choice of mindless nature? That's just nonsense given the known
requirement for ID to produce a particular NHP.
> > < snip repetitive >
>
> >> > The difference between the nested pattern in living things and the
> >> > stratigraphic pattern is that all the key differences in the nested
> >> > pattern of life require ID.
>
> >> Irrelevant even if true, because we are talking about an aspect (the
> >> nested hierarchy itself) that we both agree doesn't require ID. Unless
> >> you are arguing for guilt by association, everything you say about this
> >> doesn't matter.
>
> > It is not irrelevant if true. All you have to do to see the relevance
> > is ask a bunch of people to deliberately create something that
> > expresses a NHP and see if they use CD as a mechanism. You see, when
> > ID is known to be involved, it is also known that NHPs are often
> > produced without the need for CD.
>
> Actually, I'd like to see this experiment.
Me too! I'm betting the outcome would not be nearly the 100% like you
originally suggested.
> I bet the most common method
> used would be to make an "ancestral" pattern, vary it, and keep varying
> it some more until you had a nested set of variations.
Well, that certainly is a falsifiable hypothesis. Good luck with the
actual test and your prediction of essentially 100% use of the CD
method.
> I doubt you would
> be likely to end up with such a detailed simulation of common descent in
> any other way. Of course, god can do anything.
Your doubts are not backed up by any actual test. I doubt that most
intelligent designers would go through all the hassle of going through
all the CD steps to produce the final pattern. I sure wouldn't want
to do it this way. That's what's so neat about having access to an
intelligent mind. You can skip many steps that non-intelligent
natural processes cannot skip. Why then would anyone feel forced to
used the same mindless mechanism that nature is forced to use? That's
what your brain is for . . . to skip steps.
< snip rest >
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
hersheyh
Except for the minor detail that you *don't* know that the NHP is
designed. All you know is that you have a NHP *and* not a shred of
direct empirical evidence that there even is a designer. *Assuming*
that the NHP is designed is assuming the conclusion that it is
designed.
The *real* question is, given the *fact* of NHP, is there any specific
reason why a designer would intentionally choose that particular
pattern out of all the possible patterns it could have chosen. Again,
the only one that comes to mind is intentional deceit. Aesthetic
sensibility is not a *reason*.
> In short, the creative methods to which mindless nature is limited are
> not the same methodological limitations of intelligent agents - even
> when it comes to deliberately simulating natural creations (which
> happens all the time). By your argument a "natural garden" or a
> painting of a "natural scene" would be an evil deception?
>
> > But I don't agree that if differences among species were
> > designed, that means the nested hierarchy was designed.
>
> It certainly is possible to use the method of CD by design to produce
> the NHP - but not overwhelmingly likely.
Why the hell not? If the pattern can be easily produced by the
natural mechanisms of CD, why invoke an unseen, unevidenced HYPE of
sufficient ability to do it? What is *unlikely* is the idea that a
HYPE would (barring the intent of deception) chose this particular
pattern out of all the possible patterns it had available.
> Given that the NHP was in
> fact designed, the question is, would most designers choose to produce
> a NHP with the use of CD?
>
> I think not. I think that most intelligent designers would choose to
> skip the whole time consuming process of actually using CD to create
> the overall pattern. This is especially true for those designers who
> are primary interested in the final outcome of the overall creation.
So the belly-button defense is used. The last refuge of denialists.
Why would such a consistent NHP be a 'natural goal' of a designer?
You would think that an *intelligent* designer would be more focused
on *functions* than on the complete fabrication of an apparently
historically consistent NHP (especially as regards unnecessary
differences in sequence and structure) unless presenting a false
appearance of the type of NHP that is naturally acheived by CD were
the intention of the designer. But that would imply that intentional
deception *was* the goal of the designer.
Treus
Greg Guarino wrote:
>
> Birds that fly, birds that don't fly, and even birds that
> swim use feathers for locomotion and insulation. Why doesn't even one
> mammal have them? Why do humans and fish, who occupy very different
> environments, share a basic eye design, while fish and octopi do not?
Are suggesting fitness within the environmental does not by itself
account for all the features of a given organism?
Ron O
wrote:
> "Seanpit" <sean...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:686d010d-7202-4130...@s13g2000prd.googlegroups.com...
>
>
>
>
>
> > not the same methodological limitations of intelligent agents - even
> > when it comes to deliberately simulating natural creations (which
> > happens all the time). By your argument a "natural garden" or a
> > painting of a "natural scene" would be an evil deception?
>
> >> But I don't agree that if differences among species were
> >> designed, that means the nested hierarchy was designed.
>
> > It certainly is possible to use the method of CD by design to produce
> > fact designed, the question is, would most designers choose to produce
> > a NHP with the use of CD?
>
> > I think not. I think that most intelligent designers would choose to
> > skip the whole time consuming process of actually using CD to create
> > the overall pattern. This is especially true for those designers who
> > are primary interested in the final outcome of the overall creation.
>
> direct personal experience and broad reading on the subject that design does
> result in a nested hierarchy, but that the nested hierarchy is not designed.
> The human acts that produce the nested hierarchy are most often random with
> respect to each other and not well planned.
>
> Designers reuse features all the time. This saves time and trouble. Reuse
> equals descent, and a nested hierarchy results. A complete designed
> hierarchy of reusable features, however, requires such investment and
> foresight to create that it would be obsolete by the time it was created.
> Sometimes bits and pieces of one are planned, but this is not the general
> rule.
>
This reuse by intelligent designers also creates things that lifeforms
constrained by their biology cannot produce via common descent or
descent with modification. The extant species "reuse" features in a
certain way to create the biological nested hierarchy that we observe
in nature. Humans are examples that produce nested hierarchies that
we would not see evolve in nature.
We do not see griffins, but humans may produce such an animal someday
if bioethics allows it. This is an example of reuse and griffins
would nest within mammals for certain features, but not for others.
Intelligently designed? Yes, in mythology, but not in nature.
Designer design produces a pseudo nested hierarchy that we most likely
could tell from what nature would produce if we knew enough about
biology. You would have to put constraints on what could be "reused"
for any particular instance. Biological evolution does this using
natural biological constraints, but the whole reason to claim that the
designer did it is to exceed the biological constraints. It is the
whole basis of the design "theory" that bogus con artists like Sean
hawk.
If he wants to he can claim that the designer did it all using
artificial selection of whatever popped up, or that a few mutations
were put in now and then, but the animals were still produced by
descent with modification. We couldn't tell this from what we see
because it is what we observe. Except for the addition of a few
specific mutations it is just swapping out natural design and
selection for artificial selection. Humans did this to create the
varieties of agricultural livestock and they didn't add any new
mutations until recently to do it. They just selected for the
variation that arose in their populations.
Ron Okimoto
Iain
> On Feb 29, 7:05 pm, "R. Baldwin" <res0k...@nozirevBACKWARDS.net>
But modern organisms posess re-used structures which *add* time and
trouble.
E.g. The whale's blowhole (instead of gills), requires that it
resurfaces periodically -- an unnecessary bit of time and trouble (and
complexity) arising from the fact that the structuring
force(cumulative selection) is limited to small, gradual steps.
Afterall, though mammals have no similar forerunner to gills, they do
have a similar forerunner to the blowhole (nostrils). And surprise
surprise, exclusive to blowhole-bearing sea-animals, we also see a
pelvis and live-birth. And so forth...really, what the hell kind of
time-saving measure is that?
The limitations of the designer make the designer resemble natural
selection.
The real proving-power of the nested hierarchy, is that structures
that have no functional reason to be found togeether are routinely
found together -- and the inverse -- that stuctures which *could*
exist workably in the same organism(e.g. gills and fur), routinely are
not.
~Iain
Steven J.
wrote:
> "John Harshman" <jharshman.diespam...@pacbell.net> wrote
> (quoting Pitman):
>
> > > As far as I've been able to tell, your argument is basically that a
> > > nested hierarchical pattern implies common descent in all cases where
> > > it is found. This hypothesis does seem to hold true, as far as I can
> > > tell, for non-deliberate processes. It seems that non-deliberate
> > > processes cannot make a nested hierarchical pattern without the use of
> > > common descent. In fact, this particular hypothesis, is actually
> > > falsifiable. All one has to do to falsify this hypothesis is show a
> > > non-deliberate process producing a nested pattern without using common
> > > descent and this hypothesis would be falsified.
>
> Ok. I'll bite. Is alphabetical order a kind of nested heirarchy? Seems
> to me that it is. Words beginning with the same letter are in the same
> phylum. Words beginning with the same pair of letters are in the
> same order. Etc.
>
things besides living things. The Dewey decimal system is a nested
hierarchy, for example. Every outline for a report or paper is a
nested hierarchy of ideas. Stephen J. Gould once did an essay in
which he pointed out that nested hierarchies (not called that at the
time) were a method of classification much used by medieval
philosophers and suggested that Linnaeus borrowed it from them.
>
> Now, if you accept that this is a nested heirarchy, then please notice
> that the heirarchy itself is in the mind of the systematizer, rather than
> in the process which generates the words - whether deliberate or not.
>
features to choose from in classifying living things, and different
suites of traits yield pretty much the same hierarchy. All species
that have one bone on each side of the lower jaw, and three bones in
the middle ear, also have mammary glands and a left (but not a right)
aortic arch. The nested hierarchy that is produced when one examines
gross anatomical features is nearly duplicated when one examines DNA.
Given that [a] different codons can code for the same amino acid and
[b] that much DNA in many species is noncoding, there's no particular
reason from the standpoint of separate origins for this to be the
case. Different systematizers come up with very similar nested
hierarchies, implying that there is something in biology itself, not
just in the mind of the systematizer, that generates the hierarchy.
>
> [snip]
-- Steven J.
John Harshman
John Harshman
It's possible for there to be. However, it's much more likely that
relationships will be non-hierarchical, with a given book having many
different "ancestors" and other connections.
Greg Guarino
wrote:
Of course. Who suggests otherwise? Species are made from the
"available parts" of their ancestor species. Some longer, shorter,
reshaped a bit, a new mutation here and there, but the same basic kit.
Selection favors the fitter combinations of the available parts.
That's one of the more important bits of evidence for common descent.
Designers we know of tend to incorporate whatever parts and
technologies seem most useful, not just those from the same product
"lineage".
Greg Guarino
Greg Guarino
wrote:
>The military power structure is a NHP in and of itself without any
>need to reference anything that came before. It can also be produced,
>de novo, without having to build it up from via common descent each
>and every time a new one is put together.
I'm trying to decide if this is debating strategy (diversion) or
evidence that you really don't understand what is meant by "nested
hierarchy" in the biological sense. I'll be optimistic and assume the
latter.
I won't bother arguing nomenclature with you, but none of the examples
you give have the characteristics of the biological nested hierarchy,
If an army was such an example, squads would have "traits" that they
shared among the other squads in their platoon, but not with other
platoons, traits that they shared with other platoons in their
company, but not with platoons from other companies, traits shared
with companies in their battalion, but not with those from other
battalions, etc.
Those traits might be vehicles, weapons, uniforms, specialties, etc.
Once we found a "level" at which say, humvees, are found, we'd only
find them in the smaller "branches" within that level. And we'd find
the same "tree" structure no matter what "trait" we choose.
Greg Guarino
Treus
How would you distinguish between a feature that was adapted by design
from another lineage versus one inherited with modification along the
direct line?
Ron O
In nature there are no examples. Descent with modification is what we
observe. Prokaryotes are the whackiest because they can take up DNA
from the environment and use it, but that is a known natural mechanism
that we can observe happening.
Humans will likely be able to alter this reality by creating examples
that would not have occurred in nature. Say that someone wanted to
create a pegasus look alike. Even if it couldn't fly they might still
put on a pretty impressive set of wings. This animal would have the
basic body of a horse, but bird wings would be added. If we looked at
the wings, feathers, proteins and genes responsible for the wings we
would see that they did not nest within mammals, but came from an
avian source. No natural mechanism that we know of could do this.
Horses are so deeply nested within mammals that it would be a no
brainer. On the opposite extreme you can take whales. Here you only
see evidence for descent with modification too. limbs evolved for
terrestrial purposes have been modified. The basic body shape has
been altered, but it has all been done using preexisting structures.
Whales are still warm blooded mammals and even their aquatic
locomotion is based on terrestrial mammalian adaptations and not fish
or reptillian side to side motion. Just watch how a cheetah runs or
an otter and compare it to the motion of a fish or reptile. Whales
have fins and a streamlined body, but they didn't get the design from
fish. Compare the adaptations of ichthyosaurs that also evolved from
terrestrial tetrapods, but reptilian ancestors.
Sean is just blowing smoke. If this line of argument meant anything
worth while he wouldn't be running from his claim to have an
alternative to common descent and the evidence to back it up that is
just as good as the evidence that science has. He made this claim,
but all you see out of him is this kind of bogus snow job. If he had
an alternative and the evidence to back it up he would be blowing
smoke, he would just present it.
Why don't you ask him why he runs and pretends instead of making good
on his claim. The claim is pretty close to this topic, so why is he
blowing smoke with this type of argument when he could be presenting
the wonderful alternative that he has and the wonderful evidence.
Dishonesty is just a way of life for guys like Sean. The only real
value that you should get out of his antics is an appreciation of that
fact.
Ron Okimoto
Iain
> On Mar 1, 5:34 pm, "R. Baldwin" <res0k...@nozirevBACKWARDS.net> wrote:
>
> < snip >
>
> > The military power structure is a perfect example of a design lineage.
> > Current military power structures derive from older, simpler ones.
>
> The military power structure is a NHP in and of itself without any
> need to reference anything that came before. It can also be produced,
> de novo, without having to build it up from via common descent each
> knowledge of a pattern that came before doesn't mean that the current
> NHP that I produce right now is based on common descent in its own
> particular origin.
No comparison. The hierarchy of the military has a functional role --
good design.
The point is not that hierachies can't be designed.
The point is that for modern organisms to form a hierarchy, is
pointless from a designer's point of view, but is to be expected in
the case of evolution. Sometimes it's even silly-efficient -- e.g. the
blowhole even though gills are demonstrably possible.
~Iain
Iain
That's not to mention the twinning.
~Iain
Seanpit
wrote:
>
> > Of course, this article fails to mention the platypus. The platypus is
> > classified as a mammal - the "monotreme" version. The monotremes are
> > the only order of mammals to lay eggs; in this, the platypus is
> > similar to reptiles. Also like reptiles, platypus produce vitamin C in
> > the liver and has poisonous spurs on its feet. Yet, because the
> > platypus produces milk to feed its young (like all mammals) and has
> > fur (also like mammals) it is classified as a mammal - even though it
> > has a few traits of reptiles and a bill like a duck. Given this, I'm
> > not so sure if Pegasus would actually be thought of as violating
> > "nested hierarchy" like this Wiki article indicates.
>
> That's because you are, at bottom, ignorant of biology and of the nested
> hierarchy of life. The platypus doesn't violate the nested hierarchy
> at all. The characters you mention are either primitive (egg-laying) or
> unique to the platypus (poisonous spurs).
Egg-laying is "primitive" because you define it that way. The same
thing would be true of winged horses with feathers - i.e. Pegasus.
Such a beast would be said to have "primitive" features. Also, other
creatures, like the stingray, have poisonous spines besides the
platypus and many reptiles, but not many mammals, have poison-
secreting glands.
Without this notion of some particular feature being "primitive" a
number of features would indeed be considered "mix and match".
> (Whatever allowed you to make
> the claim that poisonous spurs on the feet are a reptilian
> characteristic?).
It is somewhat reptilian since poison-secreting glands are common in
reptiles (i.e., usually the mouth), but distinctly uncommon in
mammals. It seems like it is just the location of these poisonous
glands that is unique to the platypus, no the poison-secreting glands
or method of inserting the poison that is all that unique.
> As for the bill like a duck, that's just nonsense. A
> platypus has a flattened, fleshy, toothless snout. It's similar to a
> duck's bill about as much as a fiddlehead fern looks like the end of a
> violin.
I'm just saying that originally, when the platypus was first
discovered and brought to Europe (stuffed of course), it was thought
to be a fake because it just didn't seem to fit anywhere in any
classification system. It was thought to be a conglomeration of
parts. I didn't say that the bill was the same as a ducks, but it
certainly does share certain gross features that are rather unique
when it comes to mammals.
> You haven't taken this tack for some time. For quite a while you have
> agreed that the nested hierarchy of life actually exists. Now you're
> back to denying it. Back and forth, back and forth.
I'm not denying the overall nested pattern. I'm just pointing out the
ToE and ToCD can accommodate anything - even seemingly mix-and-match
features. Another example is the earliest roots of the Tree of Life
which do not show a NHP at all. Yet, the ToCD is still used to
explain this particular non-nested pattern as well.
> > The Wiki article goes on to suggest that "Life, however, shows a
> > clear nested hierarchy, at least with regards to multicellular
> > organisms. An animal that produces milk (Mammals), will also have
> > hair, have four limbs, be endothermic (warmblooded) plus possess many
> > other characteristics. Why should this be? Why do no other animals or
> > plants produce milk? Why do no mammals have four limbs plus a pair of
> > wings, like the Pegasus or angels? This fits easily with the idea of
> > common descent, but is not what would be expected from special
> > creation (although it isn't completely at odds with creation either,
> > as the creator(s) could create life in any configuration
> > imaginable)."
>
> > What is interesting here is that other creatures, besides mammals, do
> > produce milk to feed their young. Some species of cockroach, for
> > example, produce milk to feed their young in utero and deliver their
> > young live. Also, the platypus produces milk while having features
> > that are usually associated with other non-mammalian species.
>
> Nonsense. It's not milk, unless by "milk" you mean any fluid produced in
> the body and used to feed young. Which is stupid. All this fits
> perfectly into the nested hierarchy.
What is your definition of "milk"? Mammalian milk is comprise of
various proteins, fats and sugars. The same thing is true of
cockroach milk.
> > Of course, the overall similarities of various groups do nest fairly
> > well. Again though, this is a classification based on shared
> > similarities without taking into account the unique differences that
> > are not shared or that may be shared with other vastly different "non-
> > mammalian" creatures.
>
> This is nonsense. It's the distribution of characters that determines
> the hierarchy, both similarities and differences. A difference at one
> level is a similarity at another. Mammals are different from each other
> in various ways, but these differences are similarities of various
> groups within mammals.
The overall similarities are considered first, then the differences.
What are thought to be key shared similarities are given prime
importance (like hair and milk production for mammals). It is only
then that the various unique differences within the overall mammalian
group are considered - like wings, fins, hooves, opposable thumbs,
tails, egg-laying, poison glands, etc.
> Yes, there is homoplasy. But much less than your mention of "cockroach
> milk" would imply.
I'm just saying that homoplastic or "convergent" features are not
beyond the ToCD.
> > Again, common descent is only a fairly perfect expectation given a NHP
> > of the type that can be produced by a non-deliberate process. A
> > highly symmetrical Menger Sponge carved into the material of, say,
> > granite would be an example of a NHP that could only have been the
> > result of ID and is unlikely to have required the use of common
> > descent in the development of the NHP in this particular situation.
>
> A highly symmetrical Menger Sponge isn't an example of nested hierarchy
> at all.
Yes, it is. By definition, "nested hierarchies involve levels which
consist of, and contain, lower levels." Fractals, like the Menger
Sponge, "are fabricated by the repetition of some geometric act over a
nested succession of hierarchical scale. And the result is self-
similarity, or the emergence of an axis of scale symmetry." So, the
Menger Sponge, like other such fractals, does indeed meet the
definition for a nested hierarchical pattern. It is just that the
fractal-type pattern of life is not quite the same as the NHP of a
Menger Sponge.
http://www.dichotomistic.com/hierarchies_fractals.html
> Since we agree that life is capable of common descent and could
> easily acquire its nested hierarchy that way, I don't see the point
> you're trying to make.
Life is capable of common descent and can indeed acquire a NHP along
the way all by itself - without any other input. Except . . . except
when it comes to unique key functional elements that were not already
in the original gene pool to begin with. These elements require the
input of ID and ID is not required to use CD as its only viable method
of producing NHPs.
You yourself admit that without the additional evidence of the fossil
record and your interpretation of geology, CD would not necessarily be
viable as a theory for life - despite the NHP of life. For example,
given that my catastrophic interpretation of the geologic column and
fossil record is correct, even you would admit that the CD theory
would hold little water for most scientists.
So, your notion that a NHP is in itself enough evidence to support the
theory of common descent is simply not true - by your own admission.
You need additional evidence beyond the pattern. For example, if you
have good evidence that all the features of the NHP in question could
be produced without the requirement of ID, CD is a perfectly valid
conclusion since non-deliberate processes do not seem to be able to
produce NHPs without the use of CD as mechanism. However, given the
ID was required for many of the key features of the pattern in
question, the theory of CD requires additional evidence to make it
tenable - to include evidence that enough time was available for CD to
act in producing the pattern. If the evidence suggests that the time
available time was too limited for CD to be viable, it would then be
most likely that ID chose to bypass many if not most of the CD steps
in the production of the NHP in question.
> > So, you see, a NHP, by itself, is not enough to assume common
> > descent. Some NHPs require the extensive input of ID for most if not
> > all of their key features. Such NHPs do not require the use of CD -
> > the laborious steps of which are often bypassed in real life.
>
> You still haven't presented an example of a nested hierarchy of the sort
> life makes -- in which the hierarchy is determined by the elements
> themselves, and is unique -- produced by methods other than common descent.
Fractals - like the work of M. C. Escher (see links) which show nested
hierarchical patterns, some of which are of the same types as that
produced in the patterns of life (where one part cannot replace
another the same emergent level:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/106/279764461_6487e08865.jpg
http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/d/d2/300px-Escher,_Metamorphosis_II.jpg
http://www.bowdoin.edu/news/archives/images/triangle_birds.jpg
http://fusionanomaly.net/mcescherdayandnight.jpg
http://www.bexley.k12.oh.us/hslib/curriculumlinks/poetry/escher%20sky%20&%20water%20I.jpg
http://luxton.blogware.com/_photos/Escher__s_Infinite_Circle___II_BY_STACY_REED_www.shedreamsindigital.net_NO_HOTLINKING_ALLOWEDa.jpg
Also various information systems qualify: like computer codes and
other language systems, the military power and functional differential
structure, etc.
> >>> You're the one who suggested that a designer who incorporates any
> >>> aspect of what can happen naturally into a particular work is being
> >>> "deceptive". You did use that word, "deceptive" - did you not?
> >>>
> >> Yes, but not in quite the way that your strawman above does it.
>
> > What is the key difference in your use of the term "deceptive"?
>
> Simply that not every imitation is an attempt to deceive.
And how can you tell what the motive was based on the imitation
itself? For example, not all human-made diamonds are made with the
intent to deceive - even when it comes to jewelry quality artifactual
diamonds.
> >>> I think that the minute detail required to produce the differences
> >>> between living things, and the overall beauty of their shared
> >>> interaction, took a great deal of care and creative genius. Whoever
> >>> created vast range of different interacting creatures in an overall
> >>> system that works and interacts with itself very closely, was very
> >>> interested in every aspect of this creation.
> >> Though not, apparently, in its geology. I wonder why that would be.
>
> > Geology does not *require* ID. You don't seem to understand the
> > concept of the ID-only hypothesis. The requirement for ID is
> > different than the potential for ID. The key differences of all
> > living things require ID while the key differences in geology do not.
>
> Wait. You're claiming that the formation of the earth was purely natural?
When it comes to stratigraphy - nature-only is very much a
possibility. ID was not *required* for this particular feature.
> Nor does nested hierarchy require ID.
Some NHP do require ID or they simply couldn't exist. That's the
whole point. Not all NHPs are the same. Life is one example. The
NHP exhibited in life could not exist at all without the input of ID.
If ID wasn't there, life and its NHP wouldn't be there either. This
is not true of stratigraphy were it would be there even if ID was
never involved.
> Only by conflating nested
> hierarchy with other, separate aspects
> of life and rolling them up into
> a big ball can you make your claim.
> It's a bait-and-switch. You say that
> some of the differences among
> organisms require ID, and assume that
> means that the nested hierarchy
> does too. But you offer no reason why
> that should be true.
Think about it this way, a pattern does not exist independent of the
object. Without the object, there is no pattern. The patterns
existence is dependent upon the object's existence. The objects
existence is not dependent upon the pattern's existence. Life could
exist without a NHP. However, the NHP of life could not exist
without the existence of living things.
Therefore, in this sense, if life requires ID, so does the NHP of
life. Does this requirement for ID exclude the use of CD as the
chosen mechanism? No. It doesn't. However, it also doesn't
necessitate the use of CD either. Once it can be shown that ID is
required for the phenomenon in question, the theory of CD must have
additional support beyond the pattern itself.
> >>> I do not see it as being
> >>> very likely that such obvious interest in minute detail and vast
> >>> creative genius would dilly dally around to figure things out as it
> >>> went along.
> >> So you are placing limits on god's creative process.
>
> > Not at all. God could have dilly dallied around all he wanted. I
> > just don't see that as likely given that we are the way we are and he
> > created us. I wouldn't like dilly dallying around too much if I was
> > actually interested in the final product of my interactive creation -
> > would you?
>
> So you're placing probabilities on what god would or wouldn't do. Why
> isn't that a limit?
It isn't a limitation because I'm not saying that God could not have
used CD. I'm saying that he could have reasonable chosen to skip most
of the CD steps. You are the one arguing that God would have to have
used CD to produce a NHP - that there is, essentially, no other
possible option besides CD. Do you not see that your argument,
compared to mine, is the one putting limits on ID?
< snip >
> > One doesn't usually put a great deal of creative effort into something
> > one doesn't care a lick about.
>
> What makes you think that an omnipotent being is capable of "effort".
> Isn't everything as easy as everything else to him? (This assumes
> omnipotence of course. If you want to deny that the creator is
> omnipotent, do so now and we'll modify the discussion.) The other
> counterargument here is that of course that what the creator appears to
> care most about is beetles, if we're going by what he put effort into.
This discussion really isn't about the actual identity of the creator
beyond the obvious fact that God was/is very intelligent and
creatively powerful. The notion of "omnipotence" really isn't at
issue here. The only issue at hand is if ID is required to use CD to
produce a NHP to a near certainty as you are proposing.
< snip >
> > I'm showing
> > you reasons why an intelligent designer could use a different process
> > besides common descent - reasons why an designer wouldn't necessarily
> > be as limited as you suggest.
>
> I have suggested no limits. You are the one suggesting limits. Your
> limits, however, make no sense.
How can you say this? You are the one saying that CD is the only
logical conclusion given a NHP - even given that ID was required to
produce all the key aspects of the pattern in question. How then can
you say that you are making no claims about the potential or limits of
the intelligent agent here?
> > You're the one suggesting limitations
> > here. I'm the one suggesting that not only can CD be used by ID,
> > other processes can and indeed are often used by ID to produce NHPs.
>
> Yet you still have not given a single example.
I've given you many examples. You have yet to produce a valid reason
why ID would have to choose CD to produce a NHP to a level of almost
absolute certainty?
> > Your notion is that the odds an intelligent designer would use any
> > other process besides CD are "essentially nil" are not backed up by
> > what we know of ID. Intelligent agents, even human ones, are not
> > limited by what limits non-deliberate processes of nature. Even we
> > humans can go beyond the restricted us of CD to produce NHP - and we
> > often do. Why? Because, obviously, it's quicker and less wasteful of
> > resources. From the perspective of God, it seems reasonable that it
> > would also be less wasteful of unnecessary pain and suffering of the
> > sentient creatures he had spent a great deal of creative effort
> > producing.
>
> To repeat:
>
> 1. This assumes that the creator is capable of creative effort, and so
> is not omnipotent. If you want to make that claim explicitly, do so.
This discussion is only about ID - not the actual identity or
capabilities or resources of the ID agent beyond the fact that this
agent was very intelligent.
> 2. This is the creator who, in order to punish sinful humanity, caused a
> worldwide flood that killed every living thing not on the ark. And
> you're talking about waste?
If you want to get Biblical here, this act is presented, not as a
punishment as much as a salvation to humanity. Humanity, according to
the Biblical account, was about to self-destruct in total self-
annihilation. "The thoughts of the hearts of man were only evil
continually and the Earth was filled with pain". If you have a
situation on your hands were you have a colony of liars, murders,
rapists and all manner of those who love doing the most cruel and
heartless things that they can think of to each other, what is the
most loving thing to do in such a situation? What would you do?
> 3. Who are you to say what god would or would not do, or what would be
> reasonable for him to do?
There's a difference in presenting what an intelligent agent could do
vs. what they would have to do. I'm presenting what God could have
done while you are presenting what you think he would have to have
done. There seems to me to be a difference here.
> 4. What evidence do you have that the creator's interest lies in
> avoiding pain and suffering?
Actually, to be honest, I think there is more than one very
intelligent creator at work in this world - to include humanity
itself. Some creators are good while others are very evil. Some
creators deliberately set out to produce pain and suffering while
others work against it. Clear evidence for both is evident in this
world.
The Bible, in particular, refers to this dichotomy of motive as the
great controversy between good and evil (Christ and Satan if you want
to personify those concepts).
> Life, in fact, seems admirably designed to
> demonstrate pain and suffering. How
> do you know that's not a major
> purpose? Remember the caterpillar?
I personally do not believe that was the original intent of at least
the primary designer of life. I think that pain and suffering that
now exists is due largely to degenerative and parasitic effects as
well as the deliberate "survival of the fittest" mentality of many
evil people in this world.
> >>> Why should he not care about
> >>> how he created sentient creatures?
> >>
> >> Why should he? What evidence is there that he would? I thought your
> >> designer was an unspecified entity or entities, possibly even space aliens.
>
> > Could be - but not very likely given the degree of effort that went
> > into producing the vast array of life that exists and has existed on
> > this planet.
>
> You didn't answer the question. What if he produced all these sentient
> creatures exactly so he could observe their pain and suffering as well
> as their other behavior, for example?
I did answer this question. The answer is that this is certainly a
possibility. ID can be used for evil as well as for good. There is
evidence for both in this world.
< snip >
> >>> Common descent doesn't "just happen". That's the problem. All of the
> >>> key differences of every living thing require ID.
> >> You really can't separate the two in your mind, even for an instant, can
> >> you? Key differences are not common descent. Common descent is the tree.
>
> > No. Common descent is a mechanism. It isn't the tree.
>
> Yes it is. Let's separate the tree from the hierarchy, which is a
> pattern in the data. The tree (which is a history of branching descent)
> does indeed produce the pattern.
This is just semantics. I call it the mechanism of CD while you call
it the "tree" or history of CD. They both mean the same thing.
> Now what "the two" are really should be clear by now. There is the
> nested hierarchical pattern made by characters, and there is the
> characters themselves. You are confusing those two. You say that if the
> characters are created, that is very good evidence that the hierarchy
> was created too.
That's not quite what I said. What I said was that if each emergent
branch in the tree required the input of ID, then it is quite possible
that CD was not required, contrary to your suggestion, to produce the
NHP. I did not say that it CD could not be used or was not used - it
is just possible that it was not used. Additional evidence beyond the
pattern itself is now required given that ID is known to have been
involved.
> But you have no reason for this claim. It's quite
> possible to have a system in which every single character was created
> but the hierarchy evolved naturally, on a branching tree. This is
> exactly what Michael Behe claims, for instance.
That's right. It is indeed quite possible - it just isn't required
like you suggest. If I believed in the interpretation for the fossil
record and geologic column that you and Behe believe in, I'd also
believe in the theory of common descent. The problem here isn't with
the pattern itself. CD is not a requirement or overwhelming
conclusion based on the pattern alone. The reason why you and Behe
believe so strongly in the theory of common descent is based primarily
on your interpretation of the fossil record and geologic column - not
just the NHP of life.
> >>>> I agree that we can't say what god would or would not do. So why are you
> >>>> so sure he didn't use common descent?
> >>> Why are you so sure that he did?
> >> Simply because that's the simplest interpretation of the evidence,
> >> notably that nested hierarchy.
>
> > That is indeed the overwhelming interpretation of the evidence only
> > from a non-intelligent perspective - not from an ID perspective.
>
> ID makes no difference, which is why you have never been able to justify
> your claim.
ID makes a big difference. ID opens the door to the possibility of
skipping CD steps. Without ID, this isn't a feasible possibility.
Adding in this possibility is a big difference that requires
additional evidence to adequately counter.
> > You are talking about the evidence of the pattern alone here - not any
> > additional evidence of apparent time. Given the pattern of a NHP
> > alone, Last Thursdayism doesn't apply.
>
> That made no sense. I'm merely saying that an intelligent designer
> wouldn't feel obligated to use the natural "time passes" method in
> creating a world that looks more than a week old. If appearances have no
> value as evidence (which is what you're saying whether you realize it or
> not), anything can be true.
You make an erroneous conclusion that one feature is enough to make
conclusions regarding the origin of the entire object or phenomenon.
That's just not a very intuitive or even scientific way of thinking.
Given your rational here, the statue of David, because it looks like a
human male, is a human male and had similar origins to human males.
Forget the fact that it is made out of marble! Hello! One feature of
an object or phenomenon does not discount the other features that also
play a part in determining its origins.
> >> But we don't
> >> have to go all the way along that path. It's enough to note again that
> >> this applies equally to stratigraphy; why should an intelligent designer
> >> feel obligated to go through all that tedious erosion, deposition, etc.
> >> when producing the otherwise "natural" pattern of layered rocks?
>
> > Because, as I've explained several times before now, no aspect of the
> > layered rocks requires ID - unlike the key differences in the pattern
> > of life.
>
> This is only because you feel free to define for yourself the boundaries
> of any given system, as convenient. You say that the key differences and
> the nested hierarchy are all part of a single entity, indivisible, which
> must therefore share the feature of having been designed. But I say they
> aren't. I say they're separable, which should be obvious. I have
> explained, over and over, how they're separable. There are people who
> actually hold the theory that key differences were created but the
> hierarchy was not, e.g. Michael Behe. Is Behe's position logically
> inconsistent? If not, you can't make the claim you do.
Behe's position is logically consistent, because his position is not
based on the pattern alone - but on his interpretation of the geologic
column and fossil record in addition to the NHP of life.
> Now you feel free to suppose that the earth was created, but
> stratigraphy was not. Why? Formally, earth/stratigraphy is identical to
> life/hierarchy. The only difference is that you want to believe one but
> not the other.
One requires the input of ID for all of its key features while the
other does not. How on Earth can you say that these two phenomena are
identical? They aren't. They are fundamentally different.
> By the way, what about those differences that aren't "key"? You agree
> that they could have been evolved. But according to your beliefs, they
> must have been directly created too. Is that correct?
That's not correct - as you should know by now. As I've stated many
times in this forum, and to you directly many times (starting several
years ago), novel functional and non-functional genetic differences
can and do evolve all the time. These differences can be explained
completely by common descent given the pattern alone because ID is not
*required* to explain any aspect of their existence.
< snip repetitive >
> > The thing is, you can't build a circle until you have a point and you
> > can't build a column until you have a line (geometrically). In other
> > words, you can't go 2D before you have 1D and you can't go 3D before
> > you have the right 2D shape. You might be able to build a bunch of 2D
> > circles before you build the columns, but this is just one step that
> > happens to be interchangeable with another step. And, you can't build
> > on top of the columns with other columns in horizontal or vertical
> > arrangement until you have the first layer columns in place.
>
> > The same thing is true in representing the Tree of Life. Some things
> > have to come before others, but not everything.
>
> I have no idea what you think you are saying about the tree of life.
> It's not a matter of procedural necessity, merely a matter of the order
> in which things happen to have happened. Fish appear in the tree before
> mammals, which appear before whales. You can't rearrange the tree so
> that mammals are a subgroup of whales. It just doesn't fit that way.
It could be if the fossil record was thought to show that fish evolved
into whales, which then evolved into land-dwelling creatures. It is
all based on the fossil record and geologic column - not necessarily
the pattern itself.
< snip >
> > The NHP of military command or other forms of government or political
> > organization, fractals like Sierpinski's Gasket or the Menger Sponge,
> > and yes, colonnades, the Parthenon, and other geometrically based
> > architectural designs, paintings, and even musical compositions. Even
> > language systems are build on a NHP and can be produced without the
> > use of CD. Sure, most language systems have elements of CD. However,
> > language can be developed without the use of CD. For example, twin
> > infants have been known to develop their own language system de novo,
> > without the need for the slow evolution of meaning for words and
> > phrases over time. It is done by arbitrary definition. Sounds are
> > used to build words which are used to build phrases which are used to
> > build sentences - all in a NHP which doesn't need CD to achieve.
>
> None of these are nested hierarchies of the sort we see in life. They
> are all arbitrary hierarchies. As the passages you quoted at the
> beginning (and apparently have not read) say, "You just can't mix and
> match the branches or twigs of the tree of life without really screwing
> things up".
I didn't quote that passage - I wrote that myself.
You see, you are now putting qualifications on the NHP. A tree where
the branches and twigs can be interchanged does meet the definition of
a NHP. It just isn't the type of NHP that is seen in the "Tree of
Life". A military hierarchy is however, and so is a language/
information system. Not all "brigades" in the army do the same job
and neither do all "captains" or "lieutenants". There are unique
"branches" in the military hierarchy that are on the same level -
branches and twigs that cannot be interchanged without being way out
of place.
> > I have never disclaimed analogies to human processes. I used such
> > analogies all the time myself since it is the most at-hand example of
> > ID that we have. Also, you don't seem to mind when elements are
> > borrowed and combined between creatures in evolutionary story
> > telling. You don't seem to mind the story of reptiles gaining
> > feathers. You wouldn't mind if some "mammals" had feathers either.
>
> Move to strike. Assumes a conclusion not in evidence.
Are you telling me that if mammals did have feathers that you think
that the CD theory would vanish on that one feature alone? Give me a
break! The overall pattern would still be the same and some story-
telling explanation that it is a "primitive" feature would be
presented - the same as egg-laying mammals do not overturn the CD
theory.
< snip repetitive >
> > The stratigraphic layering is not a feature of the Earth that
> > *requires* ID. Life is a feature of this Earth that does *require* ID
> > at every emergent step.
>
> See how you have conflated the nested hierarchy with life itself?
Again, the NHP of life wouldn't exist without life existing. Life can
exist without the NHP, but the NHP of life cannot exist without life.
Patterns are not entities to themselves. They depend on the existence
of something else that creates them.
< snip >
> >> This is a digression. Motives are sinister if they are sinister. If, for
> >> example, you make a diamond in the lab and try to sell it as a natural
> >> diamond, that's a sinister motive. A god who creates a pattern that is
> >> most easily interpreted as being natural is hiding his existence; if
> >> acceptance of that existence is important to us, that's sinister behavior.
>
> > LOL - Was Michelangelo hiding his existence by carving the statue of
> > David?
>
> No. It was obviously a statue.
So is the pattern of life an obvious imitation of a natural pattern.
One is no more "sinister" than the other - aside from those who are
somehow fooled into thinking that something as obvious as a marble
statue is somehow an attempt pass off a fake as the real thing.
> > Or is a painter who paints a natural scene "hiding" his/her
> > existence?
>
> No. It's obviously a painting.
And life is just as "obviously" designed.
> > Please! That's a bizarre argument. God's existence is
> > clear in his creation, especially of life, because of those elements
> > of life that cannot be explained or "copied" by nature - which are
> > numerous.
>
> I agree, if we accept your assumption. I misspoke. What I should have
> said is not that he's hiding his existence, but that he's hiding his
> method of creation.
He is not hiding the fact that his method required ID.
> > Looking at just one aspect of a creation and saying that
> > the entire creation is obviously natural is unreasonable.
>
> I agree. Sorry for the error.
Ok . . .
> > Do SETI
> > scientists only look at one aspect
> > of radiosignals in their search for
> > ETI? Of course not.
>
> Actually, my understanding is that they do. But never mind.
Natural processes can make radiowaves - all of which share the
property of being "radiowaves". So, a different property of
radiowaves besides that which is common to all must be considered if
ID is going to be found producing a radiosignal.
> >>> Also, where on Earth do you get this idea of some sort of "penalty" of
> >>> "eternal damnation" for believing in common descent or any other
> >>> aspect of evolutionary thought? That's also nonsense. No God that is
> >>> actually worth worshiping would be so petty.
> >> I agree. But creationists generally don't. I'm pleasantly surprised that
> >> you don't believe in Hell.
>
> > I do believe in Hell. I don't believe in Hell like many who call
> > themselves Christians believe in Hell, but I do believe in a final
> > judgment of evil people. I just don't believe that being honestly
> > wrong is evil.
>
> Really? So I'll go to heaven despite my atheism?
Yep . . .
> (Assuming for the sake
> of argument that I'm not evil.) Isn't that heresy?
Not in my book. If you are a good honest person as an atheist, I hope
you live close to me in heaven. We could be neighbors! ; )
> >>> No one is going to be
> >>> lost for being honestly tricked into believing the wrong thing. The
> >>> only evil that someone can be truly accused of is the evil of knowing
> >>> what is right and deliberately doing the opposite. For example, say
> >>> that you know it is wrong to murder, but you decide that your wife's
> >>> life insurance is just too tempting so you do it anyway. Now that, my
> >>> friend, is evil by anyone's definition of the term.
> >>> It is for true evil, not for honestly believing the wrong thing, that
> >>> we will be judged.
> >> That seems like heresy to me. I thought that nobody who didn't believe
> >> in Jesus as his own personal savior could go to heaven, regardless of
> >> good works. But this is a digression.
>
> > I believe there will be a lot of very surprised atheists in heaven -
> > don't you?
>
> No. Of course not. I believe there will be a lot of unsurprised
> Christians who no longer exist, anywhere. Just like the rest of us, when
> we're dead.
I'm talking about if I'm right and you're wrong - about the existence
of God and of heaven. If, for argument's sake, there was a God and a
heaven, how would you like it set up? Would you think it at all
reasonable to exclude the honest atheist from eternal life and
happiness just for a honest mistake?
> > St. Paul says as much himself when he says that "when
> > Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the
> > law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the
> > law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on
> > their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their
> > thoughts now accusing, now even defending them. This will take place
> > on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as
> > my gospel declares."
>
> > Of course, "the law" spoken of here by Paul is the "Law of Love" - to
> > which Jesus referred. This is the law "which is written upon the
> > heart" and upon which "all will be judged"; not any sort of
> > understanding or misunderstanding of the origin of life or even of the
> > existence of Jesus or a God of any kind. Jesus said, "Many sheep have
> > I that are not of this fold". That means, to me anyway, that many who
> > have never even heard the name of Jesus or of God will be saved simply
> > because they lived according to the law of love which is written on
> > the hearts of every human being. Only by going contrary to that law
> > of love, by countering the "Golden Rule" will one be turning toward
> > the course of evil and be excluded from heaven with all those who love
> > hatred or indifference toward one's neighbor and what it leads to -
> > murder, theft, deliberate ruin of ones associates and the helpless,
> > etc. There simply is no excuse for such a life. But, there is a very
> > good excuse for the one who honestly never knew this or that piece of
> > information or lacked knowledge about "the Bible", "God", or his
> > work. This lack of knowledge is irrelevant to the question of if
> > someone lived as best as they knew how according to the "Golden
> > Rule".
>
> > The *only* question that will be asked in the Final Judgment is: Did
> > you love your neighbor as yourself?
>
> > And, who is your neighbor? Read the chapter on the "Good Samaritan"
> > to find out.
>
> We can continue discussing theology, but perhaps another thread. Hell,
> even for evil people, seems to me a bit excessive. Infinite punishment
> for finite sin, with no possibility of redemption? Does anyone, no
> matter what they've done, deserve that? Now *that's* evil.
I agree. I don't believe in an eternal Hell or infinite punishment.
That's heresy where I come from - an invention of the Church during
the middle ages. It is not Biblical that's for sure.
The Bible describes the eternal loss of the wicked, but not anything
like "eternal hell". The Bible says that the final end of the wicked
will reduce them to "ashes underfoot" and "never will they be any
more". They will be dead and gone - forever. This will be of their
own choice since they will hate God with such a passion for
interfering with their murderous desires that they will desire
anything but to exist in his presence or with anyone who opposes their
hateful lifestyle. If they could be redeemed or changed in character,
they will be saved. Only those who have made a permanent choice will
be permanently lost. And, no one will be lost without who actually
wants to be in heaven with God and the other's who want to live non-
hateful lives. It's going to be a freewill choice for all - even the
wicked. If any additional time would help anyone change his/her mind,
it will be given.
Again, which is more merciful, to keep those alive whose only goal is
to cause suffering and pain to others (and really themselves as well)
or to offer these souls the option of non-existence as a free choice?
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Steven J.
wrote:
> On Mar 2, 8:26 am, John Harshman <jharshman.diespam...@pacbell.net>
> wrote:
>
> > > Of course, this article fails to mention the platypus. The platypus is
> > > classified as a mammal - the "monotreme" version. The monotremes are
> > > the only order of mammals to lay eggs; in this, the platypus is
> > > similar to reptiles. Also like reptiles, platypus produce vitamin C in
> > > the liver and has poisonous spurs on its feet. Yet, because the
> > > platypus produces milk to feed its young (like all mammals) and has
> > > fur (also like mammals) it is classified as a mammal - even though it
> > > has a few traits of reptiles and a bill like a duck. Given this, I'm
> > > not so sure if Pegasus would actually be thought of as violating
> > > "nested hierarchy" like this Wiki article indicates.
>
> > That's because you are, at bottom, ignorant of biology and of the nested
> > hierarchy of life. The platypus doesn't violate the nested hierarchy
> > at all. The characters you mention are either primitive (egg-laying) or
> > unique to the platypus (poisonous spurs).
>
> Egg-laying is "primitive" because you define it that way. The same
> thing would be true of winged horses with feathers - i.e. Pegasus.
> Such a beast would be said to have "primitive" features. Also, other
> creatures, like the stingray, have poisonous spines besides the
> platypus and many reptiles, but not many mammals, have poison-
> secreting glands.
>
ancestor of the two groups being compared; the opposite is "derived"
and "advanced." Egg-laying is "primitive" because the last common
ancestor of all amniotes laid eggs. Feathers are "derived" (when
comparing birds to other amniotes) because the amniote LCA didn't have
feathers; they are a feature only on one branch of the theropod family
tree. The "duck-bill" of the platypus is not a primitive feature, but
a derived one, peculiar to platypuses; the superficial resemblance in
shape (it is rubbery and flexible, unlike a bird's bill) is a case of
convergent evolution. Note that losses of features can be "derived"
or "advanced;" the lack of limbs in snakes, for example, is a derived
feature.
>
> Without this notion of some particular feature being "primitive" a
> number of features would indeed be considered "mix and match".
>
its oldest members. The meaning is not arbitrary.
>
> > (Whatever allowed you to make
> > the claim that poisonous spurs on the feet are a reptilian
> > characteristic?).
>
> It is somewhat reptilian since poison-secreting glands are common in
> reptiles (i.e., usually the mouth), but distinctly uncommon in
> mammals. It seems like it is just the location of these poisonous
> glands that is unique to the platypus, no the poison-secreting glands
> or method of inserting the poison that is all that unique.
>
> > As for the bill like a duck, that's just nonsense. A
> > platypus has a flattened, fleshy, toothless snout. It's similar to a
> > duck's bill about as much as a fiddlehead fern looks like the end of a
> > violin.
>
> I'm just saying that originally, when the platypus was first
> discovered and brought to Europe (stuffed of course), it was thought
> to be a fake because it just didn't seem to fit anywhere in any
> classification system. It was thought to be a conglomeration of
> parts. I didn't say that the bill was the same as a ducks, but it
> certainly does share certain gross features that are rather unique
> when it comes to mammals.
>
unique features; that's how one notices that they are distinct
species. The duckbill of the platypus, though, is very distinct from
the duckbills of actual ducks. The platypus is no more a
"conglomeration of parts" than, say, the similar tails and forefins of
manatees or dolphins: in each case you have convergent evolution to a
particular environmental niche.
>
> > You haven't taken this tack for some time. For quite a while you have
> > agreed that the nested hierarchy of life actually exists. Now you're
> > back to denying it. Back and forth, back and forth.
>
> I'm not denying the overall nested pattern. I'm just pointing out the
> ToE and ToCD can accommodate anything - even seemingly mix-and-match
> features. Another example is the earliest roots of the Tree of Life
> which do not show a NHP at all. Yet, the ToCD is still used to
> explain this particular non-nested pattern as well.
>
with only vertical, not lateral, inheritance (that is, you can only
inherit traits from your ancestors, not from distant cousins). There
will still be a nested hierarchy if some lateral borrowing is
permitted, but it messes up the pattern somewhat (see, for a good
example, a tree of Indo-European languages, most of which have
borrowed vocabulary, and sometimes sounds and grammatical features,
from other IE languages without making the consistent nested pattern
vanish). Multi-celled Eukaryotes demonstrate virtually no lateral
inheritance, but prokaryotes do, which is why they don't fall into so
clear a nested hierarchy as eukaryotes do. But this is not a case of
"common descent" explaining something, but a case of observed
different sorts of inheritance explaining features of the tree of
life.
>
> > > The Wiki article goes on to suggest that "Life, however, shows a
> > > clear nested hierarchy, at least with regards to multicellular
> > > organisms. An animal that produces milk (Mammals), will also have
> > > hair, have four limbs, be endothermic (warmblooded) plus possess many
> > > other characteristics. Why should this be? Why do no other animals or
> > > plants produce milk? Why do no mammals have four limbs plus a pair of
> > > wings, like the Pegasus or angels? This fits easily with the idea of
> > > common descent, but is not what would be expected from special
> > > creation (although it isn't completely at odds with creation either,
> > > as the creator(s) could create life in any configuration
> > > imaginable)."
>
> > > What is interesting here is that other creatures, besides mammals, do
> > > produce milk to feed their young. Some species of cockroach, for
> > > example, produce milk to feed their young in utero and deliver their
> > > young live. Also, the platypus produces milk while having features
> > > that are usually associated with other non-mammalian species.
>
> > Nonsense. It's not milk, unless by "milk" you mean any fluid produced in
> > the body and used to feed young. Which is stupid. All this fits
> > perfectly into the nested hierarchy.
>
> What is your definition of "milk"? Mammalian milk is comprise of
> various proteins, fats and sugars. The same thing is true of
> cockroach milk.
>
proteins, fats, and sugars. It's not particularly shocking that food
they provide for their offspring would be made of the same broad
classes of molecules as their bodies. But the proteins and sugars are
significantly different.
>
-- [snip of rest of discussion]
>
> Sean Pitmanwww.DetectingDesign.com
-- Steven J.
John Harshman
> On Mar 2, 8:26 am, John Harshman <jharshman.diespam...@pacbell.net>
> wrote:
>>> Of course, this article fails to mention the platypus. The platypus is
>>> classified as a mammal - the "monotreme" version. The monotremes are
>>> the only order of mammals to lay eggs; in this, the platypus is
>>> similar to reptiles. Also like reptiles, platypus produce vitamin C in
>>> the liver and has poisonous spurs on its feet. Yet, because the
>>> platypus produces milk to feed its young (like all mammals) and has
>>> fur (also like mammals) it is classified as a mammal - even though it
>>> has a few traits of reptiles and a bill like a duck. Given this, I'm
>>> not so sure if Pegasus would actually be thought of as violating
>>> "nested hierarchy" like this Wiki article indicates.
>> That's because you are, at bottom, ignorant of biology and of the nested
>> hierarchy of life. The platypus doesn't violate the nested hierarchy
>> at all. The characters you mention are either primitive (egg-laying) or
>> unique to the platypus (poisonous spurs).
>
> Egg-laying is "primitive" because you define it that way.
No, it's primitive because that's how it shows up in the nested
hierarchy. Mammals are amniotes. Amniotes lay eggs, except for a few
derived groups (Theria and a few groups of snakes). And monotremes being
the sister group of all other mammals, the change from egg-laying to
live birth needs to happen only once in mammals. The character fits
perfectly onto the tree.
> The same
> thing would be true of winged horses with feathers - i.e. Pegasus.
> Such a beast would be said to have "primitive" features.
No it wouldn't, unless Pegasus were the sister group of all other
mammals and feathers were a feature of amniotes. But since feathers are
unique to a derived clade of theropods, and horses are deeply embedded
in Mammalia, the parsimonious solution in such a case would be
convergent evolution of feathers in two distantly related groups. Which
would be highly unlikely considering the complex nature of the structure.
> Also, other
> creatures, like the stingray, have poisonous spines besides the
> platypus and many reptiles, but not many mammals, have poison-
> secreting glands.
None of them homologous, if you notice.
> Without this notion of some particular feature being "primitive" a
> number of features would indeed be considered "mix and match".
That's just nonsense. Only a person who was ignorant of biology would
say such a thing.
>> (Whatever allowed you to make
>> the claim that poisonous spurs on the feet are a reptilian
>> characteristic?).
>
> It is somewhat reptilian since poison-secreting glands are common in
> reptiles (i.e., usually the mouth), but distinctly uncommon in
> mammals. It seems like it is just the location of these poisonous
> glands that is unique to the platypus, no the poison-secreting glands
> or method of inserting the poison that is all that unique.
It takes more than being found in some reptiles to make it a reptilian
characteristic. It's like claiming that cobras are a weird combination
of lizard and scorpion because they have poison. Makes no sense.
>> As for the bill like a duck, that's just nonsense. A
>> platypus has a flattened, fleshy, toothless snout. It's similar to a
>> duck's bill about as much as a fiddlehead fern looks like the end of a
>> violin.
>
> I'm just saying that originally, when the platypus was first
> discovered and brought to Europe (stuffed of course), it was thought
> to be a fake because it just didn't seem to fit anywhere in any
> classification system. It was thought to be a conglomeration of
> parts. I didn't say that the bill was the same as a ducks, but it
> certainly does share certain gross features that are rather unique
> when it comes to mammals.
"Rather unique" is poor English. Nor can one thing "share certain
features". Certainly an egg-laying mammal is interesting. But of course
it's an evolution poster child rather than some conundrum for
creationists to spring on us.
>> You haven't taken this tack for some time. For quite a while you have
>> agreed that the nested hierarchy of life actually exists. Now you're
>> back to denying it. Back and forth, back and forth.
>
> I'm not denying the overall nested pattern. I'm just pointing out the
> ToE and ToCD can accommodate anything - even seemingly mix-and-match
> features. Another example is the earliest roots of the Tree of Life
> which do not show a NHP at all. Yet, the ToCD is still used to
> explain this particular non-nested pattern as well.
Certainly there are exceptions, and they can be explained. It's not just
ad hoc, though, as you seem to be claiming. The exceptions are rare, and
rarer than you seem to be claiming if you think the platypus is one.
>>> The Wiki article goes on to suggest that "Life, however, shows a
>>> clear nested hierarchy, at least with regards to multicellular
>>> organisms. An animal that produces milk (Mammals), will also have
>>> hair, have four limbs, be endothermic (warmblooded) plus possess many
>>> other characteristics. Why should this be? Why do no other animals or
>>> plants produce milk? Why do no mammals have four limbs plus a pair of
>>> wings, like the Pegasus or angels? This fits easily with the idea of
>>> common descent, but is not what would be expected from special
>>> creation (although it isn't completely at odds with creation either,
>>> as the creator(s) could create life in any configuration
>>> imaginable)."
>>> What is interesting here is that other creatures, besides mammals, do
>>> produce milk to feed their young. Some species of cockroach, for
>>> example, produce milk to feed their young in utero and deliver their
>>> young live. Also, the platypus produces milk while having features
>>> that are usually associated with other non-mammalian species.
>> Nonsense. It's not milk, unless by "milk" you mean any fluid produced in
>> the body and used to feed young. Which is stupid. All this fits
>> perfectly into the nested hierarchy.
>
> What is your definition of "milk"? Mammalian milk is comprise of
> various proteins, fats and sugars. The same thing is true of
> cockroach milk.
My definition of "milk" is hardly "a substance composed of various
proteins, fats, and sugars". Are you serious?
>>> Of course, the overall similarities of various groups do nest fairly
>>> well. Again though, this is a classification based on shared
>>> similarities without taking into account the unique differences that
>>> are not shared or that may be shared with other vastly different "non-
>>> mammalian" creatures.
>> This is nonsense. It's the distribution of characters that determines
>> the hierarchy, both similarities and differences. A difference at one
>> level is a similarity at another. Mammals are different from each other
>> in various ways, but these differences are similarities of various
>> groups within mammals.
>
> The overall similarities are considered first, then the differences.
> What are thought to be key shared similarities are given prime
> importance (like hair and milk production for mammals). It is only
> then that the various unique differences within the overall mammalian
> group are considered - like wings, fins, hooves, opposable thumbs,
> tails, egg-laying, poison glands, etc.
You have no idea what you're saying. Various similarities fit in various
parts of the tree. Now anything that happened at the base of Mammalia
will be inherited by all mammals, unless it's altered on some other
branch. But there is no need to consider anything sequentially. You just
mix it up and see what comes out. It happens that "odd-toed hooves", for
example, define a clade that's within the clade defined by "7 cervical
vertebrae". But it didn't have to be that way.
>> Yes, there is homoplasy. But much less than your mention of "cockroach
>> milk" would imply.
>
> I'm just saying that homoplastic or "convergent" features are not
> beyond the ToCD.
I should hope not. So?
>>> Again, common descent is only a fairly perfect expectation given a NHP
>>> of the type that can be produced by a non-deliberate process. A
>>> highly symmetrical Menger Sponge carved into the material of, say,
>>> granite would be an example of a NHP that could only have been the
>>> result of ID and is unlikely to have required the use of common
>>> descent in the development of the NHP in this particular situation.
>> A highly symmetrical Menger Sponge isn't an example of nested hierarchy
>> at all.
>
> Yes, it is. By definition, "nested hierarchies involve levels which
> consist of, and contain, lower levels." Fractals, like the Menger
> Sponge, "are fabricated by the repetition of some geometric act over a
> nested succession of hierarchical scale. And the result is self-
> similarity, or the emergence of an axis of scale symmetry." So, the
> Menger Sponge, like other such fractals, does indeed meet the
> definition for a nested hierarchical pattern. It is just that the
> fractal-type pattern of life is not quite the same as the NHP of a
> Menger Sponge.
This is not a nested hierarchy because the repetitions do not contain
subsequent repetitions. And we can agree that it's nothing like the
nested hierarchy of life.
> http://www.dichotomistic.com/hierarchies_fractals.html
>
>> Since we agree that life is capable of common descent and could
>> easily acquire its nested hierarchy that way, I don't see the point
>> you're trying to make.
>
> Life is capable of common descent and can indeed acquire a NHP along
> the way all by itself - without any other input. Except . . . except
> when it comes to unique key functional elements that were not already
> in the original gene pool to begin with. These elements require the
> input of ID and ID is not required to use CD as its only viable method
> of producing NHPs.
But it could. The source of key functional elements has nothing to do
with generating a nested hierarchy.
> You yourself admit that without the additional evidence of the fossil
> record and your interpretation of geology, CD would not necessarily be
> viable as a theory for life - despite the NHP of life.
I admit no such thing. You have me confused with someone else. What I
admit is that the fossil record adds some interesting further
confirmation from an independent source, but in fact we can show common
descent conclusively without any recourse to fossils.
> For example,
> given that my catastrophic interpretation of the geologic column and
> fossil record is correct, even you would admit that the CD theory
> would hold little water for most scientists.
Ah, that's different. *With* the additional evidence that the world is
only 6000 years old, I would have a hard time explaining the nested
hierarchy of life. I would have to say that I had now idea how it got
there. Fortunately there is no such evidence.
> So, your notion that a NHP is in itself enough evidence to support the
> theory of common descent is simply not true - by your own admission.
You have confused being enough evidence all by itself with the
possibility that contradictory evidence might refute it.
> You need additional evidence beyond the pattern. For example, if you
> have good evidence that all the features of the NHP in question could
> be produced without the requirement of ID, CD is a perfectly valid
> conclusion since non-deliberate processes do not seem to be able to
> produce NHPs without the use of CD as mechanism.
And we have good evidence of that. The nested hierarchical pattern
doesn't need ID at all, as you have agreed. Whether any of the features
composing that hierarchy needed ID is a separate question, though you
seem unable to comprehend this.
> However, given the
> ID was required for many of the key features of the pattern in
> question,
No, those aren't key features of the pattern. The pattern is separate
from the features that show the pattern.
> the theory of CD requires additional evidence to make it
> tenable - to include evidence that enough time was available for CD to
> act in producing the pattern. If the evidence suggests that the time
> available time was too limited for CD to be viable, it would then be
> most likely that ID chose to bypass many if not most of the CD steps
> in the production of the NHP in question.
Yes, if creationism were correct, there would be evidence that
creationism was correct.
>>> So, you see, a NHP, by itself, is not enough to assume common
>>> descent. Some NHPs require the extensive input of ID for most if not
>>> all of their key features. Such NHPs do not require the use of CD -
>>> the laborious steps of which are often bypassed in real life.
>> You still haven't presented an example of a nested hierarchy of the sort
>> life makes -- in which the hierarchy is determined by the elements
>> themselves, and is unique -- produced by methods other than common descent.
>
> Fractals - like the work of M. C. Escher (see links) which show nested
> hierarchical patterns, some of which are of the same types as that
> produced in the patterns of life (where one part cannot replace
> another the same emergent level:
>
> http://farm1.static.flickr.com/106/279764461_6487e08865.jpg
> http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/d/d2/300px-Escher,_Metamorphosis_II.jpg
> http://www.bowdoin.edu/news/archives/images/triangle_birds.jpg
> http://fusionanomaly.net/mcescherdayandnight.jpg
> http://www.bexley.k12.oh.us/hslib/curriculumlinks/poetry/escher%20sky%20&%20water%20I.jpg
> http://luxton.blogware.com/_photos/Escher__s_Infinite_Circle___II_BY_STACY_REED_www.shedreamsindigital.net_NO_HOTLINKING_ALLOWEDa.jpg
>
> Also various information systems qualify: like computer codes and
> other language systems, the military power and functional differential
> structure, etc.
None of these qualify. We couldn't look at the individual elements,
divorced from any grand pattern, and use them to reconstruct the pattern
itself.
>>>>> You're the one who suggested that a designer who incorporates any
>>>>> aspect of what can happen naturally into a particular work is being
>>>>> "deceptive". You did use that word, "deceptive" - did you not?
>>>>>
>>>> Yes, but not in quite the way that your strawman above does it.
>>> What is the key difference in your use of the term "deceptive"?
>> Simply that not every imitation is an attempt to deceive.
>
> And how can you tell what the motive was based on the imitation
> itself? For example, not all human-made diamonds are made with the
> intent to deceive - even when it comes to jewelry quality artifactual
> diamonds.
That would depend on the nature of the imitation. We could make a good
guess. Given an imitation Gucci bag, what would you infer about the
motives of the manufacturer?
>>>>> I think that the minute detail required to produce the differences
>>>>> between living things, and the overall beauty of their shared
>>>>> interaction, took a great deal of care and creative genius. Whoever
>>>>> created vast range of different interacting creatures in an overall
>>>>> system that works and interacts with itself very closely, was very
>>>>> interested in every aspect of this creation.
>>>> Though not, apparently, in its geology. I wonder why that would be.
>>> Geology does not *require* ID. You don't seem to understand the
>>> concept of the ID-only hypothesis. The requirement for ID is
>>> different than the potential for ID. The key differences of all
>>> living things require ID while the key differences in geology do not.
>> Wait. You're claiming that the formation of the earth was purely natural?
>
> When it comes to stratigraphy - nature-only is very much a
> possibility. ID was not *required* for this particular feature.
Exactly, just as when it comes to the nested hierarchy, nature-only is
very much a possibility. ID was not *required* for this particular feature.
>> Nor does nested hierarchy require ID.
>
> Some NHP do require ID or they simply couldn't exist. That's the
> whole point. Not all NHPs are the same. Life is one example. The
> NHP exhibited in life could not exist at all without the input of ID.
> If ID wasn't there, life and its NHP wouldn't be there either. This
> is not true of stratigraphy were it would be there even if ID was
> never involved.
Once again, the nested hierarchy of life is not life. It's not the
various features that make up the pattern. It's the pattern of
distribution of those features. If life needs ID to exist, that's
irrelevant to the cause of the hierarchy. If some features need ID to
exist, that's irrelevant to the cause of the hierarchy. Just as if the
earth needs ID to exist, that's irrelevant to the cause of the
stratigraphy of its layers.
>> Only by conflating nested
>> hierarchy with other, separate aspects
>> of life and rolling them up into
>> a big ball can you make your claim.
>> It's a bait-and-switch. You say that
>> some of the differences among
>> organisms require ID, and assume that
>> means that the nested hierarchy
>> does too. But you offer no reason why
>> that should be true.
>
> Think about it this way, a pattern does not exist independent of the
> object. Without the object, there is no pattern. The patterns
> existence is dependent upon the object's existence. The objects
> existence is not dependent upon the pattern's existence. Life could
> exist without a NHP. However, the NHP of life could not exist
> without the existence of living things.
Yes. And the earth could exist without stratigraphic layers, but the
layers could not exist without the earth.
> Therefore, in this sense, if life requires ID, so does the NHP of
> life. Does this requirement for ID exclude the use of CD as the
> chosen mechanism? No. It doesn't. However, it also doesn't
> necessitate the use of CD either. Once it can be shown that ID is
> required for the phenomenon in question, the theory of CD must have
> additional support beyond the pattern itself.
So if it's shown that ID is required for the earth to exist, the theory
of natural stratigraphy must have additional support beyond the pattern
itself?
>>>>> I do not see it as being
>>>>> very likely that such obvious interest in minute detail and vast
>>>>> creative genius would dilly dally around to figure things out as it
>>>>> went along.
>>>> So you are placing limits on god's creative process.
>>> Not at all. God could have dilly dallied around all he wanted. I
>>> just don't see that as likely given that we are the way we are and he
>>> created us. I wouldn't like dilly dallying around too much if I was
>>> actually interested in the final product of my interactive creation -
>>> would you?
>> So you're placing probabilities on what god would or wouldn't do. Why
>> isn't that a limit?
>
> It isn't a limitation because I'm not saying that God could not have
> used CD. I'm saying that he could have reasonable chosen to skip most
> of the CD steps. You are the one arguing that God would have to have
> used CD to produce a NHP - that there is, essentially, no other
> possible option besides CD. Do you not see that your argument,
> compared to mine, is the one putting limits on ID?
I see that your strawman version of my argument puts limits on ID. I see
also that your argument puts limits, though they are more weasely
limits, because you avoid saying he would have done something, saying
only that he reasonably could have, but implying that it's what we would
expect.
> < snip >
>
>>> One doesn't usually put a great deal of creative effort into something
>>> one doesn't care a lick about.
>> What makes you think that an omnipotent being is capable of "effort".
>> Isn't everything as easy as everything else to him? (This assumes
>> omnipotence of course. If you want to deny that the creator is
>> omnipotent, do so now and we'll modify the discussion.) The other
>> counterargument here is that of course that what the creator appears to
>> care most about is beetles, if we're going by what he put effort into.
>
> This discussion really isn't about the actual identity of the creator
> beyond the obvious fact that God was/is very intelligent and
> creatively powerful. The notion of "omnipotence" really isn't at
> issue here. The only issue at hand is if ID is required to use CD to
> produce a NHP to a near certainty as you are proposing.
I'm saying no such thing. I'm saying that if we see a nested hierarchy,
common descent is the reasonable inference.
>>> I'm showing
>>> you reasons why an intelligent designer could use a different process
>>> besides common descent - reasons why an designer wouldn't necessarily
>>> be as limited as you suggest.
>> I have suggested no limits. You are the one suggesting limits. Your
>> limits, however, make no sense.
>
> How can you say this? You are the one saying that CD is the only
> logical conclusion given a NHP - even given that ID was required to
> produce all the key aspects of the pattern in question. How then can
> you say that you are making no claims about the potential or limits of
> the intelligent agent here?
I'm saying that common descent is the way to bet. God could of course
have done anything, but if we don't follow the evidence we have no basis
for any conclusion at all.
Then again, aren't you the one saying that god couldn't have produced
the stratigraphic layers by fiat creation?
>>> You're the one suggesting limitations
>>> here. I'm the one suggesting that not only can CD be used by ID,
>>> other processes can and indeed are often used by ID to produce NHPs.
>> Yet you still have not given a single example.
>
> I've given you many examples. You have yet to produce a valid reason
> why ID would have to choose CD to produce a NHP to a level of almost
> absolute certainty?
Is that your new mantra? It seems to mean nothing.
>>> Your notion is that the odds an intelligent designer would use any
>>> other process besides CD are "essentially nil" are not backed up by
>>> what we know of ID. Intelligent agents, even human ones, are not
>>> limited by what limits non-deliberate processes of nature. Even we
>>> humans can go beyond the restricted us of CD to produce NHP - and we
>>> often do. Why? Because, obviously, it's quicker and less wasteful of
>>> resources. From the perspective of God, it seems reasonable that it
>>> would also be less wasteful of unnecessary pain and suffering of the
>>> sentient creatures he had spent a great deal of creative effort
>>> producing.
>> To repeat:
>>
>> 1. This assumes that the creator is capable of creative effort, and so
>> is not omnipotent. If you want to make that claim explicitly, do so.
>
> This discussion is only about ID - not the actual identity or
> capabilities or resources of the ID agent beyond the fact that this
> agent was very intelligent.
Typical. You refuse to examine the implications of your claims. For some
reason we're not allowed to.
>> 2. This is the creator who, in order to punish sinful humanity, caused a
>> worldwide flood that killed every living thing not on the ark. And
>> you're talking about waste?
>
> If you want to get Biblical here, this act is presented, not as a
> punishment as much as a salvation to humanity.
Except for all the dead ones, of course. Was it salvation for the
animals too?
> Humanity, according to
> the Biblical account, was about to self-destruct in total self-
> annihilation.
It says no such thing.
> "The thoughts of the hearts of man were only evil
> continually and the Earth was filled with pain". If you have a
> situation on your hands were you have a colony of liars, murders,
> rapists and all manner of those who love doing the most cruel and
> heartless things that they can think of to each other, what is the
> most loving thing to do in such a situation? What would you do?
Yes, you're right. I'd kill them all. Hey, the world looks pretty bad
today. Why not kill them all too?
>> 3. Who are you to say what god would or would not do, or what would be
>> reasonable for him to do?
>
> There's a difference in presenting what an intelligent agent could do
> vs. what they would have to do. I'm presenting what God could have
> done while you are presenting what you think he would have to have
> done. There seems to me to be a difference here.
Ah, but you weren't talking about what he could do. You were talking
about what he probably would do. And I said nothing about what he would
have to have done; that's your strawman.
>> 4. What evidence do you have that the creator's interest lies in
>> avoiding pain and suffering?
>
> Actually, to be honest, I think there is more than one very
> intelligent creator at work in this world - to include humanity
> itself. Some creators are good while others are very evil. Some
> creators deliberately set out to produce pain and suffering while
> others work against it. Clear evidence for both is evident in this
> world.
Ah, so Satan is creative. Another heresy. And I see you have dodged the
question.
> The Bible, in particular, refers to this dichotomy of motive as the
> great controversy between good and evil (Christ and Satan if you want
> to personify those concepts).
>
>> Life, in fact, seems admirably designed to
>> demonstrate pain and suffering. How
>> do you know that's not a major
>> purpose? Remember the caterpillar?
>
> I personally do not believe that was the original intent of at least
> the primary designer of life. I think that pain and suffering that
> now exists is due largely to degenerative and parasitic effects as
> well as the deliberate "survival of the fittest" mentality of many
> evil people in this world.
Parasitism of wasps on caterpillars is due to evil humans?
>>>>> Why should he not care about
>>>>> how he created sentient creatures?
>>>> Why should he? What evidence is there that he would? I thought your
>>>> designer was an unspecified entity or entities, possibly even space aliens.
>>> Could be - but not very likely given the degree of effort that went
>>> into producing the vast array of life that exists and has existed on
>>> this planet.
>> You didn't answer the question. What if he produced all these sentient
>> creatures exactly so he could observe their pain and suffering as well
>> as their other behavior, for example?
>
> I did answer this question. The answer is that this is certainly a
> possibility. ID can be used for evil as well as for good. There is
> evidence for both in this world.
So your original argument breaks down, doesn't it?
>>>>> Common descent doesn't "just happen". That's the problem. All of the
>>>>> key differences of every living thing require ID.
>>>> You really can't separate the two in your mind, even for an instant, can
>>>> you? Key differences are not common descent. Common descent is the tree.
>>> No. Common descent is a mechanism. It isn't the tree.
>> Yes it is. Let's separate the tree from the hierarchy, which is a
>> pattern in the data. The tree (which is a history of branching descent)
>> does indeed produce the pattern.
>
> This is just semantics. I call it the mechanism of CD while you call
> it the "tree" or history of CD. They both mean the same thing.
No they don't. There are multiple meanings here, and we are arguing
about the terms used to refer to them.
>> Now what "the two" are really should be clear by now. There is the
>> nested hierarchical pattern made by characters, and there is the
>> characters themselves. You are confusing those two. You say that if the
>> characters are created, that is very good evidence that the hierarchy
>> was created too.
>
> That's not quite what I said. What I said was that if each emergent
> branch in the tree required the input of ID, then it is quite possible
> that CD was not required, contrary to your suggestion, to produce the
> NHP. I did not say that it CD could not be used or was not used - it
> is just possible that it was not used. Additional evidence beyond the
> pattern itself is now required given that ID is known to have been
> involved.
That's silly. No branch required the input of ID. At most, certain
features required the input of ID. Those aren't branches and they aren't
the tree. CD of course is not required, since god can do anything he
wants. Similarly, natural processes are not required to produce
stratigraphic layers. But when you're talking about layers, you say that
since ID was not required, you think it wasn't used. You don't say that
it's possible it wasn't used, or that you can't say it was used. This
asymmetry in conclusion from data of identical form needs an
explanation. I know the explanation, but you won't admit it, so you go
around and around. Of course, if you were being consistent, you would
say that because the stratigraphic layers could have been produced by
fiat creation, additional evidence beyond that of the layers is required
given that ID is known to have been involved in the creation of the earth.
>> But you have no reason for this claim. It's quite
>> possible to have a system in which every single character was created
>> but the hierarchy evolved naturally, on a branching tree. This is
>> exactly what Michael Behe claims, for instance.
>
> That's right. It is indeed quite possible - it just isn't required
> like you suggest. If I believed in the interpretation for the fossil
> record and geologic column that you and Behe believe in, I'd also
> believe in the theory of common descent. The problem here isn't with
> the pattern itself. CD is not a requirement or overwhelming
> conclusion based on the pattern alone. The reason why you and Behe
> believe so strongly in the theory of common descent is based primarily
> on your interpretation of the fossil record and geologic column - not
> just the NHP of life.
That's not true at all. What's true is that if we believed like you that
the world is only 6000 years old, common descent would be a difficult
hypothesis, and the nested hierarchy would be unexplained.
>>>>>> I agree that we can't say what god would or would not do. So why are you
>>>>>> so sure he didn't use common descent?
>>>>> Why are you so sure that he did?
>>>> Simply because that's the simplest interpretation of the evidence,
>>>> notably that nested hierarchy.
>>> That is indeed the overwhelming interpretation of the evidence only
>>> from a non-intelligent perspective - not from an ID perspective.
>> ID makes no difference, which is why you have never been able to justify
>> your claim.
>
> ID makes a big difference. ID opens the door to the possibility of
> skipping CD steps. Without ID, this isn't a feasible possibility.
> Adding in this possibility is a big difference that requires
> additional evidence to adequately counter.
Similarly, ID opens the door to the possibility of skipping steps in the
creation of stratigraphic layers. And yet you think those are due to
physical processes. Why?
>>> You are talking about the evidence of the pattern alone here - not any
>>> additional evidence of apparent time. Given the pattern of a NHP
>>> alone, Last Thursdayism doesn't apply.
>> That made no sense. I'm merely saying that an intelligent designer
>> wouldn't feel obligated to use the natural "time passes" method in
>> creating a world that looks more than a week old. If appearances have no
>> value as evidence (which is what you're saying whether you realize it or
>> not), anything can be true.
>
> You make an erroneous conclusion that one feature is enough to make
> conclusions regarding the origin of the entire object or phenomenon.
> That's just not a very intuitive or even scientific way of thinking.
> Given your rational here, the statue of David, because it looks like a
> human male, is a human male and had similar origins to human males.
> Forget the fact that it is made out of marble! Hello! One feature of
> an object or phenomenon does not discount the other features that also
> play a part in determining its origins.
That tirade didn't seem to me to be a response to what I said. Rather
it's a series of odd strawmen and non sequiturs.
>>>> But we don't
>>>> have to go all the way along that path. It's enough to note again that
>>>> this applies equally to stratigraphy; why should an intelligent designer
>>>> feel obligated to go through all that tedious erosion, deposition, etc.
>>>> when producing the otherwise "natural" pattern of layered rocks?
>>> Because, as I've explained several times before now, no aspect of the
>>> layered rocks requires ID - unlike the key differences in the pattern
>>> of life.
>> This is only because you feel free to define for yourself the boundaries
>> of any given system, as convenient. You say that the key differences and
>> the nested hierarchy are all part of a single entity, indivisible, which
>> must therefore share the feature of having been designed. But I say they
>> aren't. I say they're separable, which should be obvious. I have
>> explained, over and over, how they're separable. There are people who
>> actually hold the theory that key differences were created but the
>> hierarchy was not, e.g. Michael Behe. Is Behe's position logically
>> inconsistent? If not, you can't make the claim you do.
>
> Behe's position is logically consistent, because his position is not
> based on the pattern alone - but on his interpretation of the geologic
> column and fossil record in addition to the NHP of life.
I repeat, it's rather the converse. An old earth *allows* but does not
compel common descent, while a positive belief in a young earth is
required to make common descent unlikely.
>> Now you feel free to suppose that the earth was created, but
>> stratigraphy was not. Why? Formally, earth/stratigraphy is identical to
>> life/hierarchy. The only difference is that you want to believe one but
>> not the other.
>
> One requires the input of ID for all of its key features while the
> other does not. How on Earth can you say that these two phenomena are
> identical? They aren't. They are fundamentally different.
You mistake the phenomena under consideration. And after I provided a
mapping for you. This is some kind of cognitive block on your part.
Let's recap: life is like the earth: both, you think, requiring ID.
Nested hierarchy is like stratigraphy: both not requiring ID, though the
system of which they are a part (life or earth) did require it. See how
that works?
>> By the way, what about those differences that aren't "key"? You agree
>> that they could have been evolved. But according to your beliefs, they
>> must have been directly created too. Is that correct?
>
> That's not correct - as you should know by now. As I've stated many
> times in this forum, and to you directly many times (starting several
> years ago), novel functional and non-functional genetic differences
> can and do evolve all the time. These differences can be explained
> completely by common descent given the pattern alone because ID is not
> *required* to explain any aspect of their existence.
Then you have no comprehension of the evidence. The simple features
point to the same tree as the complex ones. They share the same nested
hierarchy. If one of the hierarchies is not due to common descent, the
other can't possibly be. Either the species possessing these complex and
simple similarities are descended from common ancestors or they are not.
There is no "half and half" conceivable.
>>> The thing is, you can't build a circle until you have a point and you
>>> can't build a column until you have a line (geometrically). In other
>>> words, you can't go 2D before you have 1D and you can't go 3D before
>>> you have the right 2D shape. You might be able to build a bunch of 2D
>>> circles before you build the columns, but this is just one step that
>>> happens to be interchangeable with another step. And, you can't build
>>> on top of the columns with other columns in horizontal or vertical
>>> arrangement until you have the first layer columns in place.
>>> The same thing is true in representing the Tree of Life. Some things
>>> have to come before others, but not everything.
>> I have no idea what you think you are saying about the tree of life.
>> It's not a matter of procedural necessity, merely a matter of the order
>> in which things happen to have happened. Fish appear in the tree before
>> mammals, which appear before whales. You can't rearrange the tree so
>> that mammals are a subgroup of whales. It just doesn't fit that way.
>
> It could be if the fossil record was thought to show that fish evolved
> into whales, which then evolved into land-dwelling creatures. It is
> all based on the fossil record and geologic column - not necessarily
> the pattern itself.
No it isn't. The data from living organisms do not allow the possibility
that fish evolved into whales (at least not before going through
tetrapods first). Again you show your near-total ignorance of phylogenetics.
>>> The NHP of military command or other forms of government or political
>>> organization, fractals like Sierpinski's Gasket or the Menger Sponge,
>>> and yes, colonnades, the Parthenon, and other geometrically based
>>> architectural designs, paintings, and even musical compositions. Even
>>> language systems are build on a NHP and can be produced without the
>>> use of CD. Sure, most language systems have elements of CD. However,
>>> language can be developed without the use of CD. For example, twin
>>> infants have been known to develop their own language system de novo,
>>> without the need for the slow evolution of meaning for words and
>>> phrases over time. It is done by arbitrary definition. Sounds are
>>> used to build words which are used to build phrases which are used to
>>> build sentences - all in a NHP which doesn't need CD to achieve.
>> None of these are nested hierarchies of the sort we see in life. They
>> are all arbitrary hierarchies. As the passages you quoted at the
>> beginning (and apparently have not read) say, "You just can't mix and
>> match the branches or twigs of the tree of life without really screwing
>> things up".
>
> I didn't quote that passage - I wrote that myself.
You really have to start making distinctions between your quotes and
original statements.
> You see, you are now putting qualifications on the NHP. A tree where
> the branches and twigs can be interchanged does meet the definition of
> a NHP. It just isn't the type of NHP that is seen in the "Tree of
> Life".
Agreed. You can make a nested hierarchy out of anything at all. That's
why we have to talk about the sort of nested hierarchies that life
makes. I like to use the term "natural nested hierarchy" to distinguish
it from all the arbitrary ones you keep bringing up.
> A military hierarchy is however, and so is a language/
> information system. Not all "brigades" in the army do the same job
> and neither do all "captains" or "lieutenants". There are unique
> "branches" in the military hierarchy that are on the same level -
> branches and twigs that cannot be interchanged without being way out
> of place.
This is nonsense. And in fact branches and twigs are moved around in
military hierarchies all the time, and no features of the elements
themselves (which are people) tell you where they belong in the hierarchy.
>>> I have never disclaimed analogies to human processes. I used such
>>> analogies all the time myself since it is the most at-hand example of
>>> ID that we have. Also, you don't seem to mind when elements are
>>> borrowed and combined between creatures in evolutionary story
>>> telling. You don't seem to mind the story of reptiles gaining
>>> feathers. You wouldn't mind if some "mammals" had feathers either.
>> Move to strike. Assumes a conclusion not in evidence.
>
> Are you telling me that if mammals did have feathers that you think
> that the CD theory would vanish on that one feature alone? Give me a
> break! The overall pattern would still be the same and some story-
> telling explanation that it is a "primitive" feature would be
> presented - the same as egg-laying mammals do not overturn the CD
> theory.
I'm telling you that you have no idea what you're talking about.
>>> The stratigraphic layering is not a feature of the Earth that
>>> *requires* ID. Life is a feature of this Earth that does *require* ID
>>> at every emergent step.
>> See how you have conflated the nested hierarchy with life itself?
>
> Again, the NHP of life wouldn't exist without life existing. Life can
> exist without the NHP, but the NHP of life cannot exist without life.
> Patterns are not entities to themselves. They depend on the existence
> of something else that creates them.
And the stratigraphic layers depend on the existence of the earth.
What's the difference?
>>>> This is a digression. Motives are sinister if they are sinister. If, for
>>>> example, you make a diamond in the lab and try to sell it as a natural
>>>> diamond, that's a sinister motive. A god who creates a pattern that is
>>>> most easily interpreted as being natural is hiding his existence; if
>>>> acceptance of that existence is important to us, that's sinister behavior.
>>> LOL - Was Michelangelo hiding his existence by carving the statue of
>>> David?
>> No. It was obviously a statue.
>
> So is the pattern of life an obvious imitation of a natural pattern.
> One is no more "sinister" than the other - aside from those who are
> somehow fooled into thinking that something as obvious as a marble
> statue is somehow an attempt pass off a fake as the real thing.
We have agreed that the pattern of life is not distinguishable from
common descent. Michaelangelo's David is easily distinghisable from a
human being. Don't be facetious.
>>> Or is a painter who paints a natural scene "hiding" his/her
>>> existence?
>> No. It's obviously a painting.
>
> And life is just as "obviously" designed.
But we're not talking about life; we're talking about the nested
hierarchy of life. Remember?
>>> Please! That's a bizarre argument. God's existence is
>>> clear in his creation, especially of life, because of those elements
>>> of life that cannot be explained or "copied" by nature - which are
>>> numerous.
>> I agree, if we accept your assumption. I misspoke. What I should have
>> said is not that he's hiding his existence, but that he's hiding his
>> method of creation.
>
> He is not hiding the fact that his method required ID.
We differ on that, but it's also irrelevant. The nested hierarchy, we
have agreed, does not requrie ID.
>>> Looking at just one aspect of a creation and saying that
>>> the entire creation is obviously natural is unreasonable.
>> I agree. Sorry for the error.
>
> Ok . . .
>>> Do SETI
>>> scientists only look at one aspect
>>> of radiosignals in their search for
>>> ETI? Of course not.
>> Actually, my understanding is that they do. But never mind.
>
> Natural processes can make radiowaves - all of which share the
> property of being "radiowaves". So, a different property of
> radiowaves besides that which is common to all must be considered if
> ID is going to be found producing a radiosignal.
I have no interest in dealing with your misconceptions of SETI.
>>>>> Also, where on Earth do you get this idea of some sort of "penalty" of
>>>>> "eternal damnation" for believing in common descent or any other
>>>>> aspect of evolutionary thought? That's also nonsense. No God that is
>>>>> actually worth worshiping would be so petty.
>>>> I agree. But creationists generally don't. I'm pleasantly surprised that
>>>> you don't believe in Hell.
>>> I do believe in Hell. I don't believe in Hell like many who call
>>> themselves Christians believe in Hell, but I do believe in a final
>>> judgment of evil people. I just don't believe that being honestly
>>> wrong is evil.
>> Really? So I'll go to heaven despite my atheism?
>
> Yep . . .
>
>> (Assuming for the sake
>> of argument that I'm not evil.) Isn't that heresy?
>
> Not in my book. If you are a good honest person as an atheist, I hope
> you live close to me in heaven. We could be neighbors! ; )
This is heresy. But I don't mind if you don't.
>>>>> No one is going to be
>>>>> lost for being honestly tricked into believing the wrong thing. The
>>>>> only evil that someone can be truly accused of is the evil of knowing
>>>>> what is right and deliberately doing the opposite. For example, say
>>>>> that you know it is wrong to murder, but you decide that your wife's
>>>>> life insurance is just too tempting so you do it anyway. Now that, my
>>>>> friend, is evil by anyone's definition of the term.
>>>>> It is for true evil, not for honestly believing the wrong thing, that
>>>>> we will be judged.
>>>> That seems like heresy to me. I thought that nobody who didn't believe
>>>> in Jesus as his own personal savior could go to heaven, regardless of
>>>> good works. But this is a digression.
>>> I believe there will be a lot of very surprised atheists in heaven -
>>> don't you?
>> No. Of course not. I believe there will be a lot of unsurprised
>> Christians who no longer exist, anywhere. Just like the rest of us, when
>> we're dead.
>
> I'm talking about if I'm right and you're wrong - about the existence
> of God and of heaven. If, for argument's sake, there was a God and a
> heaven, how would you like it set up? Would you think it at all
> reasonable to exclude the honest atheist from eternal life and
> happiness just for a honest mistake?
I wouldn't find it reasonable to exclude anyone. What happens to the
people who don't get into heaven?
Whatever you say is or isn't biblical can be that way. It's a flexible
document.
> The Bible describes the eternal loss of the wicked, but not anything
> like "eternal hell". The Bible says that the final end of the wicked
> will reduce them to "ashes underfoot" and "never will they be any
> more". They will be dead and gone - forever. This will be of their
> own choice since they will hate God with such a passion for
> interfering with their murderous desires that they will desire
> anything but to exist in his presence or with anyone who opposes their
> hateful lifestyle. If they could be redeemed or changed in character,
> they will be saved. Only those who have made a permanent choice will
> be permanently lost. And, no one will be lost without who actually
> wants to be in heaven with God and the other's who want to live non-
> hateful lives. It's going to be a freewill choice for all - even the
> wicked. If any additional time would help anyone change his/her mind,
> it will be given.
>
> Again, which is more merciful, to keep those alive whose only goal is
> to cause suffering and pain to others (and really themselves as well)
> or to offer these souls the option of non-existence as a free choice?
I grow weary of this painful sophistry. Let's stop discussing your
theological views.
Seanpit
wrote:
< snip >
> > For example, let's say, for argument's sake, that God knew of some
> > other system of life somewhere else in his universe which he had in
> > fact developed over a long period of time using common descent. Let's
> > say that he essentially copied that other pattern, with a few minor
> > changes, and placed it here on this Earth completely intact with all
> > the elements in place all at once. According to your position, this
> > system of life would be based on common descent - right? But, it
> > really wouldn't be based on common descent in the same way John
> > Harshman is arguing for. John is arguing that the NHP exhibited by
> > the Tree of Life on this planet is evidence, in itself, of CD on this
> > planet in the development of life on this planet over time - on this
> > planet. He is not arguing for the evolution of the idea of the
> > pattern over time via CD, which then can be placed intact here and
> > there. That's not what he is arguing. He is arguing that the NHP is
> > evidence of common descent for the particular system in question.
>
> Are you certain this is Harshman's argument? I don't seem to find that
> argument in his posts here.
This is exactly John's argument. He is suggesting that the NHP
itself, by itself, without any other evidence or history, is evidence
of common descent for the particular pattern in question.
> Certainly, a LACK of a nested hierarchy would be
> evidence AGAINST common descent.
That's not entirely true. You do know that the earliest roots of life
show a mixed pattern that is not nested. Yet, it is still believed
that this non-nested pattern was in fact the result of CD. But, that's
a side issue. It isn't what is being discussed here.
< snip >
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Seanpit
wrote:
>
> > Of course, this article fails to mention the platypus. The platypus is
> > classified as a mammal - the "monotreme" version. The monotremes are
> > the only order of mammals to lay eggs; in this, the platypus is
> > similar to reptiles. Also like reptiles, platypus produce vitamin C in
> > the liver and has poisonous spurs on its feet. Yet, because the
> > platypus produces milk to feed its young (like all mammals) and has
> > fur (also like mammals) it is classified as a mammal - even though it
> > has a few traits of reptiles and a bill like a duck. Given this, I'm
> > not so sure if Pegasus would actually be thought of as violating
> > "nested hierarchy" like this Wiki article indicates.
>
> That's because you are, at bottom, ignorant of biology and of the nested
> hierarchy of life. The platypus doesn't violate the nested hierarchy
> at all. The characters you mention are either primitive (egg-laying) or
> unique to the platypus (poisonous spurs).
Egg-laying is "primitive" because you define it that way. The same
thing would be true of winged horses with feathers - i.e. Pegasus.
Such a beast would be said to have "primitive" features. Also, other
creatures, like the stingray, have poisonous spines besides the
platypus and many reptiles, but not many mammals, have poison-
secreting glands.
Without this notion of some particular feature being "primitive" a
number of features would indeed be considered "mix and match".
> (Whatever allowed you to make
> the claim that poisonous spurs on the feet are a reptilian
> characteristic?).
It is somewhat reptilian since poison-secreting glands are common in
reptiles (i.e., usually the mouth), but distinctly uncommon in
mammals. It seems like it is just the location of these poisonous
glands that is unique to the platypus, no the poison-secreting glands
or method of inserting the poison that is all that unique.
> As for the bill like a duck, that's just nonsense. A
> platypus has a flattened, fleshy, toothless snout. It's similar to a
> duck's bill about as much as a fiddlehead fern looks like the end of a
> violin.
I'm just saying that originally, when the platypus was first
discovered and brought to Europe (stuffed of course), it was thought
to be a fake because it just didn't seem to fit anywhere in any
classification system. It was thought to be a conglomeration of
parts. I didn't say that the bill was the same as a ducks, but it
certainly does share certain gross features that are rather unique
when it comes to mammals.
> You haven't taken this tack for some time. For quite a while you have
> agreed that the nested hierarchy of life actually exists. Now you're
> back to denying it. Back and forth, back and forth.
I'm not denying the overall nested pattern. I'm just pointing out the
ToE and ToCD can accommodate anything - even seemingly mix-and-match
features. Another example is the earliest roots of the Tree of Life
which do not show a NHP at all. Yet, the ToCD is still used to
explain this particular non-nested pattern as well.
> > The Wiki article goes on to suggest that "Life, however, shows a
> > clear nested hierarchy, at least with regards to multicellular
> > organisms. An animal that produces milk (Mammals), will also have
> > hair, have four limbs, be endothermic (warmblooded) plus possess many
> > other characteristics. Why should this be? Why do no other animals or
> > plants produce milk? Why do no mammals have four limbs plus a pair of
> > wings, like the Pegasus or angels? This fits easily with the idea of
> > common descent, but is not what would be expected from special
> > creation (although it isn't completely at odds with creation either,
> > as the creator(s) could create life in any configuration
> > imaginable)."
>
> > What is interesting here is that other creatures, besides mammals, do
> > produce milk to feed their young. Some species of cockroach, for
> > example, produce milk to feed their young in utero and deliver their
> > young live. Also, the platypus produces milk while having features
> > that are usually associated with other non-mammalian species.
>
> Nonsense. It's not milk, unless by "milk" you mean any fluid produced in
> the body and used to feed young. Which is stupid. All this fits
> perfectly into the nested hierarchy.
What is your definition of "milk"? Mammalian milk is comprise of
various proteins, fats and sugars. The same thing is true of
cockroach milk.
> > Of course, the overall similarities of various groups do nest fairly
> > well. Again though, this is a classification based on shared
> > similarities without taking into account the unique differences that
> > are not shared or that may be shared with other vastly different "non-
> > mammalian" creatures.
>
> This is nonsense. It's the distribution of characters that determines
> the hierarchy, both similarities and differences. A difference at one
> level is a similarity at another. Mammals are different from each other
> in various ways, but these differences are similarities of various
> groups within mammals.
The overall similarities are considered first, then the differences.
What are thought to be key shared similarities are given prime
importance (like hair and milk production for mammals). It is only
then that the various unique differences within the overall mammalian
group are considered - like wings, fins, hooves, opposable thumbs,
tails, egg-laying, poison glands, etc.
> Yes, there is homoplasy. But much less than your mention of "cockroach
> milk" would imply.
I'm just saying that homoplastic or "convergent" features are not
beyond the ToCD.
> > Again, common descent is only a fairly perfect expectation given a NHP
> > of the type that can be produced by a non-deliberate process. A
> > highly symmetrical Menger Sponge carved into the material of, say,
> > granite would be an example of a NHP that could only have been the
> > result of ID and is unlikely to have required the use of common
> > descent in the development of the NHP in this particular situation.
>
> A highly symmetrical Menger Sponge isn't an example of nested hierarchy
> at all.
Yes, it is. By definition, "nested hierarchies involve levels which
consist of, and contain, lower levels." Fractals, like the Menger
Sponge, "are fabricated by the repetition of some geometric act over a
nested succession of hierarchical scale. And the result is self-
similarity, or the emergence of an axis of scale symmetry." So, the
Menger Sponge, like other such fractals, does indeed meet the
definition for a nested hierarchical pattern. It is just that the
fractal-type pattern of life is not quite the same as the NHP of a
Menger Sponge.
http://www.dichotomistic.com/hierarchies_fractals.html
> Since we agree that life is capable of common descent and could
> easily acquire its nested hierarchy that way, I don't see the point
> you're trying to make.
Life is capable of common descent and can indeed acquire a NHP along
the way all by itself - without any other input. Except . . . except
when it comes to unique key functional elements that were not already
in the original gene pool to begin with. These elements require the
input of ID and ID is not required to use CD as its only viable method
of producing NHPs.
You yourself admit that without the additional evidence of the fossil
record and your interpretation of geology, CD would not necessarily be
viable as a theory for life - despite the NHP of life. For example,
given that my catastrophic interpretation of the geologic column and
fossil record is correct, even you would admit that the CD theory
would hold little water for most scientists.
So, your notion that a NHP is in itself enough evidence to support the
theory of common descent is simply not true - by your own admission.
You need additional evidence beyond the pattern. For example, if you
have good evidence that all the features of the NHP in question could
be produced without the requirement of ID, CD is a perfectly valid
conclusion since non-deliberate processes do not seem to be able to
produce NHPs without the use of CD as mechanism. However, given the
ID was required for many of the key features of the pattern in
question, the theory of CD requires additional evidence to make it
tenable - to include evidence that enough time was available for CD to
act in producing the pattern. If the evidence suggests that the time
available time was too limited for CD to be viable, it would then be
most likely that ID chose to bypass many if not most of the CD steps
in the production of the NHP in question.
> > So, you see, a NHP, by itself, is not enough to assume common
> > descent. Some NHPs require the extensive input of ID for most if not
> > all of their key features. Such NHPs do not require the use of CD -
> > the laborious steps of which are often bypassed in real life.
>
> You still haven't presented an example of a nested hierarchy of the sort
> life makes -- in which the hierarchy is determined by the elements
> themselves, and is unique -- produced by methods other than common descent.
Fractals - like the work of M. C. Escher (see links) which show nested
hierarchical patterns, some of which are of the same types as that
produced in the patterns of life (where one part cannot replace
another the same emergent level:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/106/279764461_6487e08865.jpg
http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/d/d2/300px-Escher,_Metamorphosis_II.jpg
http://www.bowdoin.edu/news/archives/images/triangle_birds.jpg
http://fusionanomaly.net/mcescherdayandnight.jpg
http://www.bexley.k12.oh.us/hslib/curriculumlinks/poetry/escher%20sky%20&%20water%20I.jpg
http://luxton.blogware.com/_photos/Escher__s_Infinite_Circle___II_BY_STACY_REED_www.shedreamsindigital.net_NO_HOTLINKING_ALLOWEDa.jpg
Also various information systems qualify: like computer codes and
other language systems, the military power and functional differential
structure, etc.
> >>> You're the one who suggested that a designer who incorporates any
> >>> aspect of what can happen naturally into a particular work is being
> >>> "deceptive". You did use that word, "deceptive" - did you not?
> >>>
> >> Yes, but not in quite the way that your strawman above does it.
>
> > What is the key difference in your use of the term "deceptive"?
>
> Simply that not every imitation is an attempt to deceive.
And how can you tell what the motive was based on the imitation
itself? For example, not all human-made diamonds are made with the
intent to deceive - even when it comes to jewelry quality artifactual
diamonds.
> >>> I think that the minute detail required to produce the differences
> >>> between living things, and the overall beauty of their shared
> >>> interaction, took a great deal of care and creative genius. Whoever
> >>> created vast range of different interacting creatures in an overall
> >>> system that works and interacts with itself very closely, was very
> >>> interested in every aspect of this creation.
> >> Though not, apparently, in its geology. I wonder why that would be.
>
> > Geology does not *require* ID. You don't seem to understand the
> > concept of the ID-only hypothesis. The requirement for ID is
> > different than the potential for ID. The key differences of all
> > living things require ID while the key differences in geology do not.
>
> Wait. You're claiming that the formation of the earth was purely natural?
When it comes to stratigraphy - nature-only is very much a
possibility. ID was not *required* for this particular feature.
> Nor does nested hierarchy require ID.
Some NHP do require ID or they simply couldn't exist. That's the
whole point. Not all NHPs are the same. Life is one example. The
NHP exhibited in life could not exist at all without the input of ID.
If ID wasn't there, life and its NHP wouldn't be there either. This
is not true of stratigraphy were it would be there even if ID was
never involved.
> Only by conflating nested
> hierarchy with other, separate aspects
> of life and rolling them up into
> a big ball can you make your claim.
> It's a bait-and-switch. You say that
> some of the differences among
> organisms require ID, and assume that
> means that the nested hierarchy
> does too. But you offer no reason why
> that should be true.
Think about it this way, a pattern does not exist independent of the
object. Without the object, there is no pattern. The patterns
existence is dependent upon the object's existence. The objects
existence is not dependent upon the pattern's existence. Life could
exist without a NHP. However, the NHP of life could not exist
without the existence of living things.
Therefore, in this sense, if life requires ID, so does the NHP of
life. Does this requirement for ID exclude the use of CD as the
chosen mechanism? No. It doesn't. However, it also doesn't
necessitate the use of CD either. Once it can be shown that ID is
required for the phenomenon in question, the theory of CD must have
additional support beyond the pattern itself.
> >>> I do not see it as being
> >>> very likely that such obvious interest in minute detail and vast
> >>> creative genius would dilly dally around to figure things out as it
> >>> went along.
> >> So you are placing limits on god's creative process.
>
> > Not at all. God could have dilly dallied around all he wanted. I
> > just don't see that as likely given that we are the way we are and he
> > created us. I wouldn't like dilly dallying around too much if I was
> > actually interested in the final product of my interactive creation -
> > would you?
>
> So you're placing probabilities on what god would or wouldn't do. Why
> isn't that a limit?
It isn't a limitation because I'm not saying that God could not have
used CD. I'm saying that he could have reasonable chosen to skip most
of the CD steps. You are the one arguing that God would have to have
used CD to produce a NHP - that there is, essentially, no other
possible option besides CD. Do you not see that your argument,
compared to mine, is the one putting limits on ID?
< snip >
> > One doesn't usually put a great deal of creative effort into something
> > one doesn't care a lick about.
>
> What makes you think that an omnipotent being is capable of "effort".
> Isn't everything as easy as everything else to him? (This assumes
> omnipotence of course. If you want to deny that the creator is
> omnipotent, do so now and we'll modify the discussion.) The other
> counterargument here is that of course that what the creator appears to
> care most about is beetles, if we're going by what he put effort into.
This discussion really isn't about the actual identity of the creator
beyond the obvious fact that God was/is very intelligent and
creatively powerful. The notion of "omnipotence" really isn't at
issue here. The only issue at hand is if ID is required to use CD to
produce a NHP to a near certainty as you are proposing.
< snip >
> > I'm showing
> > you reasons why an intelligent designer could use a different process
> > besides common descent - reasons why an designer wouldn't necessarily
> > be as limited as you suggest.
>
> I have suggested no limits. You are the one suggesting limits. Your
> limits, however, make no sense.
How can you say this? You are the one saying that CD is the only
logical conclusion given a NHP - even given that ID was required to
produce all the key aspects of the pattern in question. How then can
you say that you are making no claims about the potential or limits of
the intelligent agent here?
> > You're the one suggesting limitations
> > here. I'm the one suggesting that not only can CD be used by ID,
> > other processes can and indeed are often used by ID to produce NHPs.
>
> Yet you still have not given a single example.
I've given you many examples. You have yet to produce a valid reason
why ID would have to choose CD to produce a NHP to a level of almost
absolute certainty?
> > Your notion is that the odds an intelligent designer would use any
> > other process besides CD are "essentially nil" are not backed up by
> > what we know of ID. Intelligent agents, even human ones, are not
> > limited by what limits non-deliberate processes of nature. Even we
> > humans can go beyond the restricted us of CD to produce NHP - and we
> > often do. Why? Because, obviously, it's quicker and less wasteful of
> > resources. From the perspective of God, it seems reasonable that it
> > would also be less wasteful of unnecessary pain and suffering of the
> > sentient creatures he had spent a great deal of creative effort
> > producing.
>
> To repeat:
>
> 1. This assumes that the creator is capable of creative effort, and so
> is not omnipotent. If you want to make that claim explicitly, do so.
This discussion is only about ID - not the actual identity or
capabilities or resources of the ID agent beyond the fact that this
agent was very intelligent.
> 2. This is the creator who, in order to punish sinful humanity, caused a
> worldwide flood that killed every living thing not on the ark. And
> you're talking about waste?
If you want to get Biblical here, this act is presented, not as a
punishment as much as a salvation to humanity. Humanity, according to
the Biblical account, was about to self-destruct in total self-
annihilation. "The thoughts of the hearts of man were only evil
continually and the Earth was filled with pain". If you have a
situation on your hands were you have a colony of liars, murders,
rapists and all manner of those who love doing the most cruel and
heartless things that they can think of to each other, what is the
most loving thing to do in such a situation? What would you do?
> 3. Who are you to say what god would or would not do, or what would be
> reasonable for him to do?
There's a difference in presenting what an intelligent agent could do
vs. what they would have to do. I'm presenting what God could have
done while you are presenting what you think he would have to have
done. There seems to me to be a difference here.
> 4. What evidence do you have that the creator's interest lies in
> avoiding pain and suffering?
Actually, to be honest, I think there is more than one very
intelligent creator at work in this world - to include humanity
itself. Some creators are good while others are very evil. Some
creators deliberately set out to produce pain and suffering while
others work against it. Clear evidence for both is evident in this
world.
The Bible, in particular, refers to this dichotomy of motive as the
great controversy between good and evil (Christ and Satan if you want
to personify those concepts).
> Life, in fact, seems admirably designed to
> demonstrate pain and suffering. How
> do you know that's not a major
> purpose? Remember the caterpillar?
I personally do not believe that was the original intent of at least
the primary designer of life. I think that pain and suffering that
now exists is due largely to degenerative and parasitic effects as
well as the deliberate "survival of the fittest" mentality of many
evil people in this world.
> >>> Why should he not care about
> >>> how he created sentient creatures?
> >>
> >> Why should he? What evidence is there that he would? I thought your
> >> designer was an unspecified entity or entities, possibly even space aliens.
>
> > Could be - but not very likely given the degree of effort that went
> > into producing the vast array of life that exists and has existed on
> > this planet.
>
> You didn't answer the question. What if he produced all these sentient
> creatures exactly so he could observe their pain and suffering as well
> as their other behavior, for example?
I did answer this question. The answer is that this is certainly a
possibility. ID can be used for evil as well as for good. There is
evidence for both in this world.
< snip >
> >>> Common descent doesn't "just happen". That's the problem. All of the
> >>> key differences of every living thing require ID.
> >> You really can't separate the two in your mind, even for an instant, can
> >> you? Key differences are not common descent. Common descent is the tree.
>
> > No. Common descent is a mechanism. It isn't the tree.
>
> Yes it is. Let's separate the tree from the hierarchy, which is a
> pattern in the data. The tree (which is a history of branching descent)
> does indeed produce the pattern.
This is just semantics. I call it the mechanism of CD while you call
it the "tree" or history of CD. They both mean the same thing.
> Now what "the two" are really should be clear by now. There is the
> nested hierarchical pattern made by characters, and there is the
> characters themselves. You are confusing those two. You say that if the
> characters are created, that is very good evidence that the hierarchy
> was created too.
That's not quite what I said. What I said was that if each emergent
branch in the tree required the input of ID, then it is quite possible
that CD was not required, contrary to your suggestion, to produce the
NHP. I did not say that it CD could not be used or was not used - it
is just possible that it was not used. Additional evidence beyond the
pattern itself is now required given that ID is known to have been
involved.
> But you have no reason for this claim. It's quite
> possible to have a system in which every single character was created
> but the hierarchy evolved naturally, on a branching tree. This is
> exactly what Michael Behe claims, for instance.
That's right. It is indeed quite possible - it just isn't required
like you suggest. If I believed in the interpretation for the fossil
record and geologic column that you and Behe believe in, I'd also
believe in the theory of common descent. The problem here isn't with
the pattern itself. CD is not a requirement or overwhelming
conclusion based on the pattern alone. The reason why you and Behe
believe so strongly in the theory of common descent is based primarily
on your interpretation of the fossil record and geologic column - not
just the NHP of life.
> >>>> I agree that we can't say what god would or would not do. So why are you
> >>>> so sure he didn't use common descent?
> >>> Why are you so sure that he did?
> >> Simply because that's the simplest interpretation of the evidence,
> >> notably that nested hierarchy.
>
> > That is indeed the overwhelming interpretation of the evidence only
> > from a non-intelligent perspective - not from an ID perspective.
>
> ID makes no difference, which is why you have never been able to justify
> your claim.
ID makes a big difference. ID opens the door to the possibility of
skipping CD steps. Without ID, this isn't a feasible possibility.
Adding in this possibility is a big difference that requires
additional evidence to adequately counter.
> > You are talking about the evidence of the pattern alone here - not any
> > additional evidence of apparent time. Given the pattern of a NHP
> > alone, Last Thursdayism doesn't apply.
>
> That made no sense. I'm merely saying that an intelligent designer
> wouldn't feel obligated to use the natural "time passes" method in
> creating a world that looks more than a week old. If appearances have no
> value as evidence (which is what you're saying whether you realize it or
> not), anything can be true.
You make an erroneous conclusion that one feature is enough to make
conclusions regarding the origin of the entire object or phenomenon.
That's just not a very intuitive or even scientific way of thinking.
Given your rational here, the statue of David, because it looks like a
human male, is a human male and had similar origins to human males.
Forget the fact that it is made out of marble! Hello! One feature of
an object or phenomenon does not discount the other features that also
play a part in determining its origins.
> >> But we don't
> >> have to go all the way along that path. It's enough to note again that
> >> this applies equally to stratigraphy; why should an intelligent designer
> >> feel obligated to go through all that tedious erosion, deposition, etc.
> >> when producing the otherwise "natural" pattern of layered rocks?
>
> > Because, as I've explained several times before now, no aspect of the
> > layered rocks requires ID - unlike the key differences in the pattern
> > of life.
>
> This is only because you feel free to define for yourself the boundaries
> of any given system, as convenient. You say that the key differences and
> the nested hierarchy are all part of a single entity, indivisible, which
> must therefore share the feature of having been designed. But I say they
> aren't. I say they're separable, which should be obvious. I have
> explained, over and over, how they're separable. There are people who
> actually hold the theory that key differences were created but the
> hierarchy was not, e.g. Michael Behe. Is Behe's position logically
> inconsistent? If not, you can't make the claim you do.
Behe's position is logically consistent, because his position is not
based on the pattern alone - but on his interpretation of the geologic
column and fossil record in addition to the NHP of life.
> Now you feel free to suppose that the earth was created, but
> stratigraphy was not. Why? Formally, earth/stratigraphy is identical to
> life/hierarchy. The only difference is that you want to believe one but
> not the other.
One requires the input of ID for all of its key features while the
other does not. How on Earth can you say that these two phenomena are
identical? They aren't. They are fundamentally different.
> By the way, what about those differences that aren't "key"? You agree
> that they could have been evolved. But according to your beliefs, they
> must have been directly created too. Is that correct?
That's not correct - as you should know by now. As I've stated many
times in this forum, and to you directly many times (starting several
years ago), novel functional and non-functional genetic differences
can and do evolve all the time. These differences can be explained
completely by common descent given the pattern alone because ID is not
*required* to explain any aspect of their existence.
< snip repetitive >
> > The thing is, you can't build a circle until you have a point and you
> > can't build a column until you have a line (geometrically). In other
> > words, you can't go 2D before you have 1D and you can't go 3D before
> > you have the right 2D shape. You might be able to build a bunch of 2D
> > circles before you build the columns, but this is just one step that
> > happens to be interchangeable with another step. And, you can't build
> > on top of the columns with other columns in horizontal or vertical
> > arrangement until you have the first layer columns in place.
>
> > The same thing is true in representing the Tree of Life. Some things
> > have to come before others, but not everything.
>
> I have no idea what you think you are saying about the tree of life.
> It's not a matter of procedural necessity, merely a matter of the order
> in which things happen to have happened. Fish appear in the tree before
> mammals, which appear before whales. You can't rearrange the tree so
> that mammals are a subgroup of whales. It just doesn't fit that way.
It could be if the fossil record was thought to show that fish evolved
into whales, which then evolved into land-dwelling creatures. It is
all based on the fossil record and geologic column - not necessarily
the pattern itself.
< snip >
> > The NHP of military command or other forms of government or political
> > organization, fractals like Sierpinski's Gasket or the Menger Sponge,
> > and yes, colonnades, the Parthenon, and other geometrically based
> > architectural designs, paintings, and even musical compositions. Even
> > language systems are build on a NHP and can be produced without the
> > use of CD. Sure, most language systems have elements of CD. However,
> > language can be developed without the use of CD. For example, twin
> > infants have been known to develop their own language system de novo,
> > without the need for the slow evolution of meaning for words and
> > phrases over time. It is done by arbitrary definition. Sounds are
> > used to build words which are used to build phrases which are used to
> > build sentences - all in a NHP which doesn't need CD to achieve.
>
> None of these are nested hierarchies of the sort we see in life. They
> are all arbitrary hierarchies. As the passages you quoted at the
> beginning (and apparently have not read) say, "You just can't mix and
> match the branches or twigs of the tree of life without really screwing
> things up".
I didn't quote that passage - I wrote that myself.
You see, you are now putting qualifications on the NHP. A tree where
the branches and twigs can be interchanged does meet the definition of
a NHP. It just isn't the type of NHP that is seen in the "Tree of
Life". A military hierarchy is however, and so is a language/
information system. Not all "brigades" in the army do the same job
and neither do all "captains" or "lieutenants". There are unique
"branches" in the military hierarchy that are on the same level -
branches and twigs that cannot be interchanged without being way out
of place.
> > I have never disclaimed analogies to human processes. I used such
> > analogies all the time myself since it is the most at-hand example of
> > ID that we have. Also, you don't seem to mind when elements are
> > borrowed and combined between creatures in evolutionary story
> > telling. You don't seem to mind the story of reptiles gaining
> > feathers. You wouldn't mind if some "mammals" had feathers either.
>
> Move to strike. Assumes a conclusion not in evidence.
Are you telling me that if mammals did have feathers that you think
that the CD theory would vanish on that one feature alone? Give me a
break! The overall pattern would still be the same and some story-
telling explanation that it is a "primitive" feature would be
presented - the same as egg-laying mammals do not overturn the CD
theory.
< snip repetitive >
> > The stratigraphic layering is not a feature of the Earth that
> > *requires* ID. Life is a feature of this Earth that does *require* ID
> > at every emergent step.
>
> See how you have conflated the nested hierarchy with life itself?
Again, the NHP of life wouldn't exist without life existing. Life can
exist without the NHP, but the NHP of life cannot exist without life.
Patterns are not entities to themselves. They depend on the existence
of something else that creates them.
< snip >
> >> This is a digression. Motives are sinister if they are sinister. If, for
> >> example, you make a diamond in the lab and try to sell it as a natural
> >> diamond, that's a sinister motive. A god who creates a pattern that is
> >> most easily interpreted as being natural is hiding his existence; if
> >> acceptance of that existence is important to us, that's sinister behavior.
>
> > LOL - Was Michelangelo hiding his existence by carving the statue of
> > David?
>
> No. It was obviously a statue.
So is the pattern of life an obvious imitation of a natural pattern.
One is no more "sinister" than the other - aside from those who are
somehow fooled into thinking that something as obvious as a marble
statue is somehow an attempt pass off a fake as the real thing.
> > Or is a painter who paints a natural scene "hiding" his/her
> > existence?
>
> No. It's obviously a painting.
And life is just as "obviously" designed.
> > Please! That's a bizarre argument. God's existence is
> > clear in his creation, especially of life, because of those elements
> > of life that cannot be explained or "copied" by nature - which are
> > numerous.
>
> I agree, if we accept your assumption. I misspoke. What I should have
> said is not that he's hiding his existence, but that he's hiding his
> method of creation.
He is not hiding the fact that his method required ID.
> > Looking at just one aspect of a creation and saying that
> > the entire creation is obviously natural is unreasonable.
>
> I agree. Sorry for the error.
Ok . . .
> > Do SETI
> > scientists only look at one aspect
> > of radiosignals in their search for
> > ETI? Of course not.
>
> Actually, my understanding is that they do. But never mind.
Natural processes can make radiowaves - all of which share the
property of being "radiowaves". So, a different property of
radiowaves besides that which is common to all must be considered if
ID is going to be found producing a radiosignal.
> >>> Also, where on Earth do you get this idea of some sort of "penalty" of
> >>> "eternal damnation" for believing in common descent or any other
> >>> aspect of evolutionary thought? That's also nonsense. No God that is
> >>> actually worth worshiping would be so petty.
> >> I agree. But creationists generally don't. I'm pleasantly surprised that
> >> you don't believe in Hell.
>
> > I do believe in Hell. I don't believe in Hell like many who call
> > themselves Christians believe in Hell, but I do believe in a final
> > judgment of evil people. I just don't believe that being honestly
> > wrong is evil.
>
> Really? So I'll go to heaven despite my atheism?
Yep . . .
> (Assuming for the sake
> of argument that I'm not evil.) Isn't that heresy?
Not in my book. If you are a good honest person as an atheist, I hope
you live close to me in heaven. We could be neighbors! ; )
> >>> No one is going to be
> >>> lost for being honestly tricked into believing the wrong thing. The
> >>> only evil that someone can be truly accused of is the evil of knowing
> >>> what is right and deliberately doing the opposite. For example, say
> >>> that you know it is wrong to murder, but you decide that your wife's
> >>> life insurance is just too tempting so you do it anyway. Now that, my
> >>> friend, is evil by anyone's definition of the term.
> >>> It is for true evil, not for honestly believing the wrong thing, that
> >>> we will be judged.
> >> That seems like heresy to me. I thought that nobody who didn't believe
> >> in Jesus as his own personal savior could go to heaven, regardless of
> >> good works. But this is a digression.
>
> > I believe there will be a lot of very surprised atheists in heaven -
> > don't you?
>
> No. Of course not. I believe there will be a lot of unsurprised
> Christians who no longer exist, anywhere. Just like the rest of us, when
> we're dead.
I'm talking about if I'm right and you're wrong - about the existence
of God and of heaven. If, for argument's sake, there was a God and a
heaven, how would you like it set up? Would you think it at all
reasonable to exclude the honest atheist from eternal life and
happiness just for a honest mistake?
> > St. Paul says as much himself when he says that "when
The Bible describes the eternal loss of the wicked, but not anything
like "eternal hell". The Bible says that the final end of the wicked
will reduce them to "ashes underfoot" and "never will they be any
more". They will be dead and gone - forever. This will be of their
own choice since they will hate God with such a passion for
interfering with their murderous desires that they will desire
anything but to exist in his presence or with anyone who opposes their
hateful lifestyle. If they could be redeemed or changed in character,
they will be saved. Only those who have made a permanent choice will
be permanently lost. And, no one will be lost without who actually
wants to be in heaven with God and the other's who want to live non-
hateful lives. It's going to be a freewill choice - heaven or eternal
death.
Again, which is more merciful, to keep those alive whose only goal is
to cause suffering and pain to others (and really themselves as well)
or to offer these souls the option of non-existence as a free choice?
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
John Harshman
...what appears to be identical to his previous post. Try having a
little bit more patience.
(Do as I say, not as I do.)
John Harshman
> On Mar 1, 10:26 pm, "R. Baldwin" <res0k...@nozirevBACKWARDS.net>
> wrote:
>
> < snip >
>
>>> For example, let's say, for argument's sake, that God knew of some
>>> other system of life somewhere else in his universe which he had in
>>> fact developed over a long period of time using common descent. Let's
>>> say that he essentially copied that other pattern, with a few minor
>>> changes, and placed it here on this Earth completely intact with all
>>> the elements in place all at once. According to your position, this
>>> system of life would be based on common descent - right? But, it
>>> really wouldn't be based on common descent in the same way John
>>> Harshman is arguing for. John is arguing that the NHP exhibited by
>>> the Tree of Life on this planet is evidence, in itself, of CD on this
>>> planet in the development of life on this planet over time - on this
>>> planet. He is not arguing for the evolution of the idea of the
>>> pattern over time via CD, which then can be placed intact here and
>>> there. That's not what he is arguing. He is arguing that the NHP is
>>> evidence of common descent for the particular system in question.
>> Are you certain this is Harshman's argument? I don't seem to find that
>> argument in his posts here.
>
> This is exactly John's argument. He is suggesting that the NHP
> itself, by itself, without any other evidence or history, is evidence
> of common descent for the particular pattern in question.
Yes, that's what I'm arguing. I do make the auxiliary assumption that
nobody is consciously simulating common descent, just as I make the
assumption that nobody is consciously simulating any other natural
process, for example sedimentation. Hey, you make that assumption too.
>> Certainly, a LACK of a nested hierarchy would be
>> evidence AGAINST common descent.
>
> That's not entirely true. You do know that the earliest roots of life
> show a mixed pattern that is not nested. Yet, it is still believed
> that this non-nested pattern was in fact the result of CD. But, that's
> a side issue. It isn't what is being discussed here.
Right. Lack of a nested hierarchy would be evidence against the sort of
common descent we are discussing here: branching without reticulation.
This is true often enough that we can afford to consider the exceptions
as just that -- exceptions, to be handled specially. Thus hybrid species
are easy to spot, because they occupy two places on the tree. The root
of the tree of life is similarly confused, though harder to get a clear
picture of.
As Sean agrees, not relevant.
Seanpit
wrote:
You should know by now that Google Groups is having troubles. Getting
a post through is hit or miss these days. So, when a post doesn't
show up after a couple of days, I repost it. I can't help it if the
original post eventually shows up . . .
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Seanpit
wrote:
< snip >
> > I'm just saying that homoplastic or "convergent" features are not
> > beyond the ToCD.
>
> I should hope not. So?
Hollow quills have been reported in a specimen of Psittacosaurus from
Liaoning. These hollow quills are thought to be precursors to
feathers. According to Wiki, "It is not known with certainty at what
point in archosaur phylogeny the earliest simple 'protofeathers'
arose, or if they arose once or, independently, multiple times."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feathered_dinosaurs
Yet, you argue that something as complex as a feather would be
unlikely to evolve independently - i.e., without common descent? You
wrote that independent feather evolution would be "highly unlikely
considering the complex nature of the structure." - did you not?
Perhaps you should inform the author(s) of this wiki article? A
recent article in Nature also suggests that the "compsognathid
affinity for Juravenator suggests that feathers evolved
independently . . . " or at least that this is a potential
explanation. In an National Geographic articule "Xu proposes that
feathers may have evolved independently several times in similar
groups of dinosaurs."
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7082/full/440287a.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/03/0315_060315_dinosaur_2.html
I guess these guys just don't know that their notions of the
independent evolution of such a complex structure would be so unlikely
as to be unbelievable?
What do you think would happen if Pegasus did actually exist and
porcupines were found deep in the fossil record? You don't think
there would be some sort of story telling about how hollow porcupine
quills eventually evolved in the pinions of Pegasus? If you think
this unlikely - just read a bit more about the various stories and
suggestions of independent feather evolution in dinosaurs.
The explanations of "primitive" vs. "derived" or "convergent" vs.
"divergent" are quite handy - even as ad hoc explanations when the
need arises.
> >>> Again, common descent is only a fairly perfect expectation given a NHP
> >>> of the type that can be produced by a non-deliberate process. A
> >>> highly symmetrical Menger Sponge carved into the material of, say,
> >>> granite would be an example of a NHP that could only have been the
> >>> result of ID and is unlikely to have required the use of common
> >>> descent in the development of the NHP in this particular situation.
> >> A highly symmetrical Menger Sponge isn't an example of nested hierarchy
> >> at all.
>
> > Yes, it is. By definition, "nested hierarchies involve levels which
> > consist of, and contain, lower levels." Fractals, like the Menger
> > Sponge, "are fabricated by the repetition of some geometric act over a
> > nested succession of hierarchical scale. And the result is self-
> > similarity, or the emergence of an axis of scale symmetry." So, the
> > Menger Sponge, like other such fractals, does indeed meet the
> > definition for a nested hierarchical pattern. It is just that the
> > fractal-type pattern of life is not quite the same as the NHP of a
> > Menger Sponge.
>
> This is not a nested hierarchy because the repetitions do not contain
> subsequent repetitions.
"Fractals . . . are fabricated by the repetition of some geometric act
over a nested succession of hierarchical scale. And the result is self-
similarity, or the emergence of an axis of scale symmetry."
http://www.dichotomistic.com/hierarchies_fractals.html
Fractals, by definition, form nested hierarchies. Of course, there
are different kinds of fractals and therefore NHPs. Not all are the
type of fractal structures formed by the patterns of life.
> And we can agree that it's nothing like the
> nested hierarchy of life.
It shares a particular feature with the NHP of life in that it is also
a NHP. It is just that the NHP of life is a different type of NHP.
> >http://www.dichotomistic.com/hierarchies_fractals.html
>
> >> Since we agree that life is capable of common descent and could
> >> easily acquire its nested hierarchy that way, I don't see the point
> >> you're trying to make.
>
> > Life is capable of common descent and can indeed acquire a NHP along
> > the way all by itself - without any other input. Except . . . except
> > when it comes to unique key functional elements that were not already
> > in the original gene pool to begin with. These elements require the
> > input of ID and ID is not required to use CD as its only viable method
> > of producing NHPs.
>
> But it could. The source of key functional elements has nothing to do
> with generating a nested hierarchy.
It does have something to do with it because the inclusion of ID opens
a door that is not available without ID. Because ID presents the non-
CD option, other factors must now be considered before CD is accepted
as the most likely option - such as the amount of time available to
produce the pattern and the historical evidence of pattern progression
or evolution. It is not enough anymore to simply look at the pattern
itself and determine CD once ID is known to be extensively involved.
> > You yourself admit that without the additional evidence of the fossil
> > record and your interpretation of geology, CD would not necessarily be
> > viable as a theory for life - despite the NHP of life.
>
> I admit no such thing. You have me confused with someone else. What I
> admit is that the fossil record adds some interesting further
> confirmation from an independent source, but in fact we can show common
> descent conclusively without any recourse to fossils.
If you will recall, you wrote:
"I would agree that if there were strong evidence for a recent
origin of life that would argue against common descent."
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/7b14e5f2168ead95
You admit here that the time element is important to your ToCD.
> > For example,
> > given that my catastrophic interpretation of the geologic column and
> > fossil record is correct, even you would admit that the CD theory
> > would hold little water for most scientists.
>
> Ah, that's different. *With* the additional evidence that the world is
> only 6000 years old, I would have a hard time explaining the nested
> hierarchy of life. I would have to say that I had no idea how it got
> there. Fortunately there is no such evidence.
There you have it. You just admitted, yet again, that the time
element is important to your theory of CD. Without what you consider
viable evidence for the existence of life on this planet for hundreds
of millions of years, an the proposed progression of the pattern of
life in the fossil record, the NHP, by itself, would simply not be
enough to support the CD hypothesis. You do in fact need additional
evidence to support it to a useful degree.
This is in fact the basis for the CD theories of language development
and evolution. Given the pattern, by itself, with additional evidence
that ID was involved - your conclusion would be that you "have no
idea". That's really not much of a scientific position as far as I
can tell.
So, by your own admission your notion that a NHP is essentially
equivalent to CD by itself, even given evidence that ID was involved
in its production, is false.
> > So, your notion that a NHP is in itself enough evidence to support the
> > theory of common descent is simply not true - by your own admission.
>
> You have confused being enough evidence all by itself with the
> possibility that contradictory evidence might refute it.
You don't believe in CD = NHP for the tree of life because of the
pattern itself - by itself. You believe in this notion because you
also believe that there is a preserved progression in the fossil
record that took hundreds of millions of years to produce. Without
this fossil evidence or any other evidence to support the extended
time that your theory needs, the ID produced system, really wouldn't
support the ToCD very well.
> > You need additional evidence beyond the pattern. For example, if you
> > have good evidence that all the features of the NHP in question could
> > be produced without the requirement of ID, CD is a perfectly valid
> > conclusion since non-deliberate processes do not seem to be able to
> > produce NHPs without the use of CD as mechanism.
>
> And we have good evidence of that.
That's an entirely different discussion from the point at hand. Now
you are moving into the question of why I spend so much time on
demonstrating the ID requirement . . .
> The nested hierarchical pattern
> doesn't need ID at all, as you have agreed.
When it comes to higher levels of functional complexity, this isn't
true. It is only true if you are talking about functionally
simplistic fractal-type differences.
> Whether any of the features
> composing that hierarchy needed ID
> is a separate question, though you
> seem unable to comprehend this.
You seem unable to comprehend that a pattern cannot exist independent
of the system. Life could exist without a NHP. However, the opposite
is not true. The NHP of life cannot exist without the existence of
life. Without the existence of the system, the pattern cannot exist.
Therefore, for higher-level systems that require ID, the pattern of
such systems also cannot exist without ID.
> > However, given the
> > ID was required for many of the key features of the pattern in
> > question,
>
> No, those aren't key features of the pattern. The pattern is separate
> from the features that show the pattern.
The pattern is somewhat separate, but not completely. Again, the
pattern cannot exist without the creation of the physical differences.
> > the theory of CD requires additional evidence to make it
> > tenable - to include evidence that enough time was available for CD to
> > act in producing the pattern. If the evidence suggests that the time
> > available time was too limited for CD to be viable, it would then be
> > most likely that ID chose to bypass many if not most of the CD steps
> > in the production of the NHP in question.
>
> Yes, if creationism were correct, there would be evidence that
> creationism was correct.
That's right . . . beyond the fact that there is a NHP. The same
thing is true for the ToE and the ToCD.
> >>> So, you see, a NHP, by itself, is not enough to assume common
> >>> descent. Some NHPs require the extensive input of ID for most if not
> >>> all of their key features. Such NHPs do not require the use of CD -
> >>> the laborious steps of which are often bypassed in real life.
> >>>
> >> You still haven't presented an example of a nested hierarchy of the sort
> >> life makes -- in which the hierarchy is determined by the elements
> >> themselves, and is unique -- produced by methods other than common descent.
>
> > Fractals - like the work of M. C. Escher (see links) which show nested
> > hierarchical patterns, some of which are of the same types as that
> > produced in the patterns of life (where one part cannot replace
> > another the same emergent level:
>
> >http://farm1.static.flickr.com/106/279764461_6487e08865.jpg
> >http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/d/d2/300px-Escher...
> >http://www.bowdoin.edu/news/archives/images/triangle_birds.jpg
> >http://fusionanomaly.net/mcescherdayandnight.jpg
> >http://www.bexley.k12.oh.us/hslib/curriculumlinks/poetry/escher%20sky...
> >http://luxton.blogware.com/_photos/Escher__s_Infinite_Circle___II_BY_...
>
> > Also various information systems qualify: like computer codes and
> > other language systems, the military power and functional differential
> > structure, etc.
>
> None of these qualify. We couldn't look at the individual elements,
> divorced from any grand pattern, and use them to reconstruct the pattern
> itself.
Yes, you can. The elements of the military hierarchy, for example,
are nested and unique. They can be taken individually, one at a time,
and put back together to form essentially the same pattern - just like
with the tree of life.
> >>>>> You're the one who suggested that a designer who incorporates any
> >>>>> aspect of what can happen naturally into a particular work is being
> >>>>> "deceptive". You did use that word, "deceptive" - did you not?
>
> >>>> Yes, but not in quite the way that your strawman above does it.
> >>> What is the key difference in your use of the term "deceptive"?
> >> Simply that not every imitation is an attempt to deceive.
>
> > And how can you tell what the motive was based on the imitation
> > itself? For example, not all human-made diamonds are made with the
> > intent to deceive - even when it comes to jewelry quality artifactual
> > diamonds.
>
> That would depend on the nature of the imitation. We could make a good
> guess. Given an imitation Gucci bag, what would you infer about the
> motives of the manufacturer?
What in nature has brand-name copyrights? Hmmmm? Come on now. Your
notion that anyone who copies this or that aspect of nature must be
doing something sinister is just nonsense.
> > When it comes to stratigraphy - nature-only is very much a
> > possibility. ID was not *required* for this particular feature.
>
> Exactly, just as when it comes to the nested hierarchy, nature-only is
> very much a possibility. ID was not *required* for this particular feature.
That's not what I'm talking about here. What I said was that ID was
not required for any aspect of stratigraphy, but is required for every
key difference in the tree of life. You are arguing that even given
the ID requirement that the particular overall NHP appearance, in
particular, of the tree still does not require ID. That's true just
like it is true for differences in the various Latin-based language
systems that exist. However, the fact that ID is required for the
various key differences puts such NHP into a different class compared
to those NHP that do not require the input of ID for any aspect of
their structure.
< snip >
> > Think about it this way, a pattern does not exist independent of the
> > object. Without the object, there is no pattern. The patterns
> > existence is dependent upon the object's existence. The objects
> > existence is not dependent upon the pattern's existence. Life could
> > exist without a NHP. However, the NHP of life could not exist
> > without the existence of living things.
>
> Yes. And the earth could exist without stratigraphic layers, but the
> layers could not exist without the earth.
Exactly . . . The pattern is not independent of the object while the
object may exist independent of a particular pattern. Objects that
requires ID are different and open up different possibilities as far
as origins are concerned, to include the origin of the various
patterns that might be present, vs. those objects that do not require
ID to explain any particular feature - as in stratigraphic layers.
> > Therefore, in this sense, if life requires ID, so does the NHP of
> > life. Does this requirement for ID exclude the use of CD as the
> > chosen mechanism? No. It doesn't. However, it also doesn't
> > necessitate the use of CD either. Once it can be shown that ID is
> > required for the phenomenon in question, the theory of CD must have
> > additional support beyond the pattern itself.
>
> So if it's shown that ID is required for the earth to exist, the theory
> of natural stratigraphy must have additional support beyond the pattern
> itself?
If it shown that some aspect of stratigraphic layering itself requires
ID, then yes, additional evidence must be presented to show that the
pattern of stratigraphy was also naturally produced.
< snip >
> >> 1. This assumes that the creator is capable of creative effort, and so
> >> is not omnipotent. If you want to make that claim explicitly, do so.
>
> > This discussion is only about ID - not the actual identity or
> > capabilities or resources of the ID agent beyond the fact that this
> > agent was very intelligent.
>
> Typical. You refuse to examine the implications of your claims. For some
> reason we're not allowed to.
I not averse to examining the philosophical and religious implications
of my positions. It is just that this isn't what the basic theory of
ID is about. Additional theories that are based on ID Theory do in
fact go beyond ID Theory, but I didn't think you wanted to really get
into that.
> >> 2. This is the creator who, in order to punish sinful humanity, caused a
> >> worldwide flood that killed every living thing not on the ark. And
> >> you're talking about waste?
>
> > If you want to get Biblical here, this act is presented, not as a
> > punishment as much as a salvation to humanity.
>
> Except for all the dead ones, of course. Was it salvation for the
> animals too?
Yes - it was. Some are suggesting that modern humans are heading for
a similar fate - a destruction of the world on such a scale that not
only is humanity in real danger of self-annihilation, but so are many
species of animals as well.
> > Humanity, according to
> > the Biblical account, was about to self-destruct in total self-
> > annihilation.
>
> It says no such thing.
Yes, it does.
> > "The thoughts of the hearts of man were only evil
> > continually and the Earth was filled with pain". If you have a
> > situation on your hands were you have a colony of liars, murders,
> > rapists and all manner of those who love doing the most cruel and
> > heartless things that they can think of to each other, what is the
> > most loving thing to do in such a situation? What would you do?
>
> Yes, you're right. I'd kill them all. Hey, the world looks pretty bad
> today. Why not kill them all too?
It's getting close to a point where it may happen all by itself.
> >> 3. Who are you to say what god would or would not do, or what would be
> >> reasonable for him to do?
>
> > There's a difference in presenting what an intelligent agent could do
> > vs. what they would have to do. I'm presenting what God could have
> > done while you are presenting what you think he would have to have
> > done. There seems to me to be a difference here.
>
> Ah, but you weren't talking about what he could do. You were talking
> about what he probably would do. And I said nothing about what he would
> have to have done; that's your strawman.
I was talking about what would be reasonable for an intelligent agent
to do by comparison . . .
> >> 4. What evidence do you have that the creator's interest lies in
> >> avoiding pain and suffering?
>
> > Actually, to be honest, I think there is more than one very
> > intelligent creator at work in this world - to include humanity
> > itself. Some creators are good while others are very evil. Some
> > creators deliberately set out to produce pain and suffering while
> > others work against it. Clear evidence for both is evident in this
> > world.
>
> Ah, so Satan is creative.
Yep - and so are you.
> Another heresy.
Where do you get your notions of "heresy"?
> And I see you have dodged the question.
How was my answer a "dodge"?
> > The Bible, in particular, refers to this dichotomy of motive as the
> > great controversy between good and evil (Christ and Satan if you want
> > to personify those concepts).
>
> >> Life, in fact, seems admirably designed to
> >> demonstrate pain and suffering. How
> >> do you know that's not a major
> >> purpose? Remember the caterpillar?
>
> > I personally do not believe that was the original intent of at least
> > the primary designer of life. I think that pain and suffering that
> > now exists is due largely to degenerative and parasitic effects as
> > well as the deliberate "survival of the fittest" mentality of many
> > evil people in this world.
>
> Parasitism of wasps on caterpillars is due to evil humans?
In a round about way - yes. According to the Bible, the deliberate
rebellion of mankind against the original plan of God for humanity was
a request on the part of man for God to remove himself and his plans
from our lives and from our planet. We chose a new path and a new
guiding light or morality as a collective group. This new path, and
the removal of God from overall control and high-level sustenance of
this planet and everything on it, resulted in a decline in not only
the human condition, but also the condition of all of nature as well.
Since the moral fall of mankind, the Bible states that "All of nature
travails together in pain until now". The effects of decay, death,
predation, parasitism, and genetic deterioration set in. We have yet
to be able to reverse the effects of this constant decay on this
planet. All of life is devolving, not evolving. We are actually
getting worse and worse over time - us and all of life on this planet
- more and more diseased and less informationally rich.
> >>>>> Why should he not care about
> >>>>> how he created sentient creatures?
> >>>> Why should he? What evidence is there that he would? I thought your
> >>>> designer was an unspecified entity or entities, possibly even space aliens.
> >>> Could be - but not very likely given the degree of effort that went
> >>> into producing the vast array of life that exists and has existed on
> >>> this planet.
> >> You didn't answer the question. What if he produced all these sentient
> >> creatures exactly so he could observe their pain and suffering as well
> >> as their other behavior, for example?
>
> > I did answer this question. The answer is that this is certainly a
> > possibility. ID can be used for evil as well as for good. There is
> > evidence for both in this world.
>
> So your original argument breaks down, doesn't it?
How is that?
< snip >
> >> Now what "the two" are really should be clear by now. There is the
> >> nested hierarchical pattern made by characters, and there is the
> >> characters themselves. You are confusing those two. You say that if the
> >> characters are created, that is very good evidence that the hierarchy
> >> was created too.
>
> > That's not quite what I said. What I said was that if each emergent
> > branch in the tree required the input of ID, then it is quite possible
> > that CD was not required, contrary to your suggestion, to produce the
> > NHP. I did not say that it CD could not be used or was not used - it
> > is just possible that it was not used. Additional evidence beyond the
> > pattern itself is now required given that ID is known to have been
> > involved.
>
> That's silly. No branch required the input of ID.
That's what the argument is about. I say that all the major branches
required the input of ID. That is what my whole non-beneficial gaps
argument is about.
> At most, certain
> features required the input of ID.
Certain features that go beyond the 1000aa threshold. That includes
just all the significant branches of the ToL.
> Those aren't branches and they aren't
> the tree.
You make no sense here. The branches of the ToL branch off from each
other when certain key functional differences are introduced - by
ID.
> CD of course is not required, since god can do anything he
> wants.
Exactly . . .
> Similarly, natural processes are not required to produce
> stratigraphic layers.
The difference is that stratigraphic layers do not require ID in any
aspect - life does.
> But when you're talking about layers, you say that
> since ID was not required, you think it wasn't used.
ID is not required for any aspect of stratigraphic layering. ID is
required for all the key functional differences in living things.
> You don't say that
> it's possible it wasn't used, or that you can't say it was used.
That's exactly what I say.
> This
> asymmetry in conclusion from data of identical form needs an
> explanation. I know the explanation, but you won't admit it, so you go
> around and around. Of course, if you were being consistent, you would
> say that because the stratigraphic layers could have been produced by
> fiat creation, additional evidence beyond that of the layers is required
> given that ID is known to have been involved in the creation of the earth.
Additional evidence is available suggesting that no feature of
stratigraphic layering requires the input of ID. This is not true for
living things.
> >> But you have no reason for this claim. It's quite
> >> possible to have a system in which every single character was created
> >> but the hierarchy evolved naturally, on a branching tree. This is
> >> exactly what Michael Behe claims, for instance.
>
> > That's right. It is indeed quite possible - it just isn't required
> > like you suggest. If I believed in the interpretation for the fossil
> > record and geologic column that you and Behe believe in, I'd also
> > believe in the theory of common descent. The problem here isn't with
> > the pattern itself. CD is not a requirement or overwhelming
> > conclusion based on the pattern alone. The reason why you and Behe
> > believe so strongly in the theory of common descent is based primarily
> > on your interpretation of the fossil record and geologic column - not
> > just the NHP of life.
>
> That's not true at all.
Right . . .
> What's true is that if we believed like you that
> the world is only 6000 years old, common descent would be a difficult
> hypothesis, and the nested hierarchy would be unexplained.
Outside of ID Theory it would be difficult. That's for sure. The
entire ToE would fall flat on it's head and the Theory of ID would
gain significant ground - even within the scientific community. After
all, this is the entire basis of SETI.
> >>>>>> I agree that we can't say what god would or would not do. So why are you
> >>>>>> so sure he didn't use common descent?
> >>>>> Why are you so sure that he did?
> >>>> Simply because that's the simplest interpretation of the evidence,
> >>>> notably that nested hierarchy.
> >>> That is indeed the overwhelming interpretation of the evidence only
> >>> from a non-intelligent perspective - not from an ID perspective.
> >> ID makes no difference, which is why you have never been able to justify
> >> your claim.
>
> > ID makes a big difference. ID opens the door to the possibility of
> > skipping CD steps. Without ID, this isn't a feasible possibility.
> > Adding in this possibility is a big difference that requires
> > additional evidence to adequately counter.
>
> Similarly, ID opens the door to the possibility of skipping steps in the
> creation of stratigraphic layers. And yet you think those are due to
> physical processes. Why?
Because no aspect of stratigraphic layers require ID. How many times
do I have to explain this like a broken record?
< snip >
> >>>> But we don't
> >>>> have to go all the way along that path. It's enough to note again that
> >>>> this applies equally to stratigraphy; why should an intelligent designer
> >>>> feel obligated to go through all that tedious erosion, deposition, etc.
> >>>> when producing the otherwise "natural" pattern of layered rocks?
> >>> Because, as I've explained several times before now, no aspect of the
> >>> layered rocks requires ID - unlike the key differences in the pattern
> >>> of life.
> >> This is only because you feel free to define for yourself the boundaries
> >> of any given system, as convenient. You say that the key differences and
> >> the nested hierarchy are all part of a single entity, indivisible, which
> >> must therefore share the feature of having been designed. But I say they
> >> aren't. I say they're separable, which should be obvious. I have
> >> explained, over and over, how they're separable. There are people who
> >> actually hold the theory that key differences were created but the
> >> hierarchy was not, e.g. Michael Behe. Is Behe's position logically
> >> inconsistent? If not, you can't make the claim you do.
>
> > Behe's position is logically consistent, because his position is not
> > based on the pattern alone - but on his interpretation of the geologic
> > column and fossil record in addition to the NHP of life.
>
> I repeat, it's rather the converse. An old earth *allows* but does not
> compel common descent, while a positive belief in a young earth is
> required to make common descent unlikely.
An old Earth combined with the standard interpretation of the fossil
record pretty much does compel the acceptance of CD. Given such
positions, there really is no viable alternative. That is why Behe
takes the position that he takes - to include suggesting CD from the
top down. He has suggested that life started form a gene pool that
contained all of the IR functional systems that he thinks could not
have evolved and then specialized over time to produce the separate
gene pools that we see in the fossil record and today. Some present
this notion as one possible explanation for the "Cambrian explosion".
< snip >
> > A military hierarchy is however, and so is a language/
> > information system. Not all "brigades" in the army do the same job
> > and neither do all "captains" or "lieutenants". There are unique
> > "branches" in the military hierarchy that are on the same level -
> > branches and twigs that cannot be interchanged without being way out
> > of place.
>
> This is nonsense. And in fact branches and twigs are moved around in
> military hierarchies all the time, and no features of the elements
> themselves (which are people) tell you where they belong in the hierarchy.
Not true. I'm a major in the army. However, my rank is based on the
particular job I do as a medical doctor. As a major with my
particular job, I cannot replace or be replaced by just any other
"major" in the army or navy or marines or air force.
< snip >
> >> Really? So I'll go to heaven despite my atheism?
>
> > Yep . . .
>
> >> (Assuming for the sake
> >> of argument that I'm not evil.) Isn't that heresy?
>
> > Not in my book. If you are a good honest person as an atheist, I hope
> > you live close to me in heaven. We could be neighbors! ; )
>
> This is heresy.
Again, where do you get this "heresy" stuff?
> But I don't mind if you don't.
Very good - it's a done deal then.
> > I'm talking about if I'm right and you're wrong - about the existence
> > of God and of heaven. If, for argument's sake, there was a God and a
> > heaven, how would you like it set up? Would you think it at all
> > reasonable to exclude the honest atheist from eternal life and
> > happiness just for a honest mistake?
>
> I wouldn't find it reasonable to exclude anyone. What happens to the
> people who don't get into heaven?
They didn't want to be there. Anyone who wants to be there will be
there. Everyone gets what they want short injury to somebody else.
Only those types of "evil" "wants" will not be honored.
> > I agree. I don't believe in an eternal Hell or infinite punishment.
> > That's heresy where I come from - an invention of the Church during
> > the middle ages. It is not Biblical that's for sure.
>
> Whatever you say is or isn't biblical can be that way. It's a flexible
> document.
So are any human-based interpretations of anything - - including much
of "science". There is just a point at which a certain degree of
flexibility becomes untenable. Obviously, that point is quite
different for different people.
> > The Bible describes the eternal loss of the wicked, but not anything
> > like "eternal hell". The Bible says that the final end of the wicked
> > will reduce them to "ashes underfoot" and "never will they be any
> > more". They will be dead and gone - forever. This will be of their
> > own choice since they will hate God with such a passion for
> > interfering with their murderous desires that they will desire
> > anything but to exist in his presence or with anyone who opposes their
> > hateful lifestyle. If they could be redeemed or changed in character,
> > they will be saved. Only those who have made a permanent choice will
> > be permanently lost. And, no one will be lost without who actually
> > wants to be in heaven with God and the other's who want to live non-
> > hateful lives. It's going to be a freewill choice for all - even the
> > wicked. If any additional time would help anyone change his/her mind,
> > it will be given.
>
> > Again, which is more merciful, to keep those alive whose only goal is
> > to cause suffering and pain to others (and really themselves as well)
> > or to offer these souls the option of non-existence as a free choice?
>
> I grow weary of this painful sophistry. Let's stop discussing your
> theological views.
Ok, but you brought it up, not me.
< snip >
I only have time for one more comment today:
> > What is your definition of "milk"? Mammalian milk is comprise of
> > various proteins, fats and sugars. The same thing is true of
> > cockroach milk.
>
> My definition of "milk" is hardly "a substance composed of various
> proteins, fats, and sugars". Are you serious?
Ok, what is the correct definition of "milk"? - seriously . . .
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Inez
> > What is your definition of "milk"? Mammalian milk is comprise of
> > various proteins, fats and sugars. The same thing is true of
> > cockroach milk.
>
> My definition of "milk" is hardly "a substance composed of various
> proteins, fats, and sugars". Are you serious?
>
can identify them more specifically I'm fairly certain they aren't
milk.
Treus
> On Mar 3, 1:08 pm, Treus <treusd...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > How would you distinguish between a feature that was adapted by design
> > from another lineage versus one inherited with modification along the
> > direct line?
>
> In nature there are no examples. Descent with modification is what we
> observe.
How would you know, if you can't distinguish features adapted by
design versus those inherited with modification?
>
> Prokaryotes are the whackiest because they can take up DNA
> from the environment and use it, but that is a known natural mechanism
> that we can observe happening.
>
> Humans will likely be able to alter this reality by creating examples
> that would not have occurred in nature. Say that someone wanted to
> create a pegasus look alike. Even if it couldn't fly they might still
> put on a pretty impressive set of wings. This animal would have the
> basic body of a horse, but bird wings would be added. If we looked at
> the wings, feathers, proteins and genes responsible for the wings we
> would see that they did not nest within mammals, but came from an
> avian source. No natural mechanism that we know of could do this.
> Horses are so deeply nested within mammals that it would be a no
> brainer. On the opposite extreme you can take whales. Here you only
> see evidence for descent with modification too. limbs evolved for
> terrestrial purposes have been modified. The basic body shape has
> been altered, but it has all been done using preexisting structures.
> Whales are still warm blooded mammals and even their aquatic
> locomotion is based on terrestrial mammalian adaptations and not fish
> or reptillian side to side motion. Just watch how a cheetah runs or
> an otter and compare it to the motion of a fish or reptile. Whales
> have fins and a streamlined body, but they didn't get the design from
> fish. Compare the adaptations of ichthyosaurs that also evolved from
> terrestrial tetrapods, but reptilian ancestors.
This only describes a system of relationships which could just as
easily be the product of intent. In order to make a case for common
descent as opposed to intentional design, you have to show how you
would exclude the latter through actual observation.
richardal...@googlemail.com
> Ron O wrote:
> > On Mar 3, 1:08 pm, Treus <treusd...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > > How would you distinguish between a feature that was adapted by design
> > > from another lineage versus one inherited with modification along the
> > > direct line?
>
> > In nature there are no examples. Descent with modification is what we
> > observe.
>
> How would you know, if you can't distinguish features adapted by
> design versus those inherited with modification?
>
As there is no evidence whatsoever that any features *are* " adapted
by design" (a term so vague as to be utterly useless as a scientific
proposition, incidentally), and there is excellent and robust evidence
that they have arisen by descent with modification, it's not up to the
evolutionary biologists to make such a distinction.
It's up to those proposing that some features are "adapted by design"
to offer evidence to support their claim.
As there is no evidence whatsoever for "intentional design" in the
biology of living organisms, it's not up to biologists to exclude it.
It's up to those asserting that such "intentional design" exists to
demonstrate that it exists.
The claim that some biological systems could not have evolved, even if
it could be supported with evidence (which it can't), would not be
evidence in favour of "intentional design". It would be a potential
falsification of the explanation provided by evolutionary theory.
Even if evolutionary theory were totally and utterly falsified beyond
any hope of resurrection, it would still not provide one iota of
evidence for "intentional design". Scientific theories stand or fall
according to the evidence, not the wishful thinking of those with
agendas which have nothing to do with science.
RF
John Harshman
> On Mar 6, 7:30 pm, Treus <treusd...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Ron O wrote:
>>> On Mar 3, 1:08 pm, Treus <treusd...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>> How would you distinguish between a feature that was adapted by design
>>>> from another lineage versus one inherited with modification along the
>>>> direct line?
>>> In nature there are no examples. Descent with modification is what we
>>> observe.
>> How would you know, if you can't distinguish features adapted by
>> design versus those inherited with modification?
>>
>
> As there is no evidence whatsoever that any features *are* " adapted
> by design" (a term so vague as to be utterly useless as a scientific
> proposition, incidentally), and there is excellent and robust evidence
> that they have arisen by descent with modification, it's not up to the
> evolutionary biologists to make such a distinction.
>
> It's up to those proposing that some features are "adapted by design"
> to offer evidence to support their claim.
Note also that being adapted by design (whatever that means) is
irrelevant to the question of common descent, since a hypothetical
designer could easily have created an adaptation in the common ancestor
of some set of species.
The nested hierarchy of life tells us about common descent. It doesn't
tell us whether someone invented the bacterial flagellum; it only tells
us he didn't invent it independently on thousands of occasions.
[snip]
John Harshman
Patience.
John Harshman
> On Mar 5, 7:58 pm, John Harshman <jharshman.diespam...@pacbell.net>
> wrote:
>
> < snip >
>
>>> I'm just saying that homoplastic or "convergent" features are not
>>> beyond the ToCD.
>> I should hope not. So?
>
> Hollow quills have been reported in a specimen of Psittacosaurus from
> Liaoning. These hollow quills are thought to be precursors to
> feathers. According to Wiki, "It is not known with certainty at what
> point in archosaur phylogeny the earliest simple 'protofeathers'
> arose, or if they arose once or, independently, multiple times."
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feathered_dinosaurs
>
> Yet, you argue that something as complex as a feather would be
> unlikely to evolve independently - i.e., without common descent? You
> wrote that independent feather evolution would be "highly unlikely
> considering the complex nature of the structure." - did you not?
Yes.
> Perhaps you should inform the author(s) of this wiki article?
No. First, these "quills" if you want to call them that are quite simple
structures, the sort of thing that could happen twice independently.
Second, note that even Wikipedia gives two alternatives, only one of
which is independent invention. Show me actual feathers, with hooked
barbules, happening twice and we'll talk.
> A
> recent article in Nature also suggests that the "compsognathid
> affinity for Juravenator suggests that feathers evolved
> independently . . . " or at least that this is a potential
> explanation. In an National Geographic articule "Xu proposes that
> feathers may have evolved independently several times in similar
> groups of dinosaurs."
Here again we have ambiguity in the definition of "feather". I was
talking about the standard flight feather as seen in vultures and
pegasi. Xu is talking about much simpler protofeathers, no more
surprising than the independent evolution of numerous things called
"hairs" in mammals, arthropods, and plants.
> http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7082/full/440287a.html
> http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/03/0315_060315_dinosaur_2.html
>
> I guess these guys just don't know that their notions of the
> independent evolution of such a complex structure would be so unlikely
> as to be unbelievable?
No, you just don't know much about what you read.
> What do you think would happen if Pegasus did actually exist and
> porcupines were found deep in the fossil record? You don't think
> there would be some sort of story telling about how hollow porcupine
> quills eventually evolved in the pinions of Pegasus?
No.
> If you think
> this unlikely - just read a bit more about the various stories and
> suggestions of independent feather evolution in dinosaurs.
None of them support your case.
> The explanations of "primitive" vs. "derived" or "convergent" vs.
> "divergent" are quite handy - even as ad hoc explanations when the
> need arises.
You have presented no examples of any such phenomenon.
>>>>> Again, common descent is only a fairly perfect expectation given a NHP
>>>>> of the type that can be produced by a non-deliberate process. A
>>>>> highly symmetrical Menger Sponge carved into the material of, say,
>>>>> granite would be an example of a NHP that could only have been the
>>>>> result of ID and is unlikely to have required the use of common
>>>>> descent in the development of the NHP in this particular situation.
>>>> A highly symmetrical Menger Sponge isn't an example of nested hierarchy
>>>> at all.
>>> Yes, it is. By definition, "nested hierarchies involve levels which
>>> consist of, and contain, lower levels." Fractals, like the Menger
>>> Sponge, "are fabricated by the repetition of some geometric act over a
>>> nested succession of hierarchical scale. And the result is self-
>>> similarity, or the emergence of an axis of scale symmetry." So, the
>>> Menger Sponge, like other such fractals, does indeed meet the
>>> definition for a nested hierarchical pattern. It is just that the
>>> fractal-type pattern of life is not quite the same as the NHP of a
>>> Menger Sponge.
>> This is not a nested hierarchy because the repetitions do not contain
>> subsequent repetitions.
>
> "Fractals . . . are fabricated by the repetition of some geometric act
> over a nested succession of hierarchical scale. And the result is self-
> similarity, or the emergence of an axis of scale symmetry."
Did you see a mention of a nested hierarchy ther? Nope, the succession
is nested and the scale is hierarchical. Words found in the same
sentence, no more, as far as I can tell from the quote.
> http://www.dichotomistic.com/hierarchies_fractals.html
>
> Fractals, by definition, form nested hierarchies. Of course, there
> are different kinds of fractals and therefore NHPs. Not all are the
> type of fractal structures formed by the patterns of life.
And so irrelevant.
>> And we can agree that it's nothing like the
>> nested hierarchy of life.
>
> It shares a particular feature with the NHP of life in that it is also
> a NHP. It is just that the NHP of life is a different type of NHP.
It's the only type we're talking about.
>>> http://www.dichotomistic.com/hierarchies_fractals.html
>>>> Since we agree that life is capable of common descent and could
>>>> easily acquire its nested hierarchy that way, I don't see the point
>>>> you're trying to make.
>>> Life is capable of common descent and can indeed acquire a NHP along
>>> the way all by itself - without any other input. Except . . . except
>>> when it comes to unique key functional elements that were not already
>>> in the original gene pool to begin with. These elements require the
>>> input of ID and ID is not required to use CD as its only viable method
>>> of producing NHPs.
>> But it could. The source of key functional elements has nothing to do
>> with generating a nested hierarchy.
>
> It does have something to do with it because the inclusion of ID opens
> a door that is not available without ID. Because ID presents the non-
> CD option, other factors must now be considered before CD is accepted
> as the most likely option - such as the amount of time available to
> produce the pattern and the historical evidence of pattern progression
> or evolution. It is not enough anymore to simply look at the pattern
> itself and determine CD once ID is known to be extensively involved.
This is no more than a naked claim, without any argument to support it.
And that of course applies equally to stratigraphic layers, yet you
believe they are natural.
>>> You yourself admit that without the additional evidence of the fossil
>>> record and your interpretation of geology, CD would not necessarily be
>>> viable as a theory for life - despite the NHP of life.
>> I admit no such thing. You have me confused with someone else. What I
>> admit is that the fossil record adds some interesting further
>> confirmation from an independent source, but in fact we can show common
>> descent conclusively without any recourse to fossils.
>
> If you will recall, you wrote:
>
> "I would agree that if there were strong evidence for a recent
> origin of life that would argue against common descent."
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/7b14e5f2168ead95
>
> You admit here that the time element is important to your ToCD.
You mistake negative evidence for positive evidence. In the absence of
evidence for a young earth, common descent is the clear explanation. No
other evidence is necessary. In the presence of evidence for a young
earth, we have a conundrum. But there is no such evidence.
>>> For example,
>>> given that my catastrophic interpretation of the geologic column and
>>> fossil record is correct, even you would admit that the CD theory
>>> would hold little water for most scientists.
>> Ah, that's different. *With* the additional evidence that the world is
>> only 6000 years old, I would have a hard time explaining the nested
>> hierarchy of life. I would have to say that I had no idea how it got
>> there. Fortunately there is no such evidence.
>
> There you have it. You just admitted, yet again, that the time
> element is important to your theory of CD. Without what you consider
> viable evidence for the existence of life on this planet for hundreds
> of millions of years, an the proposed progression of the pattern of
> life in the fossil record, the NHP, by itself, would simply not be
> enough to support the CD hypothesis. You do in fact need additional
> evidence to support it to a useful degree.
No. You are still confused.
> This is in fact the basis for the CD theories of language development
> and evolution. Given the pattern, by itself, with additional evidence
> that ID was involved - your conclusion would be that you "have no
> idea". That's really not much of a scientific position as far as I
> can tell.
Language development? Where did that come from? And of course "I have no
idea" is the proper scientific position to take if the evidence is unclear.
> So, by your own admission your notion that a NHP is essentially
> equivalent to CD by itself, even given evidence that ID was involved
> in its production, is false.
You're making up strawmen before my very eyes. A nested hierarchy is
strong evidence for common descent. Other evidence may modify that
conclusion. That's all.
>>> So, your notion that a NHP is in itself enough evidence to support the
>>> theory of common descent is simply not true - by your own admission.
>> You have confused being enough evidence all by itself with the
>> possibility that contradictory evidence might refute it.
>
> You don't believe in CD = NHP for the tree of life because of the
> pattern itself - by itself.
Yes I do.
> You believe in this notion because you
> also believe that there is a preserved progression in the fossil
> record that took hundreds of millions of years to produce. Without
> this fossil evidence or any other evidence to support the extended
> time that your theory needs, the ID produced system, really wouldn't
> support the ToCD very well.
You are wrong. You have confused absence of evidence with contradictory
evidence. If there were contradictory evidence, common descent would be
less credible. If there were no other evidence, common descent would be
the clear inference.
>>> You need additional evidence beyond the pattern. For example, if you
>>> have good evidence that all the features of the NHP in question could
>>> be produced without the requirement of ID, CD is a perfectly valid
>>> conclusion since non-deliberate processes do not seem to be able to
>>> produce NHPs without the use of CD as mechanism.
>> And we have good evidence of that.
>
> That's an entirely different discussion from the point at hand. Now
> you are moving into the question of why I spend so much time on
> demonstrating the ID requirement . . .
Again you confuse the nested hierarchy with the features that make it
up. How many times do I have to explain it? And I know why you try to
demonstrate the ID requirement; it's your obsession, and you think it's
the sovereign cure for all evolution, everywhere.
>> The nested hierarchical pattern
>> doesn't need ID at all, as you have agreed.
>
> When it comes to higher levels of functional complexity, this isn't
> true. It is only true if you are talking about functionally
> simplistic fractal-type differences.
Again, you are confusing the hierarchy with the features that make it
up. The hierarchy is not the features, but the pattern of distribution
of those features among species.
>> Whether any of the features
>> composing that hierarchy needed ID
>> is a separate question, though you
>> seem unable to comprehend this.
>
> You seem unable to comprehend that a pattern cannot exist independent
> of the system. Life could exist without a NHP. However, the opposite
> is not true. The NHP of life cannot exist without the existence of
> life. Without the existence of the system, the pattern cannot exist.
> Therefore, for higher-level systems that require ID, the pattern of
> such systems also cannot exist without ID.
Irrelevant. Stratigraphy can't exist without the earth, but the earth
could exist without stratigraphy. Therefore the stratigraphic layers
were designed?
>>> However, given the
>>> ID was required for many of the key features of the pattern in
>>> question,
>> No, those aren't key features of the pattern. The pattern is separate
>> from the features that show the pattern.
>
> The pattern is somewhat separate, but not completely. Again, the
> pattern cannot exist without the creation of the physical differences.
Irrelevant. This sentence cannot exist without electrons. But that
sentence is separate from electrons.
>>> the theory of CD requires additional evidence to make it
>>> tenable - to include evidence that enough time was available for CD to
>>> act in producing the pattern. If the evidence suggests that the time
>>> available time was too limited for CD to be viable, it would then be
>>> most likely that ID chose to bypass many if not most of the CD steps
>>> in the production of the NHP in question.
>> Yes, if creationism were correct, there would be evidence that
>> creationism was correct.
>
> That's right . . . beyond the fact that there is a NHP. The same
> thing is true for the ToE and the ToCD.
I have no idea what you think you were saying there.
So you claim. But I'd like to see you try it. Here are three soldiers:
Joe, Ice Cream Soldier, and Rock. Which division do they belong to?
Which army? Which army group?
>>>>>>> You're the one who suggested that a designer who incorporates any
>>>>>>> aspect of what can happen naturally into a particular work is being
>>>>>>> "deceptive". You did use that word, "deceptive" - did you not?
>>>>>> Yes, but not in quite the way that your strawman above does it.
>>>>> What is the key difference in your use of the term "deceptive"?
>>>> Simply that not every imitation is an attempt to deceive.
>>> And how can you tell what the motive was based on the imitation
>>> itself? For example, not all human-made diamonds are made with the
>>> intent to deceive - even when it comes to jewelry quality artifactual
>>> diamonds.
>> That would depend on the nature of the imitation. We could make a good
>> guess. Given an imitation Gucci bag, what would you infer about the
>> motives of the manufacturer?
>
> What in nature has brand-name copyrights? Hmmmm? Come on now. Your
> notion that anyone who copies this or that aspect of nature must be
> doing something sinister is just nonsense.
That's not my notion. It's your strawman. And you didn't answer my
question. (By the way, the word you were searching for is "trademark".)
>>> When it comes to stratigraphy - nature-only is very much a
>>> possibility. ID was not *required* for this particular feature.
>> Exactly, just as when it comes to the nested hierarchy, nature-only is
>> very much a possibility. ID was not *required* for this particular feature.
>
> That's not what I'm talking about here.
It's what you're desperately trying not to talk about here, I'll agree.
> What I said was that ID was
> not required for any aspect of stratigraphy, but is required for every
> key difference in the tree of life. You are arguing that even given
> the ID requirement that the particular overall NHP appearance, in
> particular, of the tree still does not require ID. That's true just
> like it is true for differences in the various Latin-based language
> systems that exist. However, the fact that ID is required for the
> various key differences puts such NHP into a different class compared
> to those NHP that do not require the input of ID for any aspect of
> their structure.
No it doesn't. Why should it?
>>> Think about it this way, a pattern does not exist independent of the
>>> object. Without the object, there is no pattern. The patterns
>>> existence is dependent upon the object's existence. The objects
>>> existence is not dependent upon the pattern's existence. Life could
>>> exist without a NHP. However, the NHP of life could not exist
>>> without the existence of living things.
>> Yes. And the earth could exist without stratigraphic layers, but the
>> layers could not exist without the earth.
>
> Exactly . . . The pattern is not independent of the object while the
> object may exist independent of a particular pattern. Objects that
> requires ID are different and open up different possibilities as far
> as origins are concerned, to include the origin of the various
> patterns that might be present, vs. those objects that do not require
> ID to explain any particular feature - as in stratigraphic layers.
But wait. Didn't you say that ID was necessary for the creation of the
earth? How can you assume that ID was not involved in the creation of
the stratigraphic layers, which are part of the earth? Your
justification for rejecting common descent is exactly this. You are not
being consistent.
>>> Therefore, in this sense, if life requires ID, so does the NHP of
>>> life. Does this requirement for ID exclude the use of CD as the
>>> chosen mechanism? No. It doesn't. However, it also doesn't
>>> necessitate the use of CD either. Once it can be shown that ID is
>>> required for the phenomenon in question, the theory of CD must have
>>> additional support beyond the pattern itself.
>> So if it's shown that ID is required for the earth to exist, the theory
>> of natural stratigraphy must have additional support beyond the pattern
>> itself?
>
> If it shown that some aspect of stratigraphic layering itself requires
> ID, then yes, additional evidence must be presented to show that the
> pattern of stratigraphy was also naturally produced.
Then if it is shown that some aspect of nested hierarchy itslef requires
ID, we can talk. But the characters whose distribution makes up the
nested hierarchy are not the nested hierarchy nor are they aspects of
the nested hierarchy. Your entire argument relies on a confusion of what
constitutes a system. According to you, life is a system of which the
nested hierarchy is a part; but stratigraphic layers are a system all
their own, independent of the earth.
>>>> 1. This assumes that the creator is capable of creative effort, and so
>>>> is not omnipotent. If you want to make that claim explicitly, do so.
>>> This discussion is only about ID - not the actual identity or
>>> capabilities or resources of the ID agent beyond the fact that this
>>> agent was very intelligent.
>> Typical. You refuse to examine the implications of your claims. For some
>> reason we're not allowed to.
>
> I not averse to examining the philosophical and religious implications
> of my positions. It is just that this isn't what the basic theory of
> ID is about. Additional theories that are based on ID Theory do in
> fact go beyond ID Theory, but I didn't think you wanted to really get
> into that.
It seems to me essential to go into this if you want to consider what
the creator would or would not be likely to do, as you have in fact done
repeatedly while denying all the time that you do so.
>>>> 2. This is the creator who, in order to punish sinful humanity, caused a
>>>> worldwide flood that killed every living thing not on the ark. And
>>>> you're talking about waste?
>>> If you want to get Biblical here, this act is presented, not as a
>>> punishment as much as a salvation to humanity.
>> Except for all the dead ones, of course. Was it salvation for the
>> animals too?
>
> Yes - it was. Some are suggesting that modern humans are heading for
> a similar fate - a destruction of the world on such a scale that not
> only is humanity in real danger of self-annihilation, but so are many
> species of animals as well.
How exactly did the flood save all the trillions of animals that died in it?
>>> Humanity, according to
>>> the Biblical account, was about to self-destruct in total self-
>>> annihilation.
>> It says no such thing.
>
> Yes, it does.
You can certainly pull out carefully chosen passages and interpret them
to support your claim. But pardon me if I don't cooperate.
>>> "The thoughts of the hearts of man were only evil
>>> continually and the Earth was filled with pain". If you have a
>>> situation on your hands were you have a colony of liars, murders,
>>> rapists and all manner of those who love doing the most cruel and
>>> heartless things that they can think of to each other, what is the
>>> most loving thing to do in such a situation? What would you do?
>> Yes, you're right. I'd kill them all. Hey, the world looks pretty bad
>> today. Why not kill them all too?
>
> It's getting close to a point where it may happen all by itself.
I doubt it. But are you hoping for another flood? Will you be one of
those preserved on the New Ark, or will you be drowned with the rest?
>>>> 3. Who are you to say what god would or would not do, or what would be
>>>> reasonable for him to do?
>>> There's a difference in presenting what an intelligent agent could do
>>> vs. what they would have to do. I'm presenting what God could have
>>> done while you are presenting what you think he would have to have
>>> done. There seems to me to be a difference here.
>> Ah, but you weren't talking about what he could do. You were talking
>> about what he probably would do. And I said nothing about what he would
>> have to have done; that's your strawman.
>
> I was talking about what would be reasonable for an intelligent agent
> to do by comparison . . .
Either that means something or it doesn't. Make up your mind. If "what
would be reasonable" has some predictive power for god, admit that
you're placing constraints. If it has no predictive power, there's no point.
>>>> 4. What evidence do you have that the creator's interest lies in
>>>> avoiding pain and suffering?
>>> Actually, to be honest, I think there is more than one very
>>> intelligent creator at work in this world - to include humanity
>>> itself. Some creators are good while others are very evil. Some
>>> creators deliberately set out to produce pain and suffering while
>>> others work against it. Clear evidence for both is evident in this
>>> world.
>> Ah, so Satan is creative.
>
> Yep - and so are you.
>> Another heresy.
>
> Where do you get your notions of "heresy"?
Christian doctrine is clear on a number of things. One of them is that
Satan has no power to create, though he can corrupt.
>> And I see you have dodged the question.
>
> How was my answer a "dodge"?
In the way that it didn't answer the question.
>>> The Bible, in particular, refers to this dichotomy of motive as the
>>> great controversy between good and evil (Christ and Satan if you want
>>> to personify those concepts).
>>>> Life, in fact, seems admirably designed to
>>>> demonstrate pain and suffering. How
>>>> do you know that's not a major
>>>> purpose? Remember the caterpillar?
>>> I personally do not believe that was the original intent of at least
>>> the primary designer of life. I think that pain and suffering that
>>> now exists is due largely to degenerative and parasitic effects as
>>> well as the deliberate "survival of the fittest" mentality of many
>>> evil people in this world.
>> Parasitism of wasps on caterpillars is due to evil humans?
>
> In a round about way - yes. According to the Bible, the deliberate
> rebellion of mankind against the original plan of God for humanity was
> a request on the part of man for God to remove himself and his plans
> from our lives and from our planet.
Another bit you made up. That's nowhere in Genesis. In fact, the
"rebellion" you refer to consists of nothing more than eating a piece of
fruit that god told "man" not to eat. No request for anything. Just a
piece of fruit.
It certainly wasn't a request to have wasp larvae eat caterpillars alive.
> We chose a new path and a new
> guiding light or morality as a collective group. This new path, and
> the removal of God from overall control and high-level sustenance of
> this planet and everything on it, resulted in a decline in not only
> the human condition, but also the condition of all of nature as well.
> Since the moral fall of mankind, the Bible states that "All of nature
> travails together in pain until now". The effects of decay, death,
> predation, parasitism, and genetic deterioration set in. We have yet
> to be able to reverse the effects of this constant decay on this
> planet. All of life is devolving, not evolving. We are actually
> getting worse and worse over time - us and all of life on this planet
> - more and more diseased and less informationally rich.
See now, I (and Bishop Paley, by the way) would not have interpreted
parasitism as "genetic deterioration", but as an amazing set of
adaptations. I'll bet that many of the adaptations involved in predation
and such involve more than 1000 fairly specified residues. Any bets? And
interestingly these predatory (etc.) adaptations fit into a nested
hierarchy. Would you agree that all members of Carnivora are therefore
descended from a common ancestor?
>>>>>>> Why should he not care about
>>>>>>> how he created sentient creatures?
>>>>>> Why should he? What evidence is there that he would? I thought your
>>>>>> designer was an unspecified entity or entities, possibly even space aliens.
>>>>> Could be - but not very likely given the degree of effort that went
>>>>> into producing the vast array of life that exists and has existed on
>>>>> this planet.
>>>> You didn't answer the question. What if he produced all these sentient
>>>> creatures exactly so he could observe their pain and suffering as well
>>>> as their other behavior, for example?
>>> I did answer this question. The answer is that this is certainly a
>>> possibility. ID can be used for evil as well as for good. There is
>>> evidence for both in this world.
>> So your original argument breaks down, doesn't it?
>
> How is that?
You said that the creator wouldn't create by CD because it would involve
too much suffering. Yet you agree that there is both good and evil in
the world, some of it, again according to you, due to one or more
creators. One of the creators with evil in him could clearly be the
author of common descent, so your argument from (more or less) god's
essential goodness goes away.
>>>> Now what "the two" are really should be clear by now. There is the
>>>> nested hierarchical pattern made by characters, and there is the
>>>> characters themselves. You are confusing those two. You say that if the
>>>> characters are created, that is very good evidence that the hierarchy
>>>> was created too.
>>> That's not quite what I said. What I said was that if each emergent
>>> branch in the tree required the input of ID, then it is quite possible
>>> that CD was not required, contrary to your suggestion, to produce the
>>> NHP. I did not say that it CD could not be used or was not used - it
>>> is just possible that it was not used. Additional evidence beyond the
>>> pattern itself is now required given that ID is known to have been
>>> involved.
>> That's silly. No branch required the input of ID.
>
> That's what the argument is about. I say that all the major branches
> required the input of ID. That is what my whole non-beneficial gaps
> argument is about.
No. Please don't confuse branches of the tree of life with the events
that happened along those branches. The bacterial flagellum is not a
branch. It's an evolutionary event, or, in your mind, apparently, many
thousands of creation events.
>> At most, certain
>> features required the input of ID.
>
> Certain features that go beyond the 1000aa threshold. That includes
> just all the significant branches of the ToL.
No. Events are not branches. It may be that there's at least one such
event on every "significant" (whatever that means) branch, but that's
not the branch itself.
>> Those aren't branches and they aren't
>> the tree.
>
> You make no sense here. The branches of the ToL branch off from each
> other when certain key functional differences are introduced - by
> ID.
No. Certain key functional differences are located on particular
branches. That's all.
>> CD of course is not required, since god can do anything he
>> wants.
>
> Exactly . . .
>
>> Similarly, natural processes are not required to produce
>> stratigraphic layers.
>
> The difference is that stratigraphic layers do not require ID in any
> aspect - life does.
We aren't talking about life. We're talking about the nested hierarchy
of life. Remember the mapping: Life:earth, nested
hierarchy:stratigraphy. Whether life or various of its features (those
key features you like) were due to ID is as irrelevant to the nested
hierarchy as whether earth was due to ID is irrelevant to the
stratigraphic layers.
>> But when you're talking about layers, you say that
>> since ID was not required, you think it wasn't used.
>
> ID is not required for any aspect of stratigraphic layering. ID is
> required for all the key functional differences in living things.
Again, irrelevant, since we're talking anot about the key differences
but about the nested hierarchy.
>> You don't say that
>> it's possible it wasn't used, or that you can't say it was used.
>
> That's exactly what I say.
No, you say that the stratigraphic layers were produced naturally, not
by fiat creation.
>> This
>> asymmetry in conclusion from data of identical form needs an
>> explanation. I know the explanation, but you won't admit it, so you go
>> around and around. Of course, if you were being consistent, you would
>> say that because the stratigraphic layers could have been produced by
>> fiat creation, additional evidence beyond that of the layers is required
>> given that ID is known to have been involved in the creation of the earth.
>
> Additional evidence is available suggesting that no feature of
> stratigraphic layering requires the input of ID. This is not true for
> living things.
Again you seem incapable of comprehending the mapping between these two
problems.
>>>> But you have no reason for this claim. It's quite
>>>> possible to have a system in which every single character was created
>>>> but the hierarchy evolved naturally, on a branching tree. This is
>>>> exactly what Michael Behe claims, for instance.
>>> That's right. It is indeed quite possible - it just isn't required
>>> like you suggest. If I believed in the interpretation for the fossil
>>> record and geologic column that you and Behe believe in, I'd also
>>> believe in the theory of common descent. The problem here isn't with
>>> the pattern itself. CD is not a requirement or overwhelming
>>> conclusion based on the pattern alone. The reason why you and Behe
>>> believe so strongly in the theory of common descent is based primarily
>>> on your interpretation of the fossil record and geologic column - not
>>> just the NHP of life.
>> That's not true at all.
>
> Right . . .
>
>> What's true is that if we believed like you that
>> the world is only 6000 years old, common descent would be a difficult
>> hypothesis, and the nested hierarchy would be unexplained.
>
> Outside of ID Theory it would be difficult. That's for sure. The
> entire ToE would fall flat on it's head and the Theory of ID would
> gain significant ground - even within the scientific community. After
> all, this is the entire basis of SETI.
I have no idea what "this" is supposed to mean. But if the moon were
indeed made of green cheese I would probably come to a tentative belief
in some immensely powerful, possibly hungry, alien intelligence.
>>>>>>>> I agree that we can't say what god would or would not do. So why are you
>>>>>>>> so sure he didn't use common descent?
>>>>>>> Why are you so sure that he did?
>>>>>> Simply because that's the simplest interpretation of the evidence,
>>>>>> notably that nested hierarchy.
>>>>> That is indeed the overwhelming interpretation of the evidence only
>>>>> from a non-intelligent perspective - not from an ID perspective.
>>>> ID makes no difference, which is why you have never been able to justify
>>>> your claim.
>>> ID makes a big difference. ID opens the door to the possibility of
>>> skipping CD steps. Without ID, this isn't a feasible possibility.
>>> Adding in this possibility is a big difference that requires
>>> additional evidence to adequately counter.
>> Similarly, ID opens the door to the possibility of skipping steps in the
>> creation of stratigraphic layers. And yet you think those are due to
>> physical processes. Why?
>
> Because no aspect of stratigraphic layers require ID. How many times
> do I have to explain this like a broken record?
Until you actually read and comprehend my argument, which will show you
that your repetitive responses are not relevant.
Not true, for certain values of "viable". Surely you're familiar with
the notion of progressive creation. How would you rule it out?
> That is why Behe
> takes the position that he takes - to include suggesting CD from the
> top down. He has suggested that life started form a gene pool that
> contained all of the IR functional systems that he thinks could not
> have evolved and then specialized over time to produce the separate
> gene pools that we see in the fossil record and today. Some present
> this notion as one possible explanation for the "Cambrian explosion".
Actually, he has abandoned the "front-loading" theory as unsupportable.
And of course the Cambrian explosion has nothing whatsoever to do with
the various biochemical features that Behe thinks are IC, which happened
long before the appearance of bilaterians.
>>> A military hierarchy is however, and so is a language/
>>> information system. Not all "brigades" in the army do the same job
>>> and neither do all "captains" or "lieutenants". There are unique
>>> "branches" in the military hierarchy that are on the same level -
>>> branches and twigs that cannot be interchanged without being way out
>>> of place.
>> This is nonsense. And in fact branches and twigs are moved around in
>> military hierarchies all the time, and no features of the elements
>> themselves (which are people) tell you where they belong in the hierarchy.
>
> Not true. I'm a major in the army. However, my rank is based on the
> particular job I do as a medical doctor. As a major with my
> particular job, I cannot replace or be replaced by just any other
> "major" in the army or navy or marines or air force.
You could however be transferred to any other unit in need of a doctor.
And the hierarchy could be completely reorganized, with doctors inserted
at all manner of levels. Your rank is not based on your job, though your
job classification might be.
>>>> Really? So I'll go to heaven despite my atheism?
>>> Yep . . .
>>>> (Assuming for the sake
>>>> of argument that I'm not evil.) Isn't that heresy?
>>> Not in my book. If you are a good honest person as an atheist, I hope
>>> you live close to me in heaven. We could be neighbors! ; )
>> This is heresy.
>
> Again, where do you get this "heresy" stuff?
Nearly universal Christian doctrine for quite a long time. "There is no
way to the father but through me." "Nulla salus extra ecclesiam." Etc.
>> But I don't mind if you don't.
>
> Very good - it's a done deal then.
Yes, and we'll all have coffee with the tooth fairy and Sherlock Holmes.
It'll be fun.
>>> I'm talking about if I'm right and you're wrong - about the existence
>>> of God and of heaven. If, for argument's sake, there was a God and a
>>> heaven, how would you like it set up? Would you think it at all
>>> reasonable to exclude the honest atheist from eternal life and
>>> happiness just for a honest mistake?
>> I wouldn't find it reasonable to exclude anyone. What happens to the
>> people who don't get into heaven?
>
> They didn't want to be there. Anyone who wants to be there will be
> there. Everyone gets what they want short injury to somebody else.
> Only those types of "evil" "wants" will not be honored.
You're saying that the bad people would rather be dead than have eternal
life? Have you actually asked any of them?
>>> I agree. I don't believe in an eternal Hell or infinite punishment.
>>> That's heresy where I come from - an invention of the Church during
>>> the middle ages. It is not Biblical that's for sure.
>> Whatever you say is or isn't biblical can be that way. It's a flexible
>> document.
>
> So are any human-based interpretations of anything - - including much
> of "science". There is just a point at which a certain degree of
> flexibility becomes untenable. Obviously, that point is quite
> different for different people.
So you're a postmodernist?
>>> The Bible describes the eternal loss of the wicked, but not anything
>>> like "eternal hell". The Bible says that the final end of the wicked
>>> will reduce them to "ashes underfoot" and "never will they be any
>>> more". They will be dead and gone - forever. This will be of their
>>> own choice since they will hate God with such a passion for
>>> interfering with their murderous desires that they will desire
>>> anything but to exist in his presence or with anyone who opposes their
>>> hateful lifestyle. If they could be redeemed or changed in character,
>>> they will be saved. Only those who have made a permanent choice will
>>> be permanently lost. And, no one will be lost without who actually
>>> wants to be in heaven with God and the other's who want to live non-
>>> hateful lives. It's going to be a freewill choice for all - even the
>>> wicked. If any additional time would help anyone change his/her mind,
>>> it will be given.
>>> Again, which is more merciful, to keep those alive whose only goal is
>>> to cause suffering and pain to others (and really themselves as well)
>>> or to offer these souls the option of non-existence as a free choice?
>> I grow weary of this painful sophistry. Let's stop discussing your
>> theological views.
>
> Ok, but you brought it up, not me.
It's not the views that weary me, but the excruciating sophistry used to
defend them.
> I only have time for one more comment today:
>
>>> What is your definition of "milk"? Mammalian milk is comprise of
>>> various proteins, fats and sugars. The same thing is true of
>>> cockroach milk.
>> My definition of "milk" is hardly "a substance composed of various
>> proteins, fats, and sugars". Are you serious?
>
> Ok, what is the correct definition of "milk"? - seriously . . .
Well, of course the obvious one is that it's a substance produced in the
mammary glands of mammals; that's begging the question, but the question
is never asked in real biology, so it suffices. Milk has particular
proteins not found in other "milklike" substances. Mammary glands have
particular secretory pathways not found in other organisms. Cockroach
milk (or pigeon milk, or various substances produced by various fish)
are not similar in detail to milk or to each other beyond the generic
description "substance produced internally to feed the offspring". You
could as well tell me that common descent must be false because bats,
birds, and bugs all have wings. Would you do that?
Treus
Well, that's your opinion, though you can't use your preferred
mechanism to account for the facts without handwaving.
>
> it's not up to biologists to exclude it.
> It's up to those asserting that such "intentional design" exists to
> demonstrate that it exists.
>
> The claim that some biological systems could not have evolved, even if
> it could be supported with evidence (which it can't),
That sets the bar unnecessarily high, since the claim that anything
_can_ evolve is supported by fallacious arguments, one of which
involves the very term "evolution" which is made to do double duty by
describing both micro- and macro-evolution, thereby making evidence
for one (the former, which no one disputes) marketable as evidence of
both.
>
> would not be
> evidence in favour of "intentional design". It would be a potential
> falsification of the explanation provided by evolutionary theory.
>
> Even if evolutionary theory were totally and utterly falsified beyond
> any hope of resurrection, it would still not provide one iota of
> evidence for "intentional design". Scientific theories stand or fall
> according to the evidence, not the wishful thinking of those with
> agendas which have nothing to do with science.
Naturally, which is why the mumbo-jumbo reductionist agenda has no
place in science.
Inez
> >> Parasitism of wasps on caterpillars is due to evil humans?
>
> > In a round about way - yes. According to the Bible, the deliberate
> > rebellion of mankind against the original plan of God for humanity was
> > a request on the part of man for God to remove himself and his plans
> > from our lives and from our planet.
>
> Another bit you made up. That's nowhere in Genesis. In fact, the
> "rebellion" you refer to consists of nothing more than eating a piece of
> fruit that god told "man" not to eat. No request for anything. Just a
> piece of fruit.
>
they'd had the fruit. It's a bit odd of God to create a couple of
sociopaths and make them responsible for decisions effecting all life
on earth forever.
Inez
Can you give examples of what you consider evidence of intentional
design in the biology of living organisms?
Ray Martinez
SNIP...
>
> Even if evolutionary theory were totally and utterly falsified beyond
> any hope of resurrection, it would still not provide one iota of
> evidence for "intentional design". SNIP...
Atheist-Materialist ideology.
The observation of design and organized complexity logically
corresponds to the work of invisible Designer. Reality has always
proven the existence of a supreme Divine Being.
Ray
richardal...@googlemail.com
> On Mar 6, 11:53 am, richardalanforr...@googlemail.com wrote:
>
> SNIP...
>
>
>
> > Even if evolutionary theory were totally and utterly falsified beyond
> > any hope of resurrection, it would still not provide one iota of
> > evidence for "intentional design". SNIP...
>
> Atheist-Materialist ideology.
It's called "science", and it is the same regardless of the beliefs of
the scientists.
>
> The observation of design and organized complexity logically
> corresponds to the work of invisible Designer.
Not when there is a solid explanation for that evidence which does not
rely on an "invisible Designer" and no evidence whatsoever for an
"invisible Designer".
Have you ever seen your "invisible Designer"?
> Reality has always
> proven the existence of a supreme Divine Being.
>
> Ray
Fine, Ray.
Just don't confuse your religious convictions with science.
RF
richardal...@googlemail.com
There is ample evidence for evolutionary mechanisms, and none
whatsoever for the intervention of an "intelligent designer".
>
>
>
> > it's not up to biologists to exclude it.
> > It's up to those asserting that such "intentional design" exists to
> > demonstrate that it exists.
>
> > The claim that some biological systems could not have evolved, even if
> > it could be supported with evidence (which it can't),
>
> That sets the bar unnecessarily high, since the claim that anything
> _can_ evolve is supported by fallacious arguments, one of which
> involves the very term "evolution" which is made to do double duty by
> describing both micro- and macro-evolution, thereby making evidence
> for one (the former, which no one disputes) marketable as evidence of
> both.
>
Actually there is plenty of evidence for evolution at all levels. I
note that you never address such evidence or provide any testable
alternative.
>
>
> > would not be
> > evidence in favour of "intentional design". It would be a potential
> > falsification of the explanation provided by evolutionary theory.
>
> > Even if evolutionary theory were totally and utterly falsified beyond
> > any hope of resurrection, it would still not provide one iota of
> > evidence for "intentional design". Scientific theories stand or fall
> > according to the evidence, not the wishful thinking of those with
> > agendas which have nothing to do with science.
>
> Naturally, which is why the mumbo-jumbo reductionist agenda has no
> place in science.
Well, virtually every scientist on the planet disagrees with you.
What do you know that all those scientists don't?
RF
Ray Martinez
> On Mar 6, 10:17 pm, Ray Martinez <pyramid...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > On Mar 6, 11:53 am, richardalanforr...@googlemail.com wrote:
>
> > SNIP...
>
> > > Even if evolutionary theory were totally and utterly falsified beyond
> > > any hope of resurrection, it would still not provide one iota of
> > > evidence for "intentional design". SNIP...
>
> > Atheist-Materialist ideology.
>
> It's called "science", and it is the same regardless of the beliefs of
> the scientists.
>
I agree, its called "science" or scientism.
>
>
> > The observation of design and organized complexity logically
> > corresponds to the work of invisible Designer.
>
> Not when there is a solid explanation for that evidence which does not
> rely on an "invisible Designer" and no evidence whatsoever for an
> "invisible Designer".
>
Logically the evidence of observation of design and organized
complexity is evidence that the same was caused by invisible Designer.
And we know Atheists, according to the needs of their worldview,
explain the evidence and observation away with perverted logic and
assumptions; but reality and the observation of design and organized
complexity seen therein is not affected by explanations of denial, but
remains in nature always available to be observed.
> Have you ever seen your "invisible Designer"?
>
Existence of Designer is deduced by the observation of design and
organized complexity seen in nature and every organism. The degree by
which both phenomena are seen in nature and its inhabitants is, unlike
a pocket watch, beyond computation.
Have you seen gravity?
Or atomic particles?
By your logic we must deny their existence.
> > Reality has always
> > proven the existence of a supreme Divine Being.
>
> > Ray
>
> Fine, Ray.
> Just don't confuse your religious convictions with science.
>
> RF
Objectively reversed: this says Atheists pursue their anti-religious
convictions through "science". I do not know anyone who does not
already know this.
Ray
DJT
> On Mar 6, 2:39 pm, richardalanforr...@googlemail.com wrote:
>
> > On Mar 6, 10:17 pm, Ray Martinez <pyramid...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > > On Mar 6, 11:53 am, richardalanforr...@googlemail.com wrote:
>
> > > SNIP...
>
> > > > Even if evolutionary theory were totally and utterly falsified beyond
> > > > any hope of resurrection, it would still not provide one iota of
> > > > evidence for "intentional design". SNIP...
>
> > > Atheist-Materialist ideology.
>
> > It's called "science", and it is the same regardless of the beliefs of
> > the scientists.
>
> I agree, its called "science" or scientism.
It's only called "scientism" by you, and your opinion hardly
matters.
>
>
>
> > > The observation of design and organized complexity logically
> > > corresponds to the work of invisible Designer.
>
> > Not when there is a solid explanation for that evidence which does not
> > rely on an "invisible Designer" and no evidence whatsoever for an
> > "invisible Designer".
>
> Logically the evidence of observation of design and organized
> complexity is evidence that the same was caused by invisible Designer.
Once more, I have to ask Ray to provide a single example of a known
designed object that was produced by an invisible designer. Since
Ray claims it's logical (and he has been shown many times why it's
not), he should be able to produce such an example quite easily. Odd
then that Ray has not even made an attempt. "Organized complexity"
is also something that has never been observed to have been produced
by an "invisible designer". Yet Ray seem to think it's logical to
ascribe such complexity to such an invisible designer.
It's also noted that both organized complexity, and the appearance
of design are produced by natural processes, without the need for any
designer, visible or not.
So, why, again is it "logical" to assume something that's never been
observed, and can be explained by natural forces that have been
observed?
>
> And we know Atheists, according to the needs of their worldview,
> explain the evidence and observation away with perverted logic and
> assumptions;
As I just showed above, it's Ray who uses perverted logic, and
assumptions. Atheists don't "need" to explain the observation of
design, as it's already known what produces that appearance.
> but reality and the observation of design and organized
> complexity seen therein is not affected by explanations of denial, but
> remains in nature always available to be observed.
Quite true. This observation is easily made, and easily demonstrated
to be by natural processes. Ray has never, even once produced an
observation of an invisible designer producing either complexity, or
the appearance of design. I suspect that he never will.
>
> > Have you ever seen your "invisible Designer"?
>
> Existence of Designer is deduced by the observation of design and
> organized complexity seen in nature and every organism.
This is classical circular reasoning. A "designer" is required
because Ray observes what he thinks is design. Since design can only
come from a designer, there must be a designer to produce the
design. What makes this little merry go round trip go off the tracks
is that the premise that design can only come from a designer is
wrong.
Natural processes, acting on natural material produces the appearance
of design. There isn't any need to assume a "designer" when the
process is already known to produce the appearance of design.
> The degree by
> which both phenomena are seen in nature and its inhabitants is, unlike
> a pocket watch, beyond computation.
It's been seen that natural processes produce the appearance of
design. When has any invisible designer ever been observed to
produce a known design?
>
> Have you seen gravity?
Gravity can be observed, and tested. One can observe objects in a
gravitational field. When can one observe an invisible designer
producing design?
>
> Or atomic particles?
Atomic particles are observed by their effect on other matter. They
are material, and react to material causation. One can test for the
existence of atomic particles. One can observe their effects. When
can one observe an invisible designer producing design?
>
> By your logic we must deny their existence.
Once again, Ray fails basic logic. Gravity and atoms exist in the
material world. They can be tested, and observed.
>
> > > Reality has always
> > > proven the existence of a supreme Divine Being.
>
> > > Ray
>
> > Fine, Ray.
> > Just don't confuse your religious convictions with science.
>
> > RF
>
> Objectively reversed: this says Atheists pursue their anti-religious
> convictions through "science".
Where does this say that? Richard did not claim that atheists
support their beliefs through science. You are the one who is
claiming that one can, indeed must support ones religious beliefs
though science.
> I do not know anyone who does not
> already know this.
Well, like many things you claim, it's wrong. Science doesn't give
atheists any more support than it does theists.
DJT
Seanpit
> > feathers may have evolved independently several times in similar
> > groups of dinosaurs."
>
> Here again we have ambiguity in the definition of "feather". I was
> talking about the standard flight feather as seen in vultures and
> pegasi. Xu is talking about much simpler protofeathers, no more
> surprising than the independent evolution of numerous things called
> "hairs" in mammals, arthropods, and plants.
This is one of the arguments for scientists who believe that birds did
not evolve from dinosaurs because true birds are found in the fossil
record up to 220 million years ago "blows a hole in the idea that
birds are 'living dinosaurs'". Of course, this is still a minority
position in the scientific community - some of which do indeed propose
the possible independent evolution of feathered dinosaurs.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20000623/ai_n14305328
< snip >
> > "Fractals . . . are fabricated by the repetition of some geometric act
> > over a nested succession of hierarchical scale. And the result is self-
> > similarity, or the emergence of an axis of scale symmetry."
> >
> >http://www.dichotomistic.com/hierarchies_fractals.html
>
> Did you see a mention of a nested hierarchy ther? Nope, the succession
> is nested and the scale is hierarchical. Words found in the same
> sentence, no more, as far as I can tell from the quote.
I'm really amazed at your reading comprehension here. A nested
succession of hierarchical scale is simple a different way of saying
"nested hierarchy". That is in fact what defines a nested hierarchy.
This makes me wonder what your definition of a nested hierarchy
actually is?
Here are a few more quotes for you describing fractals as "nested
hierarchies":
"Nature has nested hierarchial fractal-like organization."
http://www.google.com/search?q=fractals+nested+hierarchy&hl=en&safe=off&start=10&sa=N
"Fractal dynamics are the hallmarks of natural processes and are
especially fit for the organisation of living systems (Ho, 2007a), as
we shall see. . . This complex nested dynamical space-time structure
of the organism is the secret of sustainability. As explained below,
it maximises the efficiency and rapidity of energy mobilisation, and
the degree of space-time differentiation is directly correlated with
the amount of energy stored."
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/ThermodynamicsOfOrganisms.php
This particular paper seems to indicate that there is actually some
tangible benefit from creating using fractal-type structures and
relationships (such as a NHP).
Here is another paper that suggests the use of NHP-type "fractals" to
design computers:
"Note that this concept could be generalized to a more deeply
nested hierarchy of processors." - from "Parallel computing with
fractal organization".
http://www.quadibloc.com/arch/ar0801.htm
Here's another where NHP-type fractals are used to build villages in
Africa:
"Ron Eglash discovered that many African villages are actually
built on fractal lines. They are built intentionally and reflect the
nested hierarchies of the social structure. Depending on your position
in the social structure will determine where your house is in the
village fractal. He strangely found many different types of fractal
villages, some based on circles, some on rectangles etc."
http://complexity.orcon.net.nz/fractal.html
"The key notion of a fractal is that it possesses structure on a
hierarchy of scales. A structure defined at an overall size x implies
something similar at a size rx, where r is a scaling factor like 1/3.
For a structure to be fractal, there exist substructure at decreasing
sizes r2x, r3x, r4x, etc. A true mathematical fractal has self-similar
structures going all the way down to the infinitesimal scales. For a
physical fractal, the smallest scales become too small to see, so this
implies a range of scales from very large to the very small. The
number r is called the "scaling factor", and can in theory be any
fraction. In most common fractals it is usually some fixed number
between 1/2 and 1/10. Naturally-occurring fractals, such as
cauliflowers exhibit a nested structure with r not very different from
1/3 (Salingaros, 1995; Salingaros & West, 1999)'.
http://dataisnature.com/?p=159
"The eigenvalues of the master equation describing the motion on
a nested hierarchy of d-dimensional intervals with selfsimilar scaling
of spatial extension as well as of the level dependent transition
rates are derived." - from "Random walk on a fractal: Eigenvalue
analysis."
http://www.springerlink.com/content/gr5u51jt147p461n/
" The theory of "fractals" or "nested hierarchies" puts emphasis
upon the tendencies within the discipline to split and reform within
the discipline"
http://www.google.com/search?q=fractals+nested+hierarchies&hl=en&safe=off
"The fractal hierarchy is evidently the least-energy pathway to
produce the physical structure and phenomena of the Cosmos. The
replication of self-similar systems into a nested structural hierarchy
has an associated advantage in the transmission and sharing of energy
and information via the principle of harmonic resonance."
http://people.cornell.edu/pages/jag8/fractal.html
"Flam (1991) reports data supportive of this position in that
fractals seem to involve inhibition. According to fractal
researchers, nature loves fractals because they provide shapes which
better damp vibrations. Their repetitive irregularities repeated
within nested levels may better contain resonances, as in the design
of coastlines."
"Very recently, J. Cavailhès et al. (2004) also presented the
application of a residential location model (standard in urban
economics) on a spatial support provided by fractal geometry : on the
one hand, a Sierpinski carpet [which is a fractal by the way] is used
to render a nested hierarchy of the rural and urban places within a
metropolitan area. On the other hand, households maximise a utility
function which portrays the households' taste for variety in urban and
rural amenities. Such a modelling uses the fractal approach to replace
the Euclidean spatial representation of the city (i.e. the "Thünian
city") by a fractal one, which is closer to the actual observed
reality. A particularly interesting idea developed in the paper is
that the "Thünian city" appears as a limit case for the "fractal
city"."
http://www.cybergeo.eu/index3275.html
http://student.kuleuven.be/~m0216922/CG/sierpinski.html#Sierpinski_Carpet
"Nested hierarchy of fractal Cantorian sets of infinite
dimensionality"
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7113931-0-large.jpg
> > Fractals, by definition, form nested hierarchies. Of course, there
> > are different kinds of fractals and therefore NHPs. Not all are the
> > type of fractal structures formed by the patterns of life.
>
> And so irrelevant.
Your original claim was that there are no examples of any NHP being
deliberately produced. Not only are NHP being produced all the time,
NHP of the type expressed in the ToL are also being produced all the
time - from computers to village and city blueprints to art, music,
and military government.
< snip >
> > It does have something to do with it because the inclusion of ID opens
> > a door that is not available without ID. Because ID presents the non-
> > CD option, other factors must now be considered before CD is accepted
> > as the most likely option - such as the amount of time available to
> > produce the pattern and the historical evidence of pattern progression
> > or evolution. It is not enough anymore to simply look at the pattern
> > itself and determine CD once ID is known to be extensively involved.
>
> This is no more than a naked claim, without any argument to support it.
> And that of course applies equally to stratigraphic layers, yet you
> believe they are natural.
Let me explain it to you like this. Certain NHP within the overall
pattern of life do not require the input of ID. These particular
patterns within the overall pattern of life can be completely
explained, in every aspect, without the use of ID and so there is no
reason to invoke any other method besides CD. This is not true of
those features where ID is required. These features open the door for
non-CD methods. So, one must have some sort of additional basis upon
which to argue that CD would still be used by the intelligent agent
despite the fact that CD takes longer and is wasteful of other things
as well - such as the individual. Because CD takes more time that de
novo creation, it is required that one demonstrate that the needed
time was actually available. Also, in light of the seeming advantages
to be gained by creating complex systems with the use of NHP-type
fractals (as described above), you'd have to explain why these
advantages would be bypassed by an intelligent designer.
> > You admit here that the time element is important to your ToCD.
>
> You mistake negative evidence for positive evidence. In the absence of
> evidence for a young earth, common descent is the clear explanation.
Absence of evidence for a young earth is evidence for an old earth.
It is like the hypothesis vs. the null hypothesis. Evidence against
the one is evidence for the other. This also means that evidence
against an old earth is evidence for a young earth.
I happen to believe that the material of the earth is old, but not
life (to include the fossil record and much of the geologic column).
I'm an old-earth young-life creationist.
< snip >
> >>> So, your notion that a NHP is in itself enough evidence to support the
> >>> theory of common descent is simply not true - by your own admission.
> >> You have confused being enough evidence all by itself with the
> >> possibility that contradictory evidence might refute it.
>
> > You don't believe in CD = NHP for the tree of life because of the
> > pattern itself - by itself.
>
> Yes I do.
You only believe this because you don't even realize how important
your interpretation of the age of life and the pattern of the fossil
record has become to your belief in the ToCD - - and the ToE itself.
> > You believe in this notion because you
> > also believe that there is a preserved progression in the fossil
> > record that took hundreds of millions of years to produce. Without
> > this fossil evidence or any other evidence to support the extended
> > time that your theory needs, the ID produced system, really wouldn't
> > support the ToCD very well.
>
> You are wrong. You have confused absence of evidence with contradictory
> evidence. If there were contradictory evidence, common descent would be
> less credible. If there were no other evidence, common descent would be
> the clear inference.
There isn't the complete absence of evidence here. You believe, as do
most mainstream scientists, that there is a great deal of evidence for
the old-earth and old-life perspective. If you had no idea if the
Earth was old or young, the ToCD given only the NHP by itself would
not be on very solid scientific ground at all.
< snip >
> >> Whether any of the features
> >> composing that hierarchy needed ID
> >> is a separate question, though you
> >> seem unable to comprehend this.
>
> > You seem unable to comprehend that a pattern cannot exist independent
> > of the system. Life could exist without a NHP. However, the opposite
> > is not true. The NHP of life cannot exist without the existence of
> > life. Without the existence of the system, the pattern cannot exist.
> > Therefore, for higher-level systems that require ID, the pattern of
> > such systems also cannot exist without ID.
>
> Irrelevant. Stratigraphy can't exist without the earth, but the earth
> could exist without stratigraphy. Therefore the stratigraphic layers
> were designed?
Point mutations can't exist without the genome, but the genome can
exist without point mutations. Yet, I don't believe that point
mutations require design.
You see, you don't seem to grasp that the demonstration of the need
for ID is not a demonstration of a need for some other method besides
CD. ID can and does often use CD as a creative method. It is just
that a demonstration of the need for ID opens the door for other
methods to be used - even when it comes to NHPs. This is not true of
stratigraphy because there is no demonstrable need or requirement for
ID for any aspect of stratigraphy. It doesn't matter if layers of
rock are part of a larger system where other aspects within the larger
system may indeed require ID. What matters is that no aspect of
making the layers themselves seems to require the input of ID. This
means that the door of using some other mechanism besides the ones
that are already open to non-deliberate processes is not demonstrably
open for stratigraphy.
< snip >
> > Yes, you can. The elements of the military hierarchy, for example,
> > are nested and unique. They can be taken individually, one at a time,
> > and put back together to form essentially the same pattern - just like
> > with the tree of life.
>
> So you claim. But I'd like to see you try it. Here are three soldiers:
> Joe, Ice Cream Soldier, and Rock. Which division do they belong to?
> Which army? Which army group?
We are talking about military job-structure - not specific individuals
that fill these jobs. For example, you can't take a private that is
trained as a medic and exchange him with a private that is trained in
the infantry. You can't take a captain who is trained in logistics
and replace him/her with a captain that is trained to lead the
marching band. Why not? Because these military ranks and different
jobs for different ranks are set up in a natural nested hierarchical
pattern that is very similar to that seen in the pattern of the
ToL.
< snip >
> > Exactly . . . The pattern is not independent of the object while the
> > object may exist independent of a particular pattern. Objects that
> > requires ID are different and open up different possibilities as far
> > as origins are concerned, to include the origin of the various
> > patterns that might be present, vs. those objects that do not require
> > ID to explain any particular feature - as in stratigraphic layers.
>
> But wait. Didn't you say that ID was necessary for the creation of the
> earth?
Not for the stratigraphic layers of the Earth.
> How can you assume that ID was not involved in the creation of
> the stratigraphic layers, which are part of the earth?
Because there is nothing about the stratigraphic layers that requires
the input of ID that I can tell.
> Your
> justification for rejecting common
> descent is exactly this. You are not
> being consistent.
My justification for rejecting common descent is multifold. First
off, ID was required for all of the key aspects of the patter of the
ToL. Life on Earth is of very recent origin. Creating a complex
interacting high-level functional system using a NHP-type fractal
structure makes a lot of functional and asthetic sense. And, making
such a NHP using CD take more time and is unnecessarily wasteful.
Anyway, that's all I have time for this afternoon.
< snip rest >
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Ron O
> Ron O wrote:
> > On Mar 3, 1:08 pm, Treus <treusd...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > > How would you distinguish between a feature that was adapted by design
> > > from another lineage versus one inherited with modification along the
> > > direct line?
>
> > In nature there are no examples. Descent with modification is what we
> > observe.
>
> How would you know, if you can't distinguish features adapted by
> design versus those inherited with modification?
You asked how would I distinguish a feature adapted by design from
another lineage. Just check out your own wording. There are no such
examples found in nature. Just try to find an example. There are
only adaptations from within the lineage with certain examples of
things like symbiosis, but whales did not get their fins from fish.
Bats did not get their wings from birds or pterosaurs.
You can't exclude what you proposed because what you propose can
explain anything. Common descent doesn't explain everything, just
what we observe. See the difference? You also have this little bitty
problem that is the elephant in the room that you want to keep
ignoring. Designer did it assertions about things that happen in
nature have a 100% failure rate. 100% with no exceptions, and they
aren't even directly testable. Science has had to figure out what was
really going on before we could exclude the possiblity. There is also
absolutely zero evidence that any designer capable of doing what you
want it to do even exists. You have the cart before the horse. You
can't claim that the designer exists because you don't know the answer
to some question and want the designer to be that answer. The smart
money is just to claim that you don't know something. Why do the
seasons change? Who makes babies? Who pulls the sun and moon across
the sky? Were angels responsible for the descrepancies in the data
that Newton couldn't explain? Who made the flagellum? The only
designer did it assertions still standing are the ones that we can't
test at this time. All the others have failed. Every single one.
100% failure. If this wasn't a fact the ID perps wouldn't be running
the bait and switch scam on the creationist rubes that believed them
about intelligent design. They would actually have something to
teach. Can you deny that?
Some supernatural designer could have done anything including just
getting the ball rolling and letting it roll. What you have to try to
attempt to do with intelligent design is to try to determine what
actually happened, not what could have happened. The could have
happened options are infinite and all but one is wrong. Don't you
agree that the absolute last methodology that you should use to figure
out what you don't know about nature is a methodology with a 100%
failure rate? Your designer did it inference has never been
verified. It is so far from a useful scientific inference that a lot
of scientists define science to exclude the possibility just so guys
like you won't waste their time beating a dead horse.
Ron Okimoto
John Harshman
That wasn't even a sentence, and I'm unable to decipher what you were
trying to say. The idea that there are 220ma birds relies on acceptance
of Protoavis, which nobody other than Chatterjee does. Nor would that
show that birds aren't dinosaurs, incidentally, because Chatterjee
thinks they are. The link you gave me, on the other hand, is to
Longisquama, which nobody thinks is a bird, and only the authors of that
article think has feathers.
> Of course, this is still a minority
> position in the scientific community - some of which do indeed propose
> the possible independent evolution of feathered dinosaurs.
It's also a minority position in the scientific community that the sun
goes around the earth. Name one scientist who proposes the independent
evolution of feathered dinosaurs.
> http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20000623/ai_n14305328
>
> < snip >
>
>>> "Fractals . . . are fabricated by the repetition of some geometric act
>>> over a nested succession of hierarchical scale. And the result is self-
>>> similarity, or the emergence of an axis of scale symmetry."
>>>
>>> http://www.dichotomistic.com/hierarchies_fractals.html
>> Did you see a mention of a nested hierarchy ther? Nope, the succession
>> is nested and the scale is hierarchical. Words found in the same
>> sentence, no more, as far as I can tell from the quote.
>
> I'm really amazed at your reading comprehension here. A nested
> succession of hierarchical scale is simple a different way of saying
> "nested hierarchy". That is in fact what defines a nested hierarchy.
> This makes me wonder what your definition of a nested hierarchy
> actually is?
Pretty simple. A nested hierarchy is a collection of sets in which, for
each pair of sets, they are either disjunct or one set is a proper
subset of the other.
I have no idea what "a nested succession of hierarchical scale" means.
> Here are a few more quotes for you describing fractals as "nested
> hierarchies":
>
> "Nature has nested hierarchial fractal-like organization."
>
> http://www.google.com/search?q=fractals+nested+hierarchy&hl=en&safe=off&start=10&sa=N
I really don't know what that means. Hey, you're not about to throw
random results of a search at me as if that explains something, are you?
Oh, I see you are.
[long irrelevant list of search results mercifully snipped]
>>> Fractals, by definition, form nested hierarchies. Of course, there
>>> are different kinds of fractals and therefore NHPs. Not all are the
>>> type of fractal structures formed by the patterns of life.
>> And so irrelevant.
>
> Your original claim was that there are no examples of any NHP being
> deliberately produced.
Sorry if that's what I said. It's not what I meant. We produce nested
hierarchies all the time. The geological time scale, for example, is a
nested hierarchy. Just not the kind of nested hierarchy we're interested in.
> Not only are NHP being produced all the time,
> NHP of the type expressed in the ToL are also being produced all the
> time - from computers to village and city blueprints to art, music,
> and military government.
So you claim. But it's just not true. None of these are nested
hierarchies, unless by "military government" you mean "military tables
of organization", in which case that's a nested hierarchy. And it's not
the same sort as the nested hierarchy of life.
> < snip >
>
>>> It does have something to do with it because the inclusion of ID opens
>>> a door that is not available without ID. Because ID presents the non-
>>> CD option, other factors must now be considered before CD is accepted
>>> as the most likely option - such as the amount of time available to
>>> produce the pattern and the historical evidence of pattern progression
>>> or evolution. It is not enough anymore to simply look at the pattern
>>> itself and determine CD once ID is known to be extensively involved.
>> This is no more than a naked claim, without any argument to support it.
>> And that of course applies equally to stratigraphic layers, yet you
>> believe they are natural.
>
> Let me explain it to you like this. Certain NHP within the overall
> pattern of life do not require the input of ID. These particular
> patterns within the overall pattern of life can be completely
> explained, in every aspect, without the use of ID and so there is no
> reason to invoke any other method besides CD. This is not true of
> those features where ID is required.
Whoops, once again you have confused the features themselves with the
nested hierarchy made by their distribution among species. No matter how
many times I explain this, you can't seem to keep it straight, or even
remember what I told you.
> These features open the door for
> non-CD methods. So, one must have some sort of additional basis upon
> which to argue that CD would still be used by the intelligent agent
> despite the fact that CD takes longer and is wasteful of other things
> as well - such as the individual.
Who says that god values time or individuals? Present some evidence for
this claim. And if god values individuals, why wouldn't he allow more
time for there to be more of them?
> Because CD takes more time that de
> novo creation, it is required that one demonstrate that the needed
> time was actually available.
No it isn't. However, showing that the needed time was not available
would certainly refute any reasonable theory of common descent, which is
not the same thing.
> Also, in light of the seeming advantages
> to be gained by creating complex systems with the use of NHP-type
> fractals (as described above), you'd have to explain why these
> advantages would be bypassed by an intelligent designer.
What evidence do you have that god would consider those to be advantages?
>>> You admit here that the time element is important to your ToCD.
>> You mistake negative evidence for positive evidence. In the absence of
>> evidence for a young earth, common descent is the clear explanation.
>
> Absence of evidence for a young earth is evidence for an old earth.
No it isn't. Whatever would make you say such a silly thing? Absence of
evidence for the nonexistence of a bowl of petunias on Jupiter is
evidence for the existence of a bowl of petunias on Jupiter?
> It is like the hypothesis vs. the null hypothesis. Evidence against
> the one is evidence for the other. This also means that evidence
> against an old earth is evidence for a young earth.
Now that, at least, is true. But it's not at all the same thing. You
have a lot of trouble with formal logic.
> I happen to believe that the material of the earth is old, but not
> life (to include the fossil record and much of the geologic column).
> I'm an old-earth young-life creationist.
Yes, and this position also is not self-consistent. You can't even give
a reason to believe such a thing, since the evidence for a great age of
the material of the earth is radiometric. But you reject radiometric
dating, leaving you with a belief based on nothing.
>>>>> So, your notion that a NHP is in itself enough evidence to support the
>>>>> theory of common descent is simply not true - by your own admission.
>>>> You have confused being enough evidence all by itself with the
>>>> possibility that contradictory evidence might refute it.
>>> You don't believe in CD = NHP for the tree of life because of the
>>> pattern itself - by itself.
>> Yes I do.
>
> You only believe this because you don't even realize how important
> your interpretation of the age of life and the pattern of the fossil
> record has become to your belief in the ToCD - - and the ToE itself.
No I don't. But provide me with an argument that will correct me, if you
can.
>>> You believe in this notion because you
>>> also believe that there is a preserved progression in the fossil
>>> record that took hundreds of millions of years to produce. Without
>>> this fossil evidence or any other evidence to support the extended
>>> time that your theory needs, the ID produced system, really wouldn't
>>> support the ToCD very well.
>> You are wrong. You have confused absence of evidence with contradictory
>> evidence. If there were contradictory evidence, common descent would be
>> less credible. If there were no other evidence, common descent would be
>> the clear inference.
>
> There isn't the complete absence of evidence here. You believe, as do
> most mainstream scientists, that there is a great deal of evidence for
> the old-earth and old-life perspective. If you had no idea if the
> Earth was old or young, the ToCD given only the NHP by itself would
> not be on very solid scientific ground at all.
So you claim, yet I notice you provide no actual arguments to back up
your claims. You just repeat your claims.
>>>> Whether any of the features
>>>> composing that hierarchy needed ID
>>>> is a separate question, though you
>>>> seem unable to comprehend this.
>>> You seem unable to comprehend that a pattern cannot exist independent
>>> of the system. Life could exist without a NHP. However, the opposite
>>> is not true. The NHP of life cannot exist without the existence of
>>> life. Without the existence of the system, the pattern cannot exist.
>>> Therefore, for higher-level systems that require ID, the pattern of
>>> such systems also cannot exist without ID.
>> Irrelevant. Stratigraphy can't exist without the earth, but the earth
>> could exist without stratigraphy. Therefore the stratigraphic layers
>> were designed?
>
> Point mutations can't exist without the genome, but the genome can
> exist without point mutations. Yet, I don't believe that point
> mutations require design.
That just shows that you are inconsistent in the application of your
claimed criterion.
> You see, you don't seem to grasp that the demonstration of the need
> for ID is not a demonstration of a need for some other method besides
> CD.
No, I grasp that just fine. In fact I've been telling you that for quite
a while now, and you've been disagreeing with me.
> ID can and does often use CD as a creative method.
Does it? Can you give an example?
> It is just
> that a demonstration of the need for ID opens the door for other
> methods to be used - even when it comes to NHPs. This is not true of
> stratigraphy because there is no demonstrable need or requirement for
> ID for any aspect of stratigraphy.
Again, this works only if you arbitrarily circumscribe the systems in a
particular way (stratigraphy is self-contained, but the nested hierarchy
is tangled up with all sorts of other things) and assume that different
parts of a system contaminate each other with causality. None of that
actually makes sense.
> It doesn't matter if layers of
> rock are part of a larger system where other aspects within the larger
> system may indeed require ID.
True. And it doesn't matter if a nested hierarchy is part of a system
where other aspects within the larger system may indeed require ID.
> What matters is that no aspect of
> making the layers themselves seems to require the input of ID.
Just as no aspect of making the nested hierarchy itself seems to require
the input of ID.
> This
> means that the door of using some other mechanism besides the ones
> that are already open to non-deliberate processes is not demonstrably
> open for stratigraphy.
I'm sorry. I can't tell when a door is open and when it's not. Your
criterion makes no sense at all.
>>> Yes, you can. The elements of the military hierarchy, for example,
>>> are nested and unique. They can be taken individually, one at a time,
>>> and put back together to form essentially the same pattern - just like
>>> with the tree of life.
>> So you claim. But I'd like to see you try it. Here are three soldiers:
>> Joe, Ice Cream Soldier, and Rock. Which division do they belong to?
>> Which army? Which army group?
>
> We are talking about military job-structure - not specific individuals
> that fill these jobs. For example, you can't take a private that is
> trained as a medic and exchange him with a private that is trained in
> the infantry. You can't take a captain who is trained in logistics
> and replace him/her with a captain that is trained to lead the
> marching band. Why not? Because these military ranks and different
> jobs for different ranks are set up in a natural nested hierarchical
> pattern that is very similar to that seen in the pattern of the
> ToL.
That's just nonsense. There is no such natural nested hierarchy of jobs.
Medics go into a position having to do with medicine, that's all there
is to it. No hierarchy there. You can't take a list of all the jobs and
figure out the structure of the army from it.
>>> Exactly . . . The pattern is not independent of the object while the
>>> object may exist independent of a particular pattern. Objects that
>>> requires ID are different and open up different possibilities as far
>>> as origins are concerned, to include the origin of the various
>>> patterns that might be present, vs. those objects that do not require
>>> ID to explain any particular feature - as in stratigraphic layers.
>> But wait. Didn't you say that ID was necessary for the creation of the
>> earth?
>
> Not for the stratigraphic layers of the Earth.
Exactly in the same way that ID isn't necessary for the nested hierarchy
of life.
>> How can you assume that ID was not involved in the creation of
>> the stratigraphic layers, which are part of the earth?
>
> Because there is nothing about the stratigraphic layers that requires
> the input of ID that I can tell.
Similarly, there is nothing about the nested hierarchy of life that
requires the input of ID. You have never claimed it did. You only argue
for some of the characters whose distribution among species makes up the
hierarchy. And (I'm tempted to resort to all caps, but it wouldn't help)
those are not the same thing.
>> Your
>> justification for rejecting common
>> descent is exactly this. You are not
>> being consistent.
>
> My justification for rejecting common descent is multifold. First
> off, ID was required for all of the key aspects of the patter of the
> ToL.
Not true. Even if we accept that ID was required, the pattern is not
what it's required for.
> Life on Earth is of very recent origin.
No it isn't. It's billions of years old.
> Creating a complex
> interacting high-level functional system using a NHP-type fractal
> structure makes a lot of functional and asthetic sense. And, making
> such a NHP using CD take more time and is unnecessarily wasteful.
Only if you can present some evidence that god would consider it wasteful.
> Anyway, that's all I have time for this afternoon.
I don't know why you bother. You avoid or ignore all the real questions.
richardal...@googlemail.com
> On Mar 6, 2:39 pm, richardalanforr...@googlemail.com wrote:
>
> > On Mar 6, 10:17 pm, Ray Martinez <pyramid...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > > On Mar 6, 11:53 am, richardalanforr...@googlemail.com wrote:
>
> > > SNIP...
>
> > > > Even if evolutionary theory were totally and utterly falsified beyond
> > > > any hope of resurrection, it would still not provide one iota of
> > > > evidence for "intentional design". SNIP...
>
> > > Atheist-Materialist ideology.
>
> > It's called "science", and it is the same regardless of the beliefs of
> > the scientists.
>
> I agree, its called "science" or scientism.
No Ray, it's called "science".
And many of its practitioners are Christians or members of other
religious faiths.
It is not an "atheist-materialist ideology".
It's a tool for investigating the workings of the universe, and one
which has demonstrated its value through the centuries because it
works.
>
>
>
> > > The observation of design and organized complexity logically
> > > corresponds to the work of invisible Designer.
>
> > Not when there is a solid explanation for that evidence which does not
> > rely on an "invisible Designer" and no evidence whatsoever for an
> > "invisible Designer".
>
> Logically the evidence of observation of design and organized
> complexity is evidence that the same was caused by invisible Designer.
>
As we can and have demonstrated that "organised complexity" can arise
without the intervention of any "intelligent designer", this is an
unfounded assertion.
> And we know Atheists, according to the needs of their worldview,
> explain the evidence and observation away with perverted logic and
> assumptions; but reality and the observation of design and organized
> complexity seen therein is not affected by explanations of denial, but
> remains in nature always available to be observed.
>
> > Have you ever seen your "invisible Designer"?
>
> Existence of Designer is deduced by the observation of design and
> organized complexity seen in nature and every organism.
So you haven't seen any evidence for your "invisible designer", and
are drawing conclusions from a demonstrably false premise.
> The degree by
> which both phenomena are seen in nature and its inhabitants is, unlike
> a pocket watch, beyond computation.
..and we know of purely materialistic processes which can produce such
complexity.
>
> Have you seen gravity?
No, but we can study its effects, make precise predictions about its
action, and set limits on what it can do.
>
> Or atomic particles?
No, but we can study them indirectly, make precise predictions about
their action, and set limits on what they can do.
>
> By your logic we must deny their existence.
Ray, your grasp of logic is so
>
> > > Reality has always
> > > proven the existence of a supreme Divine Being.
>
> > > Ray
>
> > Fine, Ray.
> > Just don't confuse your religious convictions with science.
>
> > RF
>
> Objectively reversed: this says Atheists pursue their anti-religious
> convictions through "science". I do not know anyone who does not
> already know this.
>
> Ray
No, Ray. It simply says that you are confusing your rather bizare and
logically incoherent religious convictions with science.
RF
wf3h
> On Mar 6, 11:53 am, richardalanforr...@googlemail.com wrote:
>
> SNIP...
>
>
>
> > Even if evolutionary theory were totally and utterly falsified beyond
> > any hope of resurrection, it would still not provide one iota of
> > evidence for "intentional design". SNIP...
>
> Atheist-Materialist ideology.
>
> The observation of design and organized complexity logically
> corresponds to the work of invisible Designer.
we've never seen an 'invisible' designer so, to state one exists is
illogical. we don't know how such a designer would work since ALL
designers use natural laws to express design. we've NEVER seen a
design absent natural laws.
creationism is filled with fatal contradictions.
wf3h
>
> Logically the evidence of observation of design and organized
kind of like saying money under the pillow of a child who's lost a
tooth is evidence of the tooth fairy
we've never observed an 'invisible' designer. we've never observed a
non material designer. we've never observed a designer that DIDN'T
used natural laws to implement a design
other than that, design is airtight.
>
> And we know Atheists, according to the needs of their worldview,
> explain the evidence and observation away with perverted logic and
> assumptions; but reality and the observation of design and organized
> complexity seen therein is not affected by explanations of denial, but
> remains in nature always available to be observed.
atheists like richard feynmann, steven weinberg...both nobel prize
winners?
>
> > Have you ever seen your "invisible Designer"?
>
> Existence of Designer is deduced by the observation of design
ah. we've never OBSERVED such a designer, but it's DEDUCED...
and
> organized complexity seen in nature and every organism.
circular logic. complexity means a designer. a designer means
complexity.
no wonder creationists say their argument is ironclad.
The degree by
> which both phenomena are seen in nature and its inhabitants is, unlike
> a pocket watch, beyond computation.
except, of course, the designer of a pocket watch is a human...a
material being who uses natural processes...levers, friction, etc. to
make a watch
creationists say the designer is non material and does not use natural
processes. neither of these has ever been observed. not once.
>
> Objectively reversed: this says Atheists pursue their anti-religious
> convictions through "science". I do not know anyone who does not
> already know this.
>
i do.
wf3h
wrote:
> My justification for rejecting common descent is multifold. First
> off, ID was required for all of the key aspects of the patter of the
> ToL.
which is nonsense. every designer ever observed is a material being.
all of them.
2nd, they all use natural processes
3rd, every 'miracle' (seanpit's term for the process god uses to
create species) has been tested. no miracle has ever been seen, and
ALL miraculous events...when a cause has been found...was found to
have a NATURAL cause
seanpit simply ignores this information. he cherrypicks his
observations so they conform with his 7th day adventist views. we KNOW
where his 'ID' views come from: his religion. we KNOW he ignores
facts.
his argument is simply invalid. it's wrong.
>
Seanpit
wrote:
>
> > This is one of the arguments for scientists who believe that birds did
> > not evolve from dinosaurs because true birds are found in the fossil
> > birds are 'living dinosaurs'".
>
> That wasn't even a sentence, and I'm unable to decipher what you were
> trying to say. The idea that there are 220ma birds relies on acceptance
> of Protoavis, which nobody other than Chatterjee does. Nor would that
> show that birds aren't dinosaurs, incidentally, because Chatterjee
> thinks they are. The link you gave me, on the other hand, is to
> Longisquama, which nobody thinks is a bird, and only the authors of that
> article think has feathers.
Oh please. Have you actually looked at the photos of Longisquama?
http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/photos/longis.jpg
There are quite a number of mainstream scientists who think that these
structures are very similar to modern feathers - for obvious reasons
if you look at the pictures. Based on this fossil, and others, those
like Professor John Ruben, of Oregon State University and Dr Alan
Feduccia, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill note:
"We now question very strongly whether there were any feathered
dinosaurs at all."
While these scientists do still represent a minority of mainstream
scientists, they are by no means "fringe" scientists. Feduccia, in
particular, has listed off quite a number of reasons why he believes
birds did not evolve from dinosaurs.
> > Of course, this is still a minority
> > position in the scientific community - some of which do indeed propose
> > the possible independent evolution of feathered dinosaurs.
>
> It's also a minority position in the scientific community that the sun
> goes around the earth.
The notion that birds did not evolve from dinosaurs is a position of a
minority of mainstream scientists that has been published in
mainstream scientific literature.
> Name one scientist who proposes the independent
> evolution of feathered dinosaurs.
I already have named several that have actually proposed this idea.
> > I'm really amazed at your reading comprehension here. A nested
> > succession of hierarchical scale is simply a different way of saying
> > "nested hierarchy". That is in fact what defines a nested hierarchy.
> > This makes me wonder what your definition of a nested hierarchy
> > actually is?
>
> Pretty simple. A nested hierarchy is a collection of sets in which, for
> each pair of sets, they are either disjunct or one set is a proper
> subset of the other.
You can have whole bunch of sets that are "disjunct" and do not form a
nested hierarchy. A nested hierarchy requires that all the sets on
one level fit within the higher-level sets. That is what is meant by
a "nested succession of hierarchical scale". Lower-level or "scale"
sets "nest" within higher-level or "scale" sets. That just so happens
to be the definition of a fractal as well.
> I have no idea what "a nested succession of hierarchical scale" means.
Yeah right . . .
> > Here are a few more quotes for you describing fractals as "nested
> > hierarchies":
>
> > "Nature has nested hierarchial fractal-like organization."
>
> >http://www.google.com/search?q=fractals+nested+hierarchy&hl=en&safe=o...
>
> I really don't know what that means.
Then you don't really know what you are talking about when you use the
terms "nested hierarchy" or "fractal".
< snip >
> > Not only are NHP being produced all the time,
> > NHP of the type expressed in the ToL are also being produced all the
> > time - from computers to village and city blueprints to art, music,
> > and military government.
>
> So you claim. But it's just not true. None of these are nested
> hierarchies,
You just snipped all the references that demonstrated that NH are
indeed used in each of these cases.
> unless by "military government" you mean "military tables
> of organization", in which case that's a nested hierarchy. And it's not
> the same sort as the nested hierarchy of life.
Military organization is the same basic form of a NHP that is used in
life. There is no fundamental difference.
> > Let me explain it to you like this. Certain NHP within the overall
> > pattern of life do not require the input of ID. These particular
> > patterns within the overall pattern of life can be completely
> > explained, in every aspect, without the use of ID and so there is no
> > reason to invoke any other method besides CD. This is not true of
> > those features where ID is required.
>
> Whoops, once again you have confused the features themselves with the
> nested hierarchy made by their distribution among species. No matter how
> many times I explain this, you can't seem to keep it straight, or even
> remember what I told you.
I do not confuse the features with the pattern. What you don't seem
to realize is that the pattern is dependent upon the existence of the
features. If the particular features under consideration required ID,
then the door is open for the production of a NHP without using CD as
the only possible method. This means that this door is open for much
of the ToL, but is not clearly open for stratigraphy because nothing
in stratigraphy requires ID.
You keep trying to compare apples and oranges here. You can't do
that. You can only compare patterns where each difference in each
pattern required ID. You are trying to compare a pattern where the
differences in the pattern did not required ID with a pattern where
the difference did require ID. That's not a proper comparison.
> > These features open the door for
> > non-CD methods. So, one must have some sort of additional basis upon
> > which to argue that CD would still be used by the intelligent agent
> > despite the fact that CD takes longer and is wasteful of other things
> > as well - such as the individual.
>
> Who says that god values time or individuals? Present some evidence for
> this claim. And if god values individuals, why wouldn't he allow more
> time for there to be more of them?
If all you have is evidence of intelligent design, you don't know the
identity. You can't make arguments based on what you think a "God"
would or would not be like or do. Beyond this, if a creator did value
the thoughts and feelings of the individual, it seems reasonable that
he wouldn't use a process to create more individuals that sacrificed
the ones he already cared about in a most vicious and calloused
manner.
> > Because CD takes more time than does
> > de novo creation, it is required that one
> > demonstrate that the needed
> > time was actually available.
>
> No it isn't.
Yes, it is. CD is not viable without adequate time. Therefore, to
adequately support the ToCD, you have to show that the required time
is likely to have been available.
> However, showing that the needed time was not available
> would certainly refute any reasonable theory of common descent, which is
> not the same thing.
That's right. If opposing evidence would falsify the ToCD, but a lack
of opposing evidence is not the same thing as a support of CD by
default. For example, say that you and I are blindfolded and someone
flips a coin and it lands on the table in front of us. We both hear
it land and spin to a stop. You say that you think it landed on heads
for some reason. I say that I have no evidence to counter that
hypothesis. Because I cannot say that you are wrong, you therefore
think that your hypothesis is actually supported here?
This is exactly what you are doing. You are saying that a system
where the differences between the various elements were known to have
required ID and yet exhibits a NHP clearly involves CD until proven
otherwise? - that the ToCD is true by default without the need for
any additional evidence whatsoever? How on Earth is that a valid
scientific position? Upon what basis do you suggest that CD is the
most valid default position for such a scenario? I mean really, the
involvement of ID clearly provides two open doors - head and tails so
to speak. Upon what basis do you default to heads over tails here?
> > Also, in light of the seeming advantages
> > to be gained by creating complex systems with the use of NHP-type
> > fractals (as described above), you'd have to explain why these
> > advantages would be bypassed by an intelligent designer.
>
> What evidence do you have that god would consider those to be advantages?
What evidence do you have that a highly intelligent designer would not
or should not consider the numerous advantages I've listed off for
you? You were the one arguing that there is no functional advantage
to creating with the use of a NHP-type fractal. Now that you see that
this notion simply isn't true, that many advantages are being
discovered for using fractals in all sort of creative ways, you are
now asking why a non-human intelligence might not also consider these
advantages in various creative works?
> >>> You admit here that the time element is important to your ToCD.
> >> You mistake negative evidence for positive evidence. In the absence of
> >> evidence for a young earth, common descent is the clear explanation.
>
> > Absence of evidence for a young earth is evidence for an old earth.
>
> No it isn't. Whatever would make you say such a silly thing? Absence of
> evidence for the nonexistence of a bowl of petunias on Jupiter is
> evidence for the existence of a bowl of petunias on Jupiter?
This is a two-option hypothesis without a third option. If you know
the side of the coin you are looking at is "tails", it is pretty safe
to assume that the other side is "heads" because there is no known
viable third option. As a further example: If it can be reasonably
proven that no non-intelligent process could do a particular job, then
it becomes quite reasonable to conclude that intelligence was
involved. That, in a nutshell, is the basis of several sciences - to
include forensic science, anthropology, and yes, SETI.
> > It is like the hypothesis vs. the null hypothesis. Evidence against
> > the one is evidence for the other. This also means that evidence
> > against an old earth is evidence for a young earth.
>
> Now that, at least, is true. But it's not at all the same thing. You
> have a lot of trouble with formal logic.
You have a lot of trouble understanding logic.
> > I happen to believe that the material of the earth is old, but not
> > life (to include the fossil record and much of the geologic column).
> > I'm an old-earth young-life creationist.
>
> Yes, and this position also is not self-consistent. You can't even give
> a reason to believe such a thing, since the evidence for a great age of
> the material of the earth is radiometric. But you reject radiometric
> dating, leaving you with a belief based on nothing.
I don't believe in the potential for the old age of the material of
the Earth because of radiometric dating - - but because of
astronomical calculations for the distances of stars and galaxies and
the speed of light.
< snip >
> > There isn't the complete absence of evidence here. You believe, as do
> > most mainstream scientists, that there is a great deal of evidence for
> > the old-earth and old-life perspective. If you had no idea if the
> > Earth was old or young, the ToCD given only the NHP by itself would
> > not be on very solid scientific ground at all.
>
> So you claim, yet I notice you provide no actual arguments to back up
> your claims. You just repeat your claims.
I've provided a great many arguments to back up my claims here. The
very fact that the ToCD and the ToE did not become very popular in
science before Darwin presented his novel mechanism should say
something to you. You may proclaim all you want that the ToCD would
not be affected if the Darwinian mechanism were removed, but that's
just as much your baseless opinion as is mine. You are the one making
this claim, yet you have brought nothing to support this claim beyond
your notions of what a God that you do no know or even believe in
would or would not do. You have this strange idea that an intelligent
agent would have to use CD to produce a NHP even given that a NHP-type
fractal has many demonstrable benefits as a deliberate functional
creation and that CD requires much more time and waste along the way.
You are the one arguing that CD is still the most likely answer
because of your notion that an infinite God probably wouldn't care
about such things. Again, this argument is based on your warped
concepts of God - not really on any real argument outside of your
notions of God.
> > Point mutations can't exist without the genome, but the genome can
> > exist without point mutations. Yet, I don't believe that point
> > mutations require design.
>
> That just shows that you are inconsistent in the application of your
> claimed criterion.
Not at all. If the particular feature in question requires ID, then
the door is open for a non-CD method to explain the origin for that
particular feature. That's always been my very consistent position
here. Point mutations, by themselves, do not require ID. Therefore,
the door for a non-CD method of their origin is not clearly open. In
comparison, systems beyond the 1000aa threshold do require ID.
Therefore, the door for a non-CD method of their origin is clearly
open.
That's quite simple. If you can't understand that concept, I really
don't know how to make it any more clear to you.
> > You see, you don't seem to grasp that the demonstration of the need
> > for ID is not a demonstration of a need for some other method besides
> > CD.
>
> No, I grasp that just fine. In fact I've been telling you that for quite
> a while now, and you've been disagreeing with me.
>
> > ID can and does often use CD as a creative method.
>
> Does it? Can you give an example?
I gave you quite a few in my last post - but you "mercifully" snipped
them all.
> > It is just
> > that a demonstration of the need for ID opens the door for other
> > methods to be used - even when it comes to NHPs. This is not true of
> > stratigraphy because there is no demonstrable need or requirement for
> > ID for any aspect of stratigraphy.
>
> Again, this works only if you arbitrarily circumscribe the systems in a
> particular way (stratigraphy is self-contained, but the nested hierarchy
> is tangled up with all sorts of other things) and assume that different
> parts of a system contaminate each other with causality. None of that
> actually makes sense.
Each level of a fractal is self-contained or "nested" in its own
little nest. The origin of one level or nest may or may not required
ID while a higher-level nest may require ID. You can't simply look at
one part of a hierarchy and say, "the door for non-CD is not clearly
open here therefore it isn't clearly open anywhere in the entire
hierarchy at any level". That's not "logical" John. You have to look
at each particular aspect independently and ask of the door of non-CD
is or is not clearly open for that particular aspect.
> > What matters is that no aspect of
> > making the layers themselves seems to require the input of ID.
>
> Just as no aspect of making the nested hierarchy itself seems to require
> the input of ID.
What require ID are the underlying structural differences at a
particular level of the NHP. This structural requirement for ID opens
the door for non-CD methods of origin. An open door is not a
requirement to walk through that door. ID could in fact us CD to
produce the NHP at these higher structural levels of complexity.
However, ID is not *required* to use CD. Demonstration that ID is
required to produce the underlying structure is a demonstration of the
clear availability of a second option besides the CD-door. Without
the demonstration of a requirement for ID for the underlying
structure, this second door is NOT clearly open. This is why there is
no second door that is clearly open for the origin of stratigraphy
beyond the CD door. There is only one clearly available option in
this case while there are two option for the case of the ToL at higher
hierarchical structural levels.
That's the key difference here. How many doors are clearly open in
one case vs. the other? The number of doors or options that are
clearly available is not the same for both of these phenomena. How is
that a difficult concept to grasp?
> > This
> > means that the door of using some other mechanism besides the ones
> > that are already open to non-deliberate processes is not demonstrably
> > open for stratigraphy.
>
> I'm sorry. I can't tell when a door is open and when it's not. Your
> criterion makes no sense at all.
Oh come on now. The CD door is always open while the non-CD door is
not. A clear opening of the non-CD door requires the ID be required
for the underlying structure upon which the pattern is based.
> >>> Yes, you can. The elements of the military hierarchy, for example,
> >>> are nested and unique. They can be taken individually, one at a time,
> >>> and put back together to form essentially the same pattern - just like
> >>> with the tree of life.
> >> So you claim. But I'd like to see you try it. Here are three soldiers:
> >> Joe, Ice Cream Soldier, and Rock. Which division do they belong to?
> >> Which army? Which army group?
>
> > We are talking about military job-structure - not specific individuals
> > that fill these jobs. For example, you can't take a private that is
> > trained as a medic and exchange him with a private that is trained in
> > the infantry. You can't take a captain who is trained in logistics
> > and replace him/her with a captain that is trained to lead the
> > marching band. Why not? Because these military ranks and different
> > jobs for different ranks are set up in a natural nested hierarchical
> > pattern that is very similar to that seen in the pattern of the
> > ToL.
>
> That's just nonsense. There is no such natural nested hierarchy of jobs.
> Medics go into a position having to do with medicine, that's all there
> is to it. No hierarchy there. You can't take a list of all the jobs and
> figure out the structure of the army from it.
You figure out the structure of the army based on both rank and jobs -
not one without the other. The same thing is true of the ToL. You
can't build it very well looking at just one feature either - like all
those creatures that swim or fly or eat plants.
> >>> Exactly . . . The pattern is not independent of the object while the
> >>> object may exist independent of a particular pattern. Objects that
> >>> requires ID are different and open up different possibilities as far
> >>> as origins are concerned, to include the origin of the various
> >>> patterns that might be present, vs. those objects that do not require
> >>> ID to explain any particular feature - as in stratigraphic layers.
> >> But wait. Didn't you say that ID was necessary for the creation of the
> >> earth?
>
> > Not for the stratigraphic layers of the Earth.
>
> Exactly in the same way that ID isn't necessary for the nested hierarchy
> of life.
ID is necessary for the underlying differences upon which the pattern
is based beyond low-levels of functional complexity. That produces a
clearly open door for a non-CD method of creation.
> >> How can you assume that ID was not involved in the creation of
> >> the stratigraphic layers, which are part of the earth?
>
> > Because there is nothing about the stratigraphic layers that requires
> > the input of ID that I can tell.
>
> Similarly, there is nothing about the nested hierarchy of life that
> requires the input of ID.
Yes, there is - the underlying structure upon which the pattern exists
requires ID for life, but not for stratigraphy.
> > My justification for rejecting common descent is multifold. First
> > off, ID was required for all of the key aspects of the patter of the
> > ToL.
>
> Not true. Even if we accept that ID was required, the pattern is not
> what it's required for.
The option for non-CD is what is at issue here - not a requirement to
use on or the other, but a clear option to use something other than
CD.
> > Life on Earth is of very recent origin.
>
> No it isn't. It's billions of years old.
That's certainly your opinion, but it isn't mine. If I'm right, not
only are your notions of CD wrong, but the entire ToE is wrong as
well.
> > Creating a complex
> > interacting high-level functional system using a NHP-type fractal
> > structure makes a lot of functional and aesthetic sense. And, making
> > such a NHP using CD take more time and is unnecessarily wasteful.
>
> Only if you can present some evidence that god would consider it wasteful.
You are back to your notions of God again - which go well beyond the
Theory of ID.
> > Anyway, that's all I have time for this afternoon.
>
> I don't know why you bother. You avoid or ignore all the real questions.
Like what? You keep repeating the same questions and answers over and
over again. I've really not come across anything really new or
startling from you in a while. Why not lead off your next post with
what you consider to be the most important questions I've ignored or
snipped from any of your posts. So far, it seems that whatever I
don't get to in your post just so happened to be your key point - even
if your post is 20,000 words long. Sorry, but I don't have a great
deal of time to respond to endless posts. So, why not makes some
snips of your own and lead off with a few of your most salient points
next time? Make it easier on yourself - and me!
> > Again, where do you get this "heresy" stuff?
>
> Nearly universal Christian doctrine for quite a long time. "There is no
> way to the father but through me." "Nulla salus extra ecclesiam." Etc.
That's true, but there is nothing in the Bible that says that you have
to actually know who Jesus is before he can help you get to the
Father. Remember, Jesus himself said, "Many sheep have I that are not
of this fold". Paul also said that many of the heathen will be
defended by their consciences in the day of judgment. Paul also says
that God "winks at" or "overlooks" the ignorance of the heathen (Acts
17:30). Did you not read those parts of the Bible?
> >> But I don't mind if you don't.
>
> > Very good - it's a done deal then.
>
> Yes, and we'll all have coffee with the tooth fairy and Sherlock Holmes.
> It'll be fun.
I can't wait to see the look on your face when you see that at least
one of the three is actually real - and that he actually likes you.
> >>> I'm talking about if I'm right and you're wrong - about the existence
> >>> of God and of heaven. If, for argument's sake, there was a God and a
> >>> heaven, how would you like it set up? Would you think it at all
> >>> reasonable to exclude the honest atheist from eternal life and
> >>> happiness just for a honest mistake?
> >> I wouldn't find it reasonable to exclude anyone. What happens to the
> >> people who don't get into heaven?
>
> > They didn't want to be there. Anyone who wants to be there will be
> > there. Everyone gets what they want short injury to somebody else.
> > Only those types of "evil wants" will not be honored.
>
> You're saying that the bad people would rather be dead than have eternal
> life? Have you actually asked any of them?
People who are truly evil, whose only desire is to destroy those
around themselves to their own advantage or twisted desires, are
miserable people. Many of them do desire death rather than life -
even if they don't admit it. It's kinda like having a disease that
makes you crazy. Even if one is incapable of expressing his/her own
misery and is incapable of letting it go, the fact remains that this
person is indeed miserable and would be better off dead than alive.
Do you believe in capital "punishment"? for a person who is for sure
guilty of some horrible crime - like serial rapid and murder? - of
children? If so, upon what basis would you take away such a life?
> >>> I agree. I don't believe in an eternal Hell or infinite punishment.
> >>> That's heresy where I come from - an invention of the Church during
> >>> the middle ages. It is not Biblical that's for sure.
> >> Whatever you say is or isn't biblical can be that way. It's a flexible
> >> document.
>
> > So are any human-based interpretations of anything - - including much
> > of "science". There is just a point at which a certain degree of
> > flexibility becomes untenable. Obviously, that point is quite
> > different for different people.
>
> So you're a postmodernist?
Not at all. I believe in absolute truths, just not in the ability of
human beings to fully realize an understanding of absolute truth -
only to approach but never fully reach it.
> >> I grow weary of this painful sophistry. Let's stop discussing your
> >> theological views.
>
> > Ok, but you brought it up, not me.
>
> It's not the views that weary me, but the excruciating sophistry used to
> defend them.
Of course, your arguments are not based on your own "excruciating
sophistry" I take it? Of course not. One's own ideas always make
perfect sense ; )
> > I only have time for one more comment today:
>
> >>> What is your definition of "milk"? Mammalian milk is comprise of
> >>> various proteins, fats and sugars. The same thing is true of
> >>> cockroach milk.
> >> My definition of "milk" is hardly "a substance composed of various
> >> proteins, fats, and sugars". Are you serious?
>
> > Ok, what is the correct definition of "milk"? - seriously . . .
>
> Well, of course the obvious one is that it's a substance produced in the
> mammary glands of mammals; that's begging the question, but the question
> is never asked in real biology, so it suffices.
That's not a definition of "milk" where it is even possible to show a
non-mammal producing "milk". When you argue that only mammals produce
milk, you are right by definition here. Do you not see this as a
circular argument?
> Milk has particular
> proteins not found in other "milklike" substances.
Not true. Different mammals produce their milk with the use of
different proteins, fats, and sugars - and in different ratios.
Useful milk does not require a very high degree of structural
complexity (sequence size or specificity).
> Mammary glands have
> particular secretory pathways not found in other organisms.
We aren't talking about the method of milk secretion, but about the
definition of "milk" itself. How is it that you can define "milk" by
the method of its production and secretion? Can't you tell "milk"
from "non-milk" by looking at the final product itself?
> Cockroach
> milk (or pigeon milk, or various substances produced by various fish)
> are not similar in detail to milk or to each other beyond the generic
> description "substance produced internally to feed the offspring".
Not true. Cockroach milk, in particular, is comprised of proteins,
fats, and sugars that are used for energy needs and basic building
blocks - just as is the case for mammals. While there certainly are
sequence differences, I dare say that if you had enough of it, a
mammalian offspring could survive tolerably well on cockroach milk.
> You
> could as well tell me that common
> descent must be false because bats,
> birds, and bugs all have wings.
> Would you do that?
Rather, the argument here is like showing that Pegasus existed with
wings and feathers and the whole bit. However, upon sequence analysis
of the proteins used to build the feathers some, like yourself, argue
that the feathers of Pegasus, though grossly and functionally
indistinguishable, aren't really "feathers" because the protein
building blocks happen to be different from that used by birds. This
is the argument you seem to be making for your definition of "milk".
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Treus
The efficiency (not complexity) of life in its congruent niches, much
like the found watch represents an efficient (rather than complex) use
of materials for a function, radically beyond anything that known
available natural processes could have accomplished.
richardal...@googlemail.com
On what basis do you conclude that "known available natural processes"
could not have produced this efficiency? If computer models using
evolutionary algorithms have shown us anything, they have demonstrated
that natural selection is a superb tool for refining designs and
making them extremely efficient.
Natural selection is an available natural process, by the way.
RF