Intelligent Design: a Viable Explanation?

[R. Dean]

It's been pointed out by many people that we identify design
because we are familiar with human designed artifacts, structures
and buildings and so, we can recognize design because know they
were designed by humans, but we know nothing about supernatural
non-human designers.
So, to know anything about these designs we have to know something
about the designers. I disagree with this narrow restriction.
I think it's entirely possible to recognize design without knowing
anything about the designer. Design can stand alone and be recognized.

So, I think intelligent design is a viable explanation. This is
predicated upon the fundamental precept that all intelligence has
certain commonalities. These are traits and characteristics that are
common throughout all types of intelligences, including human,
aliens and supernatural intelligent creators/designers.
This is so basic that if it's falsified then the whole concept of
intelligent design collapses.
I would include among these shared characteristics, reason, logic
order, rational, coherence, information and similarities in thought
patterns.

It's this were not true, then science which depends upon being
able to observe, devise explanatory hypothesis, test and make
predictions could no function if the universe, nature and the
laws of nature were capricious, fickle, unpredictable, whimsical
and arbitrary, then science could not work.

Ron Dean

[John Harshman]

On 2/27/14 12:06 PM, R. Dean wrote:
> It's been pointed out by many people that we identify design
> because we are familiar with human designed artifacts, structures
> and buildings and so, we can recognize design because know they
> were designed by humans, but we know nothing about supernatural
> non-human designers.
> So, to know anything about these designs we have to know something about
> the designers. I disagree with this narrow restriction.
> I think it's entirely possible to recognize design without knowing
> anything about the designer. Design can stand alone and be recognized.

So you imagine. Of course we don't recognize design, even in human
products. We recognize manufacture. In order to recognize manufacture,
we do indeed need to know, or at least assume, something about the
capabilities of the manufacturer.

> So, I think intelligent design is a viable explanation. This is
> predicated upon the fundamental precept that all intelligence has
> certain commonalities. These are traits and characteristics that are
> common throughout all types of intelligences, including human,
> aliens and supernatural intelligent creators/designers.
> This is so basic that if it's falsified then the whole concept of
> intelligent design collapses.
> I would include among these shared characteristics, reason, logic
> order, rational, coherence, information and similarities in thought
> patterns.

"Order" and "Information" are properties of just about anything,
intelligent or not. "Coherence" is incoherent. "Reason", "logic",
"rational" [sic], and "similarities in thought patterns" all seem to be
versions of the same thing, i.e. intelligence. I agree that intelligence
is a property of intelligence. Where does that get us?

> It's this were not true, then science which depends upon being
> able to observe, devise explanatory hypothesis, test and make
> predictions could no function if the universe, nature and the
> laws of nature were capricious, fickle, unpredictable, whimsical
> and arbitrary, then science could not work.

How does this relate to intelligent design?

[eridanus]

El jueves, 27 de febrero de 2014 20:06:24 UTC, R. Dean escribió:
> It's been pointed out by many people that we identify design
> because we are familiar with human designed artifacts, structures
> and buildings and so, we can recognize design because know they
> were designed by humans, but we know nothing about supernatural
> non-human designers.

Dear Dean:
You are deforming the basic argument. I had never known any clock
maker, or any shoe maker, or any blacksmith, or any computer maker.
But I know what is clock, how it looks, etc. I can see how it looks
a shoe, some different forms of a shoe, and some iron products made by
a blacksmith, etc. I can have an idea on how it looks a computer, etc.
In general I can discern how look some products made by humans, and
even a few marks made by animals around, like urine, defecations,
borrows, little caves, marks with the fangs on some trees, etc. even if
I never had knew any of the animals they made those marks.

Then, if I go to Mars and so any of those marks, some dessicated feces,
or some machines that look like those made by humans... I would
believe they were made by some living creatures, animals or other
similar to humans. If I watch a caterpillar in Mars I can see they are
like the caterpillars made in this planet, etc. But I do not know who
was the maker of the caterpillar.

But you had transposed the analogy from artificial objects, to some
parts of a living being, like the eye of an eagle, by example. You can
comment on other examples, like a liver, or the lungs of an animal,
or even an amoeba that is also rather complex. But we cannot say
they are "designed" for there is not any analogy that we know, of an
intelligent human making an eye or a liver, or even an amoeba. There
is not any examples of any living being doing other than reproduce
themselves by breeding other beings similar to them. Like lions breeding
more lions, bitches breeding dogs, and rats breeding lots of rats, etc.

Then, it is not a question of invalidating your argument because
you do not know the designer, for I can watch a car and it is
quite probably that I do not know who was the maker, or even where it
was made.
Then, do not remove the water of the swamp for it will get murkier and
it would be more difficult to see through.

You must try another argument to prove the existence of a god creator.
I am awaiting for this better argument to start believing in a god.
Yours,
Eri

[Dai monie]

I also said this in one of the previous topics, but apparent design isn't design.

Something might seem designed but is a result of natural processes (the eye). Natural processes don't require a designer, so any result of natural processes cannot be 'design'.

Considering this, you would have to definitely disprove abiogenesis to even be able to come up with the idea; once it started, the entire thing just continues. This is hardly an option, and as evidence accumalates seems more and more unlikely.

Additionally, 'creators all the way down' (i.e. who designed the designer) must also be solved sufficiently. No, the property of an eternal designer doesn't work, because `

[Dai monie]

On Thursday, 27 February 2014 21:06:24 UTC+1, R. Dean wrote:

[Suddenly enter key]
The idea of an eternal designer won't suffice, because it is just as likely and logical that the universe/laws of nature/whatever you want to call it are `eternal', which means that the `eternal' argument can be applied for the naturalistic origin as well.

In my view, it seems that no designer is needed; that everything can be done without one. It seems that evidence seems to grow for abiogenesis, albeit I only have a few snippets of information there. In any case, the designer also cannot have been a 'created' construct, because just raises more and more questions.

[jillery]

On Thu, 27 Feb 2014 15:06:24 -0500, "R. Dean" <"R. Dean"@gmail.com>
wrote:

>It's been pointed out by many people that we identify design
>because we are familiar with human designed artifacts, structures
>and buildings and so, we can recognize design because know they
>were designed by humans, but we know nothing about supernatural
>non-human designers.
>So, to know anything about these designs we have to know something
>about the designers. I disagree with this narrow restriction.
>I think it's entirely possible to recognize design without knowing
>anything about the designer. Design can stand alone and be recognized.

Anybody who has read your posts for any length of time knows that is
your assertion. They also know that you haven't explained how you
recognize design. It's simply not enough to say it, no matter how
many times you say it. You need to make the case for it.

>So, I think intelligent design is a viable explanation. This is
>predicated upon the fundamental precept that all intelligence has
>certain commonalities. These are traits and characteristics that are
>common throughout all types of intelligences, including human,
>aliens and supernatural intelligent creators/designers.

Now there's a sweeping over-generalization. How many alien and
supernatural intelligences do you know anything about?

>This is so basic that if it's falsified then the whole concept of
>intelligent design collapses.

It's impossible to prove that something has never existed. It's one
thing to assume a designer exists, but it's another thing to assert it
as a cause.

>I would include among these shared characteristics, reason, logic
>order, rational, coherence, information and similarities in thought
>patterns.
>
>It's this were not true, then science which depends upon being
>able to observe, devise explanatory hypothesis, test and make
>predictions could no function if the universe, nature and the
>laws of nature were capricious, fickle, unpredictable, whimsical
>and arbitrary, then science could not work.

Non sequitur. The laws of nature have nothing to do with the nature
of intelligence.

[Robert Camp]

On 2/27/14 12:06 PM, R. Dean wrote:

> It's been pointed out by many people that we identify design
> because we are familiar with human designed artifacts, structures
> and buildings and so, we can recognize design because know they
> were designed by humans, but we know nothing about supernatural
> non-human designers.
> So, to know anything about these designs we have to know something
> about the designers.

To be more precise - in order to identify design (the product of
intelligent agency) we must know something of the agency itself (e.g,
existence, motives, methods, etc.).

To assume otherwise (as do you and ID proponents) is to also assume that
*all* intelligent agency is functionally analogous with human agency.
This is the flawed assumption you make below, and it is entirely
unwarranted, *especially* (and obviously) in the case of inference to a
transcendental designer.

> I disagree with this narrow restriction.
> I think it's entirely possible to recognize design without knowing
> anything about the designer. Design can stand alone and be recognized.

You continue to make that assertion without any justification, despite
having been asked numerous times to justify it.

> So, I think intelligent design is a viable explanation. This is
> predicated upon the fundamental precept that all intelligence has
> certain commonalities.

From whence comes this precept? How do you know it's fundamental (or
basic, as you repeat below)?

> These are traits and characteristics that are
> common throughout all types of intelligences, including human,
> aliens and supernatural intelligent creators/designers.

Identify for me the aliens and supernatural creators with whom you are
so familiar that you can comment on the traits and characteristics they
share with humans.

> This is so basic that if it's falsified then the whole concept of
> intelligent design collapses.
> I would include among these shared characteristics, reason, logic
> order, rational, coherence, information and similarities in thought
> patterns.

It's one thing to make assumptions in presenting an argument, we all do.
But for the most part they are lean and uncontroversial. What you offer
here, however, is an argument that depends completely on an extreme and
untenable assumption.

> It's this were not true, then science which depends upon being
> able to observe, devise explanatory hypothesis, test and make
> predictions could no function if the universe, nature and the
> laws of nature were capricious, fickle, unpredictable, whimsical
> and arbitrary, then science could not work.

This is silly. Science depends upon the predictability of the universe,
and commonality of rationality among humans. It is indifferent to
contrived "precepts" that presume similarities between aliens, deities
and humans.

[RonO]

I guess that there are levels of viability, but in terms of science
IDiocy isn't viable. There may be some chance that something may turn
up, but what is that chance? The plain and simple fact is that IDiocy
has to overcome the 100% failure rate that it has. That record can't be
ignored. Not a single success ever documented for the "god did it"
IDiocy. Who pulls the sun and moon across the sky? Who makes the
seasons change? Who is responsible for creating those complex babies?
Why shouldn't the thousands of failures be considered when some IDiot
wants to claim that some god made the flagellum? The assertion is
equivalent to some god makes babies, but we just don't know enough for
the assertion to be added to the failure list at this time.

For something like IDiocy to be viable shouldn't it have one success by
now? Just one and it would be part of science and there would be no
complaints. Why would it be considered viable with a 100% failure rate
for those propositions? Before you claim that the designer doesn't have
to be some god, who is your designer? Dishonesty isn't the best policy.
All IDiots should understand that by now.

Ron Okimoto

[R. Dean]

On 2/27/2014 3:22 PM, John Harshman wrote:
> On 2/27/14 12:06 PM, R. Dean wrote:
>> It's been pointed out by many people that we identify design
>> because we are familiar with human designed artifacts, structures
>> and buildings and so, we can recognize design because know they
>> were designed by humans, but we know nothing about supernatural
>> non-human designers.
>> So, to know anything about these designs we have to know something about
>> the designers. I disagree with this narrow restriction.
>> I think it's entirely possible to recognize design without knowing
>> anything about the designer. Design can stand alone and be recognized.
>
> So you imagine. Of course we don't recognize design, even in human
> products. We recognize manufacture. In order to recognize manufacture,
> we do indeed need to know, or at least assume, something about the
> capabilities of the manufacturer.
>

Really, my wife and I regularly watches the PBS On the Road Antique Show.
Someone brought an object in for appraisal. It was probably an early
18th century farm tool, the experts did not know what it was, what
purpose it served or who made the object. But clearly it had function
and was designed to serve a purpose. It was obvious that it was a
designed and fashioned object.

>
>> So, I think intelligent design is a viable explanation. This is
>> predicated upon the fundamental precept that all intelligence has
>> certain commonalities. These are traits and characteristics that are
>> common throughout all types of intelligences, including human,
>> aliens and supernatural intelligent creators/designers.
>> This is so basic that if it's falsified then the whole concept of
>> intelligent design collapses.
>> I would include among these shared characteristics, reason, logic
>> order, rational, coherence, information and similarities in thought
>> patterns.
>
> "Order" and "Information" are properties of just about anything,
> intelligent or not. "Coherence" is incoherent. "Reason", "logic",
> "rational" [sic], and "similarities in thought patterns" all seem to be
> versions of the same thing, i.e. intelligence. I agree that intelligence
> is a property of intelligence. Where does that get us?
>
>> It's this were not true, then science which depends upon being
>> able to observe, devise explanatory hypothesis, test and make
>> predictions could no function if the universe, nature and the
>> laws of nature were capricious, fickle, unpredictable, whimsical
>> and arbitrary, then science could not work.
>
> How does this relate to intelligent design?
>

I believe when one finds these characteristics, deliberate design is the
better explanation. I see random mutations and natural selection as a
_alternative_ explanation for what is observed, that is said to have
the _appearance_ of design or the illusion of design. I seems clear that
strong biases transcend evidence and reason here.

[R. Dean]

Take the eye of a eagle. It has the "appearance" of design, it has
function and serves a purpose. So, the eye; the heart - lung, vascular
system, kidneys, liver all "appear" be designed for some purpose.
Sure it's possible to explain how they (might have) evolved through
natural processes, but this is a alternative explanation where
strong biases favor the naturalistic philosophy.

>
> Then, it is not a question of invalidating your argument because
> you do not know the designer, for I can watch a car and it is
> quite probably that I do not know who was the maker, or even where it
> was made.
> Then, do not remove the water of the swamp for it will get murkier and
> it would be more difficult to see through.
>
> You must try another argument to prove the existence of a god creator.
> I am awaiting for this better argument to start believing in a god.
> Yours,
>

This always seems to pop up. But I never mention religion, church god(s)
holy books nor do I appeal to any religion it's tenents etc.. So, why do
you introduce this subject into the discussion?

[Dai monie]

On Friday, 28 February 2014 07:20:39 UTC+1, R. Dean wrote:
> On 2/27/2014 3:22 PM, John Harshman wrote:
>
> > On 2/27/14 12:06 PM, R. Dean wrote:
>
> >> It's been pointed out by many people that we identify design
>
> >> because we are familiar with human designed artifacts, structures
>
> >> and buildings and so, we can recognize design because know they
>
> >> were designed by humans, but we know nothing about supernatural
>
> >> non-human designers.
>
> >> So, to know anything about these designs we have to know something about
>
> >> the designers. I disagree with this narrow restriction.
>
> >> I think it's entirely possible to recognize design without knowing
>
> >> anything about the designer. Design can stand alone and be recognized.
>
> >
>
> > So you imagine. Of course we don't recognize design, even in human
>
> > products. We recognize manufacture. In order to recognize manufacture,
>
> > we do indeed need to know, or at least assume, something about the
>
> > capabilities of the manufacturer.
>
> >
>
> Really, my wife and I regularly watches the PBS On the Road Antique Show.
>
> Someone brought an object in for appraisal. It was probably an early
>
> 18th century farm tool, the experts did not know what it was, what
>
> purpose it served or who made the object. But clearly it had function
>
> and was designed to serve a purpose. It was obvious that it was a
>
> designed and fashioned object.

That would be recognising manufacture. We recognise it, not because we know its purpose and those things, but because humans made it, and we know how humans make things and also about what we see on our planet.

Indeed, it seems you are biased towards a designer over naturalism.

So far you have yet to make a solid argument. The only argument you have is that of 'design' where you still have to solidify why it is 'design' and not 'apparent design'. Yet you already made the conclusion that evolution theory is the 'alternative', opposing .. 155 years? of biologists. (Which is not to make an ad populum, but just to point out how weird it is, as if you didn't know)

[R. Dean]

On 2/27/2014 5:09 PM, Dai monie wrote:
> On Thursday, 27 February 2014 21:06:24 UTC+1, R. Dean wrote:
>> It's been pointed out by many people that we identify design
>>
>> because we are familiar with human designed artifacts, structures
>>
>> and buildings and so, we can recognize design because know they
>>
>> were designed by humans, but we know nothing about supernatural
>>
>> non-human designers.
>>
>> So, to know anything about these designs we have to know something
>>
>> about the designers. I disagree with this narrow restriction.
>>
>> I think it's entirely possible to recognize design without knowing
>>
>> anything about the designer. Design can stand alone and be recognized.
>>
>>
>>
>> So, I think intelligent design is a viable explanation. This is
>>
>> predicated upon the fundamental precept that all intelligence has
>>
>> certain commonalities. These are traits and characteristics that are
>>
>> common throughout all types of intelligences, including human,
>>
>> aliens and supernatural intelligent creators/designers.
>>
>> This is so basic that if it's falsified then the whole concept of
>>
>> intelligent design collapses.
>>
>> I would include among these shared characteristics, reason, logic
>>
>> order, rational, coherence, information and similarities in thought
>>
>> patterns.
>>
>>
>>
>> It's this were not true, then science which depends upon being
>>
>> able to observe, devise explanatory hypothesis, test and make
>>

>> predictions could not function if the universe, nature and the

>>
>> laws of nature were capricious, fickle, unpredictable, whimsical
>>
>> and arbitrary, then science could not work.
>>
>>
>> Ron Dean
> I also said this in one of the previous topics, but apparent design isn't design.
>

It's obvious, I would say it's common sense.

>
> Something might seem designed but is a result of natural processes (the eye). Natural processes don't require a designer, so any result of natural processes cannot be 'design'.
>

I would agree, Where there is no intelligence, there can be no
"intelligent design". But even if we accept natural processes,
Photosynthesis "appears" to be designed to serve a purpose, IE the
purpose of converting solar energy into useful energy (chemical energy)
and sugars. Another purpose is to change inorganic carbon dioxide
and water molecules into oxygen and organic compounds. This creates
a symbiotic relationship between terrestrial animals and plants.

>
> Considering this, you would have to definitely disprove abiogenesis to even be able to come up with the idea; once it started, the entire thing just continues.

This is hardly an option, and as evidence accumalates seems more and
more unlikely.
>
> Additionally, 'creators all the way down' (i.e. who designed the designer) must also be solved sufficiently. No, the property of an eternal designer doesn't work, because `
>

Why? There was a time in recent history that a scientific view held my
many, including A. Einstein, that the universe was eternal, without a
beginning or end. Hubble and others demonstrated that the universe did
in fact have a beginning and would come an end.

[eridanus]

El viernes, 28 de febrero de 2014 07:13:16 UTC, R. Dean escribió:
> On 2/27/2014 5:09 PM, Dai monie wrote:
>

> > ---------------

> > Something might seem designed but is a result of natural processes
> > (the eye). Natural processes don't require a designer, so any result
> > of natural processes cannot be 'design'.

> I would agree, Where there is no intelligence, there can be no
> "intelligent design". But even if we accept natural processes,
> Photosynthesis "appears" to be designed to serve a purpose, IE the
> purpose of converting solar energy into useful energy (chemical energy)
> and sugars. Another purpose is to change inorganic carbon dioxide
> and water molecules into oxygen and organic compounds. This creates
> a symbiotic relationship between terrestrial animals and plants.
>
> > Considering this, you would have to definitely disprove abiogenesis
> > to even be able to come up with the idea; once it started, the entire
> > thing just continues.
> This is hardly an option, and as evidence accumalates seems more and
> more unlikely.
>
> > Additionally, 'creators all the way down' (i.e. who designed the
> > designer) must also be solved sufficiently. No, the property of an
> > eternal designer doesn't work, because `

> Why? There was a time in recent history that a scientific view held my
> many, including A. Einstein, that the universe was eternal, without a
> beginning or end. Hubble and others demonstrated that the universe did
> in fact have a beginning and would come an end.

to say the universe is infinite or eternal, it is something gratuitous
someone can say. It is a "feeling" more than the result of a reasoning
process. We can postulate the universe is eternal, but this postulate
is totally outside our reasoning power.
It is more or less your case about "intelligent design" you feel, you can
see, or guess there is an intelligent design in photosynthesis by
example, or in an eye, etc.
In fact you can even "feel" there is design in the existence of mountains,
etc. But this is not the result of a natural reasoning process. It is a
feeling, totally outside reason. It is a little like someone saying "I feel
there is an angel by my side." No one can say this as a part of a reasoning
process.

Then, your extrapolation from "artificial" objects done by a human
or an animal, have not any reflection in the case of natural occurring
or existing objects. We can not transfer a concept from a field to
the other... except as a subjective "feeling".
I can accept that sometimes... in science someone has a feeling that
something is wrong. But this feeling does not transform itself in a
reasoning argument, until it develops in some standard way. A scientists
cannot say, "this theory is wrong for I have a feeling that it is wrong".

In my example in another post, some astronauts discover in the surface
of Mars a caterpillar, or something that looks like a caterpillar, even
if the resemblance to a caterpillar is only faint. But the silhouette
of the "machine" made them feel it is like a machine, similar to others
the humans had made. But is clear that they are seeing something that it
is not natural, but "something made by some intelligence".
Here, it had been made by some intelligence, it is synonymous with being
artificial, not naturally occurring, like some plant or some grass, or
some animal digging a borrow in the soil.
Then, you are confusing different realms into one. You are postulating a
feeling like it were a piece of reasoning.
Eri

[Burkhard]

On Friday, February 28, 2014 7:13:16 AM UTC, R. Dean wrote:
<snip>

> >
>
> I would agree, Where there is no intelligence, there can be no
>
> "intelligent design". But even if we accept natural processes,
> Photosynthesis "appears" to be designed to serve a purpose, IE the
> purpose of converting solar energy into useful energy (chemical energy)
> and sugars. Another purpose is to change inorganic carbon dioxide
> and water molecules into oxygen and organic compounds. This creates
> a symbiotic relationship between terrestrial animals and plants.
>

The banks of a river serve the purpose of keeping the water inside the confines
and propel it forwards. Rivers serve the purpose of replenishing lakes. The base of
a mountain serves the purpose of keeping the top of the mountain in the air.
Mountain ranges serve the purpose of shielding the area around them
from wind...


Do you also claim that rivers and mountains are designed?

[David Fritzinger]

In article <3VMPu.8962$0e2....@fx16.fr7>,

"R. Dean" <"R. Dean"@gmail.com> wrote:

If there was an intelligent designer, he/she certainly wasn't very good.
1) It is clear that humans were originally quadrapedal. In our journey
to bipedalism, humans have suffered some problems.
a) Lower back pain, because our bodies were not "designed" to walk on
two legs.
b) The knee joint. If you have had knee problems, enough said.
2) The width of woman's hips has not kept up with the growth of human
heads, making human birth far more difficult than other species.
3) Relatively similar plants, such as the grains, have genomes that vary
widely in size, despite the fact they have mostly similar genes,
arranged in the same order.
4) Genetic similarity between humans and the great apes, that grows
larger as the appearances grow larger (that whole twin-nested hierarchy
thing).
There is much, much more, but put together, they show that the supposed
intelligent designer really wasn't that intelligent.

[eridanus]

El viernes, 28 de febrero de 2014 07:13:16 UTC, R. Dean escribió:

> This is hardly an option, and as evidence accumulates seems more and
> more unlikely.
If there was an intelligent designer, the reproduction of living beings
would had not show any failure; like the born of an animal blind, or
deft, or suffering an impairment of learning that end in metal retardation.
It would not occur any problems with pregnancy, like two twins developing
fused one on the other, or even ending one inside the other, that not so
rarely happens. An intelligent designer, that even was omnipotent, could
not create a machinery so defective sometimes.
Eri

[John Harshman]

On 2/27/14 10:20 PM, R. Dean wrote:
> On 2/27/2014 3:22 PM, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 2/27/14 12:06 PM, R. Dean wrote:
>>> It's been pointed out by many people that we identify design
>>> because we are familiar with human designed artifacts, structures
>>> and buildings and so, we can recognize design because know they
>>> were designed by humans, but we know nothing about supernatural
>>> non-human designers.
>>> So, to know anything about these designs we have to know something about
>>> the designers. I disagree with this narrow restriction.
>>> I think it's entirely possible to recognize design without knowing
>>> anything about the designer. Design can stand alone and be recognized.
>>
>> So you imagine. Of course we don't recognize design, even in human
>> products. We recognize manufacture. In order to recognize manufacture,
>> we do indeed need to know, or at least assume, something about the
>> capabilities of the manufacturer.
> >
> Really, my wife and I regularly watches the PBS On the Road Antique Show.
> Someone brought an object in for appraisal. It was probably an early
> 18th century farm tool, the experts did not know what it was, what
> purpose it served or who made the object. But clearly it had function
> and was designed to serve a purpose. It was obvious that it was a
> designed and fashioned object.

Yes, because it resembled other objects we know are made by people.

You aren't communicating very well. What are "these characteristics"?
The ones in the second paragraph are supposed to be properties of
designers, not their products. The third paragraph doesn't really list
any characteristics.

What makes you think that selection and mutation aren't good
explanations of what is observed (which you so far haven't specified)?
Could it be that you yourself have a strong bias?

[Robert Carnegie]

On Friday, 28 February 2014 06:39:41 UTC, R. Dean wrote:
> I never mention religion, church god(s) holy books
> nor do I appeal to any religion it's tenents etc..

Except that your name is "Dean".
<http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Dean>
But that probably isn't important in that sense.

> So, why do you introduce this subject into the
> discussion?

It always is the subject of the discussion.
If you talk about design in the natural world
without bringing religion into it, you're doing
better than most "Fellows" at "The Discovery
Institute", or the authors of the notorious
book that was shown to have had the word "design"
substituted for "creator" at a late stage before
publication. But many people remain sceptical
of your purpose.

[Robert Carnegie]

On Friday, 28 February 2014 14:54:07 UTC, eridanus wrote:
> If there was an intelligent designer, the reproduction
> of living beings would had not show any failure; like
> the born of an animal blind, or deft, or suffering an
> impairment of learning that end in metal retardation.
> It would not occur any problems with pregnancy, like
> two twins developing fused one on the other, or even
> ending one inside the other, that not so rarely happens.
> An intelligent designer, that even was omnipotent,
> could not create a machinery so defective sometimes.

I think this is contestable; after all, products designed
by human beings often fail. But I'll leave it to someone
who wants to argue for a designer to raise any other
points that may arise in their mind.

[Steven L.]

You would have a valid point,
if you were talking about radio messages from interstellar space rather
than *life forms* on a planet.

And some such assumption underlies all attempts to make contact with
extraterrestrial civilizations: If they are sufficiently advanced
scientifically, then they must eventually develop physics and understand
electromagnetism. Hence they must be able to build a radio transmitter.

Hence, a narrow-bandwidth transmission--on one channel--from
interstellar space would be recognized as artificial, even before we
deciphered its message.

But here's the problem: The laws of electromagnetism are known to be
universal. The laws of biology are not.

Because electromagnetism is universal, we can generalize to speculating
that extraterrestrial civilizations all over the Galaxy use radio or
lasers to communicate with one another. Sagan thought so.

But we have no universal science of creating life forms. In fact, we
don't even know that there are any life forms beyond the Earth. And
even if they are, do they resemble us in any way? Carbon-based? O2
breathers? DNA? Horizontal gene transfer? Sexual reproduction?

Hence any attempt to apply that same analogy to biology immediately fails.

At this point in our scientific development, we have universal laws of
physics and chemistry. We do not have universal laws of biology.


--
Steven L.

[Burkhard]

On Friday, February 28, 2014 6:20:39 AM UTC, R. Dean wrote:
> On 2/27/2014 3:22 PM, John Harshman wrote:
>
> > On 2/27/14 12:06 PM, R. Dean wrote:
>
> >> It's been pointed out by many people that we identify design
>
> >> because we are familiar with human designed artifacts, structures
>
> >> and buildings and so, we can recognize design because know they
>
> >> were designed by humans, but we know nothing about supernatural
>
> >> non-human designers.
>
> >> So, to know anything about these designs we have to know something about
>
> >> the designers. I disagree with this narrow restriction.
>
> >> I think it's entirely possible to recognize design without knowing
>
> >> anything about the designer. Design can stand alone and be recognized.
>
> >
>
> > So you imagine. Of course we don't recognize design, even in human
>
> > products. We recognize manufacture. In order to recognize manufacture,
>
> > we do indeed need to know, or at least assume, something about the
>
> > capabilities of the manufacturer.
>
> >
>
> Really, my wife and I regularly watches the PBS On the Road Antique Show.
> Someone brought an object in for appraisal. It was probably an early
> 18th century farm tool, the experts did not know what it was, what
> purpose it served or who made the object. But clearly it had function
> and was designed to serve a purpose. It was obvious that it was a
> designed and fashioned object.
>

interesting example that subverts your entire argument, does it not? Indeed,
we do not need to know its function - so all the examples you tend to
give about "functionality" as evidence of design are irrelevant. We need
not know any "plan" or other forms of intelligence to see that the thing
was man-made. And no, you don't know, apart from the most general
sense, that this thing had a "purpose". It may have been a tool. It may have
been a mere model for a (much bigger) tool. It may have been a non-
functional replica of a tool intended for a romantic and rich city dweller
to create that "genuine farmhouse atmosphere" in his weekend cottage.
It may have been a form of "medal" something that you get when your
apprenticeship is over to symbolise that you can now do that sort of thing
yourself. Or it might have been purely aesthetic to start with, or a mere
experiment that did not produce anything viable.

so the whole talk about function, plans, purpose is a red herring. How
do we know that it is man made? Because we know the technology people
in the 18th century had available to them, and we know if something was
forged, or wood turned, or baked by a potter. We know this because
all these manufacturing processes leave behind unique traces. So no,
we do not infer design, we infer manufacturing. And we infer manufacturing
because we have a theory of the actual process that manufactured a given
object, and the traces we can expect to find.

For ID, this means that to be a viable theory, you need to have some
ideas of the manufacturing process that the creator in question used,
the tools at his/her/their disposal, and what marks they leave behind.

[jillery]

On Fri, 28 Feb 2014 02:13:16 -0500, "R. Dean" <"R. Dean"@gmail.com>
wrote:

I hope not.

>>but apparent design isn't design.
> >
>It's obvious, I would say it's common sense.

A flat Earth is obvious. A stationary Earth is obvious. The laws of
motion of Aristotle are obvious. When you say something is obvious,
it shows that you are too lazy to identify what makes it obvious to
you. What is obvious to you, what is common sense to you, is valid
only within your own mind. "Obvious" is obviously a pointless line of
reasoning.

You appear to want to connect to other minds beyond your own, else you
would not be posting here. In order to do that, your line of
reasoning needs to go beyond what is obvious to you, and refer to an
objective reality that you and other minds presumably share in common.

>> Something might seem designed but is a result of natural processes (the eye). Natural processes don't require a designer, so any result of natural processes cannot be 'design'.
> >
>I would agree, Where there is no intelligence, there can be no
>"intelligent design". But even if we accept natural processes,
>Photosynthesis "appears" to be designed to serve a purpose, IE the
>purpose of converting solar energy into useful energy (chemical energy)
>and sugars. Another purpose is to change inorganic carbon dioxide
>and water molecules into oxygen and organic compounds. This creates
>a symbiotic relationship between terrestrial animals and plants.

So in one breath you appear to accept the artifice of ID, and then in
your next breath you fall back onto your old arguments, that function
implies design.

If you now propose that some functional things are designed and some
are not, then there must exist in your mind some means to distinguish
between the two. I invite you to take the time to reflect on what
that is, and stop leaning on your obvious crutch.

>> Considering this, you would have to definitely disprove abiogenesis to even be able to come up with the idea; once it started, the entire thing just continues.
>
>This is hardly an option, and as evidence accumalates seems more and
>more unlikely.
>>
>> Additionally, 'creators all the way down' (i.e. who designed the designer) must also be solved sufficiently. No, the property of an eternal designer doesn't work, because `
>>
>Why? There was a time in recent history that a scientific view held my
>many, including A. Einstein, that the universe was eternal, without a
>beginning or end. Hubble and others demonstrated that the universe did
>in fact have a beginning and would come an end.

What is your point here? That science can be wrong? That people can
change their minds based on new evidence? How does that advance your
line of reasoning?

"Creators all the way down" is shorthand that identifies the fatal
flaw of the Designer argument. If one invokes a Designer as the cause
of the Universe, then by the same reasoning, one must invoke a
Designer for that Designer. The traditional out of that endless loop
is to presume a Designer that always existed. But an infinite
Designer doesn't answer any questions, and logically, one might as
well presume an infinite Universe.

[jillery]

On Fri, 28 Feb 2014 01:39:41 -0500, "R. Dean" <"R. Dean"@gmail.com>
wrote:

[...]

>> You must try another argument to prove the existence of a god creator.
>> I am awaiting for this better argument to start believing in a god.
>> Yours,
> >
>This always seems to pop up. But I never mention religion, church god(s)
>holy books nor do I appeal to any religion it's tenents etc.. So, why do
>you introduce this subject into the discussion?

I presume your question is rhetorical, but I have an answer for it
anyway. Your defense above is very similar to that of FTE, the
publishers of "Of Pandas and People". Even though you do as you say,
that you don't mention god(s) and religion explicitly, but your line
of reasoning is very similar to those who do. Your unseen, unknown,
undefined Designer is the logical equivalent of that book's "cdesign
proponentsists", and you explicitly refuse to distinguish your
Designer from god(s).

[Robert Camp]

You are explicitly inferring a "designer" of biology (your arguments
about organs, species, etc.) as well as a "designer" of the universe
(your arguments about "fine tuning," the anthropic principle). These are
the principal creative actions attributed to, perhaps even the raison
d'etre for, most deities.

Even if it is only your personal vision, you most certainly have
mentioned religion.

[Kalkidas]

If the initial conditions and the differential equations were
designed, then every future state of the system can be said to have
been designed.

So if a designer arranged the matter of the universe in an initial
state, and enforced a set of laws governing its evolution, then every
future state of the universe can be said to have been designed.

[deadrat]

Must have been an Intelligent Design Committee.

[alias Ernest Major]

Advocating deism would be a step up from R. Dean's bald and
self-evidently false assertions that design is self-evident.

--
alias Ernest Major

[Burkhard]

On Friday, February 28, 2014 4:24:54 PM UTC, Kalkidas wrote:
<snip>

>
> >
>
> >Do you also claim that rivers and mountains are designed?
>

> If the initial conditions and the differential equations were
> designed, then every future state of the system can be said to have
> been designed.
>
> So if a designer arranged the matter of the universe in an initial
> state, and enforced a set of laws governing its evolution, then every
> future state of the universe can be said to have been designed.

Fine by me, "designed" then becomes co-extensional with
"exist" and for the purposes of scientific inquiry at least
essentially irrelevant/uninteresting - had some discussion
with John H. about this recently, and why it does not really
add any information to say that X "exists" when we know
everything else about X already. "Designed" then shares this
fate.

One of the problems of creationist of course is that they
ty to argue that certain properties allow the inference that
an object is designed - which then leads to the conclusion
that all sorts of other objects are not designed, which in
many religions would be deemed heretical. Ray, in a particularly
funny response to this, once declared that god has of course
created the entire universe, apart form some pebbles on
the beach which were put there so that Paley could have
a contrasting example....
The mind boggles. But then I always agreed with the Vatican that
creationism is bad science and worse theology.

[Jimbo]

On Fri, 28 Feb 2014 02:13:16 -0500, "R. Dean" <"R. Dean"@gmail.com>
wrote:

If we can infer that photosynthesis, the basic energy acquisition
strategy of plants, is designed, then we can also infer that the
strategies of predation and parasitism are designed. Do you conclude
that the same designer is implicated in the development of these three
basic strategies of energy acquisition? If so, do you have any
thoughts about why the designer would want to design a system with
such morally repugnant features?

[John Harshman]

"As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods."

[Jimbo]

If R. Dean believes that such inferences can't be drawn from ID
theory, I wonder why he thinks it *is* valid to infer intelligent
design of photosynthesis. Can you comment, Mr. Dean?

[Burkhard]

On Friday, February 28, 2014 6:08:20 PM UTC, John Harshman wrote:
>
> > If we can infer that photosynthesis, the basic energy acquisition
> > strategy of plants, is designed, then we can also infer that the
> > strategies of predation and parasitism are designed. Do you conclude
> > that the same designer is implicated in the development of these three
> > basic strategies of energy acquisition? If so, do you have any
> > thoughts about why the designer would want to design a system with
> > such morally repugnant features?
>
> "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods."

Mhh, as the resident expert in cladistics, what do
you think, is man a worm?

[R. Dean]

On 2/27/2014 5:27 PM, jillery wrote:

> On Thu, 27 Feb 2014 15:06:24 -0500, "R. Dean" <"R. Dean"@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> It's been pointed out by many people that we identify design
>> because we are familiar with human designed artifacts, structures
>> and buildings and so, we can recognize design because know they
>> were designed by humans, but we know nothing about supernatural
>> non-human designers.
>> So, to know anything about these designs we have to know something
>> about the designers. I disagree with this narrow restriction.
>> I think it's entirely possible to recognize design without knowing
>> anything about the designer. Design can stand alone and be recognized.
>
>

> Anybody who has read your posts for any length of time knows that is
> your assertion. They also know that you haven't explained how you
> recognize design. It's simply not enough to say it, no matter how
> many times you say it. You need to make the case for it.
>
I have on several occasions, Jill and I always get the exact same
argument from everyone who supports the philosophy of naturalism.
I wonder what is the source of the argument. It's hard to believe
that everyone who uses this argument arrived at it independently.
And no one has attempted to justify the argument.

>
>
>> So, I think intelligent design is a viable explanation. This is
>> predicated upon the fundamental precept that all intelligence has
>> certain commonalities. These are traits and characteristics that are
>> common throughout all types of intelligences, including human,
>> aliens and supernatural intelligent creators/designers.
>
>

> Now there's a sweeping over-generalization. How many alien and
> supernatural intelligences do you know anything about?
>
Then how do you explain SETI, and the search for alien signals
and the Pioneer plaques by the Late Carl Sagan and Frank Drake which
were sent out of our solar system in spacecrafts, Pioneer 10 in 1972 and
the Pioneer 11 in 1973. This is predicated upon the belief that any
alien life that sends intelligible signals or intercepts the spacecrafts
would have the intelligence to decipher the meaning represented by the
messages engraved in the plaques. To spend the necessary funds and to
engage in such efforts assumes that some of the characteristics of
intelligence which I listed, otherwise it's a wasteful and pointless
endeavor.

>
>> This is so basic that if it's falsified then the whole concept of
>> intelligent design collapses.
>
>

> It's impossible to prove that something has never existed. It's one
> thing to assume a designer exists, but it's another thing to assert it
> as a cause.

>
>
>> I would include among these shared characteristics, reason, logic
>> order, rational, coherence, information and similarities in thought
>> patterns.
>>
>> It's this were not true, then science which depends upon being
>> able to observe, devise explanatory hypothesis, test and make

>> predictions could no function if the universe, nature and the

>> laws of nature were capricious, fickle, unpredictable, whimsical
>> and arbitrary, then science could not work.
>
>

> Non sequitur. The laws of nature have nothing to do with the nature
> of intelligence.
>
This is the exact opposite of What I meant. I's suggesting that
intelligence had something to do with the laws of nature.

[R. Dean]

This is nothing more than an unjustified assertion.
This is a common and persistent claim by virtually everyone who takes
issue with my view that we can recognize design without knowing the
Idenity of the designer or any anything about it. How do you
justify such a claim?

I take what is observed at _face_value_. If it looks designed then
reason and logic should dictate that it _is_ designed - UNTIL it is
proven otherwise: and _overriding_ considerations should not
take precedence over observation reason and logic. I think this
is what has happened from Darwin's time to the present. Richard Dawkins
Francis Crick etc who assert that what is observed is "appearent" design
or the "illusion" of design" never actually get around to _proving_
their assertion.

[eridanus]

there is a little difference. All our products are "artificial"
even if they are culture cells for transplant, etc.

So, far we have not arrived yet to the point of substituting the natural
reproduction of living beings. Just only favoring some animals
we want to breed, for commercial purposes.

My main point was about the difference between natural and artificial.
Some operations done with burned people, by example, tend to transplant
small patches of skin, on the parts that were burned. I saw this some
50 years ago. Today, I had seen they use a culture of the cells of
the burned person, to use as a transplant. I do not know how much
common is this operation today. I read it on a magazine.

I suppose there is a great difference between artificial things and those
natural. But little by little we are ourselves intruding into the
natural processes to help a person or other. Advances in medicine and
biology.
Eri

[R. Dean]

No, they don't have the appearance designed.
A canal OTOH does have the appearance of being designed in that
it's runs straight over distances, with uniform width and depth
and relative smooth banks. So, canals have the appearance of
design.

[jillery]

On Fri, 28 Feb 2014 15:34:56 -0500, "R. Dean" <"R. Dean"@gmail.com>

wrote:

>On 2/27/2014 5:27 PM, jillery wrote:
>> On Thu, 27 Feb 2014 15:06:24 -0500, "R. Dean" <"R. Dean"@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> It's been pointed out by many people that we identify design
>>> because we are familiar with human designed artifacts, structures
>>> and buildings and so, we can recognize design because know they
>>> were designed by humans, but we know nothing about supernatural
>>> non-human designers.
>>> So, to know anything about these designs we have to know something
>>> about the designers. I disagree with this narrow restriction.
>>> I think it's entirely possible to recognize design without knowing
>>> anything about the designer. Design can stand alone and be recognized.
>>
>>
>> Anybody who has read your posts for any length of time knows that is
>> your assertion. They also know that you haven't explained how you
>> recognize design. It's simply not enough to say it, no matter how
>> many times you say it. You need to make the case for it.
> >
>I have on several occasions,

You and I must be reading entirely different posts. I know I have
repeatedly asked you to make a case for it. I know I have looked for
it. Perhaps you will cite or copy just one example where you have.

>Jill and I always get the exact same
>argument from everyone who supports the philosophy of naturalism.

What argument is that, exactly? You don't say.

>I wonder what is the source of the argument. It's hard to believe
>that everyone who uses this argument arrived at it independently.
>And no one has attempted to justify the argument.
>>
>>
>>> So, I think intelligent design is a viable explanation. This is
>>> predicated upon the fundamental precept that all intelligence has
>>> certain commonalities. These are traits and characteristics that are
>>> common throughout all types of intelligences, including human,
>>> aliens and supernatural intelligent creators/designers.
>>
>>
>> Now there's a sweeping over-generalization. How many alien and
>> supernatural intelligences do you know anything about?
>>
>Then how do you explain SETI, and the search for alien signals
>and the Pioneer plaques by the Late Carl Sagan and Frank Drake which
>were sent out of our solar system in spacecrafts, Pioneer 10 in 1972 and
>the Pioneer 11 in 1973. This is predicated upon the belief that any
>alien life that sends intelligible signals or intercepts the spacecrafts
>would have the intelligence to decipher the meaning represented by the
>messages engraved in the plaques. To spend the necessary funds and to
>engage in such efforts assumes that some of the characteristics of
>intelligence which I listed, otherwise it's a wasteful and pointless
>endeavor.

Not at all. That some alien intelligences might have some
similarities to ours, in no way implies that all, or even a
significant percentage, of alien intelligences have similarities. The
costs of the Pioneer plaques were trivial compared to the cost of the
overall project. Ditto SETI, as compared to the cost of all astronomy
projects. These things are piggybacked onto existing projects, so
their justification is simple; it can't hurt, and it might help.

>>> This is so basic that if it's falsified then the whole concept of
>>> intelligent design collapses.
>>
>>
>> It's impossible to prove that something has never existed. It's one
>> thing to assume a designer exists, but it's another thing to assert it
>> as a cause.
>>
>>
>>> I would include among these shared characteristics, reason, logic
>>> order, rational, coherence, information and similarities in thought
>>> patterns.
>>>
>>> It's this were not true, then science which depends upon being
>>> able to observe, devise explanatory hypothesis, test and make
>>> predictions could no function if the universe, nature and the
>>> laws of nature were capricious, fickle, unpredictable, whimsical
>>> and arbitrary, then science could not work.
>>
>>
>> Non sequitur. The laws of nature have nothing to do with the nature
>> of intelligence.
>>
>This is the exact opposite of What I meant. I's suggesting that
>intelligence had something to do with the laws of nature.

I know. It's not the opposite. Whether intelligence has something to
do with the laws of nature has nothing to do with the nature of those
laws, whether or not they're capricious et al. You and I went through
this line of reasoning before.

[John Harshman]

How do *you* justify such a claim? Your main problem is that we commonly
recognize design/manufacture only in products made by humans. You can't
give any other examples of design other than those things we're arguing
about. So how do you know you can separate your knowledge of the
designer (human) from your knowledge of design?

"Proof" isn't science. Evidence is what we have. And the evidence shows
common descent, small steps, and adaptation, all consistent with natural
selection as the mechanism of "design". If your designer existed, the
evidence would show that he isn't very good at it. When humans designers
make something, they tend to produce it all in one go, though it may be
just an improved version of something previously existing. The designer
of life, on the other hand, if his goal is to produce a pigeon, messes
around with bacteria for three and a half billion years, random
metazoans for another half billion, and eventually settles on a pigeon
design only a few million years before the present. Incompetence? Or
nonexistence? Do you have a third alternative?

[John Harshman]

"Worm" is a very poorly characterized term, referring more or less to
shape and little else. If you tried to turn it into a clade, that clade
would probably be Bilateria. And yes, "man" is a bilaterian.

[rnorman]

Not necessarily. Many people here seem to be quite one-sided.

[Burkhard]

On Friday, February 28, 2014 10:08:45 PM UTC, John Harshman wrote:
><snip>

> >> "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods."
>

> > Mhh, as the resident expert in cladistics, what do
> > you think, is man a worm?
>
>
> "Worm" is a very poorly characterized term, referring more or less to
> shape and little else. If you tried to turn it into a clade, that clade

> would probably be Bilateria. And yes, "man" is a bilateral.

Cool, thanks. Shakespeare was so much ahead of his time it is
sometimes frightening... :o)

[Burkhard]

To me they look just as designed. And as I have shown, the one
criteria you actually give, "having a function" applies to them just
as well. So why should your subjective impression be the final arbiter of
reality?

[Rolf]

"R. Dean" <"R. Dean"@gmail.com> skrev i melding
news:iW6Qu.7738$8M7....@fx12.fr7...

Appearance of design isn't enough. Things may look designed without having
been designed.
What we do know about design is tha any design needs to be implemtented,
manufactured.

As long as evidence of the manufacture of living, replicating life has been
found we have to assume that no such activity has been performet on this
planet.
Without the religious myths, nobody would believe that species orginated in
a designers laboratory.

[jillery]

On Fri, 28 Feb 2014 16:09:34 -0500, "R. Dean" <"R. Dean"@gmail.com>
wrote:

[...]

>I take what is observed at _face_value_. If it looks designed then
>reason and logic should dictate that it _is_ designed - UNTIL it is
>proven otherwise: and _overriding_ considerations should not
>take precedence over observation reason and logic. I think this
>is what has happened from Darwin's time to the present. Richard Dawkins
>Francis Crick etc who assert that what is observed is "appearent" design
>or the "illusion" of design" never actually get around to _proving_
>their assertion.

Considering that Crick is dead, I think it's fair that we give him a
pass on proving his point, don't you?

But Dawkins is alive and doing quite well, I understand. Here's just
one example:

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO1a1Ek-HD0>

His closing comments are an excellent summary:

"Remember that a designer, an engineer, can go back to the drawing
board, throw away the old design, start afresh with what looks more
sensible. A designer has foresight. Evolution can't go back to the
drawing board. Evolution has no foresight."

An effective counterpoint to Dawkin's comment is to identify a feature
of life where a designer's foresight is a better explanation than
evolution's historical contingency. Will you identify such a feature,
and explain how design explains it better than evolution?

[Kalkidas]

On Fri, 28 Feb 2014 09:10:42 -0800 (PST), Burkhard
<b.sc...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:

>On Friday, February 28, 2014 4:24:54 PM UTC, Kalkidas wrote:
><snip>
>>
>> >
>>
>> >Do you also claim that rivers and mountains are designed?
>>
>
>> If the initial conditions and the differential equations were
>> designed, then every future state of the system can be said to have
>> been designed.
>>
>> So if a designer arranged the matter of the universe in an initial
>> state, and enforced a set of laws governing its evolution, then every
>> future state of the universe can be said to have been designed.
>
>Fine by me, "designed" then becomes co-extensional with
>"exist" and for the purposes of scientific inquiry at least
>essentially irrelevant/uninteresting - had some discussion
>with John H. about this recently, and why it does not really
>add any information to say that X "exists" when we know
>everything else about X already. "Designed" then shares this
>fate.

And yet many people are trying to find the designer. They must have
some motivation, some value to gain, by such a search.

I can think of several reasons why knowing that something was
intelligently designed would add to our information. For example, we
admire a piece of workmanship and want to find out where we can get
one for ourselves. Or, something is broken and we want to know how to
fix it quickly and right. In these cases, knowing that there is a
designer, and also knowing something specific about the designer such
as where he lives, what his name is, what he looks like, etc. will
help. It's easier and faster to consult the engineer of a thing than
to figure it out by trial and error.

>One of the problems of creationist of course is that they
>ty to argue that certain properties allow the inference that
>an object is designed - which then leads to the conclusion
>that all sorts of other objects are not designed, which in
>many religions would be deemed heretical. Ray, in a particularly
>funny response to this, once declared that god has of course
>created the entire universe, apart form some pebbles on
>the beach which were put there so that Paley could have
>a contrasting example....
>The mind boggles. But then I always agreed with the Vatican that
>creationism is bad science and worse theology.

Depends on how you define "creationism" and "to create". And IMO the
Vatican is rather an unreliable source of information about anything,
especially theology and science.

[Dai monie]

"UNTIL it is proven otherwise". Evolution.

[Burkhard]

On Saturday, March 1, 2014 12:28:03 AM UTC, Kalkidas wrote:
><snip>

>
> >Fine by me, "designed" then becomes co-extensional with
>
> >"exist" and for the purposes of scientific inquiry at least
>
> >essentially irrelevant/uninteresting - had some discussion
>
> >with John H. about this recently, and why it does not really
>
> >add any information to say that X "exists" when we know
>
> >everything else about X already. "Designed" then shares this
>
> >fate.
>
>
>
> And yet many people are trying to find the designer. They must have
>
> some motivation, some value to gain, by such a search.
>
>
>
> I can think of several reasons why knowing that something was
>
> intelligently designed would add to our information. For example, we
>
> admire a piece of workmanship and want to find out where we can get
>
> one for ourselves. Or, something is broken and we want to know how to
>
> fix it quickly and right. In these cases, knowing that there is a
>
> designer, and also knowing something specific about the designer such
>
> as where he lives, what his name is, what he looks like, etc. will
>
> help. It's easier and faster to consult the engineer of a thing than
>
> to figure it out by trial and error.
>
>
>

Well yes, that's sort of the point. If you have direct access to the designer's plans,
then you can infer from these new properties of the object you did not know before
(which then also test if your info is reliable). You might want to re-read what I wrote
about "knowing all the properties" , John got that wrong as well.

But in this case, your inference runs the other way round - you do not infer
that there is a designer form some properties of the object you observe, rather,
you infer some not as yet seen properties of the object from knowing how the
designer did it.

Which sort of neatly sums up what creationism would have to deliver to be an
alternative to science - knowledge of the design/manufacturing process that
allow us to hypothesise new properties of objects which we then can test. And
you are right too with the benefits of this approach, were it feasible. We could
then much easier copy it ourselves - another reason why creationism is blasphemy.

[Glenn]

"Dai monie" <josko...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:c17dd210-e9e9-40a3...@googlegroups.com...

You mean random mutation as opposed to design?

[Glenn]

"Kalkidas" <e...@joes.pub> wrote in message news:8v92h95nfadgf2fh1...@4ax.com...

Why does what Walter said depend on that? I haven't heard
"the Vatican" say that creationism is 'bad science" or worse than bad
theology.

Wiki provides a quote from Benedict explaining that the conflict
between evolution and "so called creationism" is absurd. That he
does not endorse YEC and endorses TE is not to say anything like
"the Vatican says creationism is bad science and worse than bad theology."

[deadrat]

On 2/28/14 6:28 PM, Kalkidas wrote:
<snip/>

> And IMO the
> Vatican is rather an unreliable source of information about anything,
> especially theology and science.

Take that back. Don't make the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith show you the instruments of torture.

And remember ....

No one expects the Inquisition!

[eridanus]

El sábado, 1 de marzo de 2014 00:28:03 UTC, Kalkidas escribió:
> On Fri, 28 Feb 2014 09:10:42 -0800 (PST), Burkhard
> <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> >On Friday, February 28, 2014 4:24:54 PM UTC, Kalkidas wrote:
> ><snip>
> >> >Do you also claim that rivers and mountains are designed?
> >> If the initial conditions and the differential equations were
> >> designed, then every future state of the system can be said to have
> >> been designed.
> >> So if a designer arranged the matter of the universe in an initial
> >> state, and enforced a set of laws governing its evolution, then every
> >> future state of the universe can be said to have been designed.
> >Fine by me, "designed" then becomes co-extensional with
> >"exist" and for the purposes of scientific inquiry at least
> >essentially irrelevant/uninteresting - had some discussion
> >with John H. about this recently, and why it does not really
> >add any information to say that X "exists" when we know
> >everything else about X already. "Designed" then shares this
> >fate.
>
> And yet many people are trying to find the designer. They must have
> some motivation, some value to gain, by such a search.

It is very easy to understand why some people is looking for traces
or proves of a designer. We are all "tamed into a believing a thing
or other"; a god or other, or into loving some sport, or reading novels,
or loving science, etc. Then "we had been tamed" to behave in some
manner. And people that had been tamed to believe in a god
creator or other, one day is confronted with the prestige of science;
a prestige well deserved by the valuable additions of science to
human life. Then, when a part of science, the "theory of evolution",
is explaining life without mentioning a god creator, it soon starts a
conflict of interest in the domesticated young that start pestering
their "trainers" or "religious educators" about this situation; why
theory of evolution says that man is an evolution from some arboreal
primate or something like that.
The trainers do their best to absorb the rational attack, and defuse
the problem by telling them:
"As you are so intelligent... it would be a great thing for us all, and
would load you with the greatest honors... if you were able to prove
using the same rules of science, there are clear signs of the job
of an intelligent designer in all living things." So they provide him
of some books working on this question, to give him some ideas
about the job ahead.

So, le voila. Those people are working "on a commission" to prove
they had found the traces, or the trail, left behind by an intelligent
designer as he made all living things. They are working to prove this.
And they are encouraged by the master trainers that made them
believe in a god, since they were children, to find out the traces left
by god as he created all the living creatures.

That is the logical explanation for some few people being looking
for these signs of an intelligence left in living things. Given the
difficult nature of their enterprise they doing their best to succeed in
an almost impossible task.
God looks as it is decidedly in hiding and it seems never loved to show
off their face to anyone. That is the main reason to exist a "disbelieve"
in the existence of god, and why the main stories about god look bogus.

Then, if a god creator pretended to hide the traces of his work... there
is not any reason that anyone can find them. For he is "omnipotent" and
"omniscient", and thus it is an illusory quest to find any traces of his
creation.
Just imagine a criminal omniscient and omnipotent, there are a few of
them, and you would easily understand that the police investigators
would not find any trace, a cue about "who did it", or would accuse
some innocent or a human drone.

Eri

[Mark Isaak]

On 2/28/14 4:28 PM, Kalkidas wrote:
> On Fri, 28 Feb 2014 09:10:42 -0800 (PST), Burkhard
> <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>> On Friday, February 28, 2014 4:24:54 PM UTC, Kalkidas wrote:
>> <snip>
>>>

>>> So if a designer arranged the matter of the universe in an initial
>>> state, and enforced a set of laws governing its evolution, then every
>>> future state of the universe can be said to have been designed.
>>
>> Fine by me, "designed" then becomes co-extensional with
>> "exist" and for the purposes of scientific inquiry at least
>> essentially irrelevant/uninteresting - had some discussion
>> with John H. about this recently, and why it does not really
>> add any information to say that X "exists" when we know
>> everything else about X already. "Designed" then shares this
>> fate.
>
> And yet many people are trying to find the designer. They must have
> some motivation, some value to gain, by such a search.

Of course. They do not believe in God, but they are told by everyone
around them that they are supposed to believe in God. So they look for
hard evidence to convince themselves, confabulating it when all else fails.

> I can think of several reasons why knowing that something was
> intelligently designed would add to our information. For example, we
> admire a piece of workmanship and want to find out where we can get
> one for ourselves. Or, something is broken and we want to know how to
> fix it quickly and right. In these cases, knowing that there is a
> designer, and also knowing something specific about the designer such
> as where he lives, what his name is, what he looks like, etc. will
> help. It's easier and faster to consult the engineer of a thing than
> to figure it out by trial and error.

And this applies to creationism how? I like trogons. How is believing
in a supernatural creator going to help me get a new kind of trogon created?

In reality, belief in a supernatural creator *subtracts* from our
information. It distracts from the real knowledge about, e.g., where
trogon variation comes from. Worse, it fights against even curiosity
about trogon origins.

>> One of the problems of creationist of course is that they
>> ty to argue that certain properties allow the inference that
>> an object is designed - which then leads to the conclusion
>> that all sorts of other objects are not designed, which in
>> many religions would be deemed heretical. Ray, in a particularly
>> funny response to this, once declared that god has of course
>> created the entire universe, apart form some pebbles on
>> the beach which were put there so that Paley could have
>> a contrasting example....
>> The mind boggles. But then I always agreed with the Vatican that
>> creationism is bad science and worse theology.
>
> Depends on how you define "creationism" and "to create". And IMO the
> Vatican is rather an unreliable source of information about anything,
> especially theology and science.

Unarguably, they are right this time. Creationism makes god at least
partly evil, and places humans above gods. (Its bad science is too
obvious to bother mentioning.)

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
"It is certain, from experience, that the smallest grain of natural
honesty and benevolence has more effect on men's conduct, than the most
pompous views suggested by theological theories and systems." - D. Hume

[Desertphile]

On Thu, 27 Feb 2014 15:06:24 -0500, "R. Dean" <"R. Dean"@gmail.com> wrote:

> It's been pointed out by many people that we identify design
> because we are familiar with human designed artifacts, structures
> and buildings and so, we can recognize design because know they
> were designed by humans, but we know nothing about supernatural
> non-human designers.
> So, to know anything about these designs we have to know something
> about the designers. I disagree with this narrow restriction.
> I think it's entirely possible to recognize design without knowing
> anything about the designer. Design can stand alone and be recognized.
>

> So, I think intelligent design is a viable explanation. This is
> predicated upon the fundamental precept that all intelligence has
> certain commonalities. These are traits and characteristics that are
> common throughout all types of intelligences, including human,
> aliens and supernatural intelligent creators/designers.
> This is so basic that if it's falsified then the whole concept of
> intelligent design collapses.
> I would include among these shared characteristics, reason, logic
> order, rational, coherence, information and similarities in thought
> patterns.
>

> It's this were not true, then science which depends upon being
> able to observe, devise explanatory hypothesis, test and make
> predictions could no function if the universe, nature and the
> laws of nature were capricious, fickle, unpredictable, whimsical
> and arbitrary, then science could not work.
>

> Ron Dean

Great. How about explaining what something *NOT* designed looks like?

--
'Religious freedom is a shield, not a sword' -- Nick Worner

[Glenn]

"Mark Isaak" <eci...@curioustax.onomy.net> wrote in message news:let5n8$mv8$1...@dont-email.me...

> On 2/28/14 4:28 PM, Kalkidas wrote:
>> On Fri, 28 Feb 2014 09:10:42 -0800 (PST), Burkhard
>> <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>>> On Friday, February 28, 2014 4:24:54 PM UTC, Kalkidas wrote:
>>> <snip>
>>>>
>>>> So if a designer arranged the matter of the universe in an initial
>>>> state, and enforced a set of laws governing its evolution, then every
>>>> future state of the universe can be said to have been designed.
>>>
>>> Fine by me, "designed" then becomes co-extensional with
>>> "exist" and for the purposes of scientific inquiry at least
>>> essentially irrelevant/uninteresting - had some discussion
>>> with John H. about this recently, and why it does not really
>>> add any information to say that X "exists" when we know
>>> everything else about X already. "Designed" then shares this
>>> fate.
>>
>> And yet many people are trying to find the designer. They must have
>> some motivation, some value to gain, by such a search.
>
> Of course. They do not believe in God, but they are told by everyone
> around them that they are supposed to believe in God. So they look for
> hard evidence to convince themselves, confabulating it when all else fails.
>

Next you'll be claiming that God is dead.

[Free Lunch]

On Sat, 1 Mar 2014 11:04:57 -0700, "Glenn" <gl...@invalid.invalid> wrote
in talk.origins:

Wouldn't that require God to have been alive?

[Frank J]

The problem with this "viable explanation," as it is claimed for the origin of species and/or of life itself, is that it has been sitting in "square one" for 20 years, refusing to move on, and then having the chutzpah to throw tantrums because it is not taken seriously by those who actually test their ideas instead of just playing word games.

When real scientists use a "design" argument, such as in archeology and forensics, it's only because (1) they have independent evidence of "designer" of the expected intelligence level, and (2) they don't need to determine much more than "whodunit." And yet even then they usually continue to determine "whats, wheres whens and hows." A potentially viable alternative to evolution would be doing nothing but stating and *testing* the "whats, wheres whens and hows." The one thing that the ID *scam* goes out of its way to *avoid.* Which is why most scientists who personally agree that some designer is the ultimate cause of species change, nevertheless object to the ID scam even more than atheists do.

[Glenn]

"Free Lunch" <lu...@nofreelunch.us> wrote in message news:ak84h9tqrcsgr0c7r...@4ax.com...

No.

[Dai monie]

Where you see 'design' in nature, it has already been established that evolution does the trick.

Nonrandom selection on random mutation it is, yes. Have you ever looked at evolutionary programming? It's quite cool - you see entirely new things evolving from selection rules on samples with random mutation. It's almost like the real thing if done correctly.

[Free Lunch]

On Sat, 1 Mar 2014 12:32:49 -0700, "Glenn" <gl...@invalid.invalid> wrote

How can God die if never alive?

[R. Dean]

On 2/28/2014 5:47 AM, eridanus wrote:
> El viernes, 28 de febrero de 2014 07:13:16 UTC, R. Dean escribió:
>> On 2/27/2014 5:09 PM, Dai monie wrote:
>>
>>> ---------------
>>> Something might seem designed but is a result of natural processes
>>> (the eye). Natural processes don't require a designer, so any result
>>> of natural processes cannot be 'design'.

>
>> I would agree, Where there is no intelligence, there can be no
>> "intelligent design". But even if we accept natural processes,
>> Photosynthesis "appears" to be designed to serve a purpose, IE the
>> purpose of converting solar energy into useful energy (chemical energy)
>> and sugars. Another purpose is to change inorganic carbon dioxide
>> and water molecules into oxygen and organic compounds. This creates
>> a symbiotic relationship between terrestrial animals and plants.
>>

>>> Considering this, you would have to definitely disprove abiogenesis
>>> to even be able to come up with the idea; once it started, the entire
>>> thing just continues.
>> This is hardly an option, and as evidence accumalates seems more and
>> more unlikely.
>>
>>> Additionally, 'creators all the way down' (i.e. who designed the
>>> designer) must also be solved sufficiently. No, the property of an
>>> eternal designer doesn't work, because `
>
>> Why? There was a time in recent history that a scientific view held my
>> many, including A. Einstein, that the universe was eternal, without a
>> beginning or end. Hubble and others demonstrated that the universe did
>> in fact have a beginning and would come an end.
>
> to say the universe is infinite or eternal, it is something gratuitous
> someone can say. It is a "feeling" more than the result of a reasoning
> process. We can postulate the universe is eternal, but this postulate
> is totally outside our reasoning power.
>
Einstein injected a cosmological constant into his theory of general
relativity, because he was so sure the universe was static. His theory
predicted the universe is expanding which meant it had a beginning. He
claimed that "time-space had a builtin tendency to expand and this would
be made to balance exactly by all the matter in the universe".
(Hawking, A brief History of Time, 1988, pg 40.)

> It is more or less your case about "intelligent design" you feel, you can
> see, or guess there is an intelligent design in photosynthesis by
> example, or in an eye, etc.
> In fact you can even "feel" there is design in the existence of mountains,
> etc. But this is not the result of a natural reasoning process. It is a
> feeling, totally outside reason. It is a little like someone saying "I feel
> there is an angel by my side." No one can say this as a part of a reasoning
> process.
>
No, I see no design in mountains neither do O see angels. This does not
mean anything to me, nor does it apply to me.
>
> Then, your extrapolation from "artificial" objects done by a human
> or an animal, have not any reflection in the case of natural occurring
> or existing objects. We can not transfer a concept from a field to
> the other... except as a subjective "feeling".
> I can accept that sometimes... in science someone has a feeling that
> something is wrong. But this feeling does not transform itself in a
> reasoning argument, until it develops in some standard way. A scientists
> cannot say, "this theory is wrong for I have a feeling that it is wrong".
>
This doesn't apply to me or anything I written.
>
> In my example in another post, some astronauts discover in the surface
> of Mars a caterpillar, or something that looks like a caterpillar, even
> if the resemblance to a caterpillar is only faint. But the silhouette
> of the "machine" made them feel it is like a machine, similar to others
> the humans had made. But is clear that they are seeing something that it
> is not natural, but "something made by some intelligence".
> Here, it had been made by some intelligence, it is synonymous with being
> artificial, not naturally occurring, like some plant or some grass, or
> some animal digging a borrow in the soil.
> Then, you are confusing different realms into one. You are postulating a
> feeling like it were a piece of reasoning.
>
I don't know where you get this idea about feeling then apply it to me.
> Eri
>
>

[R. Dean]

On 2/28/2014 9:16 AM, David Fritzinger wrote:
> In article <3VMPu.8962$0e2....@fx16.fr7>,

> "R. Dean" <"R. Dean"@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> It's been pointed out by many people that we identify design
>> because we are familiar with human designed artifacts, structures
>> and buildings and so, we can recognize design because know they
>> were designed by humans, but we know nothing about supernatural
>> non-human designers.
>> So, to know anything about these designs we have to know something
>> about the designers. I disagree with this narrow restriction.
>> I think it's entirely possible to recognize design without knowing
>> anything about the designer. Design can stand alone and be recognized.
>>

>> So, I think intelligent design is a viable explanation. This is
>> predicated upon the fundamental precept that all intelligence has
>> certain commonalities. These are traits and characteristics that are
>> common throughout all types of intelligences, including human,
>> aliens and supernatural intelligent creators/designers.
>> This is so basic that if it's falsified then the whole concept of
>> intelligent design collapses.
>> I would include among these shared characteristics, reason, logic
>> order, rational, coherence, information and similarities in thought
>> patterns.
>>

>> It's this were not true, then science which depends upon being
>> able to observe, devise explanatory hypothesis, test and make
>> predictions could no function if the universe, nature and the
>> laws of nature were capricious, fickle, unpredictable, whimsical
>> and arbitrary, then science could not work.
>>

>> Ron Dean
>
> If there was an intelligent designer, he/she certainly wasn't very good.
> 1) It is clear that humans were originally quadrapedal. In our journey
> to bipedalism, humans have suffered some problems.
> a) Lower back pain, because our bodies were not "designed" to walk on
> two legs.
>
Careless life style, overweight and faulty posture can definitely cause
the problems you mention, to say nothing of aging.
>
> b) The knee joint. If you have had knee problems, enough said.
>>
I don't, but my 84 year old mother does. Again aging is a contributor.
>
> 2) The width of woman's hips has not kept up with the growth of human
> heads, making human birth far more difficult than other species.
>
It's more difficult for some than others, but oddly enough babies
continue to be born. Some 6 billion people on the planet attest to
the fact.
>
> 3) Relatively similar plants, such as the grains, have genomes that vary
> widely in size, despite the fact they have mostly similar genes,
> arranged in the same order.
> 4) Genetic similarity between humans and the great apes, that grows
> larger as the appearances grow larger (that whole twin-nested hierarchy
> thing).
> There is much, much more, but put together, they show that the supposed
> intelligent designer really wasn't that intelligent.
>
Once humans create a living organism such as a nematode we have no basis
for compassion.

[R. Dean]

On 2/28/2014 9:54 AM, eridanus wrote:
> El viernes, 28 de febrero de 2014 07:13:16 UTC, R. Dean escribió:
>> On 2/27/2014 5:09 PM, Dai monie wrote:

>>> On Thursday, 27 February 2014 21:06:24 UTC+1, R. Dean wrote:
>>>> It's been pointed out by many people that we identify design
>>>> because we are familiar with human designed artifacts, structures
>>>> and buildings and so, we can recognize design because know they
>>>> were designed by humans, but we know nothing about supernatural
>>>> non-human designers.
>>>> So, to know anything about these designs we have to know something
>>>> about the designers. I disagree with this narrow restriction.
>>>> I think it's entirely possible to recognize design without knowing
>>>> anything about the designer. Design can stand alone and be recognized.
>>>> So, I think intelligent design is a viable explanation. This is
>>>> predicated upon the fundamental precept that all intelligence has
>>>> certain commonalities. These are traits and characteristics that are
>>>> common throughout all types of intelligences, including human,
>>>> aliens and supernatural intelligent creators/designers.
>>>> This is so basic that if it's falsified then the whole concept of
>>>> intelligent design collapses.
>>>> I would include among these shared characteristics, reason, logic
>>>> order, rational, coherence, information and similarities in thought
>>>> patterns.
>>>> It's this were not true, then science which depends upon being
>>>> able to observe, devise explanatory hypothesis, test and make

>>>> predictions could not function if the universe, nature and the

>>>> laws of nature were capricious, fickle, unpredictable, whimsical
>>>> and arbitrary, then science could not work.
>>>> Ron Dean

>>> I also said this in one of the previous topics, but apparent design
>>> isn't design.
>
>> It's obvious, I would say it's common sense.

>
>>> Something might seem designed but is a result of natural
>>> processes (the eye). Natural processes don't require a designer,
>>> so any result of natural processes cannot be 'design'.
>
>> I would agree, Where there is no intelligence, there can be no
>> "intelligent design". But even if we accept natural processes,
>> Photosynthesis "appears" to be designed to serve a purpose, IE the
>> purpose of converting solar energy into useful energy (chemical energy)
>> and sugars. Another purpose is to change inorganic carbon dioxide
>> and water molecules into oxygen and organic compounds. This creates
>> a symbiotic relationship between terrestrial animals and plants.
>>> Considering this, you would have to definitely disprove abiogenesis
>>> to even be able to come up with the idea; once it started, the entire
>>> thing just continues.
>

>> This is hardly an option, and as evidence accumulates seems more and
>> more unlikely.
> If there was an intelligent designer, the reproduction of living beings
> would had not show any failure; like the born of an animal blind, or
> deft, or suffering an impairment of learning that end in metal retardation.
> It would not occur any problems with pregnancy, like two twins developing
> fused one on the other, or even ending one inside the other, that not so
> rarely happens. An intelligent designer, that even was omnipotent, could
> not create a machinery so defective sometimes.
> Eri
>
Why don't we leave kindergarten concepts that you learned at 3 or 4
years of age.

[deadrat]

On 2/28/14 3:09 PM, R. Dean wrote:
> On 2/28/2014 1:47 AM, Dai monie wrote:
>> On Friday, 28 February 2014 07:20:39 UTC+1, R. Dean wrote:
>>> On 2/27/2014 3:22 PM, John Harshman wrote:
>>>

>>>> On 2/27/14 12:06 PM, R. Dean wrote:
>>>
>>>>> It's been pointed out by many people that we identify design
>>>
>>>>> because we are familiar with human designed artifacts, structures
>>>
>>>>> and buildings and so, we can recognize design because know they
>>>
>>>>> were designed by humans, but we know nothing about supernatural
>>>
>>>>> non-human designers.
>>>
>>>>> So, to know anything about these designs we have to know something
>>>>> about
>>>
>>>>> the designers. I disagree with this narrow restriction.
>>>
>>>>> I think it's entirely possible to recognize design without knowing
>>>
>>>>> anything about the designer. Design can stand alone and be recognized.
>>>
>>>>
>>>

>>>> So you imagine. Of course we don't recognize design, even in human
>>>
>>>> products. We recognize manufacture. In order to recognize manufacture,
>>>
>>>> we do indeed need to know, or at least assume, something about the
>>>
>>>> capabilities of the manufacturer.
>>>
>>> >
>>>
>>> Really, my wife and I regularly watches the PBS On the Road Antique
>>> Show.
>>>
>>> Someone brought an object in for appraisal. It was probably an early
>>>
>>> 18th century farm tool, the experts did not know what it was, what
>>>
>>> purpose it served or who made the object. But clearly it had function
>>>
>>> and was designed to serve a purpose. It was obvious that it was a
>>>
>>> designed and fashioned object.
> >
>> That would be recognising manufacture. We recognise it, not because
>> we know its purpose and those things, but because humans made it, and
>> we know how humans make things and also about what we see on our planet.
> >
> This is nothing more than an unjustified assertion.
> This is a common and persistent claim by virtually everyone who takes
> issue with my view that we can recognize design without knowing the
> Idenity of the designer or any anything about it. How do you
> justify such a claim?
> >

>>>>> So, I think intelligent design is a viable explanation. This is
>>>
>>>>> predicated upon the fundamental precept that all intelligence has
>>>
>>>>> certain commonalities. These are traits and characteristics that are
>>>
>>>>> common throughout all types of intelligences, including human,
>>>
>>>>> aliens and supernatural intelligent creators/designers.
>>>
>>>>> This is so basic that if it's falsified then the whole concept of
>>>
>>>>> intelligent design collapses.
>>>
>>>>> I would include among these shared characteristics, reason, logic
>>>
>>>>> order, rational, coherence, information and similarities in thought
>>>
>>>>> patterns.
>>>
>>>>
>>>

>>>> "Order" and "Information" are properties of just about anything,
>>>
>>>> intelligent or not. "Coherence" is incoherent. "Reason", "logic",
>>>
>>>> "rational" [sic], and "similarities in thought patterns" all seem to be
>>>
>>>> versions of the same thing, i.e. intelligence. I agree that
>>>> intelligence
>>>
>>>> is a property of intelligence. Where does that get us?
>>>
>>>>
>>>

>>>>> It's this were not true, then science which depends upon being
>>>
>>>>> able to observe, devise explanatory hypothesis, test and make
>>>

>>>>> predictions could no function if the universe, nature and the

>>>
>>>>> laws of nature were capricious, fickle, unpredictable, whimsical
>>>
>>>>> and arbitrary, then science could not work.
>>>
>>>>
>>>

>>>> How does this relate to intelligent design?
>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> I believe when one finds these characteristics, deliberate design is the
>>>
>>> better explanation. I see random mutations and natural selection as a
>>>
>>> _alternative_ explanation for what is observed, that is said to have
>>>
>>> the _appearance_ of design or the illusion of design. I seems clear that
>>>
>>> strong biases transcend evidence and reason here.
>> Indeed, it seems you are biased towards a designer over naturalism.
>>
>> So far you have yet to make a solid argument. The only argument you
>> have is
>> that of 'design' where you still have to solidify why it is 'design' and
>> not 'apparent design'. Yet you already made the conclusion that evolution
>> theory is the 'alternative', opposing .. 155 years? of biologists.
>> (Which is not to make an ad populum, but just to point out how weird
>> it is, as if you didn't know)
>>
> I take what is observed at _face_value_. If it looks designed then
> reason and logic should dictate that it _is_ designed

The trouble is that your face value, reason, and logic aren't very
reliable. That because your experience, like everyone else's, is
limited, and those limitations dictate intuition.

It's my experience that everything that moves eventually stops moving.
If I want to get something moving, I have to do something to it. Taking
this experience at face value, my reason and logic dictate that there's
a crucial difference between things in motion and things at rest. But
that's not true. The real difference is between things that are
accelerating and things that aren't.

It's my experience that everything in motion has a definite position and
a definite velocity, both of which I can check at any time with suitable
instruments and compare with other people who take the same
measurements. They seem to get the same answers I do once they take
their own motion in account, but my intuition about motion and position
is wrong.

It's my experience that the harder I push something, the faster it goes,
and thus my experience and logic tell me that the only limit to the
speed of an object is the amount of energy I can muster to apply to it.
But that's not true either.

As long as I've been alive, the Rocky Mountains have been around, and
they've changed very little if at all between the time I saw them when I
was young and now. By experience and logic tell me that they've always
been there. But they haven't.

When we deal with things outside our experience -- small things, heavy
things, speedy things, things of long duration, etc. -- our experience
is no reliable guide.

- UNTIL it is
> proven otherwise: and _overriding_ considerations should not
> take precedence over observation reason and logic. I think this
> is what has happened from Darwin's time to the present.

You think wrong, as demonstrated by what we know about relativity,
quantum mechanics, geology, and evolution.

> Richard Dawkins
> Francis Crick etc who assert that what is observed is "appearent" design
> or the "illusion" of design" never actually get around to _proving_
> their assertion.

Proof is for bakers, brewers, minters, and mathematicians. Science
deals in models and evidence. Biologists have a model that explains
apparent design. If you wish to propose an alternate model that better
explains apparent design, then you need to actually propose one.

Your intuition just won't do.

[R. Dean]

On 2/28/2014 10:09 AM, John Harshman wrote:

> On 2/27/14 10:20 PM, R. Dean wrote:
>> On 2/27/2014 3:22 PM, John Harshman wrote:
>>> On 2/27/14 12:06 PM, R. Dean wrote:
>>>> It's been pointed out by many people that we identify design
>>>> because we are familiar with human designed artifacts, structures
>>>> and buildings and so, we can recognize design because know they
>>>> were designed by humans, but we know nothing about supernatural
>>>> non-human designers.
>>>> So, to know anything about these designs we have to know something
>>>> about
>>>> the designers. I disagree with this narrow restriction.
>>>> I think it's entirely possible to recognize design without knowing
>>>> anything about the designer. Design can stand alone and be recognized.
>>>
>>> So you imagine. Of course we don't recognize design, even in human
>>> products. We recognize manufacture. In order to recognize manufacture,
>>> we do indeed need to know, or at least assume, something about the
>>> capabilities of the manufacturer.
>> >
>> Really, my wife and I regularly watches the PBS On the Road Antique Show.
>> Someone brought an object in for appraisal. It was probably an early
>> 18th century farm tool, the experts did not know what it was, what
>> purpose it served or who made the object. But clearly it had function
>> and was designed to serve a purpose. It was obvious that it was a
>> designed and fashioned object.
>

> Yes, because it resembled other objects we know are made by people.
>
This argument is used by virtually everyone who disagrees with the idea
that it's possible to recognize non-human design. The commonality of the
argument suggest that it was not thought of by each person
independently. But it definitely narrows and restricts the recognition
of design to human design. Yet, no one even attempts to justify the
argument.

>
>>>> So, I think intelligent design is a viable explanation. This is
>>>> predicated upon the fundamental precept that all intelligence has
>>>> certain commonalities. These are traits and characteristics that are
>>>> common throughout all types of intelligences, including human,
>>>> aliens and supernatural intelligent creators/designers.
>>>> This is so basic that if it's falsified then the whole concept of
>>>> intelligent design collapses.
>>>> I would include among these shared characteristics, reason, logic
>>>> order, rational, coherence, information and similarities in thought
>>>> patterns.
>>>
>>> "Order" and "Information" are properties of just about anything,
>>> intelligent or not. "Coherence" is incoherent. "Reason", "logic",
>>> "rational" [sic], and "similarities in thought patterns" all seem to be
>>> versions of the same thing, i.e. intelligence. I agree that intelligence
>>> is a property of intelligence. Where does that get us?
>>>
>>>> It's this were not true, then science which depends upon being
>>>> able to observe, devise explanatory hypothesis, test and make
>>>> predictions could no function if the universe, nature and the
>>>> laws of nature were capricious, fickle, unpredictable, whimsical
>>>> and arbitrary, then science could not work.
>>>
>>> How does this relate to intelligent design?
>>>
>> I believe when one finds these characteristics, deliberate design is the
>> better explanation. I see random mutations and natural selection as a
>> _alternative_ explanation for what is observed, that is said to have

>> the _appearance_ of design or the illusion of design. It seems clear that

>> strong biases transcend evidence and reason here.
>

> You aren't communicating very well. What are "these characteristics"?
>
I've mentioned in several post, characteristics which I believe must be
common to any intelligence. I believe any design by intelligent beings
should be marked by these traits, regardless of where it's found. I
would say: I would expect, at least: rational thinking, logic, order,
as opposed to capriciousness, chaotic, fickle, whimsical. I'm sure there
are others.
>
> The ones in the second paragraph are supposed to be properties of
> designers, not their products. The third paragraph doesn't really list
> any characteristics.
>
> What makes you think that selection and mutation aren't good
> explanations of what is observed (which you so far haven't specified)?
> Could it be that you yourself have a strong bias?
>

[R. Dean]

On 2/28/2014 10:10 AM, Robert Carnegie wrote:
> On Friday, 28 February 2014 06:39:41 UTC, R. Dean wrote:
>> I never mention religion, church god(s) holy books
>> nor do I appeal to any religion it's tenents etc..
>
> Except that your name is "Dean".
> <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Dean>
> But that probably isn't important in that sense.
>
>> So, why do you introduce this subject into the
>> discussion?
>
> It always is the subject of the discussion.
> If you talk about design in the natural world
> without bringing religion into it, you're doing
> better than most "Fellows" at "The Discovery
> Institute", or the authors of the notorious
> book that was shown to have had the word "design"
> substituted for "creator" at a late stage before
> publication. But many people remain sceptical
> of your purpose.
>
When I don't appeal to Genesis, the Bible, or any religious publication,
religious dogma or theologians and I don't
advocate church or any religion view, how am I bringing
religion into the discussion?

[R. Dean]

On 2/28/2014 10:20 AM, Robert Carnegie wrote:

> On Friday, 28 February 2014 14:54:07 UTC, eridanus wrote:
>> If there was an intelligent designer, the reproduction
>> of living beings would had not show any failure; like
>> the born of an animal blind, or deft, or suffering an
>> impairment of learning that end in metal retardation.
>> It would not occur any problems with pregnancy, like
>> two twins developing fused one on the other, or even
>> ending one inside the other, that not so rarely happens.
>> An intelligent designer, that even was omnipotent,
>> could not create a machinery so defective sometimes.
>

> I think this is contestable; after all, products designed
> by human beings often fail. But I'll leave it to someone
> who wants to argue for a designer to raise any other
> points that may arise in their mind.
>
This argues for a designer who is infallible, incapable of
trial and error with limitless knowledge and abilities.

[R. Dean]

On 2/28/2014 4:44 PM, jillery wrote:
> On Fri, 28 Feb 2014 15:34:56 -0500, "R. Dean" <"R. Dean"@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On 2/27/2014 5:27 PM, jillery wrote:
>>> On Thu, 27 Feb 2014 15:06:24 -0500, "R. Dean" <"R. Dean"@gmail.com>

>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> It's been pointed out by many people that we identify design
>>>> because we are familiar with human designed artifacts, structures
>>>> and buildings and so, we can recognize design because know they
>>>> were designed by humans, but we know nothing about supernatural
>>>> non-human designers.
>>>> So, to know anything about these designs we have to know something
>>>> about the designers. I disagree with this narrow restriction.
>>>> I think it's entirely possible to recognize design without knowing
>>>> anything about the designer. Design can stand alone and be recognized.
>>>
>>>

>>> Anybody who has read your posts for any length of time knows that is
>>> your assertion. They also know that you haven't explained how you
>>> recognize design. It's simply not enough to say it, no matter how
>>> many times you say it. You need to make the case for it.
>>>
>> I have on several occasions,
>
>
> You and I must be reading entirely different posts. I know I have
> repeatedly asked you to make a case for it. I know I have looked for
> it. Perhaps you will cite or copy just one example where you have.
>
If you think about it Jill, the argument against my examples, I
recognize it because I am able to recognize what human design and
build. And another argument is nature could have brought about
the same results. The last example I mentioned was photosynthesis
where solar energy is converted to useable energy. This has all
the earmarks of design. Another example I mentioned several times
is the genetic "toolbox". It's been pointed out many times that
teeth are designed for the various diets that animals eat.
I fossils paleontologist examine teeth to determine whether
they were designed for veterinarian or carnivorous diet.
The heart, vascular system is designed to serve a function
and has purpose. Of course, you will argue that evolution could
have produced these designs, but I've noted there is overwhelming
bias against even using the word "design". But the point is, it's
possible for you and me to point to the same structures and organs,
their functions and the purpose they serve, and your view is they
evolved and I say they were are designs. But we point to the
same things.


>
>
>> Jill and I always get the exact same
>> argument from everyone who supports the philosophy of naturalism.
>
>
> What argument is that, exactly? You don't say.
>
That I recognize design only because I'm familiar with what people
design and build. But no one ever even attempts to justify this
accusation. It's just left standing there.
>
>> I wonder what is the source of the argument. It's hard to believe
>> that everyone who uses this argument arrived at it independently.
>> And no one has attempted to justify the argument.

>>>
>>>
>>>> So, I think intelligent design is a viable explanation. This is
>>>> predicated upon the fundamental precept that all intelligence has
>>>> certain commonalities. These are traits and characteristics that are
>>>> common throughout all types of intelligences, including human,
>>>> aliens and supernatural intelligent creators/designers.
>>>
>>>

>>> Now there's a sweeping over-generalization. How many alien and
>>> supernatural intelligences do you know anything about?
>>>
>> Then how do you explain SETI, and the search for alien signals
>> and the Pioneer plaques by the Late Carl Sagan and Frank Drake which
>> were sent out of our solar system in spacecrafts, Pioneer 10 in 1972 and
>> the Pioneer 11 in 1973. This is predicated upon the belief that any
>> alien life that sends intelligible signals or intercepts the spacecrafts
>> would have the intelligence to decipher the meaning represented by the
>> messages engraved in the plaques. To spend the necessary funds and to
>> engage in such efforts assumes that some of the characteristics of
>> intelligence which I listed, otherwise it's a wasteful and pointless
>> endeavor.
>
>
> Not at all. That some alien intelligences might have some
> similarities to ours, in no way implies that all, or even a
> significant percentage, of alien intelligences have similarities. The
> costs of the Pioneer plaques were trivial compared to the cost of the
> overall project. Ditto SETI, as compared to the cost of all astronomy
> projects. These things are piggybacked onto existing projects, so
> their justification is simple; it can't hurt, and it might help.
>
But that misses the point. We expect intelligent agents to recogognize
that which we as "intelligent" beings send.

>
>
>>>> This is so basic that if it's falsified then the whole concept of
>>>> intelligent design collapses.
>>>
>>>

>>> It's impossible to prove that something has never existed. It's one
>>> thing to assume a designer exists, but it's another thing to assert it
>>> as a cause.

>>>
>>>
>>>> I would include among these shared characteristics, reason, logic
>>>> order, rational, coherence, information and similarities in thought
>>>> patterns.
>>>>

>>>> It's this were not true, then science which depends upon being
>>>> able to observe, devise explanatory hypothesis, test and make
>>>> predictions could no function if the universe, nature and the
>>>> laws of nature were capricious, fickle, unpredictable, whimsical
>>>> and arbitrary, then science could not work.
>>>
>>>

>>> Non sequitur. The laws of nature have nothing to do with the nature
>>> of intelligence.
>>>
>> This is the exact opposite of What I meant. I's suggesting that
>> intelligence had something to do with the laws of nature.
>
>
> I know. It's not the opposite. Whether intelligence has something to
> do with the laws of nature has nothing to do with the nature of those
> laws, whether or not they're capricious et al. You and I went through
> this line of reasoning before.
>

[broger...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, March 1, 2014 4:46:05 PM UTC-5, R. Dean wrote:

>
> > Yes, because it resembled other objects we know are made by people.
>
> >
>
> This argument is used by virtually everyone who disagrees with the idea
>
> that it's possible to recognize non-human design. The commonality of the
>
> argument suggest that it was not thought of by each person
>
> independently. But it definitely narrows and restricts the recognition
>
> of design to human design. Yet, no one even attempts to justify the
>
> argument.

You may have missed the justifications others have given you. But here's a justification. When you actually come across something designed, say a cuneiform inscribed tablet in the desert, or a deadfall or snare in the forest, you immediately recognize it as designed because it is like other things you know human beings make. You do not start by excluding "natural" causes. You immediately recognize that it's something like things that you already know people make.

Now you want to give an example of something people didn't make but which is clearly designed (e.g a 2001 monolith on the moon). The only things you can think of are things that have a function that you, a human, can think of. So when we say that, yes, we would recognize that thing as designed, it's because you've included in your example a function that a human would recognize. We do not, even hypothetically, recognize things as designed if we have no idea (I mean really no idea at all) what they are for and how they were made. Go ahead and try to think of an example, but, almost by definition you won't be able to - your example will have to be based on a function and a manufacturing process that a human (specifically you) can conceive of.





>

[R. Dean]

On 2/28/2014 5:06 PM, John Harshman wrote:
> On 2/28/14 1:09 PM, R. Dean wrote:
>> On 2/28/2014 1:47 AM, Dai monie wrote:

>>> On Friday, 28 February 2014 07:20:39 UTC+1, R. Dean wrote:
>>>> On 2/27/2014 3:22 PM, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>

>>>>> On 2/27/14 12:06 PM, R. Dean wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>> It's been pointed out by many people that we identify design
>>>>
>>>>>> because we are familiar with human designed artifacts, structures
>>>>
>>>>>> and buildings and so, we can recognize design because know they
>>>>
>>>>>> were designed by humans, but we know nothing about supernatural
>>>>
>>>>>> non-human designers.
>>>>
>>>>>> So, to know anything about these designs we have to know something
>>>>>> about
>>>>
>>>>>> the designers. I disagree with this narrow restriction.
>>>>
>>>>>> I think it's entirely possible to recognize design without knowing
>>>>
>>>>>> anything about the designer. Design can stand alone and be
>>>>>> recognized.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>

>>>>> So you imagine. Of course we don't recognize design, even in human
>>>>
>>>>> products. We recognize manufacture. In order to recognize manufacture,
>>>>
>>>>> we do indeed need to know, or at least assume, something about the
>>>>
>>>>> capabilities of the manufacturer.
>>>>
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>> Really, my wife and I regularly watches the PBS On the Road Antique
>>>> Show.
>>>>
>>>> Someone brought an object in for appraisal. It was probably an early
>>>>
>>>> 18th century farm tool, the experts did not know what it was, what
>>>>
>>>> purpose it served or who made the object. But clearly it had function
>>>>
>>>> and was designed to serve a purpose. It was obvious that it was a
>>>>
>>>> designed and fashioned object.
>> >

>>> That would be recognising manufacture. We recognise it, not because
>>> we know its purpose and those things, but because humans made it, and
>>> we know how humans make things and also about what we see on our planet.
>> >
>> This is nothing more than an unjustified assertion.
>> This is a common and persistent claim by virtually everyone who takes
>> issue with my view that we can recognize design without knowing the
>> Idenity of the designer or any anything about it. How do you
>> justify such a claim?
>

> How do *you* justify such a claim? Your main problem is that we commonly
> recognize design/manufacture only in products made by humans. You can't
> give any other examples of design other than those things we're arguing
> about. So how do you know you can separate your knowledge of the
> designer (human) from your knowledge of design?
>
So, you will not answer my question! Instead you turn it on its head and
re-direct it to me. I didn't expect any difference.

>
>>>>>> So, I think intelligent design is a viable explanation. This is
>>>>
>>>>>> predicated upon the fundamental precept that all intelligence has
>>>>
>>>>>> certain commonalities. These are traits and characteristics that are
>>>>
>>>>>> common throughout all types of intelligences, including human,
>>>>
>>>>>> aliens and supernatural intelligent creators/designers.
>>>>

>>>>>> This is so basic that if it's falsified then the whole concept of
>>>>
>>>>>> intelligent design collapses.
>>>>

>>>>>> I would include among these shared characteristics, reason, logic
>>>>
>>>>>> order, rational, coherence, information and similarities in thought
>>>>
>>>>>> patterns.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>

>>>>> "Order" and "Information" are properties of just about anything,
>>>>
>>>>> intelligent or not. "Coherence" is incoherent. "Reason", "logic",
>>>>
>>>>> "rational" [sic], and "similarities in thought patterns" all seem
>>>>> to be
>>>>
>>>>> versions of the same thing, i.e. intelligence. I agree that
>>>>> intelligence
>>>>
>>>>> is a property of intelligence. Where does that get us?
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>

>>>>>> It's this were not true, then science which depends upon being
>>>>
>>>>>> able to observe, devise explanatory hypothesis, test and make
>>>>
>>>>>> predictions could no function if the universe, nature and the
>>>>
>>>>>> laws of nature were capricious, fickle, unpredictable, whimsical
>>>>
>>>>>> and arbitrary, then science could not work.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>

>>>>> How does this relate to intelligent design?
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I believe when one finds these characteristics, deliberate design is
>>>> the
>>>>
>>>> better explanation. I see random mutations and natural selection as a
>>>>
>>>> _alternative_ explanation for what is observed, that is said to have
>>>>

>>>> the _appearance_ of design or the illusion of design. I seems clear

>>>> that
>>>>
>>>> strong biases transcend evidence and reason here.

>>> Indeed, it seems you are biased towards a designer over naturalism.
>>>
>>> So far you have yet to make a solid argument. The only argument you
>>> have is
>>> that of 'design' where you still have to solidify why it is 'design' and
>>> not 'apparent design'. Yet you already made the conclusion that
>>> evolution
>>> theory is the 'alternative', opposing .. 155 years? of biologists.
>>> (Which is not to make an ad populum, but just to point out how weird
>>> it is, as if you didn't know)
>>>
>> I take what is observed at _face_value_. If it looks designed then

>> reason and logic should dictate that it _is_ designed - UNTIL it is

>> proven otherwise: and _overriding_ considerations should not
>> take precedence over observation reason and logic. I think this

>> is what has happened from Darwin's time to the present. Richard Dawkins

>> Francis Crick etc who assert that what is observed is "appearent" design
>> or the "illusion" of design" never actually get around to _proving_
>> their assertion.
>

> "Proof" isn't science.
>
I know, per Stephen Hawking who wrote about the absence of "proof"
in science. IOW you can never prove a theory, but you can disprove or
falsify a theory. It's always possible that a new discovery or test may
disprove a theory, then it must be discarded or modified so as to
agree with the new discovery or test.
>
Evidence is what we have. And the evidence shows
> common descent, small steps, and adaptation, all consistent with natural
> selection as the mechanism of "design". If your designer existed, the
> evidence would show that he isn't very good at it. When humans designers
> make something, they tend to produce it all in one go, though it may be
> just an improved version of something previously existing. The designer
> of life, on the other hand, if his goal is to produce a pigeon, messes
> around with bacteria for three and a half billion years, random
> metazoans for another half billion, and eventually settles on a pigeon
> design only a few million years before the present. Incompetence? Or
> nonexistence? Do you have a third alternative?
>
We live usually less than 100 years, so we are ever conscience of the
passage of time, so this might seem relative and important, but is it
important? Because of our short lifespan time is important to _us_.

[R. Dean]

On 2/28/2014 5:21 PM, Burkhard wrote:
> On Friday, February 28, 2014 9:27:23 PM UTC, R. Dean wrote:
>> On 2/28/2014 7:15 AM, Burkhard wrote:
>>
>>> On Friday, February 28, 2014 7:13:16 AM UTC, R. Dean wrote:
>>
>>> <snip>

>>
>>>> >
>>
>>>>
>>
>>>> I would agree, Where there is no intelligence, there can be no
>>
>>>>
>>
>>>> "intelligent design". But even if we accept natural processes,
>>
>>>> Photosynthesis "appears" to be designed to serve a purpose, IE the
>>
>>>> purpose of converting solar energy into useful energy (chemical energy)
>>
>>>> and sugars. Another purpose is to change inorganic carbon dioxide
>>
>>>> and water molecules into oxygen and organic compounds. This creates
>>
>>>> a symbiotic relationship between terrestrial animals and plants.
>>
>>>>
>>
>>>
>>

>>> The banks of a river serve the purpose of keeping the water inside the confines
>>
>>> and propel it forwards. Rivers serve the purpose of replenishing lakes. The base of
>>
>>> a mountain serves the purpose of keeping the top of the mountain in the air.
>>
>>> Mountain ranges serve the purpose of shielding the area around them
>>
>>> from wind...

>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>> Do you also claim that rivers and mountains are designed?
>>
>>>
>>

>> No, they don't have the appearance designed.
>>
>> A canal OTOH does have the appearance of being designed in that
>>
>> it's runs straight over distances, with uniform width and depth
>>
>> and relative smooth banks. So, canals have the appearance of
>>
>> design.
>
> To me they look just as designed. And as I have shown, the one
> criteria you actually give, "having a function" applies to them just
> as well. So why should your subjective impression be the final arbiter of
> reality?
>
I don't deny that rivers have function, after all they carry water back
to the seas where rivers are an integral part of the circulation system.
And the system may very well be designed, but the course of the rivers
back to the seas to be recirculated back to the lands as rain.

[Jimbo]

On Sat, 01 Mar 2014 16:46:05 -0500, "R. Dean" <"R. Dean"@gmail.com>
wrote:

Any number of biological processes and systems could be seen as the
product of rational thinking, logic and order. You've mentioned
photosynthesis as an example of a biological process in which you can
detect purpose and design. In another post I asked if you also detect
design in the predation and parasitism. You haven't responded.

Perhaps you missed the post, so I'm asking again. Photosynthesis is
the primary energy acquisition strategy of some groups of microbes and
of plants. Similarly, predation and parasitism are strategies used by
some groups of microbes and animals. The only difference I can see
between them, as purported products of design, is that predation and
parasitism could be regarded as morally repugnant design strategies.
Do *you* know of any way to differentiate between them? If so, what
criteria do you employ to determine that one is designed and the
others are not?

If you claim that it's 'common sense,' or intuition, that's a
scientifically meaningless answer. It reduces to nothing more than
personal opinion. Do you have anything more to offer?

Here's a link to an example of a biological system that exhibits much
complexity, order and interconnection. What criteria would you apply
to determine whether it's designed or not?

<http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2014/02/absurd-creature-of-the-week-jewel-wasp/>

[jillery]

On Sat, 01 Mar 2014 17:32:21 -0500, "R. Dean" <"R. Dean"@gmail.com>

If you think about it, Ronnie, the problem is not with your examples
per se, but with your unsupported assertions of them as designed. It
would be a major step if you identified the characteristics that
distinguishes them from non-designed objects.

>It's been pointed out many times that
>teeth are designed for the various diets that animals eat.
>I fossils paleontologist examine teeth to determine whether
>they were designed for veterinarian or carnivorous diet.
>The heart, vascular system is designed to serve a function
>and has purpose.

Those things are what some people call apparent design, others call
function. You have yet to establish a link outside your own mind from
them to your designer.

>Of course, you will argue that evolution could
>have produced these designs, but I've noted there is overwhelming
>bias against even using the word "design". But the point is, it's
>possible for you and me to point to the same structures and organs,
>their functions and the purpose they serve, and your view is they
>evolved and I say they were are designs. But we point to the
>same things.

A point not in dispute, so why do you even mention it?

>>> Jill and I always get the exact same
>>> argument from everyone who supports the philosophy of naturalism.
>>
>>
>> What argument is that, exactly? You don't say.
>>
>That I recognize design only because I'm familiar with what people
>design and build. But no one ever even attempts to justify this
>accusation. It's just left standing there.

I am certain I have justified that argument many times. Since your
convenient amnesia has apparently reappeared, I will summarize here:
Your examples of design are of manmade objects, or objects that
explicitly share the characteristics of manmade objects, or objects
that you simply assert are obviously designed.

Of the first two, I can't imagine why you assert that you are not
familiar with those objects, as you necessarily must be in order to
cite them as examples.

Of the last case, it's not enough to assert, no matter how many times
you do so, that non-manmade objects are obviously designed. You need
to argue each case, to say how these objects fit in to your definition
of design.

Of course, it would also be helpful if you stated your definition of
design, and the characteristics of your designer.

HTH

No, that's exactly the point. You leap from a presumptive subset of
conjectured intelligences to assuming the nature of all alien
intelligences, none of which you have any knowledge about. As the
math teachers say, you need to show your work.

[jillery]

On Sat, 01 Mar 2014 16:46:05 -0500, "R. Dean" <"R. Dean"@gmail.com>
wrote:

You misrepresent other posters' opinions. What other posters have
stated is they disagree with your assertions that it's possible to
recognize designs without knowing anything about the designers.
Whether one can recognize non-human design is a separate question
altogether, and has been only tangentially mentioned in this thread.
Conflating these two questions creates confusion.

[jillery]

On Sat, 01 Mar 2014 16:53:44 -0500, "R. Dean" <"R. Dean"@gmail.com>
wrote:

If that's not your designer, then please explicitly distinguish your
designer from it.

[jillery]

On Sat, 01 Mar 2014 16:12:50 -0500, "R. Dean" <"R. Dean"@gmail.com>

What does making nematodes have to do with compassion?

[John Harshman]

On 3/1/14 2:50 PM, R. Dean wrote:
> On 2/28/2014 5:06 PM, John Harshman wrote:

>> How do *you* justify such a claim? Your main problem is that we
>> commonly recognize design/manufacture only in products made by
>> humans. You can't give any other examples of design other than
>> those things we're arguing about. So how do you know you can
>> separate your knowledge of the designer (human) from your knowledge
>> of design?
> >
> So, you will not answer my question! Instead you turn it on its head
> and re-direct it to me. I didn't expect any difference.

I merely point out that you're the one who claims to be able to
recognize design without knowing anything about the designer. How do you
know you can? You have no acknowledged examples to work with. On the
other hand, in all known cases of recognized design, we do in fact know
about the designer. We know how humans make things. Your own example
shows exactly that. So, I have examples of my assertion being true,
while you have no examples of your assertion being true. Which one has
the better claim?

>> "Proof" isn't science.
> >
> I know, per Stephen Hawking who wrote about the absence of "proof" in
> science. IOW you can never prove a theory, but you can disprove or
> falsify a theory. It's always possible that a new discovery or test
> may disprove a theory, then it must be discarded or modified so as
> to agree with the new discovery or test.

Exactly.

>> Evidence is what we have. And the evidence shows common descent,
>> small steps, and adaptation, all consistent with natural selection
>> as the mechanism of "design". If your designer existed, the
>> evidence would show that he isn't very good at it. When humans
>> designers make something, they tend to produce it all in one go,
>> though it may be just an improved version of something previously
>> existing. The designer of life, on the other hand, if his goal is
>> to produce a pigeon, messes around with bacteria for three and a
>> half billion years, random metazoans for another half billion, and
>> eventually settles on a pigeon design only a few million years
>> before the present. Incompetence? Or nonexistence? Do you have a
>> third alternative?
>>
> We live usually less than 100 years, so we are ever conscience of the
> passage of time, so this might seem relative and important, but is it
> important? Because of our short lifespan time is important to _us_.

So you admit that we can't recognize divine design by reference to human
models. I don't see how you could claim to recognize it at all, since no
rules or constraints apply to god; he could do anything in any way. He
could even produce a pigeon just by waiting and letting things happen on
their own. Would that be design?

[John Harshman]

No, it only restricts recognition of design to things that resemble
human design. We could recognize a Martian car as long as Martian
technology matched human technology closely enough. This is merely an
empirical observation of the ways in which we recognize things as
artifacts. If you have an example that shows your point, go ahead. So
far, your example only shows my point.

But you are confusing the characteristics of the design with those of
the designer. Which do you mean? You have provided characteristics of
the designer, not of the designed. And by the way, I could point to many
whimsical designs.

[jillery]

On Sat, 01 Mar 2014 15:15:16 -0800, Jimbo <Jimbol...@nospam.com>
wrote:

Excellent video. The behavior and life cycle of many parasitoids
initially sound too fantastic and complex to have evolved, but that's
exactly what they did.

[Glenn]

"Free Lunch" <lu...@nofreelunch.us> wrote in message news:79g4h9t3veq0qt0qb...@4ax.com...

Beats me.

[deadrat]

Seriously, that's your response? Sure, there are things like say,
getting hit by a car, that can cause lower back pain. The topic is the
predisposition to lower back problems from using a four-legs-good design
for a two-legs-bad animal.

Why is it that your unseen designed never designs anything that differs
from an evolutionary "design"?

> >
>> b) The knee joint. If you have had knee problems, enough said.
> >>
> I don't, but my 84 year old mother does. Again aging is a contributor.
> >
>> 2) The width of woman's hips has not kept up with the growth of human
>> heads, making human birth far more difficult than other species.
> >
> It's more difficult for some than others, but oddly enough babies
> continue to be born. Some 6 billion people on the planet attest to
> the fact.

Of course they continue to be born. But who designs a birth canal too
small for a baby's head?

>> 3) Relatively similar plants, such as the grains, have genomes that vary
>> widely in size, despite the fact they have mostly similar genes,
>> arranged in the same order.
>> 4) Genetic similarity between humans and the great apes, that grows
>> larger as the appearances grow larger (that whole twin-nested hierarchy
>> thing).
>> There is much, much more, but put together, they show that the supposed
>> intelligent designer really wasn't that intelligent.
>>
> Once humans create a living organism such as a nematode we have no basis
> for compassion.

Freudian slip for "comparison"?

And don't you mean "Until human create ...."?

Don't you see a problem with positing a designer who never designs
anything that can't be explained by evolution?

[Robert Carnegie]

I think Eridanus is arguing like a mediaeval theologian, that
God is understood to be perfect and so his creations must be
perfect; that living things in this world are not perfect, and
so they cannot be made by the perfect God after all.

Except, of course, that mediaeval theologians didn't manage
to prove that the Creator God doesn't exist. I suppose, if
they did, then they would be out of a job.

I think that what we see as imperfections in the natural world,
including in ourselves, in fact don't disprove that we were
designed by an infallible designer - infallible in the sense
of not failing to produce an intended effect. But not infallible
in the sense of never producing an imperfect thing. If we agree
that we are imperfect things, then we were not created by the
God of Only Creating Perfect Things.

But our imperfect nature obviously doesn't /prove/ that we were
designed by an infallible designer who got exactly what he wanted.

[Robert Carnegie]

You don't have to bring religion into this argument.
It is in the argument already, before we start.

A perception of design in the natural world may be
(1) the work of the gods as most religions tell you,
(2) misperception of structures that came into existence
naturally without intelligent direction, (3) mental illness,
like the paranoia where someone imagines that everyone
in the world conspires against them.

If there is no credible designer and builder of what you're
looking at, design isn't a reasonable hypothesis. If what
you observe doesn't tell you something about a designer -
which seems to happen only in religions, where it shows
you that the gods are wonderful - then the design premise
remains without any support at all.

[John S. Wilkins]

R. Dean <"R. Dean"@gmail.com> wrote:

I did, in print.

http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/theftovertoil/theftovertoil.html

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1012282323054

It has not received any rebuttal beyond a vague three line dismissal by
Dembski which was touted as a "rebuttal". But the argument remains
there.

So, lawlike behaviour?

> >
> > The ones in the second paragraph are supposed to be properties of
> > designers, not their products. The third paragraph doesn't really list
> > any characteristics.
> >
> > What makes you think that selection and mutation aren't good
> > explanations of what is observed (which you so far haven't specified)?
> > Could it be that you yourself have a strong bias?
> >

--
John S. Wilkins, Honorary Fellow, University of Melbourne
http://evolvingthoughts.net
But al be that he was a philosophre,
Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre

[Robert Carnegie]

On Saturday, 1 March 2014 00:00:32 UTC, jillery wrote:
> "Remember that a designer, an engineer, can go back to the drawing
> board, throw away the old design, start afresh with what looks more
> sensible. A designer has foresight. Evolution can't go back to the
> drawing board. Evolution has no foresight."
>
> An effective counterpoint to Dawkin's comment is to identify a feature
> of life where a designer's foresight is a better explanation than
> evolution's historical contingency. Will you identify such a feature,
> and explain how design explains it better than evolution?

That's going to be difficult because anything biological
that "works" can be claimed as a case of foresight.

On the other hand, if we demand evidence that a thing
works better than a natural version and therefore it
must be designed, then that must be of the form of
a natural version in existence that can be shown to
be inferior. But aren't we also supposed to believe
that the colour-blind eyes of lesser animals than
ourselves - for instance - are designed, as well?
So why aren't they as good as ours?

Anyway, Richard Dawkins' point is that lots of things
in biology /do/ display a lack of foresight and a lack
of design.

I think that in another post, Dean proposed that absurdity
is evidence against intelligent design: so one question is,
has he thought about human sexual reproduction? Eridanus
touched on that. Our sex process is silly. Gigantically
silly. People getting badly injured doing it, silly.
So surely /that/ wasn't designed?

[RonO]

On 3/1/2014 12:04 PM, Glenn wrote:
>
> "Mark Isaak" <eci...@curioustax.onomy.net> wrote in message news:let5n8$mv8$1...@dont-email.me...
>> On 2/28/14 4:28 PM, Kalkidas wrote:
>>> On Fri, 28 Feb 2014 09:10:42 -0800 (PST), Burkhard
>>> <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>>>> On Friday, February 28, 2014 4:24:54 PM UTC, Kalkidas wrote:
>>>> <snip>
>>>>>
>>>>> So if a designer arranged the matter of the universe in an initial
>>>>> state, and enforced a set of laws governing its evolution, then every
>>>>> future state of the universe can be said to have been designed.
>>>>
>>>> Fine by me, "designed" then becomes co-extensional with
>>>> "exist" and for the purposes of scientific inquiry at least
>>>> essentially irrelevant/uninteresting - had some discussion
>>>> with John H. about this recently, and why it does not really
>>>> add any information to say that X "exists" when we know
>>>> everything else about X already. "Designed" then shares this
>>>> fate.
>>>
>>> And yet many people are trying to find the designer. They must have
>>> some motivation, some value to gain, by such a search.
>>
>> Of course. They do not believe in God, but they are told by everyone
>> around them that they are supposed to believe in God. So they look for
>> hard evidence to convince themselves, confabulating it when all else fails.
>>
> Next you'll be claiming that God is dead.
>

Behe made that admission. He admitted that his designer might no longer
exist (Who has Behe claimed is his designer? He claims that,
personally, his designer is the Christian god of the Bible.). The
Designer of life over 3 billion years ago, the designer of the flagellum
around 2 billion years ago, the designer of the immune system and blood
clotting system around 400 million years ago, may no longer exist. Behe
sort of ran out of things the designer must have done in the last 400
million years and this is apparently a long enough absence for Behe to
make the claim that this designer may no longer exist. By claiming that
his designer might no longer exist, he was likely claiming that God may
be dead.

The IDiot absence of evidence stupidity bites an IDiot in the butt. You
wonder why Behe can't figure out what is wrong with all his negative
arguments.

Ron Okimoto

[eridanus]

it is the best approach to someone that is argumenting the perfection
of an eye, or any living creature as the prove of an intelligent
designer. If the eye or the brain, of a living creature was made by
an intelligent designer, it cannot explain that someone is born blind.
Thus would prove it was not such intelligent designer after all.

But if the perfection of living creatures were the result of some
automatic mechanism of nature, and evolution, there would not be any
need of being perfect 100% all the time, but rather perfect but with
minor imperfections. And thus, being something mechanistic, there
is an opportunity for something going wrong. Thus, sometimes a cat
or a dog, or a human baby, is born blind, or deaf or has some other
defect. Life is an almost perfect machine, but sometimes something
goes wrong and it results something that it is not perfect.

Eri

[eridanus]

El sábado, 1 de marzo de 2014 18:04:57 UTC, Glenn escribió:
> "Mark Isaak" <eci...@curioustax.onomy.net> wrote in message news:let5n8$mv8$1...@dont-email.me...
>
> > On 2/28/14 4:28 PM, Kalkidas wrote:
>
> >> On Fri, 28 Feb 2014 09:10:42 -0800 (PST), Burkhard
>
> >> <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> >>> On Friday, February 28, 2014 4:24:54 PM UTC, Kalkidas wrote:
>
> >>> <snip>
>
> >>>>
>
> >>>> So if a designer arranged the matter of the universe in an initial
>
> >>>> state, and enforced a set of laws governing its evolution, then every
>
> >>>> future state of the universe can be said to have been designed.
>
> >>>
>
> >>> Fine by me, "designed" then becomes co-extensional with
>
> >>> "exist" and for the purposes of scientific inquiry at least
>
> >>> essentially irrelevant/uninteresting - had some discussion
>
> >>> with John H. about this recently, and why it does not really
>
> >>> add any information to say that X "exists" when we know
>
> >>> everything else about X already. "Designed" then shares this
>
> >>> fate.
>
> >>
>
> >> And yet many people are trying to find the designer. They must have
>
> >> some motivation, some value to gain, by such a search.
>
> >
>
> > Of course. They do not believe in God, but they are told by everyone
>
> > around them that they are supposed to believe in God. So they look for
>
> > hard evidence to convince themselves, confabulating it when all else fails.
>
> >
>
> Next you'll be claiming that God is dead.

well, we have almost the same arguments to say that god do not exist,
as for saying it exist. What are the arguments to prove that a god
exists?
Of course, it exist some positive interests to keep affirming the
existence of god. For a god is a source of revenue for some parties.

Eri

[jillery]

On Sun, 2 Mar 2014 06:19:57 -0800 (PST), Robert Carnegie
<rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:

>On Saturday, 1 March 2014 00:00:32 UTC, jillery wrote:

>>But Dawkins is alive and doing quite well, I understand. Here's just
>>one example:
>>
>><https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO1a1Ek-HD0>
>>
>>His closing comments are an excellent summary:

>>
>> "Remember that a designer, an engineer, can go back to the drawing
>> board, throw away the old design, start afresh with what looks more
>> sensible. A designer has foresight. Evolution can't go back to the
>> drawing board. Evolution has no foresight."
>>
>> An effective counterpoint to Dawkin's comment is to identify a feature
>> of life where a designer's foresight is a better explanation than
>> evolution's historical contingency. Will you identify such a feature,
>> and explain how design explains it better than evolution?
>
>That's going to be difficult because anything biological
>that "works" can be claimed as a case of foresight.

That's one reason why I specified "better".

>On the other hand, if we demand evidence that a thing
>works better than a natural version and therefore it
>must be designed,

You leap to a conclusion not supported by my line of reasoning. I am
not asking for proof, but positive, affirmative, evidence of design,
explicitly stated and supported, something that to the best of my
knowledge R.Dean has never posted in T.O.

>then that must be of the form of
>a natural version in existence that can be shown to
>be inferior. But aren't we also supposed to believe
>that the colour-blind eyes of lesser animals than
>ourselves - for instance - are designed, as well?
>So why aren't they as good as ours?
>
>Anyway, Richard Dawkins' point is that lots of things
>in biology /do/ display a lack of foresight and a lack
>of design.
>
>I think that in another post, Dean proposed that absurdity
>is evidence against intelligent design: so one question is,
>has he thought about human sexual reproduction? Eridanus
>touched on that. Our sex process is silly. Gigantically
>silly. People getting badly injured doing it, silly.
>So surely /that/ wasn't designed?

Rather than pass judgement on designers' motives, the better argument
is to apply R.Dean's line of reasoning against itself, and judge
examples of design based on human design principles. Which is why I
continue to press R.Dean to specify what he thinks distinguishes
design from non-design. It would be cynical for anyone to suggest
that's why he doesn't do so.

[Mark Isaak]

On 3/1/14 2:32 PM, R. Dean wrote:
> On 2/28/2014 4:44 PM, jillery wrote:

>> [what's the case for how to recognize design?]

>
> If you think about it Jill, the argument against my examples, I
> recognize it because I am able to recognize what human design and
> build. And another argument is nature could have brought about
> the same results. The last example I mentioned was photosynthesis
> where solar energy is converted to useable energy. This has all
> the earmarks of design. Another example I mentioned several times
> is the genetic "toolbox". It's been pointed out many times that
> teeth are designed for the various diets that animals eat.
> I fossils paleontologist examine teeth to determine whether
> they were designed for veterinarian or carnivorous diet.
> The heart, vascular system is designed to serve a function
> and has purpose. Of course, you will argue that evolution could
> have produced these designs, but I've noted there is overwhelming
> bias against even using the word "design". But the point is, it's
> possible for you and me to point to the same structures and organs,
> their functions and the purpose they serve, and your view is they
> evolved and I say they were are designs. But we point to the
> same things.

Okay, let's say that life and its features are designed. So what? We
already know that evolution is an extremely able designer. So when you
say that life is designed, you are saying that life either evolved or it
arose some other way, and you do not have any evidence which. Other
people, however, do have evidence that life evolved, so you are telling
us less than we already know.

>>> Jill and I always get the exact same
>>> argument from everyone who supports the philosophy of naturalism.
>>
>> What argument is that, exactly? You don't say.
>>
> That I recognize design only because I'm familiar with what people
> design and build. But no one ever even attempts to justify this
> accusation. It's just left standing there.

You must be deluding yourself about your justification, because you
recognize design in things that look nothing remotely like what people
design and build. Life does not look man-made.

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
"It is certain, from experience, that the smallest grain of natural
honesty and benevolence has more effect on men's conduct, than the most
pompous views suggested by theological theories and systems." - D. Hume

[Glenn]

"RonO" <roki...@cox.net> wrote in message
news:leven2$ak0$1...@dont-email.me...

No, he didn't.

[jillery]

Despite the very real risk of you taking offense again, I think it's
important to point out that evolution doesn't involve any degree of
perfection, but merely degrees of good enough. You may think this a
petty distinction, but it's actually very significant. Organisms
don't have to be the smartest, fastest, strongest, whatever-est, just
good enough, as determined by the current environment.

[R. Dean]

On 3/2/2014 9:07 AM, Robert Carnegie wrote:
> On Saturday, 1 March 2014 21:51:41 UTC, R. Dean wrote:
>> On 2/28/2014 10:10 AM, Robert Carnegie wrote:
>>> It always is the subject of the discussion.
>>> If you talk about design in the natural world
>>> without bringing religion into it, you're doing
>>> better than most "Fellows" at "The Discovery
>>> Institute", or the authors of the notorious
>>> book that was shown to have had the word "design"
>>> substituted for "creator" at a late stage before
>>> publication. But many people remain sceptical
>>> of your purpose.
>>
>> When I don't appeal to Genesis, the Bible, or any religious
>> publication, religious dogma or theologians and I don't
>> advocate church or any religion view, how am I bringing
>> religion into the discussion?
>
> You don't have to bring religion into this argument.
> It is in the argument already, before we start.
>

In any case, it's unintended, since I don't have any dogs
in that fight. But I get the definite impression that some
responders have a need to infer religious idealism into the
discourse. The perfect god is an example who creates only
perfection. But this perfect god also created the second
law of thermodynamics.

>
> A perception of design in the natural world may be
> (1) the work of the gods as most religions tell you,
> (2) misperception of structures that came into existence
> naturally without intelligent direction, (3) mental illness,
> like the paranoia where someone imagines that everyone
> in the world conspires against them.
>
> If there is no credible designer and builder of what you're
> looking at, design isn't a reasonable hypothesis. If what
> you observe doesn't tell you something about a designer -
> which seems to happen only in religions, where it shows
> you that the gods are wonderful - then the design premise
> remains without any support at all.
>

If you look at nature, it doesn't support the notion of a
perfect, loving god that cares about it's creation. It's
a cruel fact that animals must die that other animals can
be fed. Nature, red in tooth and claw is cruel, so what does
this say about the creator? It definately says something:
1) The creator had no other option. Checks and balances?
2) The designer set things in motion, then watched the
without interference as things progressed - an experiment
borne out of boredom.
3) Death is inevitable. We are designed to die. Everything is
designed to die. Each of us is programed to die when the
cells in our bodies can no longer divide.
At the ends of our chromosomes is a short DNA sequence called telomeres.
When we're conceived the number
of telemeres is set and with each time a cell divides, it loses
a telomere, after some 50 times of dividing, our cells can no longer
divide. And we soon die. These are our somatic cells which have a
limited number of times they can divide, But curiously our germ cells
which are inherited from our ancestors and are passed down to our
descendents are not so limited. Why should this be the case?
This, as I see it is empirical evidence of design.

[RonO]

Do you deny that he made the claim that the designer may no longer
exist? What does "no longer exist" mean?

Ron Okimoto

[broger...@gmail.com]

OK, you have no dog in the fight about religion, and you don't know anything about the designer. Why couldn't the designer simply be natural laws? The best example of "designed" organisms we have are domesticated crops, corn, wheat, etc. Humans "designed" them in a sense by selecting them over a few millenia, leading to huge changes in the appearance of these crops (you wouldn't recognize the ancestor of corn as corn, for example.) We designed them simply by artificial selection; we didn't plan them and we certainly didn't manufacture them. What exactly do you think prohibits natural selection from making even larger changes in design over thousands of millenia? You say you know nothing about the designer. What makes you think the designer is a conscious being rather than a natural process?

[R. Dean]

Here again is a kindergarten concept. It implies that the designer
is a micro manager that has his fingers in ever step every move
dominating each. But this doesn't seem the be the case. The
"technological" capacity to fashion a body along with the structure,
organs, organelles etc is designed into the body of the parents, male
and female. But with this procedure in place and in automatic
mode, there is no need for the designer to further guide the development
of an offspring and defects occur where there is no
minute by minute oversight and control.

[Glenn]

"RonO" <roki...@cox.net> wrote in message

news:levo5u$58b$1...@dont-email.me...

It means I wouldn't trust you to be able to shine shoes.

When you get a quote from Behe admitting God is dead, let me know.

In the meantime, as it appears you are unwilling to do anything but lie and
ask questions instead of supporting your claims, I suspect where you got
this from is some atheist site making the claim based on Behe's Dover
testimony:
"
"Q. So scientifically, we can't even make -- we can't even state right now
that an intelligent designer still exists, correct?
A. That's correct, yes."

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dover/day12am2.html

Not being able to scientifically state that an intelligent designer still
exists is not equal to saying that God is dead or that God might be dead.

If that is your source, I have no reason to change my opinion of you as
being a dishonest bumbling fool.

[eridanus]

El domingo, 2 de marzo de 2014 15:34:42 UTC, jillery escribió:
> On Sun, 2 Mar 2014 06:27:58 -0800 (PST), eridanus wrote:
> > > ---------- snip ----------

> >But if the perfection of living creatures were the result of some
> >automatic mechanism of nature, and evolution, there would not be any
> >need of being perfect 100% all the time, but rather perfect but with

> >minor defects. And thus, being something mechanistic, there

> >is an opportunity for something going wrong. Thus, sometimes a cat
> >or a dog, or a human baby, is born blind, or deaf or has some other
> >defect. Life is an almost perfect machine, but sometimes something
> >goes wrong and it results something that it is not perfect.
>
> Despite the very real risk of you taking offense again, I think it's
> important to point out that evolution doesn't involve any degree of
> perfection, but merely degrees of good enough. You may think this a
> petty distinction, but it's actually very significant. Organisms
> don't have to be the smartest, fastest, strongest, whatever-est, just
> good enough, as determined by the current environment.

My dear lady. Perfection is according to my limited intellect,
and a little help from the Oxford dictionary, is a noun but it takes its
sense from "perfect", an adjective. And all adjectives are terms of
comparison.
A rabbit or a rat, cannot be such a "perfect runner", that it would never
be caught by a predator. For it were such an invulnerable species
would starve himself to die, or would end cannibalizing each other.
The same can be said of predators. They cannot be so omnipotent that
never would fail to catch their prey and would never die of starvation.
If a species of predators never fails to catch a prey, they would be
end starving of hunger, for they would had exterminated all the
potential edible preys that exist in the planet. In fact, lions, by
example, have a potential reproductive capacity, as some 160% per
year, but their rate dead rate of adults is something close to 6 or 7%
That means, that almost all cubs born in a year are going to die
before they are 1 year old.

Now, let us see what said Humpty Dumpty;

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone,
"it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so
many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master -
that's all."

Well, perfection, according to the Oxford it means:
Completion, making perfect, full development; faultlessness;
comparative excellence, perfect person or thing, highest pitch,
extreme, perfect specimen or manifestation; an accomplishment.

Perfect as adjective is much easier; it means:
Complete, not deficient, faultless.
I have little doubts that most living being beings are perfect
within the natural limits of its species; it has been a sort of
miracle of evolution. But sometimes, an animal is born with
some defects of a class or other,
Eri

[deadrat]

Not to mention sticky. But if you're getting badly injured, you might
be doing it wrong.

> So surely /that/ wasn't designed?

Perhaps for laughs.

[deadrat]

You'll have to admit that it works perfectly.

>> A perception of design in the natural world may be
>> (1) the work of the gods as most religions tell you,
>> (2) misperception of structures that came into existence
>> naturally without intelligent direction, (3) mental illness,
>> like the paranoia where someone imagines that everyone
>> in the world conspires against them.
>>
>> If there is no credible designer and builder of what you're
>> looking at, design isn't a reasonable hypothesis. If what
>> you observe doesn't tell you something about a designer -
>> which seems to happen only in religions, where it shows
>> you that the gods are wonderful - then the design premise
>> remains without any support at all.
>>
> If you look at nature, it doesn't support the notion of a
> perfect, loving god that cares about it's creation. It's
> a cruel fact that animals must die that other animals can
> be fed. Nature, red in tooth and claw is cruel, so what does
> this say about the creator? It definately says something:
> 1) The creator had no other option. Checks and balances?

That doesn't "definately" say something. It asks a question. So which
is it? Checks or balances? Or is it both?

> 2) The designer set things in motion, then watched the
> without interference as things progressed - an experiment
> borne out of boredom.

"Borne out of boredom." I like that. How do you suppose the designer
is bearing up?

> 3) Death is inevitable. We are designed to die.

We die. But you're going to have to provide evidence that we are
designed to die. But you haven't. This still engenders the complaint
that you assume what you must demonstrate.

> Everything is
> designed to die. Each of us is programed to die when the
> cells in our bodies can no longer divide.
> At the ends of our chromosomes is a short DNA sequence called telomeres.
> When we're conceived the number
> of telemeres is set and with each time a cell divides, it loses
> a telomere, after some 50 times of dividing, our cells can no longer
> divide. And we soon die. These are our somatic cells which have a
> limited number of times they can divide, But curiously our germ cells
> which are inherited from our ancestors and are passed down to our
> descendents are not so limited. Why should this be the case?
> This, as I see it is empirical evidence of design.

It's. Not. Empirical. It's your intuition about design. Please give a
measurable definition of design.

[deadrat]

Or year to year. Or for that matter, eon to eon.
<snip/>