INTELLIGENT DESIGN: An Engineer’s Approach

It is, of course, proof neither of design nor random chance. It's evidence for evolution.

Obviously there are lots of different designers, each jealously gaurding the patent rights to the morphologies they designed.For example, look at the hummingbird and the hummingbird moth. Would one company go to the trouble of designing two models of a machine to do exactly the same thing but based on two completely different technologies? Of course not. But if we imagine two corporations in competition with one another, one with the patent on birds and the other with the rights to manufacture lepidoptera, then it all becomes clear.Why don't whales have gills? 'Cos someone else owns the intellectual property rights. The eye of the octopus? Exclusively manufactured by Molluscs-R-Us for their top-of-the-range luxury cephalopod.Biogeography has a similar basis. Obviously the people who invented the marsupial are a small firm based in Australia, without the needed investment or infrastructure to make real penetration into overseas markets.

You have misunderstood the argument.It goes like this: if a set of forms replicate with variation, and they have common ancestry, then we should expect to see a nested hierarchy of forms. We do see such a hierarchy in Nature, which therefore is evidence confirming the theory that species were produced in such a way. No. No. Using the same reasoning, we conclude that fact that cars do not display a nested hierarchy shows that they were not produced by descent with modification. But there is not a nested hierarchy of non living things except where this is produced by descent with modification, as in jar's analogy of the manuscript. The hierachy of manuscripts does not have a maker. The scribes are analogous to chemical processes which are not intellegent, unlike scribes. Explain, please. That's not really an answer.Why do planets travel in ellipses?Newton: Because eff equals em one em two over ar squared.Proponent of "Intelligent Falling": Why not?

Of course, there is the possibility that our universe is a rough draft, the Designer's equivalent of a pencil sketch.Such an object does, after all, bear the hallmarks of design, and, if the Designer is Intelligent, then necessarily it bears the hallmarks of Intelligent Design.Imagine, if you will, a conversation like this."Well I do have an idea ... it's kind of in the rough stages right now ... but if you'll hand me a reality pencil ... haven't you got a sharp one? Oh well, it's not important. Now, have you got a spare piece of continuum? No, the stains don't matter. Well, I was thinking ... hmmm ... and then this here like this ... can you tell what it is yet? ... and then the hadrons here like so ... don't jog my elbow! ... and then ... and, yah, what d'you think? It's just a rough three-dimensional sketch, but it gives you an idea. Yeah, I left out the feckles and the contrapotes 'cos they're so fiddly to draw. Anyway, that's the basic idea, but if you've got a spare trillion years we can discuss the concept over lunch."

I'm not sure what it means. But it seems to be false. It's certainly like nothing I've ever seen in a biology textbook. For every manuscript anyone's bothered to copy, yes. You could in principle generate a manuscript randomly and then have people copy it, and you'd get the same result: that reproduction with variation produces clades. This is true whether or not the original manuscript has an author.

It didn't, and no-one has ever claimed that it did. No. The question: "Why is there evolution" is legitimate, just as the question "Why is there a designer?" is legitimate.But your bizarre assumption that evolution evolved is no more "legitimate" than assuming that blacksmiths are made out of wrought iron. It's a complete non sequitur.

You seem to think that things that have evolved should not be represented in the fossil record.You are wrong. Oh, don't be silly. Any fact that you know about science is certainly known to scientists. Yes it does: it is what we expect to see. A creature without possible ancestry in the fossil record would be a problem.---Sorry, back to the engineering.

That is not evolution. That is evolution. Of course, no-one claims that such observations are sufficient evidence for common descent.However, fundies love to pretend that this claim has been made. I think that if you lie about the definition of evolution, you might indeed dupe a segment of the public, i.e. creationists. Someone has been pulling your leg. Is William Dembski starving? Michael Behe? We could have a whip round to buy them food. Was Michael Denton starved out of his position, or did he just change his mind? I think we should be told. Ah, I see you've decided why scientists disagree with you about science. They're all corrupt. This discovery has also been made by people who can overturn the law of gravity, square the circle, and build a perpetual motion machine if only they had enough funding.

It should not be taught if, in the stage where it's "considered", it's found to be junk. No, of course not. it is not necessary either to "convince myself" that "either [Behe's arguments] do not exist or are secretive religiously motivated" in order to see that they're wrong. My emphasis. I think the point is more that school time, and children's minds, shouldn't be wasted on rubbish, by teachers who, if they're competent, would know that they're teaching rubbish.But of course, that's only my opinion of what my opinion is. You may prefer to make something up.

Well, here's an idea. Plenty of designers are intelligent enough to know that they're not intelligent enough to perfect a given design. So they turn the task over to a genetic algorithm.There is much evidence to support the theory that we were produced by such a process.The question then arises as to whether we are the result of such an algorithm (which fits the facts), or if we are, perhaps, merely the data that it is processing.

Yes. Now note that evolution by mutation and selection is a genetic algorithm. Well, when you use a genetic algorithm, you don't have to sit around and watch it. You leave it alone until its evolved a satisfactory result. If this is going to take time, you go and have lunch, or leave it running overnight. Or get it to go "ping" when it's done.Maybe the Earth has yet to go "ping".

One could only speculate. Perhaps the Designer merely wants to see what happens over a given period of time (say, billions of years) which is trivial to him. It will go "ping" when he comes back from his equivalent of lunch.

That is exactly what I said, yes. The problem with Behe is not his motivation, but that he's talking rubbish. Don't be silly. Darwinism is the "prevailing dogma" (or, in English, "accepted scientific theory") 'cos it has evidence to support it. The ultimate creationist fantasy ... one day, everyone will see that you're right. (1) Predictive power is a strength in a theory.(2) Darwin's statement has nothing to do with Behe's notion of "irreducible complexity". No, alas. Behe certainly seems rather foolish, not so much for "questioning Darwinism", as for believing he has when he hasn't. Ah yes, "prejudice". The only reason why anyone would disagree with you. A book is not necessary. Compare what Darwin said with the definition of "irreducible complexity"; consider that Behe has testified under oath that they are not the same.

No. No. No.---I have explained this to you before. No-one claims that micro-evolution is proof of macro-evolution. This non-claim, which no-one has ever actually made, has been invented by creationists so they can duck the actual proof and fight a stupid straw man of their own devising.

So, did this lawyer persuade Behe to perjure himself, or was he telling the truth under oath? If you didn't understand his argument, what makes you think it's a good one? Why do you think he's "in his element" debating with scientists when the debate is "too technical" for you to know whether he is, in fact, getting his butt kicked?Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.