Is there a legitimate argument for design?

And now he thinks he's going to string us along to the next step in his little fantasy ... but it doesn't take much intelligence to figure that out too. And that adds up to spidersMy dad had an old Webster's Dictionary that was a good 4" thick and printed on "onion paper" (very thin stuff) ... and it had spiders in it.

Been there done that ... had my mom's convertible with the top down and left a party with the seats full plus two sitting on the folded down top (legs down the back seat). Went over a railroad track on a dirt back road, banked. The car left the ground and I saw knees in the rear view mirror ... everybody landed safely. The next day all four tires were low on air ...

Yeah, nobody's behind him. It's the old creationist-thinks-he's-the-big-answer-due-to-ignorance position that we've seen so many times before.

Again, this is demonstration that his description of "life" is invalid (unless you do consider books to be alive). So it's just non-science non-sense.We've seen a whole thread on the Definition of Life and it didn't include these "elements" ... because they are not terms that differentiate life from non-life:

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Message 69: See wikipedia
Life - Wikipedia
particularly the "conventional definition"
Life - Wikipedia

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While there is no universal agreement on the definition of life, scientists generally accept that the biological manifestation of life exhibits the following phenomena:

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1. Organization - Living things are composed of one or more cells, which are the basic units of life.
2. Metabolism - Metabolism produces energy by converting nonliving material into cellular components (synthesis) and decomposing organic matter (catalysis). Living things require energy to maintain internal organization (homeostasis) and to produce the other phenomena associated with life.
3. Growth - Growth results from a higher rate of synthesis than catalysis. A growing organism increases in size in all of its parts, rather than simply accumulating matter. The particular species begins to multiply and expand as the evolution continues to flourish.
4. Adaptation - Adaptation is the accommodation of a living organism to its environment. It is fundamental to the process of evolution and is determined by the organism's heredity as well as the composition of metabolized substances, and external factors present.
5. Response to stimuli - A response can take many forms, from the contraction of a unicellular organism when touched to complex reactions involving all the senses of higher animals. A response is often expressed by motion: the leaves of a plant turning toward the sun or an animal chasing its prey.
6. Reproduction - The division of one cell to form two new cells is reproduction. Usually the term is applied to the production of a new individual (either asexually, from a single parent organism, or sexually, from at least two differing parent organisms), although strictly speaking it also describes the production of new cells in the process of growth.

(bold in the original)

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(note the second wiki link above works, but it takes you to the same place as the first wiki link and should be replaced by Life - Wikipedia)Now I have a simpler definition: life is something that is capable of evolution -- changes in the composition of hereditary traits, and changes to the frequency of their distributions within breeding populations from generation to generation, in response to ecological challenges and opportunities -- and this approach raises interesting questions in defining when life occurs and what we view as life.

I think breeding still works for asexual organisms. breeding noun
1. the producing of offspring. Or of a non-reproductive age (too young, too old). I do, I believe they are the remnants of life in the RNA world, and thus represent a primitive form of life, where prokaryotes are more derived life, and eukaryotes are even more derived.They are the stepping stone between replicating molecules and cellular life.Edited by RAZD, : fixed first quote

yes

ah yes the old omnipresent amorphous amorous amoeba ... hint: offspring are generically generally genetically different from their geriatric parents ...

Hi again Ed67 Presentation of a concept is not covering an argument You need to look at the conditions that lead to the formation of life and at the simplest form/s of self-replication first, not at the end product of 3.5 billion years of evolution. You may want to read Is ID properly pursued?. One can argue that there is a legitimate argument for the earth being the center of the universe ... having an argument doesn't mean it is valid or based on evidence, as it could be based on ignorance or misunderstanding. First you need to review the way the universe is primed for the development of life: see Panspermic Pre-Biotic Molecules - Life's Building Blocks (Part I)Then you need to review the many chemical paths to self-replication: see Self-Replicating Molecules - Life's Building Blocks (Part II) for some examples. Unfortunately, for you, opinion has not be observed to alter reality in any significant way.But just to clarify things, do you then believe that this intelligence has not done anything since forming the first cell of life?And that all life since has proceeded according to the process of evolution: We do know that the earth did not possess cellular life forms 4.5 billion years ago, when it first formed, and we do know that cellular life existed 3.5 billion years ago, when the oldest fossil bearing rocks have been discovered, with evidence of fully formed cellular life (cyanobacteria). Therefore we know that at some point in between these times life began.Or do you then believe that, because you can't believe life could form spontaneously, that there has been all kinds of supernatural interferences, down to and including a world wide flood?Just curious.

Is mathematically limited due to only having four bases -- there are only so many combinations of molecules sitting next to each other in the structure. Their "specific arrangement" can easily be the result of random variations and selection of structures that lead to increased survival and reproduction. What we see today is the product of over 3 billion years of evolution.You are aware of what the post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy is, yes? A perception rather than a fact. DNA operates more as a recipe than as a code, a recipe that says "take a pinch of this" and add it to "a smidgen of that" ... leaving lots of room for further variations and modifications during the development of an individual organism.Again I refer you to Is ID properly pursued?. When you only see what you want to see you can mistake naturally derived artifact for artificial construct. The pattern observed in a kaleidoscope isn't real but an artifact of the means of observation. Which we can observe is similar to other organisms in different degrees, and which we can observe changing and evolving.In which we can observe markers in non-coding sections from viral inserts that demonstrate relatedness between species from common ancestors.The viral inserts we share with Chimpanzees of the same formations and in the same locations show they were inherited from a common ancestor.Similar inserts shared between Humans, Chimps and Gorillas of the same formations and in the same locations show they were inherited from a common ancestor.And so it goes.Edited by RAZD, : link

Sometimes with hanging chads that change the protein being made.

Well that is one way to deal with reality, one way to maintain your ignorance and dependency on misleading information.Curiously I see you've changed from "code" to "blueprint" ... it can't be both you know, so at some level you must realize that neither is really an accurate description.CB180: DNA as language

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The genetic code is not a true code; it is more of a cypher. DNA is a sequence of four different bases (denoted A, C, G, and T) along a backbone. When DNA gets translated to protein, triplets of bases (codons) get converted sequentially to the amino acids that make up the protein, with some codons acting as a "stop" marker. The mapping from codon to amino acid is arbitrary (not completely arbitrary, but close enough for purposes of argument). However, that one mapping step -- from 64 possible codons to 20 amino acids and a stop signal -- is the only arbitrariness in the genetic code. The protein itself is a physical object whose function is determined by its physical properties.

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Furthermore, DNA gets used for more than making proteins. Much DNA is transcribed directly to functional RNA. Other DNA acts to regulate genetic processes. The physical properties of the DNA and RNA, not any arbitrary meanings, determine how they act.

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So recipe is a better analogy than code or blueprint.And the replication process is subject to errors,All you have presented are assertions and innuendo, bolstered by logical fallacies and confirmation bias, not by any real evidence.We observe DNA evolving.We observe markers of past moments in the evolving DNA that tie species together in nested hierarchies.Blueprints and codes do not create nested hierarchies.Therefore blueprints and codes are not a valid description of the process of life, they are either the wrong explanation or an incomplete explanation.The argument that you can't imagine how DNA could have evolved is (a) the argument from incredulity logical fallacy, (b) a lack of imagination, and (c) thinking based on ignorance\undereducation on how DNA operates in the real world and how evolution works in the real world.So have another chuckle: what you are laughing at is yourself. Amusing.

I agree, to me the essential aspect of life is that it can evolve, ergo life can be defined as something that can undergo the process of biological evolution: And yes, this would include viruses. Given the "RNA World" hypothesis it can also be (and is) argued that viruses are the left over bits from that time.The amount of viruses in the world is unknown: recently a biologist took a sailboat cruise across the Atlantic and sampled the water, every day he cataloged new viruses.

For the chemist the process would be:Take Sodium and Chlorine and dissolve in water, apply heat until the water evaporates.Now there may be an excess of either (or both) left over, but most will combine by chemical reactions to form salt crystals.If there are other elements mixed in you can get some "impurities" (mistakes?) in the salt matrix, some fitting in and perhaps changing the color of the chrystal, others interfering with the pattern so that it isn't as regular as pure NaCl salt.Curiously, these conditions are known to occur naturally all over the world ...Salt (chemistry) - Wikipedia

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In chemistry, salts are ionic compounds that can result from the neutralization reaction of an acid and a base. They are composed of related numbers of cations (positively charged ions) and anions (negative ions) so that the product is electrically neutral (without a net charge). These component ions can be inorganic, such as chloride (Cl^-), as well as organic, such as acetate (C2H3O2^-); and can be monatomic, such as fluoride (F^-), as well as polyatomic, such as sulfate (SO4^--).

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There are several varieties of salts. Salts that hydrolyze to produce hydroxide ions when dissolved in water are basic salts, whilst those that hydrolyze to produce hydronium ions in water are acidic salts. Neutral salts are those that are neither acid nor basic salts. ...

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The blue salt copper(II) sulfate in the form of the mineral chalcanthite

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Pretty isn't it? I wonder who designed the color ...

and he behaves increasingly like a troll in passing out insults and not answering questions ...Personally I don't think he can answer the questions ... so he tries to pretend (to himself) that he does with replies he must think are quite witty, but which actually are relatively obviously simply failure to reply honestly.He's in an axe fight ... with an axe to grind ... that is so dull that it can't cut the mustard ...

Actually I think it is part of the natural evolution of creationists\IDologists on this forum, when the run out of the regurgitated pap they think is ammunition, there is nothing left so all they have to fall back on is nonsensical ramblings and insults. And all the meat has been chewed off long ago, leaving only gristle, the intractable belief in spite of evidence to the contrary. But so entertaining to watch the monkey dance ....