Letters to 'Unintelligible Design'

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Yes, you should do it that way. Unfortunately, Dembski doesn't.

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The only problem is I'm not Dembski and did my own calculations. Please use those as I can defend me but not someone else.

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I'm not minimizing the difficulties of calculating a posteriori probabilities ... however, what I proposed is exactly what Dembski and the other ID'ers are doing. They take an existing system and attempt to calculate the probability of that one system arising by chance in one trial (or some small number of trials), not taking into account the possibility of other equivalent systems arising by chance and not considering the number of trials available (not to mention the possibility of arising through a combination of chance and regularity, which is what the TOE proposes). If my example was invalid (and it may be, depending how you look at it) all attempts to date to apply probability to ID "theory" are invalid in exactly the same way.

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I agree that the probability of some pre-specified exact arrangement of card arising is minuscule. However, in biology we don't know how many equivalent arrangments there are and we don't know how many trials there are. Perhaps the analogous situation in the decks of cards is "what is the probability of an arrangement in which 75 to 100 percent of the cards on the left of the middle are red, given 1,000,000,000 independent trials?". Biological systems arising by chance probably aren't that likely, but we don't know how likely they are.

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No, I'm afraid you are wrong. It's as if you guys all get your science and math off the same Darwinist Web Site somewhere other than through peer-reviewed, abstracted papers by reputable scientists and qualified math teachers in a university setting. If I have refuted this once, I've refuted it a hundred times. When you deal 104 cards you will get a 104 card pattern every time, 100% of the time. There are no odds involved here by any stretch of the imagination because if you deal them, the event will happen and the information content will be the same every time. Period.Conversely, nature is quite different in that it does not have a preconceived notion of any preconceived action that will cause a pattern in preconceived measurable bits like 104 dealt cards will do. That cell I calculated didn't have to form, it could have been an egg, a peach or nothing at all. It doesn't have to be a cell every time like it has to be 104 cards every time. This is apples and oranges.And this is true probability that I can follow times arrow, place myself mentally back before the event and calculate the probabilities of state of a UNIQUE event occurring by chance.

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But it's all moonshine anyway, because the ID "calculations" ignore combined chance and regularity. Just like the YECs who claim that evolution is impossible because a tornado in a junkyard never produces a 747, just as wrong, and for just the same reason, except the IDers have dressed it up in fancier language.
Oh, and BTW, you've misunderstood Borel's Law too. From Borel's Law and the Origin of Many Creationist Probability Assertions

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I didn't misunderstand Borel's work at all. I paraphrased straight from his book and gave the reference. In fact he did three calculations only one of which was a universal bound and that reference you cited misinterprets his work. Please read the book for yourself and you will see this.Besides, I used my own math for the final calculation and not someone else's. I only referred to Borel to give a history of the UPB. Can you refute my math?And further, please don't send me to talk.origin for references as that one is typical and I will not send you to answers in genesis. Both are very biased. I prefer references from books by reputable scientists and peer-reviewed papers. Thanks, and I will do this thread the same favor.Finally, there is no such thing as combined law (regularity) combined with chance that causes organisms to form. This is just daydreaming. Do you know of any laws of science that cause organisms to morph out of rocks or dead chemicals? How about laws that cause Windows XP to drop out of a stalactite? Let's stay in solid science, guys, I don't do pseudo-science or surmisal (I don't think surmisal is really a word but I use it so often it is now).

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Design Dynamics

Thanks,
That is what I wanted to read.
I'll reply somewhere around here
BACTERIAL FLAG on EVC
later in the week or next week as I leave soon for a break in Jersey. I want to do some more reading and decide if I am going with the proton pump or not.

Very good. Have fun. Note that the proton pump is calculated into the flagellar system unlike Dembski's (WAY off) estimation. Some good references on the secretory system are listed in the bibliography. If you will follow those links to Ken Miller and Nick Matske's work and their references, you will know about as much about type three systems tying into flagellar proton pumps as any biologist out there. It's true that The proteins in both are homologous. I particularly enjoyed Matzke's effort on the subject. Too bad I have to refute that fine effort. Ahh the evil in the world.....

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Design Dynamics

Well, I'm totally lost in here as I cannot figure out how to start a new thread. I was going to introduce the forum to the designer, lock stock and barrel. The forum might then understand why ID is acceptable to Christians, Jews, Islam, Hindu, Agnostics and Atheists. Would I be far off to just post that in here? Or is that off base?

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Design Dynamics

Dembski certainly underestimated the probability of the flagellum quite drastically, although the correct calculation as not been done.Your calculation is even worse than Dembski's making several major errors, including the error you clearly identify in Message 40.Or are we to believe that you worked out the amino-acid sequences of each protein in advance of finding out what they actually were ?

There are without question systems that as they currently stand require each piece to continue functioning as they currently stand. The example you have given is a bit too simple to be accurate to what we are talking about.The question being addressed by ID is whether something has been shown to be capable of having been evolved, or perhaps the converse, whether something can be shown to be impossible of having been evolved.To get to that specific a point IC is not just the current state being a system which requires all parts. It is that all parts must have always been necessary for the functioning of the system, and further that they would have had to evolve all at once as the parts serve no individual purpose themselves. Thus all pieces are shown to have had to form at one jump and altogether in the right way.While your monkey example is a conceptual model of what it is to be complex and interdependent system, it is not true IC. Even Behe who pretty much coined IC, rejected the notion that macroscale systems could be proven to be IC since organs could have arisen in different ways and then become dependent. The thrust of his book was that this kind of evidence would have to be within the gene codings for systems, and very specific ones at that.You do understand this, correct? If not here is a counterexample: dams can form naturally where individual pieces are necessary to maintain that systems integrity. That is not an IC system which MUST have been designed and impossible from having formed by natural processes.As far as biological systems go, crash has already suggested the correct counterexamples, there are other living systems without the exact same configuration as the monkey's. Is there a reason you believe that its entire system as you described had to form all at once, and that for example the kidneys did not form later as a way of filtering blood?And the problem with IC is that, as I have already noted, for some specific cases Behe labelled in his book as IC they have been shown NOT to be IC. That is pretty damning right there. Its hard to argue that everything must be assumed to be IC because we currently don't know how its not, once someone shows that with time we may find out how its not.As far as how a system can form, in the way Behe describes it, I believe it is called "bridging" or something like that. A simple system, or a set of simple systems dealing with different aspects of life become interactive and create a secondary complex system. In fact they may overlap functions to some degree. Then over time pieces of the system are lost, including original system functions, until what you are left with is a single complex system that requires all current parts as is. Another biological phemonena that has not been discovered yet? Or how about an undiscovered path of evolution for each of the individual parts?It is not illogical that an IC system could evolve. Even Behe does not claim that. Perhaps you need to reread Darwin's Black Box. It is that it becomes practically impossible for something to have occured due to the incredible chance it would have taken for all parts of a system to form at once. It remains logically possible, just not practically so. Again I am sorry, but this does not jive with what I learned about modeling chemical phenomena. First thing you need is to carefully set out what the system and environment is that you are modelling, with the forces and mechanisms described mathematically.That vague description you just gave does not even come close. What about temperatures and pressures? Do they not greatly influence chemical interaction? How about the nature (composition and quantity) of reagents in the reaction, or possible catalytic entities?You cannot simply start with how amino acids connect in a racemic mixture. Given that enzymes play a significant role in biology and they are catalyzers, one might start thinking about other possible environments where amino acids, or precursors could be made more likely due to catalytic action.You will admit there would be a statistical difference between them trying to get together in a sulfuric environment at the bottom of the ocean, an airless cavity in a meteorite, or as random particles floating around in a beaker or in the air... right? Well I'm not suggesting that must be the answer, but pointing out it would necessarily be different. I would also point out we are not in a position to say we know exactly how such complex proteins did form. That is the crux of the problem.ID rushes to an answer of created and posits it as an priori answer until we get something else. But that does not make sense given what I mentioned in my previous reply:1) To officially label something as proven Designed, would limit research that might offer explanations of why it is not Designed (interestingly enough the same argument ID makes), plus...2) ID ignores the fact that it logically necessarily includes a much more complex entity which is not described.Point two is the most ironic part about it. Behe describes evolutionary theorists as having made a mistake in taking a leap of faith by ascribing things to a "black box" where things "just happen". What is the designer in ID but a "black box" with a hat and tie?What is the difference to you between an as yet unknown mechanism which we need to find out more about, or an as yet unknown designer which we need to know more about? For me, occam's razor cuts out the latter until we have some evidence of a potential designer (which must be more sophisticated an entity that a force or mechanism). I wasn't talking about spontaneous formation. Where did I say that? This doesn't sound like a chemist at all... are you for real?Please explain how the 2nd law would work against a system of hydrocarbons trapped within a membrane (just a thick tarlike layer) so that they primarily interact with each other and have large inputs of energy from outside (it could be solar or geothermal)?By the way, scientists just found out Titan has large amounts of heavy hydrocarbons within its upper atmosphere. That is another environment which would be different for such reactions, than at the surface of our planet today... right?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I haven't been able to find any calculations by you. Your UPB PDF is just a repeat of Dembski's stuff. Ah, so you do make the same error as Dembski, not considering equivalent events and number of trials. In fact, according to the T.O article, he did four relevant calculations. I don't have ready access to the book; please post the relevant quotes. Include sufficient material to make the context clear. I just did. See above and below. It appears that the refernences and calculations you have given, such as your UPB PDF and your web pages, are not peer-reviewed. You should therefore refrain from referring to them.(Oh, and many if not all of the T.O pages are peer reviewed, there's just no record of it outside Google. See FAQ submission: Borel's "Law"). Unsupported assertion.The point is that there are (very probably) no laws that by themselves cause organisms to morph out of rocks or dead chemicals; but there are strong indications that the combination of chance and regularity (meaning selection) could and may well have caused organisms to morph out of rocks and dead chemicals. We have unambigous proof that the combination of chance and regularity can (and does today) cause evolutionary changes with no known bound or indication of a bound, and it is as certain as anything gets in science that the same thing happened in the past.

His flagellum calculation is a .pdf available off this page.http://www.designdynamics.org/papers.htmlYou thought Dembski's version was bad ? Wait until you get a load of Jerry's. The same mistakes and more!

Thanks, but it's not peer-reviewed, so Jerry wouldn't want it mentioned in this thread.

New threads are proposed at [forum=-25].My impression of your contributions in this thread is one of jumping into the middle instead of starting from the beginning, and of assuming people would be familiar with your arguments. If you're willing, I think a thread with an opening post that introduces your approach to ID in 500 or so words and then proceeds by means of discussion to gradually fill in the details would be very helpful.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Jerry (AKA Chronos) is an old-timer in the online discussion of ID and creationism, and source of much hilarity wherever he appears. He does preach his own version of ID. It's slightly less secientific that "mainstream ID".

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There are without question systems that as they currently stand require each piece to continue functioning as they currently stand. The example you have given is a bit too simple to be accurate to what we are talking about.

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The question being addressed by ID is whether something has been shown to be capable of having been evolved, or perhaps the converse, whether something can be shown to be impossible of having been evolved.

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To get to that specific a point IC is not just the current state being a system which requires all parts. It is that all parts must have always been necessary for the functioning of the system, and further that they would have had to evolve all at once as the parts serve no individual purpose themselves. Thus all pieces are shown to have had to form at one jump and altogether in the right way.

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While your monkey example is a conceptual model of what it is to be complex and interdependent system, it is not true IC. Even Behe who pretty much coined IC, rejected the notion that macroscale systems could be proven to be IC since organs could have arisen in different ways and then become dependent. The thrust of his book was that this kind of evidence would have to be within the gene codings for systems, and very specific ones at that.

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You do understand this, correct? If not here is a counterexample: dams can form naturally where individual pieces are necessary to maintain that systems integrity. That is not an IC system which MUST have been designed and impossible from having formed by natural processes.

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As far as biological systems go, crash has already suggested the correct counterexamples, there are other living systems without the exact same configuration as the monkey's. Is there a reason you believe that its entire system as you described had to form all at once, and that for example the kidneys did not form later as a way of filtering blood?
And the problem with IC is that, as I have already noted, for some specific cases Behe labelled in his book as IC they have been shown NOT to be IC. That is pretty damning right there. Its hard to argue that everything must be assumed to be IC because we currently don't know how its not, once someone shows that with time we may find out how its not.

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As far as how a system can form, in the way Behe describes it, I believe it is called "bridging" or something like that. A simple system, or a set of simple systems dealing with different aspects of life become interactive and create a secondary complex system. In fact they may overlap functions to some degree. Then over time pieces of the system are lost, including original system functions, until what you are left with is a single complex system that requires all current parts as is.

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Another biological phemonena that has not been discovered yet? Or how about an undiscovered path of evolution for each of the individual parts?

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It is not illogical that an IC system could evolve. Even Behe does not claim that. Perhaps you need to reread Darwin's Black Box. It is that it becomes practically impossible for something to have occured due to the incredible chance it would have taken for all parts of a system to form at once. It remains logically possible, just not practically so.

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My, your understanding of irreducible complexity seems a bit shaky. Did you read DBB? Had you, you would understand that IC systems are just as prevalent in the macroscopic world as they are the alternative. In fact, Behe, used a mousetrap and a motorcycle in that book (among other examples) to define them which are about as macro as we can get.Besides, this forum seems a bit hung up on the old logical fallacy, the argument from authority as almost everyone seems to be in the 'If Dembski, Behe, Johnson, et al, didn't do it, then it must not be ID' mode. You guys need to stay away from ARN for awhile and do some study in science for yourself as others of us do. Many of us left the intellectual level of ARN and other like sources of ID behind some time ago as they simply refused to advance with the science. In fact, they still seem to be at the old evo/creo level of debate even today (a thousand posts on the same thing then it just repeats again for a thousand posts).FACT: You cannot take a monkey into a lab, and remove the heart, the lungs, the kidneys, the hemoglobin, the plasma or the veins and arteries from the cardio-pulmonary system and have that system still function to keep the monkey alive. Therefore this is an IC system and you stand refuted in that there is no such thing. Now we can talk about the logic of them evolving.Here's FACT 2: IC systems could not evolve because any one part is useless without ALL the parts already present. Tell me what your logic is on this evolution: Why would a heart evolve to pump blood that did not yet exist? But why would a kidney evolve before it had blood to clean and before a heart was there to pump it to the kidney and why would lungs evolve before veins and arteries were present to carry the blood with hemoglobin already present in it for the lungs to oxygenate? Why would plasma and hemoglobin evolve before lungs were already present to oxygenate the hemoglobin or before a heart was there to pump the slurry? This is a vicious circle that a 3rd grader could comprehend.Finally, Darwin said in OOS: "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down."Well, there's you one that couldn't. Where do we go from here?

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Again I am sorry, but this does not jive with what I learned about modeling chemical phenomena. First thing you need is to carefully set out what the system and environment is that you are modelling, with the forces and mechanisms described mathematically.

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That vague description you just gave does not even come close. What about temperatures and pressures? Do they not greatly influence chemical interaction? How about the nature (composition and quantity) of reagents in the reaction, or possible catalytic entities?
You cannot simply start with how amino acids connect in a racemic mixture. Given that enzymes play a significant role in biology and they are catalyzers, one might start thinking about other possible environments where amino acids, or precursors could be made more likely due to catalytic action.

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You will admit there would be a statistical difference between them trying to get together in a sulfuric environment at the bottom of the ocean, an airless cavity in a meteorite, or as random particles floating around in a beaker or in the air... right?

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Wrong. I threw a little chemistry at you hoping you would jump through the semantics and catch the math behind it. Let me take it another step.Enzymes as catalyzers, sulpher environments and precursers couldn't be anymore irrelevant. La Chatelier's Principle (sorry, never have been able to spell that guy's name right) states that when an equilibrium system is perturbed, the equilibrium will always be displaced in such a way as to oppose the applied change.http://www.science.edu.sg/ssc/detailed.jsp?artid=6285&typ...In other words, when I have a racemic mixture of heterochiral amino acids--a solution of enantiomers containing about 50% dextrorotatory and levorotatory forms--they will stay that way, because whatever we do to that system, the system will go in the opposite direction again to balance itself back out to 50/50.The L and D amino acids have the same Gibb's free energy, so the free energy difference (DG) is always zero. This relationship can be shown between these quantities at any temperature (degrees Kelvin) (T) like as follows:K = exp (-DG/RT)What this means is that we are left with a chemical solution that always seeks chemical equilibrium because the reactions are reversible as we can see by the below graphic on the condensations of amino acids: I'm afraid that whatever conditions you wish to throw at the scenario, the math of chemistry states that my math, as presented, is correct.

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Well I'm not suggesting that must be the answer, but pointing out it would necessarily be different. I would also point out we are not in a position to say we know exactly how such complex proteins did form. That is the crux of the problem.

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ID rushes to an answer of created and posits it as an priori answer until we get something else. But that does not make sense given what I mentioned in my previous reply:

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1) To officially label something as proven Designed, would limit research that might offer explanations of why it is not Designed (interestingly enough the same argument ID makes), plus...

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2) ID ignores the fact that it logically necessarily includes a much more complex entity which is not described.

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Point two is the most ironic part about it. Behe describes evolutionary theorists as having made a mistake in taking a leap of faith by ascribing things to a "black box" where things "just happen". What is the designer in ID but a "black box" with a hat and tie?

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There is no black box in cellular biology in the form of a designer or anything else from the aspect of ID. Most of the operations in a cellular system today are known thanks to people like Krebs and Gibbs; and thanks to Leeuwenhoek and others that led us to electron microscopy, the inner workings are now observable. The black box is found in Darwinistic interpretations of origins.All that ID does is assert that there is more than one epistemology in which to observe and investigate certain phenomena. We never state that "something was created" (other than in colloquial language occasionally, I would suppose) and try to slide it in under the door as a scientific fact. That would be Darwinists in the form of Eugenie Scott and others. In fact, that movement has recently talked a judge into ruling that scientific theories are now facts. How sickening that is to a true scientist who understands that theories are never facts and that science never proves anything at all. It pulls, probes and pushes, but it never proves.Finally, ID does not necessitate a more complex entity that is not described (With the exception of a few 16-year-olds that have not thought this through, perhaps). We describe it down to the nubbins and if you can follow the mathematics of Frank Tipler, you can even see this entity defined mathematically. Can you show that man and ape share a common ancestor mathematically? How about that pakicetus morphed into whales or that therapsid shoved its jawbones up into its ears and morphed from a reptile into a mammal? I anxiously await those mathematics.

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What is the difference to you between an as yet unknown mechanism which we need to find out more about, or an as yet unknown designer which we need to know more about? For me, occam's razor cuts out the latter until we have some evidence of a potential designer (which must be more sophisticated an entity that a force or mechanism).

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Occam's Razor cuts for design. Remember that the Razor shows simplicity to be the correct answer about 80% of the time. Ask yourself a question: Which is the simplest answer to the questions of origins, that all of life sprang from some unknown ameboid magically morphing through a series of speciations upward and over the highway of complexity through reptiles to mammals and all of that rig-er-ma-roe or that it was simply designed-end of story. Sure you want to bring Occam into the scenario?

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I wasn't talking about spontaneous formation. Where did I say that?

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This doesn't sound like a chemist at all... are you for real?

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Hmmm...We shall quickly see who is for real when it comes to chemistry. You are not familiar with chemical spontaneity? You see, that is the first thing that a chemist learns that first week in chem 105. Spontaneous reactions are reactions that require no energy to happen and usually produce energy when they happen. Some normally call them exothermic or exergonic reactions. Non-spontaneous reactions release no energy (usually) and are normally called endothermic or endergonic reactions.Unless you care to remain lost with me in this discussion, please start refreshing yourself in elementary chemistry. Here is a good start:Department of Chemistry | College of Science and Engineering

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Please explain how the 2nd law would work against a system of hydrocarbons trapped within a membrane (just a thick tarlike layer) so that they primarily interact with each other and have large inputs of energy from outside (it could be solar or geothermal)?
By the way, scientists just found out Titan has large amounts of heavy hydrocarbons within its upper atmosphere. That is another environment which would be different for such reactions, than at the surface of our planet today... right?

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I suppose that it's right to say that Titan has a different environment than planet Earth. But you fail to show how this is relevant to our discussion. I'm not going to waste my time showing how hypothetical chemical reactions cannot occur when you haven't shown chemically how they do. Thanks for your posts.

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Design Dynamics

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New threads are proposed at Proposed New Topics.
My impression of your contributions in this thread is one of jumping into the middle instead of starting from the beginning, and of assuming people would be familiar with your arguments. If you're willing, I think a thread with an opening post that introduces your approach to ID in 500 or so words and then proceeds by means of discussion to gradually fill in the details would be very helpful.

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Ahh....Percy is the forum director. Very well. I'll try it that way. But since I have covered a bunch of material in this one, I reserve the right to pull from this thread when relevant. I'm also seeing a few posts coming in that really aren't adding to the discussion. I would ask that those who aren't really serious about discussing science or philosophy regarding ID (insults are OK to a certain degree--but wrap them in a couple of paragraphs of intellectual content as well, please) refrain from further posting as that tends to stifle intellectual exchange.Thank you

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Design Dynamics

And if you blow it's brains out with a shotgun it will surely die.
So how does this prove ID? Could you back up that assertion? Your link says nothing about spontaneous ractions.Added subtitleThis message has been edited by DHA, 04-28-2005 03:18 AMThis message has been edited by DHA, 04-28-2005 03:18 AMThis message has been edited by DHA, 04-28-2005 03:23 AM

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And if you blow it's brains out with a shotgun it will surely die.
So how does this prove ID?

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It doesn't.

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Could you back up that assertion?

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Yes.

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Your link says nothing about spontaneous ractions.

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Yes it does: "For a process to take place spontaneously at constant temperature and pressure, the change in free energy must be negative. An endothermic reaction may thus be spontaneous at constant pressure if the positive value of the heat absorbed is offset by a sufficient increase in entropy (randomness)."

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Design Dynamics