10 Categories of Evidence For ID

Wait a second. In the whole "teach the controversy" argument of ID proponents, they point to various scientists having differences regarding specifics of the evo model, and call that evidence for why it is a faulty and failing model.Doesn't that mean what you just said about ID, is an indication that ID is faulty and failing?But let me move beyond that to another question... what criteria allows you, Dembski, and others to oppose the position taken by Behe on common descent? And I don't mean lack of info, I mean what positive info do you have for a model with no descent and only multiple creation events?As far as I understand it Dembski does not deal with any physical evidence at all, and is only part of constructing the mathematical and philosophical tools necessary to detect design. I am unsure how one who does not work with the fossil evidence can possibly claim to have evidence for multiple creation events, rather than a single initial creation, with descent unpacking from preprogrammed data? What other universe? Now you have another universe and an ability to move from one to another? Wouldn't Occam's Razor come in to play somewhere about now?Evolution does not require extra universes.By the way, since you guys appeal to design and function, what is the point of moving through a hole to another universe billions of different times to leave behind different biological entities, instantly disappearing and covering any trace that they had been there? This is to ask, what is the function of the entities to the designer and what were they designed for?All of our probes and even our Voyager craft had obvious function outside of their own existence, for our utility.

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

I did say almost anyone's definition of information didn't I?This message has been edited by Jazzns, 05-12-2005 04:09 PM

But their goal never was to evolve a radio. That emerged on its own as a completely novel way of tackling the problem of survival in a world where only oscillators survive. It was "invented" by the mindless procedure that was followed in the experiment, which essentially did nothing but mimic the process of evolution. The nature of the materials in inconsequential. For the process it was just "gefundenes fressen", or: whatever was available. Well, it's pretty clear that the radio wasn't the experimenters' idea. So, whoever invented it, it wasn't them. Therefore, it must have arisen spontaneously from the mindless procedure. There are no other candidates. The thing that evolved in the example was the radio, a piece of hardware. Nothing was said about evolving radio waves. Please try to avoid misinterpretations of what other people write. The process of evolution consists of nothing more than random mutation of mutable material and selective pressure on the results of those mutations. This can be shown in any model that can handle these two mechanisms. There is, but you refuse to accept it. What can I do?In the mean time, if I may ask, since you seem to emphasize the distinction between evolution and Darwinism, what exactly do you perceive as the difference between them? And what if they are aliens who are only smart enough to build space ships and know nothing at all about DNA?Anyway, who designed the aliens? Some other designer, probably? And who designed them? I hope you can see where this is going. I don't. But then, neither do I see any evidence for it. Nor do I see any evidence for ID. For science to harbour such theories, it needs at least some plausible reasons to start investigating them. Reasons, I might add, that cannot be explained any other way. I just think that evolution (Darwinism, if you like) explains things just fine, so, for now, it doesn't need these theories. I hope you realise that, the way you put it, it seems very much as though you are pleading against ID. If that's true, then mustn't we also conclude that an ice crystal is intelligently designed? After all, when it melts, essentially the same thing happens. I just fail to see the connection between the degradation of something and any conclusions about its origin.This message has been edited by Parasomnium, 12-May-2005 11:21 PM

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

Welcome Zyncod:

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First of all, information (intelligently designed or not) is CONSTANTLY increasing in an entropic universe. When entropy causes a salt crystal to dissolve in water, do you think that there is more information about the position of Na/Cl ions in the rigidly ordered crystal (easily compressed information) or in randomly dissolved ions (impossibly compressed information)?

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Unfortunately, you have this exactly bass ackwards. Information is the opposite of entropy (see Boltzmann). Information is just like energy in that it is maxed when concentrated. As it diffuses, entropy increases.This is easily shown mathematically using a simple statistical formula like S = ln(W) where S is entropy and W is the microstates of the information. If we divide a teaspoon of sugar into 10 gridded areas and then the cup of tea in which it diffuses into 150 we have:State 1: S = ln(10) = 2.30State 2: S = ln(150) = 5.01deltaS = S(final) - S(intial), delta S = 5.01 - 2.30 = 2.71The entropy and therefore the disorganization has increased. You have lost information.

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Second of all, when you talk about DNA replication in the lab (sorry, I don't know how to use quotes), you are talking about PCR - polymerase chain reaction. In nature, the primers are not designed, but are synthesized according to the template DNA when replication occurs in the 5'->3' direction (since you used that quote, I assume you know what the above sentence means- if you don't, read about Okazaki fragments). And DNA can be synthesized from scratch in labs - that's how we make the designed primers.

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Ok, so what? My point is that DNA is not synthesized outside of an organism in nature. If you are taking issue with the article I posted, fine. But that doesn't change my argument. In fact, you seem to be agreeing with me on this.

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Furthermore, a supposedly "CSI" DNA fragment can be made without any other DNA - HIV replicates using RNA genomes that "reverse transcribe" into DNA. And RNA (ribozymes) is capable of catalytic functions (i.e, self-excising introns)- which means that it's not too much of a stretch to imagine self-replicating RNA. Since most ribozymes are less than 300 bases long, it is also not too much of a stretch to imagine that self-replicating RNA could have arose given that there was an entire planet to experiment upon. And that would be the definition of life - replication.

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Oh I can imagine a lot of things, doesn't necessarily give it any credibility in science. How do you know this is CSI? You are going to have to calculate it out to show this. And you think that replication is the definition of life? Then further define the word replication and we will go from there. I shall be respectful and hold comments on this until you define your terms appropriately.

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But I actually, instead of the usual position where the evolutionist refutes the IDist argument, would like to take a different tack. I want you to explain something for me.

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Evolutionary theory supposes that any mutation that does not have a negative effect on the reproductive success of the organism in question will essentially be "ignored" by evolution and will persist or die out based upon its chromosomal proximity to positive/negative alleles or stochastically. ID theory supposes that everything about the organism is designed, so there is a reason for every base pair in the genome.

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I would explain this for you, but you base the entire question on a false conception of ID. ID espouses that the genotype of extant organisms are a result of both initial design and evolution. In fact, this is the way we explain the supposed incompetence of the designer as some Darwinists (I don't argue with evolutionists, I am one. I just argue with Darwinists) seem to picture. This is to be fully expected. Hence, you simply misunderstand ID when you assume that everything we see in the genotype is a result of design.

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Evolutionary theory can explain why there is a non-functional vitamin C synthesis gene in all primates (as an omnivore, the primate ancestor had sufficient vitamin C in their diet and the nonfunctional vitamin C gene allele became fixed stochastically/linkage to a separate successful gene allele).

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No it can't. There is no such thing as evolutionary theory as you have taken nothing through the scientific method TO the theory level. I'm a science purest, so let's keep our terminology correct. Biology explains this, not Darwinism.

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ID theory would state that there is some reason for the non-working vitamin C synthesis allele in all primates (which are coincidentally, said to be related by evolutionary theory). What exactly would this reason be? And if ID theory cannot answer this question, what exactly is the use of this theory?

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There is no such thing as a theory of ID and ID has nothing to say about the non-working vitamin C synthesis allele in primates. Again, this is biology. What you need to do, is to come to learn to think about this using the proper perspective. As a Darwinist you view biology with a different paradigm than do I, an ID theorist. It's still all biology. There is no ID biology. There is no Darwinist biology. You have not staked a claim to anything in science other than to flood academia with pseudo-science.You seem to see this mutation as some quasi-divine uber-manifest of the god of Darwin in action speaking with epiphanic thunder-vox. I see it for what it is, biology, with a simple, common sense explanation.Lower life progressed to more complex life, both plant and animal, over time. At a given point in time vitamin C became quite prevalent in the diet as it is today. Now am I going to have to bring an argument to you that some plants today are rich in vitamin C like I had to with the other one I was recently discussing this with? No? Thank you.When this C became available in the diet, omnivores that ingested this C no longer needed to systemically produce C and natural selection caused this mutation. And in what organisms would this environment have selected for? ALL of them, people, chimps, gorillas, little funky tree monkeys, little monkin' tree.........So you are quite surprised to see this mutation in common with primates? Now. Since the rest of your post is based on a non-existent theory of ID, or non-existent ID theorems and badly confuses evolution, which is noted both in Darwinism AND ID with Darwinism, clarify all of that, respond to the above and we'll boogie with this discussion.Thanks for your post. Oh, again....welcome!

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Design Dynamics

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1. How do you tell the difference between intelligent selection and natural selection?

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In what case? Where there is no intelligence, I would think if selection occurs we might rule out intelligence. But I don't know that there's a universal rule. Are you suggesting that natural selection was also intelligent selection? If you are a theistic evolutionist, I have no problem with this, but other than this, I would have to ask you where the intelligence came from.

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2. How do you eliminate the possibility that a very strict environment might cause a type of natural selection that looks like intelligent selection? (i.e. an environment that only and always allows the heads side of the coin to be fixed)

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Who am I to rule out models before I consider them. Present one and I will. Describe this strict environment and explain what it is doing to the organism.

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3. If we somehow show intelligence, how does this refute common ancestry?

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I don't know that it does. Shouldn't we be trying to confirm or falsify common ancestry?

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Changing how things are selected does not change the paradigm that much. If you somehow show all of this is true all that means is that a different selection force is what caused evolution. I don't see how your position is in conflict with the modern theory of evolution yet you keep saying that things like the evolution of the mammalian inner ear are impossible. This seems to be a contradiction in position. Please clarify.

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First, please clarify yourself and come to use these terms more precisely. When you speak of evolution of the inner ear, this just means a change over time in the inner ear not how it originated. Second, I don't even recall discussing the inner ear. Can you link me back??

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Design Dynamics

Lord have mercy, you're a hoot! It's been obvious for some time that you're just flailing, but this is too much! You are claiming that the thermodymic entropy of the system is a function of the number of chunks in which you choose to subdivide the system, and that these arbitrarily chosen subdivideed chunks are microstates! And you finish by claiming that you've demonstrated something about information, which claim is the first mention of information in the "demonstration".You're too much, Jerry!

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But let me move beyond that to another question... what criteria allows you, Dembski, and others to oppose the position taken by Behe on common descent? And I don't mean lack of info, I mean what positive info do you have for a model with no descent and only multiple creation events?

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As far as I understand it Dembski does not deal with any physical evidence at all, and is only part of constructing the mathematical and philosophical tools necessary to detect design. I am unsure how one who does not work with the fossil evidence can possibly claim to have evidence for multiple creation events, rather than a single initial creation, with descent unpacking from preprogrammed data?

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Well I'm not Dembski. I think I've pointed this out to you before, if not it was someone else and forget that. If you have questions for him, go over to one of his sites and ask him. Finally, I don't oppose any positions Behe has in ID because common descent doesn't have a thing to do with ID.As to the rest of your post....um...your posts are beginning to get a tad silly. I saw another one somewhere to me something to the effect that the second law no longer applies to chemical reactions in open system. I'll answer what I can of this one but don't expect a whole lot of enthusiasm in the future to answering this stuff.

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Design Dynamics

Stop it, Jerry, you're killin' me here! I haven't laughed like this for months.Yes, of course it's not surprising ... but you forgotr to mention that other omnivores such as pigs, chickens, and raccoons do synthesize vitamin C. So the fact that one subset of omnivores, within which we find literally thousands of strtiking similarities, shares this exact mutation (when we know that there is at least one other mutation that would knock out vitamin C, and there's probably hundreds or thousands that would) is not surprising at all; it's only yet another comfirmation (albeit a dramatic and easily understood one) of common descent among primates. Like us.

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But their goal never was to evolve a radio. That emerged on its own as a completely novel way of tackling the problem of survival in a world where only oscillators survive. It was "invented" by the mindless procedure that was followed in the experiment, which essentially did nothing but mimic the process of evolution.

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You almost write like you think this mindless procedure is some form of ethereal intellect. How can you believe in what seems like some weird pocket of unknown fuzzy cognizance and still keep the atheist slogan as your sig? So tell me. Is this how you think evolution acts in a human genome?

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Well, it's pretty clear that the radio wasn't the experimenters' idea. So, whoever invented it, it wasn't them. Therefore, it must have arisen spontaneously from the mindless procedure. There are no other candidates.

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So who's idea was it? Do you have any stereos sitting around the house that evolved into place? And if these things just evolve all the time, why in the heck do people have to manufacture them? I mean, if a simple radio can evolve, what is to stop it from further evolution and before you know it we have a Boze system sitting out in the desert? Why is it I have to pay people to manufacture radios when they just poof themselves from nothing?

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The process of evolution consists of nothing more than random mutation of mutable material and selective pressure on the results of those mutations. This can be shown in any model that can handle these two mechanisms.

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Well I don't think I can think of any material that isn't mutable. So I guess everything in nature just evolves. I guess I'm silly to even but a lamp as if I wait long enough that sucker will surely poof from the aethers.

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In the mean time, if I may ask, since you seem to emphasize the distinction between evolution and Darwinism, what exactly do you perceive as the difference between them?

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I keep repeating this, but I keep being asked it, so here it goes again:One need be careful to distinguish between the terms Darwinism and evolution. The latter is a science based concept that studies variations in the gene pools of populations of organisms over time. When a virus mutates as in SARS, HIV or Bird Flu, biologists study these genetic changes hoping to fully understand them and eventually even to be able to predict and manipulate them for the betterment of medicine. This study of evolution is hard science entailing many areas such as genetic defects in infant births, errors in transcription during nucleic acid replication and the inheritability of certain genetic traits through interbreeding (animal breeders have the concept of evolution down to an art, it would seem).Conversely, Darwinism is a wishy washy conception (it seems that no two Darwinists can agree on much of anything) that takes this area of biology and extrapolates it ridiculously outside the realm of any known science. Darwinism boldly concludes that man sprang from a common ancestor with apes, that huge land dwelling animals called pakicetus somehow had their legs morphed into flippers and crawled into the oceans to turn into what we know today as modern whales, that reptile like organisms called therapsids almost ethereally evolved from reptiles into mammals and that larger mammals such as horses and elephants slowly evolved from tiny, less complex ameboids in violation of some of the most well proven laws of science.No tenet unique to Darwinism has ever been shown to be true in laboratory or field experiments in a manner that is non-controversial to all observers (natural selection is not a tenet unique to Darwin as it pre-existed his writings and is basically little more than common sense). All of the evidence that Darwinists have from which to draw these extraordinary conclusions is a few fossils from which more than one conclusion could be drawn if any conclusions can be rightfully drawn at all from this scant evidence.Even simple speciation, a core component of Darwinism, cannot be shown or rejected in these fossilized substances as a sexual species is defined as two organisms that can interbreed and produce fertile, viable offspring and do so naturally. How do Darwinists go back in time sometimes millions of years to do these breeding experiments in order to hypothesize what species evolved into other species? They cannot, as to even contemplate this is ludicrous. Yet, they readily draw these conclusions and teach them as theories of science without any empirical experimental evidence what-so-ever to support them and ignoring the fact that these theories have never been taken through the observation -----> hypothesis -----> theory process inherent in the scientific method in order for theories of science to be termed a theory of science to begin with.

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If that's true, then mustn't we also conclude that an ice crystal is intelligently designed? After all, when it melts, essentially the same thing happens. I just fail to see the connection between the degradation of something and any conclusions about its origin.

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Nah...Not the same thing. Darwinism doesn't predict that ice crystals don't melt.

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Design Dynamics

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Lord have mercy, you're a hoot! It's been obvious for some time that you're just flailing, but this is too much! You are claiming that the thermodymic entropy of the system is a function of the number of chunks in which you choose to subdivide the system, and that these arbitrarily chosen subdivideed chunks are microstates! And you finish by claiming that you've demonstrated something about information, which claim is the first mention of information in the "demonstration

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LOL...Thermodynamic entropy? Um....no. Do we need to take a class maybe?
With that lack of education you have the gall to make fun of me. Sheeze..

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Design Dynamics

Bad analogy Jerry.Did you not get the message on the 747 in the junkyard?If you have to be told the same thing too many times people will start to find you boring.

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If you have to be told the same thing too many times people will start to find you boring.

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When people start finding me boring, Ned, they will stop posting to me. When people begin posting to me STATING I am boring, readers will understand that they just don't like the way the argument is going but do not have the intellect to do anything about it.

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Design Dynamics

well, no. not completely. you're still matching it to a predetermined design. the word itself is being artifically selected by a master intelligence (the user) who is manipulating the system to create something.evolution runs on its own, with no user, and no pre-design to match to. well, that's not what i have issue with. i have issue with the pre-conception and matching process, and that it doesn't run on its own. and evolution does not produce perfect organisms, either. evolution rarely choose winners. it just chooses LOSERS. so to duplicate the model, all you'd really have to do is throw all of the ones that are unfit according to grammatical rules and parts of speech.if you want to throw in actual selection, then we could add a user or users in, to vote for their favourites.and as someone pointed out, darwinian poetry works quite well.

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אָרַח

Ooops, I almost missed Mammuthus' post and I have determined he is a *cough* scientist:

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This does not make sense. Single cell organisms appear much much earlier in the fossil record than multicellular organisms. According to you, all genomes have been devolving since they sprung magically into existence by design. However, bacteria maintain streamlined genomes while at the same time continuing to evolve and acquire new traits. So from your concept of ID, bacteria and viruses are the supreme beings on earth..all hail lambda phage!

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These are your words. I thought you asked me if I thought bacteria and viruses were the only thing evolving. I replied: "I'm not saying that bacteria and viruses are the only organisms evolving, they are just among them." My answer was no. So what is your beef with this? To me, it's you not making a lick of sense. All I'm saying here is that all organisms experience evolution. But you disagree with this? Then what magic aura do you assume cloaks a species to ward off evolution?

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Please point out in the paper you cited where they show any indication at all that the human genome has been devolving. Are you going to cling to this distortion or actually read the paper and concede that it does not support your point (or more honestly that you did not understand the paper)?

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A paper don't have to quote every single logical proposition that it adds substance to. Look at the math in that paper and then apply that math to the math we use to show evolving and devolving systems. We need go no further than that, my friend. Math speaks much more than words. If you Darwinists would learn this, you would all be IDists. Can you mathematically refute the math I threw out? No? Then your only choice seems to be to accept it or ignore it. The choice is yours.

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Then it is extremely odd that you have several times conflated abiogenesis and evolution and have demonstrated some faily profound misunderstandings of evolutionary biology. This is not meant to be insulting but merely an observation. You telling me that you know abuot the science is not very compelling when you make very big mistakes involving the basics.

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I don't think I conflate anything--you're just playing with semantics. Darwinists embrace naturalism and espouse that life began on earth through natural processes and evolved into the present through natural processes. You know you agree with this, so why are you afraid to lump it all in together? It seems you are afraid to defend your beliefs. Ahem....excuse me, but I think I want to just defend half of my beliefs here, thank you.

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First, a key part of science is tentativity...nobody knows anything for sure. But I digress, under some circumstances you can make DNA form...RNA certainly shows this property. The key issue for abiogenesis research is to find a set of conditions in which self replicating molecules can form and demonstrate the principle. If it is not exactly how it happened billions of years ago as one can surmise the conditions but cannot know them 100%. However, it is at least something that can be tested i.e. forming self replicting molecules under different environmental conditions...how exactly do you test for an intelligent thingamagigy suddenly designing replicators?

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I don't have to test for anything. Science tells me this is all designed by preprogrammed code. You seem to think there are little Darwin buggies floating around in there doing Dawkins magic since you don't recognize the code inherent in organisms.

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It is not common sense. It was not known until relatively recently how closely related chimps are to humans.

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Yeah, hey: before you mega-scientists came along everyone thought that man was more closely related to bananas than chimps. You have revolutionized human knowledge here.

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if everything is designed by intelligence, why would there be any reason for chimps and humans to be genetically similar? First you don't define what the intelligent designer is and now you are already limiting how god..ahem, intelligent designer..does the designing?

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Really. Because if there is indeed any intelligence up the old family lineage, I would surely think it might use similar blueprints for similar critters. I'm sure this doesn't make much sense to you as you would conclude that an elephant SHOULD be more genotypically related to an acorn. Does this duck float in your world?

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And why wouldnt every single meiotic event require design? If on the one hand you claim that natural causes cannot explain biodiversity at higher levels why do you believe they are sufficient to explain the generation of biodiversity even within a family i.e. why do you accept (assuming you do) the conclusions drawn from molecular forensics?

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It DOES require design in the form of preprogrammed code. If course, you don't think code is designed as you have failed to comment each time I have asked if you if you think Windows XP can just poof out of a rock. Let me help you here, Mr. biologist: Yes! I see no reason at all that Windows XP cannot just magically poof out of a sheep's ass. Now. I want the whole world to learn what your science really is. A fairy tale that no one with an IQ over 80 could ever take seriously. Nobody in this country does, and you have only Buffaloed yourself.

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And this is typical creationism...I do not think the genome arrived as is poof bang ex nihilo. I would expect that very simple replicators formed naturally and then grew more complex over time. One can see this even now in the lab with simple precursor replicators that can under selection form much more complex functions. Really, your logical thinking seems to be totally blinded by your religion.

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I need a model. I have given you one for design. You would EXPECT that some very simple replicators formed naturally and then grew over time? I don't see why you would expect this since it goes against everything science knows about simple molecules evolving over time into more complex ones. And give me some papers on the lab work or withdraw the comment. Not at all professional to present your opinion as an abstracted paper.

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How do I not have evidence?

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Well, I would think that one good way one might judge you to have no evidence is that you don't present any.

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Every single genetic study of every species from bacteria to humans demonstrates the vertical transmission (sometimes horizontally) of genes from parent to offspring. Multiple studies both within and among species (look up cichlids for example) support this in the form of population genetics i.e. changes in allele frequency over time aka evolution. Above you even said you believe in evolution...but here you claim you do not.

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Let's see these studies. I mean, I don't think that anyone will argue with you that genes... ahem...JUMP from parent to child. But how do the gene entities start suddenly jumping horizontally? Is there like a gene fairy that starts causing this? There's certainly nothing in biology that would cause genes to start jumping across things.

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In any event, given one can connect species phylogenetically using multiple characters both molecular and morphological, I see this as support for my position.

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Well don't start seeing things as support for your position just because you mention them. Expound on this. Present some evidence of this. What characters are you referring to?

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Then please "find" this form me...
what is the testable and falsifiable hypothesis of ID? I know why you are persistently avoiding this challenge..do you?

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No. Why?

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Design Dynamics

Ok, Jerry I think you have had adequate time to get some idea of how to debate in good faith.When asked to support your assertions you will start to do so or you will have a short suspension.You will also reduce the number of so-called 'smart' remarks. This sort of childishness does not constitute an adequate response: There are a number of places where you have tried to duck and weave to avoid answering points made. It is becoming obvious that you have no answers.The first suspension will be for only 24 hours.