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Author Topic:   Questions for ID believers
The Arachnophile
Inactive Member


Message 1 of 50 (13750)
07-18-2002 7:42 AM


Hi.
The concept of ID is beginning to interest me. After having debated creationists on a Norwegian website at length over exactly this concept, I am beginning to see a pattern in their arguments.
First of all, the debaters never (as far as I hve seen) explicitly states that the designer is the christian God, this is implied or assumed, usually by both parties.
Why? Why, if there indeed is a single omnipotent designer and creator of universes, does this have to be your God?
Personally, I suspect the ID concept is an argument meant to disable evolution (by offering an alternative explanation) rather than serve as proof of the existence of God.
Secondly, why cannot ID believers see the fundamental difference between inanimate objects and living organisms? Design is so often inferred through complexity and examples of inanimate objects that have to have been designed because of their appearance, function, etc, like "aluminium cannot fly, but a plane made of aluminium can", etc. I see this kind of argument on this board, as well.
I have tried again and again to explain to these creationists the fundamental difference between living and dead objects (inheritance of traits, reproducing capabillities), but they just don't seem to understand. What can be done to make you understand this important difference?
Thirdly, some of the implications of ID, should it be real, is rather difficult to understand for me.
Why, for instance, are most features of organisms imperfectly designed? I cannot think of an organism that clearly is a near-perfect compromise of solutions to all the different problems organisms have to deal with (with the possible exception of spiders!), like human-designed objects usually are. If we try to design something we try to make it as good as possible, right? Why for instance, haven't the Great Designer made sure that the survivabillity of the cheeta is better, for instance by making it bigger (thus enabling it to keep a larger portion of its prey).
My point is, all these constraints on an organism's "design" is better explained by evolutionary history rather than an "as is" design history.
Furthermore, if all organisms are designed "as is", why can we elucidate seemingly congruent phylogenetic relaionships based on morphological and molecular analyses? Why is kinship implied in the overall design? There is absolutely no need to!
Sorry for all these questions, but I believe you ID followers have a lot to explain, far beyond pointing at the mere complexity of things.
The Arachnophile

Replies to this message:
 Message 2 by axial soliton, posted 07-30-2002 3:54 AM The Arachnophile has not replied
 Message 4 by Syamsu, posted 07-31-2002 2:32 AM The Arachnophile has replied

  
axial soliton
Inactive Member


Message 2 of 50 (14473)
07-30-2002 3:54 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by The Arachnophile
07-18-2002 7:42 AM


Hmmm. No takers from the "intelligent design" community.
Let me amplify your concerns in this way.
About 10 years ago, micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) became the rage at DARPA. The idea was to make 10u guitars like the one the Cornell Nanofab made. They also made gears, levers, and motors, of course. Micromachines would help manufacturing efficiency for semiconductors and complex structures like hard drive heads. Now, its NEMS. Nano is now the by-word. The idea is to use engineered cells or molecules to make vast arrays of uniform or patterned structures, layer-by-layer, on a planar surface, for example. They could each store 1 bit of magnetic data. Or, other engineered entities could leach material out of solution to build patterned connections making bipolar devices. Research is following its usual evolutionary path. Through a series of experiments, we figured out how to cause nickel to self-assemble in an extraordinary uniform array of 7nm diameter plates on carbon (HOPG). Looking at it, and I wish there was a way to post a picture, there is no way to figure out how we did it. Looking at the Cornell guitar with the size scale in the corner leaves most people in awe.
But it is not a religious experience. It is a testament to learning how to use natural phenomena as tools. Just because a person can look at a thing or a process, not understand it, and be in awe of it, is no excuse to immediately claim magic or aliens. That is what I feel is going on with creationism and with ID. And, what is wrong with it.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by The Arachnophile, posted 07-18-2002 7:42 AM The Arachnophile has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 3 by axial soliton, posted 07-30-2002 5:22 PM axial soliton has not replied

  
axial soliton
Inactive Member


Message 3 of 50 (14518)
07-30-2002 5:22 PM
Reply to: Message 2 by axial soliton
07-30-2002 3:54 AM


With some help from the community and some coming up to speed on my part, the images to which I referred in the above "intelligent design" post will appear below.
The first image is the Cornell guitar. Not that all the resources required to outdo nature with its own principles are used to make guitars, but it is a proof of principal with which people everywhere can identify. 7 of these guitars placed en-to-end would span the diameter of a human hair.
The second image is one showing some of the 7nm nickel self-ordering patterned array of nanostructures. Once we learned how to set up the initial conditions and maintain the context, the atoms self-arrange. This self-arrangement is a tool that uses the non-uniform charge gradient of the 3d subshell in a useful way. The structures are really shaped like pancakes; about 7nm x 0.62nm, or about 28 atoms across and 3 atoms high. As we predicted (and opposite to what mainstream magnetism experts predicted), the pancake structure is ruggedly magnetic in air at room temperature. This means that our method of targeting these islands with a beam of spin-polarized electrons to read and write their magnetic polarity could reach over 6,250,000,000,000 bits per square inch. Well, one day anyway. Few outside our lab have seen this.
I feel these are important to the discussion because these are things that hard-working intelligent people did. The present work was a smart integration of and extrapolation from a mass of work done by earlier hard-working intelligent people. I am quite sure this level of work is going on in molecular biology, astrophysics, quantum chromodynamics, and a myriad of other fields. So far as I know, no one working on this project is an alien or used mystical incantations.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 2 by axial soliton, posted 07-30-2002 3:54 AM axial soliton has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 5 by Syamsu, posted 07-31-2002 3:28 AM axial soliton has not replied

  
Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 4 of 50 (14545)
07-31-2002 2:32 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by The Arachnophile
07-18-2002 7:42 AM


If you would be interested in intelligent design, then start with trying to describe what you are doing when you yourself are intelligently designing something. You can then see more clearly what problems ID-ists face. What you seem to be doing now ammounts to trying to discard the concept of intelligent design by humans or otherwise, altogether.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by The Arachnophile, posted 07-18-2002 7:42 AM The Arachnophile has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 6 by John, posted 07-31-2002 9:49 AM Syamsu has not replied
 Message 9 by The Arachnophile, posted 08-01-2002 5:19 AM Syamsu has replied

  
Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 5 of 50 (14546)
07-31-2002 3:28 AM
Reply to: Message 3 by axial soliton
07-30-2002 5:22 PM


Hard work and intelligence can be considered to be related to mystical incantation. They are both creative process after all.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3 by axial soliton, posted 07-30-2002 5:22 PM axial soliton has not replied

  
John
Inactive Member


Message 6 of 50 (14559)
07-31-2002 9:49 AM
Reply to: Message 4 by Syamsu
07-31-2002 2:32 AM


quote:
Originally posted by Syamsu:
If you would be interested in intelligent design, then start with trying to describe what you are doing when you yourself are intelligently designing something.
Interesting,
When I think about how I would design the world, almost nothing would remain unchanged. What does that say about ID?
------------------
http://www.hells-handmaiden.com

This message is a reply to:
 Message 4 by Syamsu, posted 07-31-2002 2:32 AM Syamsu has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 7 by axial soliton, posted 07-31-2002 11:04 AM John has replied
 Message 49 by CardS, posted 11-06-2002 5:19 PM John has not replied

  
axial soliton
Inactive Member


Message 7 of 50 (14570)
07-31-2002 11:04 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by John
07-31-2002 9:49 AM


Touche!
On one end of the candy bar, intelligent design folks lovingly admire the confection. On the other end, scientists are busily chomping away. This is not a recipe for meeting in the middle. Perhaps scientists will terraform Mars now that we know there are oceans of water there. John may get his chance.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 6 by John, posted 07-31-2002 9:49 AM John has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 8 by John, posted 07-31-2002 6:28 PM axial soliton has not replied

  
John
Inactive Member


Message 8 of 50 (14586)
07-31-2002 6:28 PM
Reply to: Message 7 by axial soliton
07-31-2002 11:04 AM


quote:
Originally posted by axial soliton:
John may get his chance.
whoooo-hoooooo!!!!
------------------
http://www.hells-handmaiden.com

This message is a reply to:
 Message 7 by axial soliton, posted 07-31-2002 11:04 AM axial soliton has not replied

  
The Arachnophile
Inactive Member


Message 9 of 50 (14628)
08-01-2002 5:19 AM
Reply to: Message 4 by Syamsu
07-31-2002 2:32 AM


"What you seem to be doing now ammounts to trying to discard the concept of intelligent design by humans or otherwise, altogether."
Actually, I was trying to discard the possibillity of Intelligent Design of the Universe by a supernatural being! I acknowledge the existence of Intelligent Design by humans, but I do not accept the link between the necessity of ID behind human-designed objects as well as the Universe.
The Arachnophile

This message is a reply to:
 Message 4 by Syamsu, posted 07-31-2002 2:32 AM Syamsu has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 10 by Syamsu, posted 08-02-2002 5:22 AM The Arachnophile has not replied

  
Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 10 of 50 (14723)
08-02-2002 5:22 AM
Reply to: Message 9 by The Arachnophile
08-01-2002 5:19 AM


I am just saying that in trying to disprove supernatural creation like that, you will likely end up destroying concepts such as intelligence, or design.
Where is the intelligence in the human brain? There are only some electrons and whatnot. No need to invoke intelligent decisionmaking over the processes in the brain, similarly as it is not neccessary to invoke intelligent design with organisms.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 9 by The Arachnophile, posted 08-01-2002 5:19 AM The Arachnophile has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 11 by axial soliton, posted 08-03-2002 2:16 AM Syamsu has not replied

  
axial soliton
Inactive Member


Message 11 of 50 (14778)
08-03-2002 2:16 AM
Reply to: Message 10 by Syamsu
08-02-2002 5:22 AM


quote:
Where is the intelligence in the human brain? There are only some electrons and whatnot. No need to invoke intelligent decisionmaking over the processes in the brain, similarly as it is not neccessary to invoke intelligent design with organisms.
Well, OK then. You have really opened the door. The intelligence in the human brain is in quantum-scale charges at the boundary between cell and pathway. These charges are quickly transmitted to the cell at the other end of the pathway. There are a very large number of cells with these pathway connections, and an even larger number of pathways. As scientists come to grips with the myriad chemical, interactions, results, and timing, the human brain will come to understand the human brain. There is no need for intelligent design. Especially when the body of organic chemistry literature is filling in all the gaps.
Intelligence in the human brain is the collection of holographic charge patterns composed of many pathways in a specific 3D charge pattern that each make a "state". Each state is a memory fragment. Series of pre-existing holographic patterns cycle through different parts of the brain simultaneously and continuously. Our senses cycle new environmental data, external stimuli, through these different parts as new holograms during the same cycles. One way to think of this is that the 2 holograms are orthogonal to each other as they interfere and produce a third hologram. The two original holographic patterns overlap each other and produce a new 3rd pattern via constructive and destructive interference. No 2 patterns are ever the same due to the number of elements possible in a 3D pattern. Because there is this stochastic nature to the formation of each hologram, the interference patterns they form are individual and unique. It is stochastic because it is highly highly parallel, concurrent, multi-path, and chemical. Maybe each hologram is unique among all human brains for all time. If there are 10,000,000,000 brain cells and each is connected by 5 axons, the factorial is bigger than my calculator can calculate. It runs out at the number 69. Over my lifetime the number of active brain cells researchers figure there are has crept up to over 1,000,000,000,000. The factorial of 5 trillion is an out of this Universe number. There may be a temporal component to the hologram, meaning it rolls through the charge pathways in a certain sequence. This could mean that the same signal path is used more than once. So the number of potential unique memory fragments that can be stored by our brain is near incalculable. Add to that the chemical biases at work from emotions, chocolate, and caffein, and the tally gets really big. Not bad for $1 worth of chemicals.
The result is a never-ending series of charge-based holograms playing out patterns that move limbs in response to external stimuli, remember things that no longer exist, and postulate new things. The brain works in parallel with its environment, but disconnected from it. Once chance sets the charge pattern for each hologram, the next time this particular pattern is activated, it will be substantially the same and form a substantially similar interference pattern for an external stimulus that is substantially similar to the one that happened previously. I speculate that our subconscience is actually a god-view simulation of us, the world around us, and our place in it that starts running sometime after birth and continues every nanosecond until the day the chemicals and biological constructs supporting the charge patterns deteriorate. While running many holograms per second through its different parts and forming these interference patterns with real-time stimuli, the result is something expected (like before), different in some way, or new. So, we know our place in the world, as it were, and can figure out how to react to new things, old things, or changed things.
In the philosophy of it, life (self-replicating molecules) is like the slime of the Universe. Life will form anywhere it can including the vacuum of space. Life with a brain that stores data about the environment and applies it later is like a first derivative. When the brain manipilates its surroundings to what it perceives is its best benefit, life has reached a new level. Something like a 2nd derivative. What might be the third derivative and are we at the threshold of that now? All this and no intelligent design needed.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 10 by Syamsu, posted 08-02-2002 5:22 AM Syamsu has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 12 by mopsveldmuis, posted 09-12-2002 9:02 AM axial soliton has not replied

  
mopsveldmuis
Inactive Member


Message 12 of 50 (17247)
09-12-2002 9:02 AM
Reply to: Message 11 by axial soliton
08-03-2002 2:16 AM


You just described the working of a highly complicated organ and what I don't understand is how you can say that it didn't need any intelligence to exist!?
Every part of the human body is far more complicated than all human technology put together. If it took intelligence for those technologies to exist, how much more did it take intelligence for humans to exist?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 11 by axial soliton, posted 08-03-2002 2:16 AM axial soliton has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 13 by compmage, posted 09-12-2002 9:31 AM mopsveldmuis has replied

  
compmage
Member (Idle past 5153 days)
Posts: 601
From: South Africa
Joined: 08-04-2005


Message 13 of 50 (17251)
09-12-2002 9:31 AM
Reply to: Message 12 by mopsveldmuis
09-12-2002 9:02 AM


quote:
Originally posted by mopsveldmuis:
You just described the working of a highly complicated organ and what I don't understand is how you can say that it didn't need any intelligence to exist!?
Every part of the human body is far more complicated than all human technology put together. If it took intelligence for those technologies to exist, how much more did it take intelligence for humans to exist?

Yes, the human brain is 'complex', however, the hallmark of good intelligent design is simplicity, not complexity.
------------------
compmage

This message is a reply to:
 Message 12 by mopsveldmuis, posted 09-12-2002 9:02 AM mopsveldmuis has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 14 by mopsveldmuis, posted 09-12-2002 12:24 PM compmage has not replied

  
mopsveldmuis
Inactive Member


Message 14 of 50 (17274)
09-12-2002 12:24 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by compmage
09-12-2002 9:31 AM


Do you imply that there is a more simple design for the brain that will also give you the same functionality and reliability and at the same time be just as compact and light-weight?

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Rationalist
Inactive Member


Message 15 of 50 (17444)
09-15-2002 7:49 AM


quote:
Every part of the human body is far more complicated than all human technology put together. If it took intelligence for those technologies to exist, how much more did it take intelligence for humans to exist?
Answer: None.
Logically, if you assume that all complex things require even more complex intelligence, you end up with an infinite spiral of intelligence which never ends. If God was required to make us, then an even more powerful and intelligent God was required to make him, and so on.
And if you simply assume that no intelligence was required to make God, then it is equally reasonable to assume that no intelligence was required to make human beings either.
Since we know specifically a process by which complex objects can be formed through natural processes over time (mutation plus natural selection), this makes the second hypothesis that much more convincing.
[This message has been edited by Rationalist, 09-15-2002]

Replies to this message:
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