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Author Topic:   Is this Intelligent Design or not?
Me
Inactive Member


Message 1 of 15 (16438)
09-02-2002 3:16 PM


I raised this in another thread, but thought it was sufficiently important to run on its own.
Evolutionary techniques are not only applicable to biological organisms; they can (and are) being used in other areas of engineering. I have heard of a couple of circuit designs built this way, and the story below is particularly interesting. It concerns an attempt to evolve an oscillator, which resulted in the development of a radio receiver.
News articles and features | New Scientist
The points which seem to be raised:
There was no conscious desire on the part of the computer or the operator to create a radio - it just happened as a result of the application of evolution. So was it designed or not?
Would you recognise it as being designed? If so, why? (the design will almost certainly not resemble a human design)
Is this a case of a new object being created by evolution - something the creationists say cannot happen?

Replies to this message:
 Message 2 by gene90, posted 09-02-2002 3:39 PM Me has not replied
 Message 3 by Tranquility Base, posted 09-02-2002 10:21 PM Me has not replied
 Message 8 by Brad McFall, posted 09-03-2002 5:12 PM Me has not replied
 Message 9 by mopsveldmuis, posted 09-12-2002 9:16 AM Me has replied

  
Me
Inactive Member


Message 7 of 15 (16503)
09-03-2002 1:07 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by Tranquility Base
09-03-2002 7:43 AM


quote:
Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
Well, regardless of whether it was designed to do it or not (OK - I se it wasn't) the point is that we all know that a series of tranistors will produce an amplifier or an occillator or a radio receiver if the right combinaiton is hit on.

The point was that an item which was not 'designed' nontheless emerged out of the evolutionary process. That is why the post is in the Intelligent Design section, and was headed 'Is this Intelligent Design...'
[QUOTE][B]
(Do you realise a radio receiver is simply an RF amplifier with a rectifier?) [/quote]
[/b]
Umm. Most conductive objects are radio receivers. If they resonate they are discriminators as well, and if they are rectifiers then they can decode an AM broadcast. If you add an AF amplifier you can drive a speaker. I don't think you need an RF amplifier, and you can easily get away without an amplifier at all. I don't think the issue is whether it was technically difficult or not.
quote:

BUt 30 years after those classic experiments we haven't come any closer to getting life from soup.

I thought that we were getting along quite well.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 5 by Tranquility Base, posted 09-03-2002 7:43 AM Tranquility Base has not replied

  
Me
Inactive Member


Message 10 of 15 (17276)
09-12-2002 12:31 PM
Reply to: Message 9 by mopsveldmuis
09-12-2002 9:16 AM


[QUOTE]Originally posted by mopsveldmuis:
[B]The oscillation was picked up by the antenna from the start of the experiment and therefore would have been detected at the output all the time aswell. The computer program just chose the design that would amplify this already existing oscillation to the output in the best way, because all the computer is programmed to do is check the output and try to make it oscillate.[/quote]
[/b]
We know what happened, and why it happened. The point I am making is that the original designer had no intention of producing a radio receiver. So how can the receiver be said to be designed?
quote:
Like any other experiment there was intelligence involved with the design. Humans chose a set number of transistors and decided that the connections had to be the changable parameter. To get closer to simulating the evolution theory electronically, you have to use an unlimited number of components, each one being any of the thousands of components available today and let the computer program attempt to evolve a personal computer.

That doesn't seem a very sensible emulation of evolution. Where are the evolutionary pressures? And why should you have an 'unlimited' number of components?
I thought that the principles of the evolutionary theory had already been demonstrated electronically with the original experiment. I was just asking the 'Intelligent Designer' question.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 9 by mopsveldmuis, posted 09-12-2002 9:16 AM mopsveldmuis has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 11 by mopsveldmuis, posted 09-13-2002 3:38 AM Me has replied

  
Me
Inactive Member


Message 12 of 15 (17342)
09-13-2002 7:08 AM
Reply to: Message 11 by mopsveldmuis
09-13-2002 3:38 AM


[QUOTE]Originally posted by mopsveldmuis:
[B]Humans chose the transistors, the number of transistors and what the output should look like. That is all part of what you call design specifications. [/quote]
[/b]
Yes - I agree. That is the point of this question. All their design intention was to get an oscillator. They got something they didn't expect, so how can you say that it was designed?
[quote][bold]
What pressured dead mud to come to life? The "prebiotic soup" where life is supposed to have originated had an unlimited number of particles that could have binded in any way possible to them. To expect life to start like that is to think that a computer program connecting any number of random components in a random way will make a working and useful and complicated electronic device somewhere along the line, like a computer or a cellular phone.
[/B][/QUOTE]
You do not appear to be talking about ID here, but about Abiogenesis, which is quite a different topic. I am not addressing abiogenesis here. If you want to talk about abiogenesis, there is a separate forum for this - see the list of forums above. It is important to understand that evolution does NOT address issues of how a self-replicating process starts, but rather what self-replicating systems do under various pressures. Obviously evolutionists believe that self-replicating systems can and do arise, but how this happens is a different issue.
If you are thinking of using the argument from incredible complexity, you might want to look at this site before posting:
Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics, and Probability of Abiogenesis Calculations

This message is a reply to:
 Message 11 by mopsveldmuis, posted 09-13-2002 3:38 AM mopsveldmuis has replied

Replies to this message:
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