Thank you.
I was hoping you'd say that, because as soon as I saw your proposal I started typing away at an answer in anticipation of the promotion of your topic. So you can imagine that I was a bit disappointed when I saw you withdraw it. All that work...
Please don't feel overwhelmed by the length of my post, there are some lenghty quotes you might skip, if you like. I just wanted to address all of your five points. You can do with it what you want.
Here goes...
#1
Jerry Don Bauer writes:
1) Function found in nature. Function is an attribute assigned by intelligence to cause something to cause 'something else' to do something.
Function does not necessarily imply intelligence.
In
this study, the spontaneous evolution of a radio is described. The researchers used a simulated evolutionary process in which the fitness of an electronic circuit as an oscillator was selected for.
The surprising thing was that one of the solutions emerging out of this trial was a
radio circuit that picked up AM signals and used them as output for the oscillator function. This is an example of function evolving without intelligence prompting it.
Some excerpts:
quote:
There are established techniques for designing oscillators. In conventional circuits the necessary timing is supplied by a capacitor whose charge release is controlled by a resistor; this combination of components is known as an RC time constant. As the desired frequency decreases, the value of the RC product increases. Large value capacitors are difficult to implement in VLSI and are generally provided externally, at some expense. The motivation was to evolve an oscillator of a precise frequency without using capacitors. The tone discriminator experiment discussed above had demonstrated that evolution can make use of parasitic properties to form suitable time constants. However, oscillator evolution is a difficult task when the basic components are transistors.
Whereas oscillation is the likely outcome of recurrent loops of digital gates or operational amplifiers, precise operating points must be established before it can be produced by a network of transistors. These conditions are extremely unlikely to occur by chance, a fact that was confirmed by Layzell when he performed some preliminary experiments where only frequency and amplitude of oscillation were rewarded. Therefore, he found it necessary to reward output amplitude, even if the signal was just noise, in order to kickstart the evolutionary process.
quote:
After the genotypes had been instantiated as circuits, there was a 5 ms delay to allow the f/v converter and rectifier to stabilise. From 20 runs, 10 resulted in successful oscillation, attaining the target frequency within 1% and with minimum amplitude of 100 mV. These represent the first intrinsically evolved oscillators to reach their target frequencies.
quote:
It has proved difficult to clarify exactly how these circuits work. Probing a typical one with an oscilloscope has shown that it does not use beat frequencies to achieve the target frequency. If the transistors are swapped for nominally identical ones, then the output frequency changes by as much as 30%. A simulation was created that incorporated all the parasitic capacitance expected to exist within the physical circuit, but the simulated circuits failed to oscillate. The programmable switches almost certainly play an important role in the behaviour of the circuit and it is only possible to probe their input and output connections and not the circuitry in which they are embedded.
Comment: this precludes the ID counterargument that the experimenters themselves are the intelligence behind the design. If they themselves don't know how the evolved circuits work, their intelligence cannot be responsible for the design, even if their intelligence
is involved in setting up the experiment.
quote:
C. The Evolved Radio
Some of the circuits achieved high fitness, but when they were examined with an oscilloscope they did not oscillate stably: the signals were of the order of 10 - 50 mV amplitude with rapidly fluctuating frequency. The evolutionary process had taken advantage of the fact that the fitness function rewarded amplifiers, even if the output signal was noise. It seems that some circuits had amplified radio signals present in the air that were stable enough over the 2 ms sampling period to give good fitness scores. These signals were generated by nearby PCs in the laboratory where the experiments took place.
In other words: an unexpected and unconventional way of producing an oscillating signal had been "invented" by a mindless process of evolution.
quote:
In order to pick up radio signals the circuits need an aerial and an extremely high input impedance. This was achieved by using as an input the printed circuit board tracks on the EM connected to an open programmable switch whose impedance is at least 100 MW. The high impedance was confirmed by an electrometer behaviour observed in many of the non-oscillating circuits: if a person’s hand was brought close to the circuit, then the d.c. output voltage rose; if the person remained there, the output voltage remained high, falling if the person was earthed. The evolutionary process had utilised not only the EM’s transistors, but also the analogue switches and the printed circuit to which they were connected.
Note: "The evolutionary process had utilised...", as if it were intelligent. But the evolutionary process is a mindless one. It just
looks like it's intelligent. That's what I think is the core problem with ID: ID-ists interpret what they see in nature as the product of genuine intelligence, whereas we can see from this simulation that the process of evolution is capable of fooling us.
quote:
We have described an unconstrained, intrinsic HE experiment that resulted in the construction of a novel radio wave sensor. The EM is the second ever experimental system to construct novel sensors, unconstrained by prespecified sensor/environment channels. Like Pask’s ear, the evolved radio determined the nature of its relation to, and knowledge of, the world. Both of these devices are epistemically autonomous: they are not restricted to experimenter specified information channels [27]. By using a process analogous to the tinkering of natural evolution, epistemically autonomous devices alter their relationship with the environment depending on whether a particular configuration generates rewarded behaviour.
In other words, again to anticipate ID-ist counterarguments: the intelligence of the experimenters has nothing to do with the actual process of simulated evolution. Once the process is underway, it's on its own and can produce quite unexpected results.
Jerry Don Bauer writes:
In fact, just looking up the word at dictionary.com and considering the first two definitions we can see the intelligence inherent in the word function: 1) The action for which a person or thing is particularly fitted or employed. 2) Assigned duty or activity.
The definition of the word 'function' cannot be used as conclusive evidence, because there are also uses of 'function' that do not directly imply intelligence, for example:
Merriam-Webster writes:
6 : characteristic behavior of a chemical compound due to a particular reactive unit; also : FUNCTIONAL GROUP
Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary writes:
function (RESULT) [Show phonetics]
noun FORMAL
a function of sth something which results from something else, or which is as it is because of something else:
His success is a function of his having worked so hard.
The low temperatures here are a function of the terrain as much as of the climate.
In the last quote, the bold sentence exemplifies a use of the word 'function' that does not imply intelligence as a causative factor.
Jerry Don Bauer writes:
FACT: We see much function in nature. This is evidence that intelligence operated to design and assign function in order that in each case, one something (often quite different) causes something else.
In view of the objections I made above, I think one cannot say that function in nature is evidence of intelligence operating.
#2
Jerry Don Bauer writes:
2) The fossil record. [...] when we look at the fossil record we would predict to see species coming into it fully formed, not evidence that species gradually evolved into their macroscopic forms as Darwin proposed.
Stating it that way suggests that evolutionists propose there is a goal in evolution, and that along the path toward that goal, there exist unfinished organisms.
That is not the case, it's a distortion of evolutionist ideas. Each individual organism is a complete, "fully formed" example of its species in its own point in time. Species do evolve, but not "
into their macroscopic forms", Darwin never proposed that.
Evolution doesn't predict the
a priori existence, for example, of an ideal horse that unfinished proto-horse species gradually morph into. Rather, it's the other way around: the modern horse happens to be one of the forms that proto-horse species have evolved into, but things could easily have gone in a different direction, and we might never have had the pleasure of riding these magnificent animals.
Jerry Don Bauer writes:
FACT: This is exactly what we see in the fossil record. There is no gradual evolution of bauplanes [sic], but long periods of nothing interspersed with relatively sudden explosions of fully formed organisms. These organisms then stay this way until they go extinct in the record. This is direct evidence for intelligent design.
How is that
direct evidence for intelligent design? It is only direct evidence for the fact that, sometimes, new species seem to crop up in a relatively short span of time.
How this happens cannot be deduced directly from the fossil record. It could easily be surmised that aliens arrive here every so often with a spaceship load of new animals they picked up somewhere and dump on earth. How would you determine which is to be preferred: ID or alien Noahs? In the absence of
direct evidence for either theory, evolutionists discard both, unless and until such evidence is found.
#3
Jerry Don Bauer writes:
3) DNA found only in organisms. [...] ID predicts that DNA, a major building block of complex organisms, can only be created by an intelligent agent or by code preprogrammed by an intelligent agent.
The scientific method now requires a test to find out if the prediction is borne out. What test does ID propose? This is an honest question that deserves an honest answer. In fact, many evolutionists think the answer is long overdue.
Jerry Don Bauer writes:
Furthermore, some of the building blocks for these nucleic acids are very unstable in nature. For example, Miller found that ribose, which is essential for both DNA and RNA, has a half life (t) of only 44 years at pH 7.0 (neutral) and 0 C. It’s even worse at high temperatures - 73 minutes at pH 7.0 and 100 C (the latter evidence is given for the benefit of heat-vent enthusiasts). This is no time at all when we view life as having formed over billions of years.
I am no molecular biologist, but I would surmise that it is possible that the binding of ribose to other large organic molecules alters the chemical properties of the constituent parts and might thus lend some form of 'protection' against denaturisation. Encapsulation of ribose in vesicles of lipids might provide a similar effect. But I think I'd better let the real molecular biologists deal with this one, I just gave it a shot.
#4
Jerry Don Bauer writes:
4) Mathematical calculations and evidence as in the form of the study I introduced in the Intelligent Design in Universities thread showing that nature has a tendency to disorganize: As loose information is diffused, information entropy will tend to increase unless energy, guided by intelligence, is added into the system to stabilize it.
FACT: This shows the human genome to be DEVOLVING not EVOLVING. This is what ID predicts. Darwinism predicts the exact opposite tendency. This devolving tendency in vertebrate genomes is direct evidence for intelligent design.
I will not repeat the evolutionist arguments from the thread you mentioned, but I would note that on the one hand you say that "energy, guided by intelligence, is added into the system to stabilize it", whereas on the other hand you say that the human genome devolves, i.e. isn't stable. Aren't these contradictory claims?
And again: how is this
direct evidence for intelligent design? How does the fact that things get worse over time directly say anything about how things got to be in the first place?
#5
Jerry Don Bauer writes:
5) Existence of irreducibly complex systems in nature. ICSs are interesting little critters as they consist of several well matched parts that perform a function and all work together to cause an overall system function. These are well conceived systems that must be planned before they are designed in that Part A--Does job A--Part B, Does job B--Part C, Does job C--Part D, does job D; and the result is that all of these jobs work together to cause an overall function in the system as a whole.
In
this article, by Ken Miller, irreducible complexity is shown to be a flawed concept. The paragon of IC, the flagellum, is seen to be reduced and still functioning:
quote:
The most powerful rebuttals to the flagellum story, however, have not come from direct attempts to answer the critics of evolution. Rather, they have emerged from the steady progress of scientific work on the genes and proteins associated with the flagellum and other cellular structures. Such studies have now established that the entire premise by which this molecular machine has been advanced as an argument against evolution is wrong - the bacterial flagellum is not irreducibly complex. As we will see, the flagellum - the supreme example of the power of this new "science of design" - has failed its most basic scientific test. Remember the claim that "any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional?" As the evidence has shown, nature is filled with examples of "precursors" to the flagellum that are indeed "missing a part," and yet are fully-functional. Functional enough, in some cases, to pose a serious threat to human life.
Then follows a technical explanation of what is said in the quote above.
Another example from the same article deals with that other icon of IC, the vertebrate blood clotting system. This is a cascade of protein reactions which is claimed by IC not to function when even one of the many factors is missing.
quote:
[...]the claim that every one of the components must be present for clotting to work is central to the "evidence" for design. One of those components, as these quotations indicate, is Factor XII, which initiates the cascade. Once again, however, a nasty little fact gets in the way of intelligent design theory. Dolphins lack Factor XII (Robinson, Kasting, and Aggeler 1969), and yet their blood clots perfectly well. How can this be if the clotting cascade is indeed irreducibly complex? It cannot, of course, and therefore the claim of irreducible complexity is wrong for this system as well.
P.S.: I have to go soon, so I won't be able to post until the evening (Dutch time)
This message has been edited by Parasomnium, 11-May-2005 12:56 PM
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
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