10 Categories of Evidence For ID

Thanks, I hadn't come across that paper before.TTFN,WK

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DNA is found in organisms...but it is not found in all organisms i.e. many viruses are RNA viruses. Prions can transmit information without any nucleic acid component at all.

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Then there is no DNA to consider and the point is moot. IOW, who cares?

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The genome has a grand total of about 1.5% genes. The rest is a combination of pseudogenes, junk DNA, endogenous retroviruses, and other retroelements. Thus, much of the information is either junk or does not contribute to the phenotype of the organism (which also indicates pretty lousy design but fits very well with evolutionary theory where just being better at reproducing gets you through..not great design).

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I'm having a great deal of trouble following your logic here. What does any of this have to do with DNA being designed or not?

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ID cannot predict that DNA is intelligently designed as ID has not proposed a testable and falsifiable hypothesis which would allow one to make predictions. All ID does is pre-supposes a designer.

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This is not science, just your opinion. I'm an IDist and predicted that DNA must be designed in the OP, who's to say then that ID has not predicted this?

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Although unstable as building blocks, DNA can persist in fossils for thousands of years and RNA has been obtained from flu patient remains from the early 1900's.
Science. 1997 Mar 21;275(5307):1793-6. Related Articles, Links

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Again. This has nothing to do with whether DNA is designed. In those flu patients, it WAS designed by preprogrammed code.

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Conclusion: You have not demonstrated that DNA must be designed.

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Your conclusion is a non sequitur, I'm afraid, because it is based on no premises. In fact, you never offered a single premise to show DNA as not designed--all of your examples were examples of DESIGNED DNA--therefore you cannot draw any logical conclusions to the contrary.

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Design Dynamics

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Then there is no DNA to consider and the point is moot. IOW, who cares?

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Why would the point be moot? Different organisms and proto-organisms have different methods of spreading their information from one generation to the next. Your premise began with DNA occurs in all organisms..this is false...and then you proceeded from this false premise into other nonsensical points.

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I'm having a great deal of trouble following your logic here. What does any of this have to do with DNA being designed or not?

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You have frequently errored in equating genes and genomes. Secondly, the genome is a mess only paralleled by the random noise in the transcriptome. This accumulation of junk DNA and retroelements that do not have an effect on phenotype is hardly indicative of a well thought out planned design but are nice evidence of random muation and evolution. In addition, for some of these elements, they have been shown within the human population to still be actively increaseing or decreasing the size of the genome randomly by transposition...this can be observed directly and unless you consider every act of sexual reproduction careful genome design, it hardly demostrates intelligent design. In summary, most of the genome has nothing to do with morphology or function and is just there by mutation and drift (which has been direcly observed) in non-selected sequences...hardly a compelling case for design...where is that direct observation of intelligence in population genetics that you were just about to show me

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This is not science, just your opinion. I'm an IDist and predicted that DNA must be designed in the OP, who's to say then that ID has not predicted this?

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Unfortunately for you and all IDists this is not my opinion..it is exactly the problem with ID in the first place. In any actual field of science, every hypothesis is testable and falsifiable. No IDist has ever proposed a testable and falsifiable hypothesis of ID. Thus, you cannot make predictions that make any sense. I could replace disigned in your sentence above with "made by a sentient tube of toothpaste" and it would not change it or make it valid. You guys are no different from creationists who claim "goddidit" but replace it with "intelligencedidit"..wow, what a breakthrough

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Again. This has nothing to do with whether DNA is designed. In those flu patients, it WAS designed by preprogrammed code.

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This had to do with the stability of RNA and DNA which you implied was relatively poor. try getting rid of DNA contamination in a lab..that is DNA floating around in the air...it is very stable and a pain in the butt to get rid of. In any case, your claim is nonsense. The flu's origin can be traced and lo and behold, the flu virus came from related strains of flu that mutated...not poof bang designed and implanted independently in the 20 million people who died during the 1918 flu epidemic. Your claim amounts to your saying so in the face of the evidence..not providing evidence. What is the evidence that the RNA genome of the 1918 flu was designed?

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Your conclusion is a non sequitur, I'm afraid, because it is based on no premises. In fact, you never offered a single premise to show DNA as not designed--all of your examples were examples of DESIGNED DNA--therefore you cannot draw any logical conclusions to the contrary.

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You should be a comedian...at least this type of statement is enough to make me laugh. Now you want me to prove a negative? Thank you. You have now demonstrated that ID is creationism i.e. invoking the supernatural to explain (without any effect) natural phenomenon. You claimed to have positive evidence that DNA was designed. Not a single one of your assertions is supported by fact. Now you attack me for not showing that DNA is not designed?I'll tell you what, before you even try to provide evidence for ID, why not tell us what the testable and falsifiable hypothesis of ID is in the first place? I see a mutation passed on from parent to offspring and map it to a specific base change in a specific gene and show that it changes a specific protein such that it fails to bind a second protein efficiently. Show me how in such a case you would test for this occurrence being an intelligent design decision? How would you falsify that intelligence was involved?Scientists know broadly but not in all details how DNA replicates, how it is transmitted from one generation to the next, how the it mutates, with what frequency DNA and RNA polymerases incorporate errors, how resultant mutations spread among families, within species and among them. From this data alone, not counting other independent lines of inquiry, the parsimonious conclusion is random mutation and natural selection for some sequences and random mutation and drift for others. This can be demonstrated in the lab in multiple organisms from viruses to primates. All hypothesis of genetics, genomics, evolution can be tested and falsified. How does saying, "an intelligence did it" in any way add to the information that we have? Where is the intelligence in DNA replication. How would you falsify that any intelligence was involved?Until you can do test and falsify ID, it is merely a religious belief and has no place in science.

Actually what he said was... TTFN,WK

My mistake, I should have been more explicit. You said:

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Function is an attribute assigned by intelligence to cause something to cause 'something else' to do something.

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If we're designed by an intelligence, what is our function? As an addition is gravity a function? Since that causes planets to cause other planets to do something. Is gravity assigned by intelligence. Can you actually demonstrate that function is assigned by intelligence? I didn't say there was evidence of gradualism in the fossil record. What I said was that the fossil record shows that life has changed throughout time. I erroneously used the word progress, which was my bad. Let me reiterate for clarity

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The fossil record shows very little but a seeming change of lifeforms that have existed on earth over a long period of time. That is not evidence that the life was designed by an intelligence. What would we expect to see in the fossil record if the creatures were designed by intelligence? I do not think the question can be answered.

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How does the fact that life has changed over time demonstrate intelligence? We both agree that extraordinary circumstances surround the origin of life. I believe it was an environment that we no longer see around us today that we have not accurately modelled yet. There is evidence that the environment on earth was dramatically different when life originated than it is now. Now, where is your evidence that the extraordinary circumstances was not a unique and unknown environment but instead some unknown guiding hand? They have failed with Schneider's Ev program. The program does two things. First is random information generation (loose information), the second is a selection method. If you take away the selection method the information content tends towards 0. When you add the selection method it increases. Thus, loose information coupled with a selection method increases information content. Agree or disagree? The only genuine issue I've seen is that of the selection method used. Which is kind of irrelevant. However, the source code is freely available and Schneider has invited IDists/Creationists to develop new selection methods that show the program to fail. So far they have failed to do so. That's right, looks like descent with modification he is proposing there. Did I see the word 'evolution' used here? No. Evolution comes from 'evolutio' which means unfolding. It implies the end is already known. That is why Darwin didn't use the word (actually in the end he gave up and started using it because everyone else was). As Darwin himself said:

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After long reflection, I cannot avoid the conviction that no innate tendency to progressive development exists

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[Charles Darwin, December 4 1872. Letter to the American paleontologist Alpheus Hyatt.]I'm sure you are well aware, having studied it. One example is Schneider's Ev program. Another is tackled in the radio example above. In fact plenty of examples are discussed in many threads here. The underlying problem with IC is that it presupposes that the function of an ICS has to have remained the same throughout its existence, which is not true. I am not here to defend evolutionism. It has been tackled plenty of times elsewhere. Nothing has yet convinced me that it isn't science, I doubt you are going to change that, since I think better minds than you and I have been trying to demonstrate it as not being science for longer than you or I have been alive. However, I am willing to listen to what IDists have to say. So we are agreed then that something can be designed by natural processes. We can establish that something has been designed, but how can we demonstrate how it was designed at the hands of an intelligence? In order to differentiate betwen intelligent design and natural design you need to establish the intelligent side of it over the natural side. A great way to demonstrate ID (but will probably never happen) is to actually see these blueprints the designer used to develop life.This message has been edited by Modulous, 05-11-2005 11:11 AM

Ok, then it is even more incorrect technically...DNA is also found outside of organisms...and often found floating in the vicinity of those trying to extract neandertal DNA

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You have frequently errored in equating genes and genomes. Secondly, the genome is a mess only paralleled by the random noise in the transcriptome. This accumulation of junk DNA and retroelements that do not have an effect on phenotype is hardly indicative of a well thought out planned design but are nice evidence of random muation and evolution. In addition, for some of these elements, they have been shown within the human population to still be actively increaseing or decreasing the size of the genome randomly by transposition...this can be observed directly and unless you consider every act of sexual reproduction careful genome design, it hardly demostrates intelligent design. In summary, most of the genome has nothing to do with morphology or function and is just there by mutation and drift (which has been direcly observed) in non-selected sequences...hardly a compelling case for design...where is that direct observation of intelligence in population genetics that you were just about to show me

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Well, I don't think I misunderstand genomes, I know they are a mess with tons of noise in there. An IDist would fully expect to find this as a direct result of evolution. This has little to say about the original design. Everything in nature degrades eventually even the universe as a whole until it will die it's heat death. I think you would agree that genomic noise is probably a result of evolution? Then we have no argument on this.

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Unfortunately for you and all IDists this is not my opinion..it is exactly the problem with ID in the first place. In any actual field of science, every hypothesis is testable and falsifiable. No IDist has ever proposed a testable and falsifiable hypothesis of ID. Thus, you cannot make predictions that make any sense. I could replace disigned in your sentence above with "made by a sentient tube of toothpaste" and it would not change it or make it valid. You guys are no different from creationists who claim "goddidit" but replace it with "intelligencedidit"..wow, what a breakthrough

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I agree. Every hypothesis proposed must be testable and falsifiable. Of course, you cannot name me one tenet unique to Darwinism that this applies to, but I'll ignore this for now because by now you've figured out what a nice guy I am.So what tenets of ID do you not think testable and falsifiable? I'm certainly familiar with none. DNA simply does not form from less complex molecules in nature. How is that not testable? We cannot even make it in the lab. We can manage some simple RNA, but not DNA. And this is falsifiable, simply show an example of DNA forming outside an organism and propose a model where this could be done in nature. That's science, not religion. I know you don't want to accept this, but it's a fact.

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This had to do with the stability of RNA and DNA which you implied was relatively poor. try getting rid of DNA contamination in a lab..that is DNA floating around in the air...it is very stable and a pain in the butt to get rid of. In any case, your claim is nonsense. The flu's origin can be traced and lo and behold, the flu virus came from related strains of flu that mutated...not poof bang designed and implanted independently in the 20 million people who died during the 1918 flu epidemic. Your claim amounts to your saying so in the face of the evidence..not providing evidence. What is the evidence that the RNA genome of the 1918 flu was designed?

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Well gee, Mammuthus. I wasn't exactly talking about the DNA from a danged bug splattered across your windshield. I know that we can find pieces of a dead skunk floating down the Arkansas River. But skunks designed that DNA from preprogrammed code most happily donated (I assume) by the mama and papa skunk.And..... right. The mutated flu strain came from another strain it did not drop out of a rock, now did it? Are we talking past one another here?

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You should be a comedian...at least this type of statement is enough to make me laugh. Now you want me to prove a negative? Thank you.

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Well good. This tells me you are enjoying our conversation. We'll see if you still are down the road,

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You have now demonstrated that ID is creationism i.e. invoking the supernatural to explain (without any effect) natural phenomenon. You claimed to have positive evidence that DNA was designed. Not a single one of your assertions is supported by fact. Now you attack me for not showing that DNA is not designed?

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You KNOW it is designed. You will not admit that DNA is designed from pre-programmed code? I'm talking bios logos here. It's you that keeps wanting to throw gods, gremlins and fairies in here hoping (I guess) to persuade someone that DNA can just pop out of a bloody stalagmite???

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I'll tell you what, before you even try to provide evidence for ID, why not tell us what the testable and falsifiable hypothesis of ID is in the first place?

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Nah...Let's stay on topic for now. I will get to that.

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I see a mutation passed on from parent to offspring and map it to a specific base change in a specific gene and show that it changes a specific protein such that it fails to bind a second protein efficiently. Show me how in such a case you would test for this occurrence being an intelligent design decision? How would you falsify that intelligence was involved?

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I would test for it exactly as you do. There is no such thing as an ID biology. But yet you cannot see that the nucleic acids and resulting translated proteins were designed by preprogrammed code. Tell me, do you also believe that Windows XP can just poof out of a goat's butt?

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Scientists know broadly but not in all details how DNA replicates, how it is transmitted from one generation to the next, how the it mutates, with what frequency DNA and RNA polymerases incorporate errors, how resultant mutations spread among families, within species and among them. From this data alone, not counting other independent lines of inquiry, the parsimonious conclusion is random mutation and natural selection for some sequences and random mutation and drift for others. This can be demonstrated in the lab in multiple organisms from viruses to primates. All hypothesis of genetics, genomics, evolution can be tested and falsified. How does saying, "an intelligence did it" in any way add to the information that we have? Where is the intelligence in DNA replication. How would you falsify that any intelligence was involved?

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I never stated intelligence causes mutations. You are putting words into my mouth and attempting to take my argument much further than I initially framed it.

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Until you can do test and falsify ID, it is merely a religious belief and has no place in science.

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Really? Tell me how you would falsify chemistry.

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Design Dynamics

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Well, I don't think I misunderstand genomes, I know they are a mess with tons of noise in there. An IDist would fully expect to find this as a direct result of evolution. This has little to say about the original design. Everything in nature degrades eventually even the universe as a whole until it will die it's heat death. I think you would agree that genomic noise is probably a result of evolution? Then we have no argument on this.

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This argument does not make sense. Some specific sequences are increasing in number, some are decreasing. In some organisms, repetitive DNA is for the most part, not tolerated...so are you then saying that bacteria and viruses are the only species evolving because their genomes are streamlined relative to other organisms? There is no evidence that organisms have degraded. In fact, the expansion of our species across the planet is indication of a higher relative fitness as compared to many other species...though again, bacteria have us beat.

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So what tenets of ID do you not think testable and falsifiable? I'm certainly familiar with none. DNA simply does not form from less complex molecules in nature. How is that not testable? We cannot even make it in the lab. We can manage some simple RNA, but not DNA. And this is falsifiable, simply show an example of DNA forming outside an organism and propose a model where this could be done in nature. That's science, not religion. I know you don't want to accept this, but it's a fact.

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This is a bit of a different argument. On the one hand you are saying you do not accept evolution but now you are talking about abiogenesis. Do you know what the difference between the two are?
Nobody here is going to say we have much information on abiogenesis...but it is still a science as different conditions and scenarios can be tested for their ability to generate replicators i..e one can form a hypothesis about the conditions necessary for the formation of self replicating molecules and test them. Evolution only deals with life once it exists and has nothing to say on the matter of the first replicator. In any case, if the precursor of life was RNA, why would you look to form DNA spontaneously?

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you cannot name me one tenet unique to Darwinism

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which would you like? That related species should be more similar genetically than non-related species? This is tested all the time and could be falsified easily if say a worm was more similar genetically to humans than chimps are to humans.

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But skunks designed that DNA from preprogrammed code most happily donated (I assume) by the mama and papa skunk.

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So, every meiotic event requires design? I did not realize how intelligent an ameoba is when it divides and intelligently assorts each and every base pair after carefully thinking about it. Seriously, DNA synthesis is a simple chemical reaction..why does it require a designer much less an intelligent one every time conception occurs?

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You KNOW it is designed. You will not admit that DNA is designed from pre-programmed code? I'm talking bios logos here. It's you that keeps wanting to throw gods, gremlins and fairies in here hoping (I guess) to persuade someone that DNA can just pop out of a bloody stalagmite???

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Pre-programmed? I do not know that it is designed. I don't assume some magic fairy suddenly created the DNA in my parents so that they could pass it on to me......it was passed on in a chain since the last common ancestor of all replicators. That we don't know what that last common ancestor was is not evidence that at any point intelligent design was involved.

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Really? Tell me how you would falsify chemistry.

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Chemistry is a field not a hypothesis. Pick any current hypothesis in chemistry and you will find it is testable and falsifiable. Intelligent design is the hypothesis that biodiversity can only be explained by an undefined intelligence. This is niether testable nor falsifiable.

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If we're designed by an intelligence, what is our function? As an addition is gravity a function? Since that causes planets to cause other planets to do something. Is gravity assigned by intelligence. Can you actually demonstrate that function is assigned by intelligence?

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I think you misunderstood me. Just because I stated that function is designed by intelligence doesn't necessarily extrapolate to, 'then all things created by intelligence has a function.'And no, gravity and orbiting planets don't have any function that I could define. They are just there or they are not.What kind of demonstration would you want?

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I didn't say there was evidence of gradualism in the fossil record. What I said was that the fossil record shows that life has changed throughout time. I erroneously used the word progress, which was my bad. Let me reiterate for clarity

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The fossil record shows very little but a seeming change of lifeforms that have existed on earth over a long period of time. That is not evidence that the life was designed by an intelligence. What would we expect to see in the fossil record if the creatures were designed by intelligence? I do not think the question can be answered.

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How does the fact that life has changed over time demonstrate intelligence?

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I didn't say that the fossil record demonstrates intelligence, it is just one of the five evidences I listed that work together to support the overall design concept. What I stated was that if organisms did not evolve and are designed fully formed, this is what we would expect to see in the record and this is exactly what we do see. It is just another piece of supporting evidence in the big picture.

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We both agree that extraordinary circumstances surround the origin of life. I believe it was an environment that we no longer see around us today that we have not accurately modelled yet. There is evidence that the environment on earth was dramatically different when life originated than it is now. Now, where is your evidence that the extraordinary circumstances was not a unique and unknown environment but instead some unknown guiding hand?

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No. I don't think we DO agree on this. Your notion of it requires extraordinary circumstances. Mine just requires science and if we choose to view it as a guiding hand then some are glad to calculate and model that guiding hand for you. Can you do this with abiogenesis?

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They have failed with Schneider's Ev program. The program does two things. First is random information generation (loose information), the second is a selection method. If you take away the selection method the information content tends towards 0. When you add the selection method it increases. Thus, loose information coupled with a selection method increases information content. Agree or disagree? The only genuine issue I've seen is that of the selection method used. Which is kind of irrelevant. However, the source code is freely available and Schneider has invited IDists/Creationists to develop new selection methods that show the program to fail. So far they have failed to do so.

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Disagree. Royal Truman, Salvador Cordova and other IDists have taken Schneider's and Adami's work apart.What they are doing is choosing to "select" what they want to keep, and reject what they do not. This was also the basis of Dawkin's weasel deally. Think about it:Flipping 500 quarters and having them all come up heads is statistically impossible. But if I flip them, then intelligently select to keep all the heads and flip only the tails, it won't be long until I have all heads. Information grows.This is what the programs are doing and do you know what everyone but Darwinists call this? Intelligent design.

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That's right, looks like descent with modification he is proposing there. Did I see the word 'evolution' used here? No. Evolution comes from 'evolutio' which means unfolding. It implies the end is already known. That is why Darwin didn't use the word (actually in the end he gave up and started using it because everyone else was). As Darwin himself said:
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After long reflection, I cannot avoid the conviction that no innate tendency to progressive development exists

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[Charles Darwin, December 4 1872. Letter to the American paleontologist Alpheus Hyatt.]

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So you are just going to openly admit here that there is no such thing as a theory of evolution? Are you sure you want me to accept this?

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I'm sure you are well aware, having studied it. One example is Schneider's Ev program. Another is tackled in the radio example above. In fact plenty of examples are discussed in many threads here. The underlying problem with IC is that it presupposes that the function of an ICS has to have remained the same throughout its existence, which is not true.

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No, we do not propose it has remained the same for all time. It could have been much more complex at one time. No one has ever proposed a credible way that the flagellum in E. Coli could have evolved I'll get into Ken Miller's work when I address the first post.

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I am not here to defend evolutionism. It has been tackled plenty of times elsewhere. Nothing has yet convinced me that it isn't science, I doubt you are going to change that, since I think better minds than you and I have been trying to demonstrate it as not being science for longer than you or I have been alive. However, I am willing to listen to what IDists have to say.

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I always learn from people and probably will from you. Thank you for listening.

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So we are agreed then that something can be designed by natural processes. We can establish that something has been designed, but how can we demonstrate how it was designed. In order to differentiate betwen intelligent design and natural design you need to establish the intelligent side of it over the natural side. A great way to demonstrate ID (but will probably never happen) is to actually see these blueprints the designer used to develop life.

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Sure we can agree that nature designs things, mountains, clouds, beautiful valleys with streams, etc. But nature has it's limits. Nature does not design Sony TVs, lawnmowers or people. Here is where we differ as the latter were intelligently designed.But we need not know HOW it was designed in order to conclude it was. I'm sitting here watching my pride and joy, the big screen in front of me, and I would have no earthly idea HOW it was designed as I know nothing about that kind of thing. Do I then conclude it evolved? I mean it's made of atoms just as are kidneys.And I'll let you see the blueprints for the initial design of an organism when you present those for abiogenesis. Neither will ever produce them because we weren't there. It's really rather silly for either side to go there.

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Design Dynamics

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This argument does not make sense. Some specific sequences are increasing in number, some are decreasing. In some organisms, repetitive DNA is for the most part, not tolerated...so are you then saying that bacteria and viruses are the only species evolving because their genomes are streamlined relative to other organisms? There is no evidence that organisms have degraded. In fact, the expansion of our species across the planet is indication of a higher relative fitness as compared to many other species...though again, bacteria have us beat.

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No, I'm not saying that bacteria and viruses are the only organisms evolving, they are just among them. But I'm afraid I presented a study in the university thread done by evolutionary biologists that clearly show the human genome devolving for the last 6 million years, in fact I calculated it right down to the increasing entropy for each generation. Sorry.

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This is a bit of a different argument. On the one hand you are saying you do not accept evolution but now you are talking about abiogenesis. Do you know what the difference between the two are?

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Now when did I say I don't accept evolution? That would be pretty silly since I am an evolutionist. I accept the science of evolution, it is the pseudo-science of Darwinism I reject. And yes, I think I learned the difference between evolution and abiogenesis in about the 10th grade.

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Nobody here is going to say we have much information on abiogenesis...but it is still a science as different conditions and scenarios can be tested for their ability to generate replicators i..e one can form a hypothesis about the conditions necessary for the formation of self replicating molecules and test them. Evolution only deals with life once it exists and has nothing to say on the matter of the first replicator. In any case, if the precursor of life was RNA, why would you look to form DNA spontaneously?

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Because we do not know that the precursor of life WAS RNA. We can surmise this, but we don't know it. All I said was that DNA is not formed outside an organism by nature. This DNA is formed by pre-programmed code, is it not? Then it was designed. Period. You cannot win this argument because I am right!

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which would you like? That related species should be more similar genetically than non-related species? This is tested all the time and could be falsified easily if say a worm was more similar genetically to humans than chimps are to humans.

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Well gee. That's not some unique tenet of Darwinism, that's just common sense. I think everyone knew a long time before Darwin that a Chimp would be closer genotypically to a Gorilla than it would an apple.

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So, every meiotic event requires design?

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No.

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I did not realize how intelligent an ameoba is when it divides and intelligently assorts each and every base pair after carefully thinking about it. Seriously, DNA synthesis is a simple chemical reaction..why does it require a designer much less an intelligent one every time conception occurs?

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Because it does not do so spontaneously, chemically speaking. That reaction is a non-spontaneous reaction that must be caused by something. In fact, it is caused by intellegent pre-programmed code in the long run. Do you disagree with this?

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Pre-programmed? I do not know that it is designed.

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Well if you think that complex code can just poof from the dust spontaneously, then you need to tell Bill Gates to fire all those programmers and just take a walk through the desert ever now and then. Reckon he would run across LongHorn?

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I don't assume some magic fairy suddenly created the DNA in my parents so that they could pass it on to me......

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Good. Because mean people would probably sneer at you.

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it was passed on in a chain since the last common ancestor of all replicators.

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Hmmm....This is only a tenet of your faith. Faith can be defined as the belief in something where there is no evidence to support it, and you have no evidence at all to base this conclusion on.

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Chemistry is a field not a hypothesis.

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Cool. So is ID.

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Pick any current hypothesis in chemistry and you will find it is testable and falsifiable.

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Even cooler; you will find this in ID as well.

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Intelligent design is the hypothesis that biodiversity can only be explained by an undefined intelligence.

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Nope. I'm afraid you didn't even get close with that. ID is not a hypothesis at all. It is an epistemology, I'm afraid.

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Design Dynamics

You have defined 'function' as something that must come from intelligence. Show me that this is true, in whatever way you can. Ah right. So even if evolutionary theory was true, this would be evidence for ID? After all evolutionary theory also predicts that organisms in the fossil record would be fully formed. It also states that they will be in a certain order, and there would be two forms A and C where an organism B would appear between the two. Since ID doesn't do this, its evidence is far from compelling. It only explains what aspect of the fossil record, not all the other properties it has.However, I'll let you have this one as an extremely weak piece of evidence that needs significant support. Are you saying that extraordinary circumstances cannot arise in nature according to the laws of science? That's a bold statement. Both of our scenarios may well require science. One requires that prebiotic earth was very different to the way it is now, the other requires a sentience above and beyond earth/space/time to guide evolution for some reason. Excellent, I'd like to see this guiding hand modelled. You of course know that I cannot tell you how abiogenesis occurs. That is simply honesty, there is plenty of research going into it, and progress is being made. As yet, no insurmountable barrier has been found so we cannot discount it as a possibility. I am happy to accept that God/Bob/XGFT's VII from the Tr'EF! formation created life on earth. I simply refuse to close my mind to the possibility that it was a perfectly natural occurance requiring no sentience. I've read Truman's response. I don't constitute it as taking the program apart. Yes, they choose what to keep and to reject. Nature also selects what to keep and reject. Well, no it isn't impossible, just dramaticaly improbable. Right and if you flipped 500 coins and got 250 heads, and then copied that state randomly fliping 5 of the coins and you did that twice you might get:One collection with 245 heads
One collection with 255 headsWhich would be totally within the realms of possibility. If both of these collections were subject to the same event we might see1 x 240 heads
2 x 250 heads
1 x 260 headsIf having more heads is better for survival then the 260 heads entity is more likely to gain resources than the 240 head monster then we might expect it to reproduce more often, say twice as often. Very soon we start seeing the the number of heads in one of the piles increasing, and the 240 head branch becoming extinct.Ev is using an extreme form of selection. I have already established this, so you don't need to reiterate it. If you, or any one else, wishes to write an alogorithm for the program that matches natural selection more closely, then go ahead.However, we are agreed on the important issue, that loose information and a selection method can increase information. You just believe that the selection method has to have arisen from an intelligent agent and I maintain that it might have, but it could have arisen naturally. You haven't demonstrated the need for the intelligence yet.This message has been edited by Modulous, 05-11-2005 12:31 PM

It is understandable that IDists reject these programs, but the fact is that the modeling of natural processes via computer programs has a long history of success, from meteorology to particle physics to structural analysis to microchips and on and on. Evolution programs and genetic algorithm programs model the evolutionary process of descent with modification and natural selection, and they definitively show what is intuitively obvious anyway: information does not depend upon intelligence.Even the simplest of natural processes creates information. For example, the spectrum of light emitted by a star is encoded in its electromagnetic emissions. The star created this information. If we analyze and record the spectrum via spectroscopy all we're doing is translating information from one encoding to another. Human intelligence is not creating the information about the star's spectrum, only recording it. It does not take intelligence to create information. --Percy

This is the second time you've said this in this thread without offering any support. Finding mammals in Cambrian layers would falsify evolution. The basic process of evolution, descent with modification and natural selection, has been scientifically verified in the lab and wild both morphologically and genetically, and these experimental verifications are open to falsification. Evolution is testable and verifiable.The basic tenet of ID, as I understand it, is not that evolution is unscientific or impossible, but that it is insufficient as a theory explaining the diversity of life.The inherent problem with your version of ID is that it implicitly but inevitably invokes the supernatural. If it were really true that information can never arise via natural processes, then the first life in the universe could only have come about through supernatural means.--Percy

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You have defined 'function' as something that must come from intelligence. Show me that this is true, in whatever way you can.

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That's why I asked you to state what demonstration you might want. There is not one you can think of, is there?Yet, it's true I have defined it as having a link to intelligence because it is intelligence that must conceive it. Think of this series of functions: a motor turns a drive shaft which turns a wheel which gets me down the road. If we logically analyze this, what possible thing in nature could reason out this function and form it? Get down to the simplest function found in nature and it will always be the same logic. The concept of function is reason, not law.

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Ah right. So even if evolutionary theory was true, this would be evidence for ID? After all evolutionary theory also predicts that organisms in the fossil record would be fully formed. It also states that they will be in a certain order, and there would be two forms A and C where an organism B would appear between the two. Since ID doesn't do this, its evidence is far from compelling. It only explains what aspect of the fossil record, not all the other properties it has.

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However, I'll let you have this one as an extremely weak piece of evidence that needs significant support.

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Well, you can let me have it the hard way or the easy way, I guess, but either way it is true. I might also state here that you certainly view Darwinism differently than do others, but I suppose this is your right. Darwin himself stated:"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."You certainly do not seem to believe this, so I'll ask you: how the heck do you think the higher organisms formed if not by numerous, successive, slight modifications, over time?

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Are you saying that extraordinary circumstances cannot arise in nature according to the laws of science? That's a bold statement. Both of our scenarios may well require science. One requires that prebiotic earth was very different to the way it is now, the other requires a sentience above and beyond earth/space/time to guide evolution for some reason.

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Not any that could form a living organism. If there were do you not think someone on your side probably would have mentioned this by now? And nothing in my belief system requires evolution to be guided. I am not a theistic evolutionist.

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Excellent, I'd like to see this guiding hand modelled.

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Great. You can read this post and the one that follows it and tell me how many gods you find in the designer:http://EvC Forum: Foundations of ID

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You of course know that I cannot tell you how abiogenesis occurs. That is simply honesty, there is plenty of research going into it, and progress is being made. As yet, no insurmountable barrier has been found so we cannot discount it as a possibility. I am happy to accept that God/Bob/XGFT's VII from the Tr'EF! formation created life on earth. I simply refuse to close my mind to the possibility that it was a perfectly natural occurance requiring no sentience.

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I know you cannot tell me exactly how abiogenesis occurred. My point is that I hope you can see that similarly, I cannot give you an exact blueprint for design implementation. Conversely, I can certainly stay in science and get a lot closer than do my opponents. Read the above posts and I think you will see.

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I've read Truman's response. I don't constitute it as taking the program apart.

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I think he does.

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Yes, they choose what to keep and to reject. Nature also selects what to keep and reject

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Not using intelligence like those programs do, it doesn't. Natural selection is highly overplayed and could never be responsible for a billions of complex speciations. Never has anyone proposed a credible model how this could happen.

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Well, no it isn't impossible, just dramaticaly improbable.

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Actually, it's mathematically and scientifically impossible. Want to see the math?

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Right and if you flipped 500 coins and got 250 heads, and then copied that state randomly fliping 5 of the coins and you did that twice you might get:

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One collection with 245 heads
One collection with 255 heads

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Which would be totally within the realms of possibility. If both of these collections were subject to the same event we might see

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1 x 240 heads
2 x 250 heads
1 x 260 heads

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But this is intelligence! You aren't randomly doing anything. You are looking at an arrangement of coins, intelligently making a choice of which ones you want to keep and intelligently rejecting the ones you do not want. This could not be a clearer case of intelligent design.

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If having more heads is better for survival then the 260 heads entity is more likely to gain resources than the 240 head monster then we might expect it to reproduce more often, say twice as often. Very soon we start seeing the the number of heads in one of the piles increasing, and the 240 head branch becoming extinct.

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Ev is using an extreme form of selection. I have already established this, so you don't need to reiterate it. If you, or any one else, wishes to write an alogorithm for the program that matches natural selection more closely, then go ahead.

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However, we are agreed on the important issue, that loose information and a selection method can increase information. You just believe that the selection method has to have arisen from an intelligent agent and I maintain that it might have, but it could have arisen naturally. You haven't demonstrated the need for the intelligence yet.

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Yes I have agreed that intelligence can increase information. Please don't try to twist that any differently. Everything you've presented has been intelligence, you just want to call it something else.

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Design Dynamics

My point exactly. That is why I said:

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I do not think the question can be answered.

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twice.You make the claim, now you want me to devise a way of proving it? OK, so now you have demonstrated that a thing that was given function by a known entity, was indeed given function by an intelligence. Now do the same where the entity is unknown. All you have said is that some things with a function are designed by intelligence therefore everything with a function is designed by intelligence. I don't know where you got that from. You say that ID predicts fully formed creatures appearing and that is what we find in the fossil record. I grant you that, but also point out that ToE goes further, and says that they will occur in a certain order. Since they do appear in that order, this evidence is stronger in favour of ToE than ID. That's all I said. So because we don't know what those environments were they could not have existed? That doesn't sound like science to me. Thanks for posting the link. I've read it before and totally disagree with it, but that's another story, right? I know you do, and I think he doesn't. Your point? What intelligence do these programs do exactly? Are you proposing Schneider has written AI? I never said the selection methods were synonymous - actually I think I have said twice now that they weren't synonymous. Actually I have seen the maths thanks. It is not impossible anymore than it is impossible for it to be any combination. If I flipped the coins 500 times, according to the maths you propose the chances of them coming out in the order that they do would have been impossible. I'm doing no such thing! It turns out that nature favours heads over tails. The ones which have more tails than heads survive, but they don't reproduce as much as the ones that have more heads than tails. I was letting the rules of the system dictate what happens. Is this truncation method guided by intelligence? Or was it merely defined by intelligence and then left alone?This message has been edited by Modulous, Wed, 11-May-2005 07:53 PM