Foundations of ID

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I have a habit of throwing in jibes now and then for color, a bad habit which I picked up in high school and have been trying to control ever since. You'll note I thanked the moderator and said I would comply.

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Very well. Every man deserves a chance to keep his word. Now, to help me hone in on what it is you're asking of me, would you please cut and paste from my posts (either the one you linked to or others) where I talked about building a chemical model based on mathematics to show design?Quite frankly, I reread the post you linked to and still did not find anything in there I can interpret as what you're asking. I want to comply with your questions, but I need to understand what those questions are.If you will cut and paste, I'll do my best.Thank you

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Design Dynamics

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I think my questions are very clear at this point, including the fact that at least initially you were suggesting you did such calculations and were interested in discussing how you did them. Please answer the questions.

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They are now that you are not talking about mathematical models and other vague concepts I never mentioned. Wouldn't that throw about anyone? If this is all you're talking about, I can answer your questions. The gist of your question seems to lie in this statement:Jerry: "And don't forget Gibb's free energy and how that forbids the complex organic molecules we are discussing from forming spontaneously. We need stay in science and out of pseudo-science.You have the second law of thermodynamics working against you and you will lose every time when that happens."

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You reply: "I must say I am uncertain where you have gotten your numbers from. It is not like the universe is a giant stew with everything engaging in easily calculatable random reactions. Chemicals form environments which actually make harder or easier future chemical reactions."

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Now I will address it:I get my numbers from past research and the literature, of course, and this is fairly old science. And remember what the subject was, the polymerization of proteins from amino acids of the type that comprise organisms.This occurs through condensation reactions. Also as I have preciously stated, it is not difficult to calculate enthalpy change as dipeptides form from amino acids. This has been done by Hutchens [1] and is shown to be 5-8 kcal/mole.Obviously, work has to be done on this system for a polypeptide to form and in organisms, this work is provided by the organism. But since we are talking about pre-biotic conditions, where did this work come from?Further, in a more generalized form, Morowitz [2] has estimated that the chemical work (average increase in enthalpy) for macromolecular formation in living systems is 16.4 cal/gm. At another place in that same book he states that the average increase in bonding energy in going from simple compounds to an E. coli bacterium is 0.27 ev/atom.Work must be performed on these systems in order that more complex molecules can form to support life. This is just common sense to one who has studied chemistry. They do not form by Darwinian magic. [1] John 0. Hutchens, 1976. Handbook of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 3rd ed., Physical and Chemical Data, Gerald D. Fasman. Cleveland: CRC Press.[2] H. Morowitz, 1968. Energy Flow in Biology. New York: Academic Press, p.79.

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Design Dynamics

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The part of the previous message that Mr. Bauer was responding to was about Hox genes, so it would appear that in this particular case the IDist brought up the bat wing-bird wing comparison, not the so-called Darwinists.

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Guys, now I'm sorry I brought up bat wings, lol. I was not using them in an evolutionary argument. I just stated that if I were a designer, I think I would be smart enough not to reinvent the hub cap for every new car I designed. If wings will work for flight with birds, they will also work for bats, bumble bees and house flies. That's all I was pointing out.

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Design Dynamics

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Yes, the question of where did this work come from is a valid question. The valid answer is for scientists to explore various conditions, environmental conditions, which would have provided the necessary work. I am unsure if it must specifically be peptides or if there could have been precursors to that, but the idea is the same.

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They have. Think of Miller for one.

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So, you seem to be claiming that you have found out where the work came from. Okay, where? Or if it is just that you have ruled out all in situ possibilities, I would like to see those example calculations, and the bases for them.

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No, science never proves anything therefore no one schooled in science ever KNOWS anything. We just lean toward conclusions. Boil this down to the simplicity it really is. Since the laws of chemistry are against chance formation of these complex molecules that make us up, what are the other possibilities, perhaps design by something? How credible would we be to consider this as an option? I mean it certainly works for weed eaters and tables.

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Telling me we know of lab experiments that did not work, or only a certain selection which did work but do not mirror possible environmental conditions is not enough.

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I didn't give any experiments that didn't work. They worked just fine and I was just sharing the results of them with you.

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First, I do not know what Darwinian magic is, but perhaps you can compare that to Designer magic? As far as I can tell they are both concepts which describe an as yet unknown or undefined process which we are seeking... correct?

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Now. I'm an aggressive debater and I'm going to call this like it is, this doesn't mean I'm picking on you personally:Darwinian magic: Elephants magically 'poof' out of amoebas; ape-like critters start giving birth to men in violation of the species definitions in science; pakicetus carves his legs into flippers, poofs up to a giant 100 times as big as he was, bellies off into the ocean and morphs into a whale; reptiloid therapsids supernaturally shove their jaw-bones up into their ears and shoot etherally into mammals.Designer magic: I do understand that some may view quantum mechanics as magic, but I can assure you it is really science.

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Only the latter involves two unknown components, while the first involves only one. Occam's razor eliminates the latter.

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Occam shaves for my side, I'm afraid. Begin with an amoeba, end at a man (if you like), use the process described above in the Darwinian magic paragraph, spell out those poofs a couple of billion times as we consider all the speciations it would have taken to get men from amoebas. A rather complicated scenario, don't you think?Which is simpler, all of that, or that a designer designed man pretty much as he is today? Occam's razor says pick the simplest option and you will be right 83% of the time.

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Second, while work must be done, I am uncertain why that excludes natural (unintelligent) systems from providing the work?

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Like what? If this is credible you are going to have to come up with some scenarios that could form a homochiral protein from amino acids. If you can't, it's just a daydream.

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Hydrocarbons trapped within a "plastic" membrane and exposed to solar or geothermal energy, would be having work done on them, right? And that could include multiple iterations of condensation reactions, almost like a reflux apparatus, right?

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True in that case but it's not the same concept. La Chateliers principle is a law of chemistry that forbids the type of reactions we were discussing. What do you think could have happened in nature to overcome both this principle and the second law of thermodynamics?

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Oh by the way, at the beginning you stated that you were not talking about mathematical models. Where did you generate the statistical results of probabilities of formations then? That would have to be from a model as far as I understand.

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Enthalpies and such of formation are not models, that is true, but probabilities are model based.

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Well, if you want to consider probability math as a model, I suppose you can. We just use the term differently.Edited for clarityThis message has been edited by Jerry Don Bauer, 05-11-2005 07:53 AM

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Design Dynamics

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May I ask a question here? Is it possible to exist an environment (which may change through time) which would be conducive for the formation of life?

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Not one I can think of. Can you? What environment could possible cause homochiral proteins to form our of a racemic mixture of amino acids against the laws of chemistry?

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I ask because I look at these probability calculations and they seem to be saying "Assume all molecules are uniformly distributed throughout the universe and the universe is totally uniform in all aspects...the chances of the right molecules bumping into one another is astronomical!"

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No, I'll even give you a concentrated flask of racemic amino acids. You still cannot form life out of that or come up with any credible scenario of some way it can happen. This would be just pipe-dreaming, wouldn't it?

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Is that how the maths is arrived at? I mean, the chances of CaSiO[sub]3 spontaneously forming is probably quite low. However, given the right environment (blast furnace), its a guarantee. So, the equations to demonstrate the possibility of life should be a range. It should say "A worst case scenario would leave us to believe that life forming is impossible. A best case scenario would have us believe it to be inevitable." A useless equation, right?

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No, it's not useless at all because this is not the same thing. At some point some work guided by intelligence is going to have to come into the picture to separate all the Ls from the Ds in order that only L polypeptides can form from them. There is no environment one can conceive without intelligence in it to cause this.

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My question essentially is this: How have you calculated that the environments in the universe were universally such that it was imossible in all cases for it to form? Did you start at Planck Time and work from there?

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No. Nor would I because this is irrelevant to the discussion.

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Design Dynamics

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Then the entire world agrees with you. Obviously you are not proposing that 'Darwinian magic' is the same as descent with modification, since you would be clearly deluded and certainly not qualified to argue Darwin's ideas. However, if the latter is the case, the armed forces are looking for an engineer to design mock enemies for training purposes. If you believe that an amoeba transforming into elephant is descent with modification and that you can attack the argument in such a manner then you should sign up fro the army job...you have a skill at constructing very easily killed straw men.

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Ahhh....but I did not say how quickly they 'poofed,' now did I. But Darwinism does propose a 'poof' here and there.

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Design Dynamics

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Where exactly?

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I suppose one could pick one of several billion speciations, each or at least most more complex than its predecessor species over a massive period of time. Isn't that poofs?

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Design Dynamics

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But the laws of chemistry are NOT against the chance formation of these complex molecules. They are against the chance formation UNDER SPECIFIC KNOWN conditions. The probabilities are not known given many volumes of conditions.
While someone appearing and creating these things is a possibility, there are still unexhausted avenues of formation from natural mechanisms. Thus jumping to the more complex answer is a bit premature.

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You are just going to have to start naming these conditions. I'm afraid your insistence there ARE conditions is not a very strong argument. What are they?

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This is a tad disengenuous don't you think? The experiments may have worked as experimentd, but what they did not work as is environments where probability of formation were heightened. That is what we were discussing after all.

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You seem to be repeating yourself. There are no conditions where the probabilities are heightened. What would those be? You guys seem to want to ignore the obvious here.

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I'm sorry, are you suggesting some quantum mechanical manifestation is responsible for abiogenesis and speciation?

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No. Just design.

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1) We can see that living organisms change during reproduction from one generation to the next,
2) Certain conditions can affect the ability for members of a generation to breed and so have characteristics pass to the next generation,
3) There does not appear to be any barrier for change in an entire population given time and consistent conditions,
4) We see fossil evidence of previous life starting as simple and moving to more complexity with time,
5) We have no evidence of an entity which lived back then directly interfering with the natural reproductive cycles.
Given those facts, it is rather simple to argue that the same generational cycles we see today, produced the speciation which we have seen over time, rather than positing that an unknown entity we have no evidence of nor explanation for having designed each species and thus intentionally create the speciation.

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And you think that is a simpler concept than just suggesting the organism was designed?

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Yes, your strawman is more complex than the oversimplified version of your own theory and thus Occam would pick that. However as I noted above, Occam would accept the evolutionary theory over one of postulated designer creating unknown numbers of designs.

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He would? How did you ask him this?

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Although I would have to ask, even in your simplified version, why the designer created so many manlike things, and how you can tell the difference between a manlike thing he created which did become us, and a manlike thing he created which didn't?

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What on earth are you saying here, Holmes? What is a man-like thing, maybe a hominid?

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No, its an unknown. Before they showed that urea could be produced through nonbiological means it was believed that only living bodies could produce it. That is a rather commonly taught example in chemistry, cautioning chemists from making the mistake that unknown mechanism means impossible mechanism.
And of course what this means is that there is more work to be done before drawing any conclusions.

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There is no word in science called impossible. Nor do we base theories on unknowns. We have to go with what seems likely.

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On the flipside perhaps you can come up with a scenario regarding the formation of your designer, as well as its ability to interact with stages of life across billions of years and over large geographic areas without leaving a trace beyond the pristine appearance of a new life form.

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Oh, it leaves a trace all the time. Virtual particles form from zero-point energy back and forth all the time. But quantum mechanics were formed in the big bang along with the rest of our universe. I don't think anyone is sure yet what caused the big bang unless you know something I do not.

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Okay, I have absolutely no idea how what you just said actually impacts what I just said. You threw in a name and a thermodynamic law, and simply asserted they go against the reactions I was talking about... how and why? Actually unpack your argument.
As far as I can tell you simple stated two things which control reactions, and asserted they stand against an as yet unknown reaction from occuring.

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Well sheeze....I assumed you knew what I was talking about because I have covered it in great detail HERE. In fact, that post was to you.You cannot name any conditions that would overcome Le Chatlier's principle, can you? If you can, what are they?

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And again, your reference to the 2nd law is troublesome to me. That applies to closed systems. In the specific case I mentioned the sun and earth would have been pouring in energy, which could be absorbed and stored within chemical cycles.

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NO, this is not correct. 2LOT applies to open, closed and isolated systems.

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Probability calculation requires a model, right? How else can you calculate odds unless you have a model of how X functions?

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Now, I thought we covered this; are we going back to models again?

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Design Dynamics

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Did it have to happen in the way you propose? If it is so certainly against the laws of chemistry then all the chemists who are working on doing it are wasting their time? Perhaps they missed the relevant lecture at college and nobody has thought to tell them about it since. I just thought, I guess the people that fund this research weren't told that it was against the laws of chemistry. I think you should probably fire a few emails off and tell the universities about this gross lapse.

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What? I'm not aware of any chemists working on something they think goes against the laws of chemistry. They would be rather silly, wouldn't they, since they discovered those laws themselves?All I did was show how those reactions occur. If you guys disagree with me, then please show how I am wrong. I'm doing science and you guys are coming back with little more than supposition.

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Are you sure this procedure is necessary? Do you know how life has to have formed? I think, once again, some emails should be fired off here. You could get a huge grant.

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Again, I'm just quoting science. I would have no idea how to rebut your email analogy.

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Essentially what you are saying is it is impossible for life to have formed according to the laws of nature.

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No, I'm just pointing out what the evidence shows to be likely and what the evidence shows to be unlikely. You can deal with it however you choose. You can even put blinders on and refuse to look at it at all if you choose. In fact, I support your freedom to do exactly that.

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That's great, we're getting somewhere here. Of course, I would be a fool to take your word on this, so you will of course provide me with relevant papers to back this up? My chemistry is a little sketchy, but I'm willing to have a go, and if you post them, perhaps another chemist here can discuss it with you.

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You want papers on high school chemistry? I would have no idea on how to search for those. I can recommend some chem books to you, I suppose.

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You meant that Elephants come out of amoebas.

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Yeah, but since that in itself is magic, don't you think poof sounds much better?

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I see how I got the wrong end of the stick now. Well, these little 'poofs' you are talking about...do you mean random mutation. You could just say random mutation rather than trying to make the argument look absurd with 'magic' and 'poof' and self carving animals, and 'supernatural' and 'etheral'. Why not just say random mutation, because that is what it is. In fact, if you want to short hand it, just say RM/NS we'll know what you mean.

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No, not RM and NS. There is nothing in those minor changes that could explain an elephant p......coming out of an amoeba. What environmental changes do you ever think could cause that sort of massive change? I have never heard a Darwinist even explain one stark speciation of one vertebrate to another, much less, this.

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Nu-uh. You propose that there is no condition possible where this would occur. That would mean you have explored every single possible environment and how it operates. Have you done this? Or are you making an absolute statement based on incomplete information? Is this scientific?

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What do you mean every single environment? Where are these environments, on earth? You guys won't even explain what you mean by this. We have no unknown environments I'm aware of to even consider. Either early earth was a reducing atmosphere or it was not.Other than proposing a fairy tale environment with little green elves poking things into stem cells or something, I would have no idea how to take this any further.

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Design Dynamics

Ooook! So I finally get to you.

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Right let’s try and nip this one in the bud. My argument is not that molecular phylogenies extrapolate those made by other methods, I’m saying that they confirm them. You can predict common descent using physiological comparisons and then test that phylogenic tree using DNA sequences. If examining the physical features of various features of reptiles, birds, amphibians, fish and mammals suggests that they shared a common ancestor and then diverged from each other at different points in the past then you’d expect to see a similar phylogenic tree when you compared DNA sequences. Where’s the circular argument there?

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If you’re worried about bias, then why not do the tests yourself, or point out why they are scientifically unsound? Oodles of sequences from different organisms have been published and the programs are widely available (along with the statistical assumptions used to make them), so why don’t IDists (or YECs for that matter) show that birds and man came from separate origins?

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But they only confirm them circularly. I'm just pointing out how your detractors view this. And what tests are there for me to do? Researchers don't have DNA going back near far enough to explain the diversity of the fossil record or common descent. If I recall there is only a piddling of mitochondrial DNA dating back about 60,000 years or so. This is not good as this leaves one to speculate a whole bunch on these charts. Science is not supposed to speculate, is it?I don't know anything about YECs, but I would know of no tests that could confirm or falsify that man and bird came from separate origins. Herein lies the problem of Neo-Darwinism. There ARE no possible tests.

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In addition to this, you’ve still got to tackle the hurdle that all IDists fall at. If you are saying that ‘something’ designed life, then what did it do after that? Surely it would have to have created it? Or did it just carelessly leave the blueprints lying around for someone to pick up?

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IOW creation and design are practically the same thing. By saying things like
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I just look at the fossil record. There I see organisms coming into the record fully formed.

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you are effectively advocating an unspecified number of creation events. Why are you so afraid of being labelled creationist?

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Well, if it is important to you to label me a creationist you certainly have my permission, but I am not one. Creationists study creations and Creators usually mixed in with a healthy dose of Genesis. We study only science under the scientific method.There are some similarities, I suppose in that we both see events in the fossil record. You see the Cambrian explosion in there too, don't you? Or do you just ignore it and hope it will go away?

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I don’t know how I confused you here. I’ll try and make it clearer:
You’ve failed to explain the clear progression seen in the fossil record — like a creationist
You’ve flat out denied common ancestry — a classical creationist stance
You’ve indicated that ‘micro’ changes are possible, and that ‘macro’ ones are not — straight out of the creationist handbook*

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If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duckit probably is a duck!

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Then I want to be YOUR duck. From this point on I want you to call me Jerry the Creationist. That is something you want and it will make your day and to me this is very important.

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What’s your take on the age of the earth?

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Ahh...Probably about 4.6 billion years or so. Do you believe this? If so does this make you an old earth creationist? Think about it because they believe this too.

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But these points are just a bit of a diversion really — me going on a bit of a pet rant — so I’ll get back to your points on ID:

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Um...thanks. I was really beginning to wonder if we would ever have a chance to discuss any science. You do seem rather well entrenched in religion.

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Well, the logic is flawed if they bare no resemblance to the situation they are meant to represent. This is error is amplified if people then go on to argue from the analogy rather than use it as a tool. A mousetrap, for example, is used as an analogy of complicated (IC) protein complexes, and the implication always is When was the last time you saw a mousetrap evolve?

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Surely you are familiar with an analogy. They work pretty good in logical argument. So again I ask you. Can you refute the 747 argument? Can you show how a tornado could sweep through a lumber yard and build a house? I mean if you cannot, then they seem like pretty good analogies to me to use to make points about spontaneous complexity.

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When was the last time you saw a mousetrap made up of components which were all made up of the same basic material which could have a variety of properties (from structural stability to dynamic flexibility), and which look suspiciously like other things that are lying around the factory? Similarly, what intrinsic properties of a Cadillac mimic those of a sub-atomic particle? How can a computer reproduce itself?

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Again, your point seems to be going *swoosh*--Aren't Cadillacs and kidneys both made of atoms? How do YOU distinguish between dead matter and live matter. Can you tell me the difference in a dermal cell on a dog's paw one second before the death of the organism as opposed to one second after death? What IS life anyhow, Ooook?

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I think I may have confused the thread a bit here, since it was me who brought this subject up. The important thing about the conservation of structures and the signalling events controlling them is the pattern of conservation. Tetrapod limbs are obviously modified fins, bird wings are modified reptile limbs, and bat wings are modified mammal limbs.

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Obvious to you, I would suppose, but certainly not to me. Where is your experimental evidence to support this? How can this be falsified, and if neither of these apply, then what gives you the right to call this science?

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If you want to use human designers as an example of how a good designer works then I would submit that good designers do re-use and modify old designs, but they also know when to go back the drawing board. If you are told to make something that flew, would you try and modify the front doors of a car into a pair of wings, or would you go and design an aeroplane? Evolution doesn’t have a choice; it has to work with what is already there.

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What if the designer were quantum mechanics. That's who molecular design engineers consider the designer as. So if we don't know anything about the designer, then why surmise on its methodologies? Aren't we really both just blowing smoke here?

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Wait a minute. It’s you that is making the claim that an increase in complexity cannot happen without a designer. Isn’t it up to you to define what complexity is for living things and then to test it? This is what I was saying: ID is missing a workable definition.

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When did I say that? When did I begin answering every question with a question? Ahem...you just asked me if I could calculate something and I said yes if you'll tell me the details. I cannot if you won't tell what it is you wish for me to calculate. But we HAVE defined what complexity in organisms is and calculate this every day. No biggie.

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Aha! A definition! So an increase in gene size absolutely requires a designer, right?

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Nope. Wrong.

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But hang on, can’t duplication events, frame-shift mutations, and insertions all increase the size of genes?

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Yep.

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Where is the designer required?

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LOL...I don't know. I don't see a need for one in that situation. Why do you?

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But the whole point is that the route taken, and the rules applied do affect the calculations.

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Show me this mathematically. I think it will take this for you to understand it.

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Using your coin example: I’m not arguing that the probability of throwing twelve heads with twelve coins will change if I throw them three at a time or all at once — that would be silly. But what if I could throw all the coins, keep all of those that came up heads, and then throw the ones that came up tails again, keep the ones that came up heads.rinse and repeat until I had a row of heads in front of me? The odds would change wouldn’t they?

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Yep. And I would say welcome to the world of intelligent design because this is exactly what we think happened.

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The main thing that calculations like these don’t take into account is the idea that proteins are meant to evolve from other proteins. Proteins are naturally modular in structure, and you see the same basic structures being repeated again and again, across the board. How can you possibly factor this kind of thing into your equations? You need to know about the intermediates.

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Not true. Genes translate proteins. Each codon will encode for a particular amino acid and when that gene mutates, a different amino acid will form. This means that the protein will fold with a different conformational entropy in that in many cases it now is not suitable to do the job the old one did. Either that protein does the job or it does not,

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For example, I’m sure you could plug this protein sequence:
msprsclrsl rllvfavfsa aasnwlylak lssvgsisee etceklkgli qrqvqmckrn msprsclrsl rllvfavfsa aasnwlylak lssvgsisee etceklkgli qrqvqmckrn

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into your equations and come up with a suitably ludicrous number. But what if you already had this one:
msprsclrsl rllvfavfsa aasnwlylak lssvgsisee etceklkgli qrqvqmckrn

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to play with?

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I give, what?

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The fossil record of horse evolution is a wonderful chance for you to show everyone where the designer intervened. So, no assertions about pigs not giving birth to elephants or something similar. Where did the quantum stuff happen?

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I don't see how QM would have anything to do with evolution.

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Similar to the Atheist/Agnostic Agenda you get handed once you start researching evolutionary biology.

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LOL....Ain't THAT the truth.

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Design Dynamics

You misunderstand what the argument from analogy is:Frankenstein is not very smart.
The candidate for mayor looks like Frankenstein.
Therefore, the candidate for mayor is not very smart.That is a demonstration of the fallacy in action. As you can see, it has not a thing to do with what I was discussing with Ooook.You would change the very fabric of modern life if you denied everyone from using analogy to communicate. Teachers use this every day in communicating a concept to students.

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Analogies are exactly useless in a logical argument unless they reproduce the situation being argued about.

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Horse hocky. In fact, if one accurately reproduces the situation then it is no longer an analogy. You don't seem to understand what an analogy is:Analogy: "Similarity in some respects between things that are otherwise dissimilar."Analogy Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com

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Aircraft do not f**k!

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Nonsense. You've never heard the term take a flying f**k?

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Design Dynamics

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In this case the analogy you use doesn't even look like the subject under discussion. This is not the fallacy.

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Um...it's not supposed to look like the subject under discussion. Then it wouldn't be an analogy. LOL....You are cracking me up dude. Post to someone a little more on your level. Leave me alone, you are trolling me.

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Design Dynamics

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Also, why do you assert that there has to be mathematics or lab experiments for a historical, inferred science to be valid?

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Ahhh.....Did you know that if you guys could come together admitting that this is a historical, inferred science and not a science based on empirical experimentation, much less something BEYOND a theory of science even to the level as to be FACTS of science setting Darwinism as above the other theories that your problems might dissipate? Many Darwinists (picture Eugenie Scott) simply do not tell the truth. The public is on to this and wouldn't trust her any further than they could throw her on ANYTHING in science.

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Modern horses have only one toe on the end of each limb, but their predicespors had multiple toes.

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Modern horse legs are therefore less complex, because they have fewer toes, right?

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Not necessarily. It would depend on our approach.

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Design Dynamics

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Jerry, in the end is there anything specific to Darwinism and/or ID that DOESN'T depend on the particular approach scientists decide to take a priori?

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I thought about that.I think maybe that above it all IDists are in general agreement that naturalists do not take an honest approach to science. It's almost that they see things they want to see in science and draw unwarranted conclusions where a science purest would just never draw a conclusion at all.One could even begin to question if there could be some religious motivation in that. I liked Ooooks very honest statement to me. I think he probably is a scientist as his words are fairly wise. He mentioned something and compared it as being: "Similar to the Atheist/Agnostic Agenda you get handed once you start researching evolutionary biology."That is a right-on statement, but why is it that when one begins researching evolutionary biology they must agree to be fed an atheist/agnostic agenda? I feel this is because atheists and agnostics have taken over academia and we need look no further than the National Academy of Science to see why."When queried about belief in "personal god," only 7% responded in the affirmative, while 72.2% expressed "personal disbelief," and 20.8% expressed "doubt or agnosticism."Page not found - American AtheistsThe NAS is not representative of real people at all. 93% of them are atheists or agnostics.There I think we find why they cannot look at science as science. They must use their science to push a religionist agenda.ID wants science to be science again. No religion anywhere in it. Just science, and there may be the difference in our approach.

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Design Dynamics

Ok. Thank you for your posts! I am out of here people, as I think I have had made my case. If any of you care to take the discussion further, you can easily find me at my home page linked at the bottom of each of my posts.To those readers who perhaps lean toward ID or are even neutral that have been following these posts closely, it is easy to see the bias on this forum and why I am not welcome, nor is anyone else who can actually argue the ID issue actually welcome here. (Follow Nitwit Ned's posts to me, lol)Among my points:1) ID has been directly tied into science. One example of this is the work of English physician William Harvey, considered by many to have laid the foundation for modern medicine. Harvey was the first to demonstrate the function of the heart and the circulation of the blood based on his conception it was designed and 'here is how I would have designed it, had I been the designer'. Scientists Robert Boyle and Newton used teleological technique similarly.2) There is no such thing as an ID biology, ID chemistry or an ID physics. We study science just as anyone else does using the methodological naturalism inherent in the scientific method. It does not make anymore sense to ask to see scientific papers on ID than it does to demand to see scientific papers on dualism. There is no such thing as ID research because we research biology just as other biologists do.3) I pointed out that most of the science we use today in the lab was brought to that lab by teleologists, many of them Christian creationists. These creationists consist of such notable scientists as Lord Kelvin, Faraday, Harvey, Boyle, Pasteur and Newton.4) I have noted that ID has not a thing to do with "gods" and have shown this concept to go back at least 300 years before Christ to the great debates of ancient Greece. Aristotle, Socrates, Plato and Diogenes, were just a few philosophers to see design in certain systems.Socrates (who held no beliefs of a personal god as none of them did) once commented:"Is not that providence, Aristodemus, in a most eminent manner conspicuous, which because the eye of man is delicate in its contexture, hath therefore prepared eyelids like doors, whereby to screen it, which extend themselves whenever it is needful, and again close when sleep approaches?And cans't thou still doubt Aristodemus, whether a disposition of parts like this should be the work of chance, or of wisdom and contrivance?"5) I introduced the work of Ludvig Boltzmann who formulated the formula S = K log W, where S is the entropy of a given system, K is Boltzmann’s constant, 1.38 x 10^-23, and W is the total number of possible microstates in a given system.Although S here can certainly be used to quantify the states of energy, it can also be used to quantify the states of matter. In fact, this was what Boltzmann designed the formula to do. He was an atomist (rare in his day) and developed the formula to show the entropy of the arrangement of atoms (matter) in a gas. It would be Max Planck who would later tie this formula into energy.6) A genome works at its "best" when it is new and right after initial design just as in the design of an automobile--this is when geneA translates ProteinA perfectly--consisting of the right amino acids in the right sequence where it will fold with the right conformational entropy to be a cause of the effects that govern the organism at its maximum efficiency.Deleterious mutations encode for different proteins than the original gene and the genome deteriorates when this happens because the new translated protein may not be able to do what the old translated protein did. Since harmful mutations destroy useful information in the genome, mutational meltdown is sometimes the result of this. Thus, we can view this phenomenon as maximum information degrading to the point where information = 0.7) I pointed out that Darwin's notion of macroevolution is in direct violation of the second law of thermodynamics in that: Mathematically, S represents entropy and 2LOT states as a tendency that spontaneous events yield S2 > S1. But Darwin was a science flunk-out and he was so silly as to assert that with spontaneous speciations the tendency is bass ackwards: S2 < S1.8) I then detailed WHY Darwin was wrong and introduced a testable hypothesis unique to ID:As loose information is diffused, information entropy will tend to increase unless energy, guided by intelligence, is added into the system to stabilize it.In other words, since genes are loose information (information that is not "fixed" in a manner it cannot change as it diffuses, like a library book or video tape) we do not expect to see macroevolution via increasing information content due to random mutations in a population of organisms over time as Darwin asserted.In fact, we would expect to see just the opposite: a devolving genome by the increase of harmful mutations and that species headed toward extinction as we have observed 98% of the species doing in the fossil record.9) I then introduced a paper from Nature by evolutionary biologists Eyre-Walker and Keightley showing a study where the human genome has done exactly this over a period of about 6 million years. The genome has deteriorated at the rate of 1.6 accumulating deleterious mutation each generation.10) I then introduced the mathematics to show this deterioration of the human genome in order to quantify it: I began by throwing out a formula from The University of New South Wales, physics department: This states that W will equal a factorial relationship of the differences of what we are considering (accumulating deleteriously mutated genes as opposed to the rest of the genome) or W = (41469.4 + 1.6)! / (41469.4)!(1.6)! ~ (So let's just calculate our weight and then we can go to Boltzmann's math to calculate entropy.W = (41469.4 + 1.6)! / (41469.4)!(1.6)! --- 3.66 x 10^173494 / 2.14 x 10^173487W = 1.71 x 10^7Now we can do Boltzmann's math:S = K log W, S = (1.38 x 10^-23) log(1.71 x 10^7)S = 9.98 x 10^-23There is more than one way to skin a cat, of course. I can stick joules and degrees Kelvin in Boltzmann's formula for the math purest, but most no longer do this.This math shows the macroevolution inherent in Darwinism standing refuted both scientifically (the study) and mathematically because our final calculation shows increasing entropy in the human genome and therefore disorganization in that genome for the last 6 million years. There is no evidence it has been any different in the annals of human history.11) Additionally, I discussed CSI (complex specified information and showed how to calculate it and introduced another tenet unique to ID:Specified information is inversely proportional to the probability of an event occurring. Once the specificity reaches 1 chance in 10^150, or 500 bits if expressed in information content, it is simply impossible that nature could have caused the event.Finally, I introduced positive evidence of ID not one tenet of which was refuted. Now this forum can go right back to their intellectual discussions of ID without one IDist on here to actually refute anything. Cool. Catch you on the flip-flop! Jerry

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Design Dynamics