Distinguishing "designs"

This belongs in ID.The "design inference" has gotten a lot of traffic at EvC recently. The ID movement claims that where you see apparent design there must have been a designer.My view is that we have two examples of design types and design processes which produce them.1) Human (known intelligent) Design.These designs strive to be as simple and clearly understandable as is possible for the situation. They use standard parts in many cases. They borrow from one another across whole classes of product. (spark plugs in cars and lawn mowers).2) Evolutionary Algorithms Design (known to be unintelligent).These designs can be weirdly incomprehensible. They may have totally non-functional parts in them. Parts only arise from what was there before not from what is used anywhere else.My contention is that we can make a very clear separation between the two classes of outcomes. Biological organisms look like the product of the second "design" process.ABE
On and Off Topic
I'd like to see this include a discussion of design and the characteristics of it.This is about the "design" of biological organisms. It is not about the origin of life or the laws of nature. They are the background in which we are working.Edited by NosyNed, : added a bit

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

But these algorithms are designed (known to be intelligent), so the evidence of such systems in operation would be evidence for the design of those systems ...Enjoy.

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We are talking about the output of such algorithms. If we back up to the formation of the laws of chemistry etc. We are in a different realm than ID is working when it comes to the apparent design of living things.Weather the naturally occurring evolutionary algorithm can arise without being intelligently designed is the next question. I don't know if there is enough information available to answer that question right now. I haven't thought about it enough. Maybe that is the next topic. The problem is that the sample of that kind of thing that we have, the evolutionary algorithms we use, are deliberately modeled on the biological one. We haven't thought of another kind that isn't modeled on those so unlike the outputs of our design and the outputs of evolutionary algorithms we don't have anything to compare and contrast.I might also argue that the specific implementation of the algorithms is designed by us but that the basic form of the algorithm is simply copied from nature. Whether that algorithm is "designed" is then the next question. I'd say that it is a simple consequence of imperfect reproduction under selection and that is going to be hard to call "designed". I'd be interested in your comments on that in the thread you start to discuss it.

That's not so much a problem as rather the beauty of it. The closer we can model evolutionary algorithms so as to precisely mimic biological evolution, the better we can compare the types of design they both produce. If we then find that the design characteristics of evolutionary algorithms closely match those of biological evolution, then we have a strong case against ID in the sense that the products of evolution themselves are almost certainly not intelligently designed, even if we're not sure whether or not the process of evolution as a whole is designed.

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin.

RADZ complains: But these (human designed) algorithms are just a set of rules for mutating, selecting, and propagating the variations of separately input code to see if improvements with respect to some criterion can be achieved. The genetic algorithms are like the physical laws of the universe that allow for such mutations and variations. The separately input code is like the starting molecules in "some warm little pond". So, one might protest that the fundamental laws in this case had intelligent input, but the fact remains that the operation of these algorithms is a Darwinian evolutionary process and does produce new and novel structures (usually of electronic circuits and software modules) with greater complexity and new information.However, RADZ is correct in stating that the anti-evolutionary crowd will just try to blow this off as examples of intelligent design. They have already done that. Perhaps a more compelling example of the use of Darwinian evolution in the lab is combinatorial chemistry (q.g.) where the distinction between the underlying structure or laws (rules for combinatorial construction) and the materials upon which these rules act is more evident.

The former type of design may have non-functional parts too. For example, electronics manufacturers may find it easier to print the same circuitboard and just disable some feature to make the low-end model.((I'm just arguing as an IDist for fun. I don't necessarily agree with what I'm posting))Edited by Goddy, : No reason given.Edited by Doddy, : clarify, because aliases don't work how I want them to

That is right because it is straightforward logic.Design indicates Designer.Evolution special pleads design to not indicate Designer based on mandatory philosophical requirements that do not allow God as an explanation or interpretation or, of course, a conclusion.When observation is ignored in favor of an antonym ("design" indicates mindless processes) then (Atheist) philosophy parading as science is confirmed.Ray

(Biological) Evolution is a phenomenon. It does not speak, and it does not "plead", it just happens.Perhaps you mean "evolutionists". Evolutionists do not claim that design does not indicate a designer. They frequently claim that any superficial appearance of design in nature does not indicate a designer, because natural selection can produce that effect.Perhaps you mean the Theory of Evolution. The T of E does not include a biological designer at present because it is evidence based, and there is no evidence for such a designer. There is nothing in the theory of evolution that states that we are or are not in a created universe. It's compatible with either philosophical view.It's important to remember that "design" and "appearance of design" are not the same things.Of course design indicates designers.

Most of my life has been related to design. Over the years I have been a technical writer, trying to explain the functioning of something designed, and also to act as the intermediary between the designers and the users; a systems designer in the Cable Television industry designing CATV systems from the tiny (one serving about twelve houses at the base of a damn) to large ones over a thousand miles in extent; a computer programmer designing applications and networks and even some language work; in the fire service helping design tactics, procedures and even hardware and most recently, designing webpages.There are significant differences that I can see between things designed by some intelligent (or in the case of Windows, semi-intelligent) entity and the designs we see in nature.One key difference is in the area of rapid adoption of good ideas and cross implementation.Good design adopts good ideas regardless of the source. An advance in one field is often adopted and implemented in other unrelated fields, and a good idea is very quickly adopted throughout the originating field. In fact, the process of adoption is so pervasive that we have had to create rules and regulations to limit the practice.We call those rules, Patent and Copyright.A second major difference in intelligent design is that in all cases, there is a predetermined goal and specified outcome. It could be to build it cheaper, or make it last longer or appeal to a market segment or get into production faster, but there is always some initial design criteria.As I pointed out in Message 8, we do not see those characteristics in biological critters.Biological systems seem to have only one criteria, to be just good enough to last long enough to reproduce. Advances in one area are not incorporated and extended across all critters. There is no appearance of some predetermined goal or objective. There is no need for Patent or Copyright since there seems to be little or no adoption and co-option of ideas, of design.While many may argue that they see apparent design, there is no indication of a designer. The only avenue they have is the unsupported allegation that if there is design there must be a designer. However, if they make that assumption, then looking at the outcome, biological critters, the only possible conclusion seems to be that ID stands for Inept Designer or Incompetent Designer or Ignorant Designer or Inelegant Designer or Inefficient Designer or Inexpert Designer or Insensible Designer or Idiotic Designer.If there is a Designer that is responsible for the specific biological critters, then the Designer is an Idiot who needs to be fired.If there is any case to be made for ID, I can only see it at the very basic levels, for example having a goal that life should continue and designing the process "Evolution" as the answer.

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Unless there is some deep reason for an intelligent designer to give his or her creation less than optimal designs, in which case only the very intelligent designer would do that.Behe makes the analogy, in Darwin's Black Box, of not spoiling his children with the best toys, because he wants them to learn the value of a dollar.

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But I am not addressing optimal design. Rather what I addressed were design concepts, the adoption of good ideas across the spectrum and how that is seen in one type of design but not in the other.What we find in biological critters is nowhere near best, but just barely good enough to get by, and in fact, almost universally insufficient to get by. Far more species have failed QC than have succeeded. Even among the extant species reproduction is usually a failure.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

But if your viewpoint was one of independant creation of certain features, then any homology would in fact represent an adoption of a good idea across a certain fraction of a spectrum. For example, the tetrapod forelimb is considered a good design, so the designer used it in lots of animals (and in those where it wasn't a good idea, like Anurans, the designer changed it).

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Yes, it is possible to make up a case to justify any position you want. The question is does it then stand up to examination.The facts though are that if there is a designer who designed beyond the very most basic level, and by that I mean at the forces and process level, then the designer is incompetent.When we look at biological critters, the norm is failure. A I said above, even among extant species the norm is reproductive failure.

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No, it isn't possible to conclude that, unless we know the aim of the designer. If the designer was trying very hard to get optimum designs, but failed, then I'd agree. But we don't know what the designer was thinking, so for all we know it could have been perfectly intentional and for good reasons. We can't say either way - it is a mystery.Anyway, there is no reason, apart from the obvious religious beliefs of the creationists, to assume that the designer was all-good and all-powerful. That isn't the viewpoint of ID proponents (well...not officially anyway).Bad design can still be intelligent designs. Just the designs of a perfect intelligence ones.Edited by Goddy, : clarify

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