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Author Topic:   Distinguishing "designs"
jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 16 of 73 (414910)
08-06-2007 9:55 PM
Reply to: Message 15 by Doddy
08-06-2007 9:46 PM


You keep returning to issues I have already addressed.
Also, creating strawman arguments.
No, it isn't possible to conclude that, unless we know the will of the designer.
I'm sorry, but we can still judge the products REGARDLESS of the will of the designer.
We are judging the product. It is irrelevant what the will of the designer might have been.
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.
Again, I have said several times I am not addressing optimal design as a criteria. Do I need to repeat it yet again?
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).
Again, irrelevant. I am simply addressing the characteristics we see in the biological critters and comparing them to a standard of what minimal human design would be.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

This message is a reply to:
 Message 15 by Doddy, posted 08-06-2007 9:46 PM Doddy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 17 by Doddy, posted 08-06-2007 10:24 PM jar has replied

  
Doddy
Member (Idle past 5910 days)
Posts: 563
From: Brisbane, Australia
Joined: 01-04-2007


Message 17 of 73 (414916)
08-06-2007 10:24 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by jar
08-06-2007 9:55 PM


Re: You keep returning to issues I have already addressed.
jar writes:
We are judging the product. It is irrelevant what the will of the designer might have been.
Well, you concluded in message 10 that the designer was either Inept, Incompetent, Ignorant, Inelegant, Inefficient, Inexpert, Insensible or Idiotic.
I'm telling you that if the designer had in fact been skillful, competent, knowledgeable, elegant, efficient, expert, sensible and genius, it still could be possible to have the bad designs we see today, if that was the will or intent of the designer.
jar writes:
I am simply addressing the characteristics we see in the biological critters and comparing them to a standard of what minimal human design would be.
You often hear people talk of how 'things aren't built like they used to be'. Human designers have gotten cleverer, and they know that if they build things to last, then they won't sell as many products as if they make them to break. Perfectly intelligent and rational beings, deliberately choosing something that is just barely good enough to be sold, but not good enough to last. They fulfill their design criteria beautifully.
How do we know something similar isn't going on with the design of living critters?
Edited by Goddy, : formatting

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This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by jar, posted 08-06-2007 9:55 PM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 18 by jar, posted 08-06-2007 10:31 PM Doddy has replied

  
jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 18 of 73 (414918)
08-06-2007 10:31 PM
Reply to: Message 17 by Doddy
08-06-2007 10:24 PM


Re: You keep returning to issues I have already addressed.
You often hear people talk of the 'good ol' days', and how '
things aren't built like they used to be'. Well, the designers have gotten cleverer, and they know that if they build things to last, then they won't sell as many products as if they break after a while. Perfectly intelligent and rational beings, deliberately choosing something that is just barely good enough.
How do we know something similar isn't going on with the design of living critters?
Well, if you can show a profit motive for designed obsolescence in biological critters, then perhaps you may be able to make a case.
So far all you are doing is the same thing that the Biblical Inerrancists do, Theology by anything that can be made up.
As I said upthread, it is possible to make up most anything.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
 Message 19 by Doddy, posted 08-06-2007 11:06 PM jar has replied
 Message 24 by mike the wiz, posted 08-07-2007 2:33 PM jar has replied

  
Doddy
Member (Idle past 5910 days)
Posts: 563
From: Brisbane, Australia
Joined: 01-04-2007


Message 19 of 73 (414921)
08-06-2007 11:06 PM
Reply to: Message 18 by jar
08-06-2007 10:31 PM


Re: You keep returning to issues I have already addressed.
jar writes:
Well, if you can show a profit motive for designed obsolescence in biological critters, then perhaps you may be able to make a case.
It probably won't be a profit motive, but a motive nonetheless. But of course I can't show it, that wasn't my point.
jar writes:
As I said upthread, it is possible to make up most anything.
Well, I'm not trying to prove to you that this is true. I'm just trying to say 'what if X'. I can conceive of a situation (regardless of there being evidence for it or not), that invalidates your argument that 'bad design, if indicating designer, indicates bad designer'. It can be considered purely hypothetical.

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This message is a reply to:
 Message 18 by jar, posted 08-06-2007 10:31 PM jar has replied

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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 20 of 73 (414925)
08-06-2007 11:40 PM
Reply to: Message 19 by Doddy
08-06-2007 11:06 PM


Re: You keep returning to issues I have already addressed.
I can conceive of a situation (regardless of there being evidence for it or not), that invalidates your argument that 'bad design, if indicating designer, indicates bad designer'.
Yes, it is possible to make up anything. I have agreed with that several times.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
 Message 21 by Doddy, posted 08-07-2007 3:07 AM jar has replied

  
Doddy
Member (Idle past 5910 days)
Posts: 563
From: Brisbane, Australia
Joined: 01-04-2007


Message 21 of 73 (414939)
08-07-2007 3:07 AM
Reply to: Message 20 by jar
08-06-2007 11:40 PM


Re: You keep returning to issues I have already addressed.
If your argument was truly valid, no hypothetical situation could invalidate it.

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This message is a reply to:
 Message 20 by jar, posted 08-06-2007 11:40 PM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
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 Message 27 by NosyNed, posted 08-07-2007 4:19 PM Doddy has replied

  
Parasomnium
Member
Posts: 2224
Joined: 07-15-2003


Message 22 of 73 (414953)
08-07-2007 5:37 AM
Reply to: Message 8 by Cold Foreign Object
08-06-2007 3:12 PM


Straightforward logic
What you call straightforward logic, most people would call common sense. And whereas logic is a rigorous tool that requires a certain amount of skill for its proper use - which not everybody can muster - common sense is what it says on the box: common.
But the trouble with common sense is that it's usually rather superficial in its rigor. For example, it is common sense - at least, it was for thousands of years - that the sun rotates around the earth. Everyone can see that the sun moves through the sky and that the earth is fixed. But when you dig deeper and apply real logic to the data, as people started to do one day, you can come up with a better explanation, one that also accommodates for some anomalies that common sense conveniently ignored, or tried to explain away with fantastically elaborate ad-hoc reasoning. (An example being the retrograde movement of the planets.)
It is the same with the apparent design in the biological world: common sense tells us that the design we see in nature points to a designer. We conclude this because we are so used to seeing design in our own society and always knowing for certain that there is a human designer behind it. So, naturally, when we encounter the appearance of design in nature, we seek to identify the designer.
But we forget that there may be other possible explanations: it may be that the design we see is just a simile of design, i.e. that what we see is not really design, but just looks like it. It may also be that it is real design, but that this real design can also arise without the need for an intelligent agent. Before we conclude a designer, we should first investigate these possibilities.
Personally, I am leaning towards the second possibility. I think that the human eye, for example, is an organ that is designed for seeing. It has a number of specialized parts that work together in a precise - but emphatically not perfect - way to achieve the objective, which is to produce images of the outside world and send them to the brain.
But the evidence about the development of the human eye points to a haphazard process in which it gradually evolved from simple beginnings to what it is now, en route taking some wrong turns, which the process of evolution is principally unable to correct. An example of this haphazardness is the so-called "blind spot", where the optical nerve goes straight through the retina. The human eye would be better designed if the optical nerve did not have to pierce the light-sensitive layer. But once it has evolved that way, there is no turning back. Had there been an intelligent designer involved, the design would probably not show these characteristics.
In conclusion, I think that the design we see in nature is real design, but a blind process is responsible for it, rather than an intelligent designer. I come to this conclusion because, to my mind at least, there is no doubt that some structures are designed towards a specific use, but this design also shows evidence of a gradual, automatic generation. Parsimony then demands that without further evidence we should not posit an intelligent designer.
Edited by Parasomnium, : No reason given.

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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 23 of 73 (414964)
08-07-2007 10:36 AM
Reply to: Message 21 by Doddy
08-07-2007 3:07 AM


Re: You keep returning to issues I have already addressed.
If your argument was truly valid, no hypothetical situation could invalidate it.
Nonsense. It is possible for someone to assign any characteristics to an imaginary creature.
As I mentioned up thread it is the same tactic used by the Inerrantists to explain away the contradictions in the Bible. It is called the Theology of Anything I can make up.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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mike the wiz
Member
Posts: 4752
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 24 of 73 (414986)
08-07-2007 2:33 PM
Reply to: Message 18 by jar
08-06-2007 10:31 PM


Designers
So far all you are doing is the same thing that the Biblical Inerrancists do, Theology by anything that can be made up.
He made two very important points actually.
1. " it still could be possible to have the bad designs we see today, if that was the will or intent of the designer."
2. " deliberately choosing something that is just barely good enough to be sold, but not good enough to last. They fulfill their design criteria beautifully"
It depends on what the intention of the designer is. If you look at a race car, you could say the designer is an idiot BECAUSE the tyres cook after a few miles, the engine only lasts a few hundred miles, the parts cost thousands, the fuel economy is the worst ever, it's uncomfortable, etc, etc, etc..
Ofcourse, that all changes if the designer designed it to last for one race.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 18 by jar, posted 08-06-2007 10:31 PM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 25 by jar, posted 08-07-2007 2:39 PM mike the wiz has replied

  
jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 25 of 73 (414988)
08-07-2007 2:39 PM
Reply to: Message 24 by mike the wiz
08-07-2007 2:33 PM


Re: Designers
As I mentioned in Message 23 and many times up thread, it is always possible to make up anything.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

This message is a reply to:
 Message 24 by mike the wiz, posted 08-07-2007 2:33 PM mike the wiz has replied

Replies to this message:
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mike the wiz
Member
Posts: 4752
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 26 of 73 (414993)
08-07-2007 3:13 PM
Reply to: Message 25 by jar
08-07-2007 2:39 PM


Re: Designers
It is acceptable to reasonable people, to test the implications of someone's claims.
Goddy shown that a design can be bad, on purpose. That has nothing to do with make-up things or people who argue badly, creationists or whoever.

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NosyNed
Member
Posts: 8996
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 27 of 73 (414998)
08-07-2007 4:19 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by Doddy
08-07-2007 3:07 AM


Good or Bad Isn't the Original Issue
My OP point wasn't that the pparent designs are good or bad but that they fall into two categories: one of these is that produced by observed evolutionary algorithms and that we see, on a small scale, produced in living things.
Comparing these two classes of apparent design we see that living things follow the evolutionary process produced type (good or bad -- with the right selective pressures I don't see why it can't be very, very good indeed.).
Since the samples of this kind of apparent design that we know about are all produced without intelligence in the design process it is a resonably position to say that this is indeed apparent only. Good or bad they are not intelligent designs.
The homology argument was put forward. This also supports the evolutionary process rather than the ID process. In human designs we see not homology as it shows up in living things but the precise design (in fact the actual object -- e.g., radios in cars). We don't see old solutions re-sculpted to handle new environments in intelligent design. We see a "start-over" kind of solution.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 21 by Doddy, posted 08-07-2007 3:07 AM Doddy has replied

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Doddy
Member (Idle past 5910 days)
Posts: 563
From: Brisbane, Australia
Joined: 01-04-2007


Message 28 of 73 (415035)
08-07-2007 8:28 PM
Reply to: Message 27 by NosyNed
08-07-2007 4:19 PM


Re: Good or Bad Isn't the Original Issue
NosyNed writes:
Since the samples of this kind of apparent design that we know about are all produced without intelligence in the design process it is a resonably position to say that this is indeed apparent only.
You can't just assume that what we see in living things is made without intelligence in order to prove that the design we see in living things is produced without intelligence. It begs the question.
NosyNed writes:
We don't see old solutions re-sculpted to handle new environments in intelligent design.
I see no reason why a designer would not co-opt an existing framework or object to solve a problem. Just as a car manufacturer may use an existing engine for a new car model, a designer may use the motor of a Type III Secretory System for a motor in a flagellum.
Edited by Goddy, : clarify

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This message is a reply to:
 Message 27 by NosyNed, posted 08-07-2007 4:19 PM NosyNed has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 29 by NosyNed, posted 08-08-2007 12:53 AM Doddy has replied

  
NosyNed
Member
Posts: 8996
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 29 of 73 (415062)
08-08-2007 12:53 AM
Reply to: Message 28 by Doddy
08-07-2007 8:28 PM


Samples and Solutions
NosyNed writes:
Since the samples of this kind of apparent design that we know about are all produced without intelligence in the design process it is a resonably position to say that this is indeed apparent only.
Goddy writes:
You can't just assume that what we see in living things is made without intelligence in order to prove that the design we see in living things is produced without intelligence. It begs the question.
I wasn't assuming that. The samples in living things are NOT all life just those smaller samples that we have observed to evolve.
NosyNed writes:
We don't see old solutions re-sculpted to handle new environments in intelligent design.
Goddy writes:
I see no reason why a designer would not co-opt an existing framework or object to solve a problem. Just as a car manufacturer may use an existing engine for a new car model, a designer may use the motor of a Type III Secretory System for a motor in a flagellum.
And the use of an existing engine as an engine is hardly comparable to a secretory system being turned into a motor. That is exactly the difference I'm talking about. A somewhat stretched analogy might be the starter motor in one model being beefed up by redirecting A/C output through it to make it into the main driving motor for the rear wheels to make a higher traction 4 wheel drive car out of a front wheel drive. That is what we see in live it is not what we see in humanly designed things.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 28 by Doddy, posted 08-07-2007 8:28 PM Doddy has replied

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Doddy
Member (Idle past 5910 days)
Posts: 563
From: Brisbane, Australia
Joined: 01-04-2007


Message 30 of 73 (415083)
08-08-2007 3:21 AM
Reply to: Message 29 by NosyNed
08-08-2007 12:53 AM


Re: Samples and Solutions
NosyNed writes:
the starter motor in one model being beefed up by redirecting A/C output through it to make it into the main driving motor for the rear wheels to make a higher traction 4 wheel drive car out of a front wheel drive. That is what we see in live [sic] it is not what we see in humanly designed things.
Yes, we see this sort of thing in humanly designed things. Junkyard Wars is a prime example. Another is overclocking a computer. Unconstrained human design may not do this recycling and reusing, but more constraints will force a designer to resort to reusing and recycling.
Edited by Goddy, : quote box

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