Distinguishing "designs"

Hi Neddyboy.I pretty much agree with you, because you don't seem to have made the mistake of saying, therefore the whole universe has no intelligent input.Parsimony doesn't give us the ability to infer anything of great significance, like Dawkins has argued.One main point here, which is important to this issue, is that of the possibility of intention by a posited designer, and function. VERY easy to look at poor function, and think that it shouldn't be that way, without considering the designer's intentions.With the racing car example, the person doesn't know the intention of the designer, so this can show that if we do not know God's intentions, then we might incorrectly concluded something about him.So, yes - you seem to have the scientific support, that evolution works without a designer.The problem is the appearance-of-design, as you and Para' have hit on. I concede that the evolutionary mechanisms seem to show that there is ONLY an appearance of design, BUT there is aesthetic design to consider, and the potential goal of said designer. You can make a ferrari, or a skoda. I am confident enough to posit that the ferrari was made to be a bit more aesthetically pleasing.For a God-believer, it is hard to swallow that not only is there this Jesus guy - but that it looks like things are designed. Talk about being set up for disapointment. Lot's of people, such as you perhaps, are natural pantheists and are absolutely amazed by the diversity of life and all the cool little species, from the gibbon to the fowls in Ned's forest. If God is a person, he might also have intended a glorious universe, like I intend a glorious painting when I do my artwork.(Refer to RAZD's God-art topic)The good thing is - the lack of answers enables us to not be forced to believe or not believe. I envy your position, as it would sure be easy to just conclude in one's head, that god isn't necessary - and then one can atleast not have all the obligations that come with belief.Well, I could go on all day, but Para' says my posts are already too long and boring a prospect.

Not only that, but it indeed prevents us from making the mistake of inferring things we don't really need in our explanation. That's why what you say next is so surprising: I'd say that for parsimonious reasons we should not posit a designer if we can have a simpler explanation - in this case evolution - but here you go, not only positing a designer, but evoking the designer's intentions as well, thereby stacking one unparsimonious assumption onto another. Why don't we suppose that maybe the designer's mother-in-law had something to do with it? Or the designer's troublesome bowel movements one particular morning? Or perhaps the designer was a three year old, mucking about in the sandpit, who knows?The list of things we could consider is endless, and it goes from bad to worse if we allow combinations of those things to enter into it. So that's exactly why we have the principle of parsimony: to curtail our fantasies on what might and might not be elements of our explanation. Best to keep it as short and simple as possible.Besides, you are also turning the ID argument around: after first inferring a designer from excellently functioning living things now it becomes OK to make the same inference from poorly functioning living things. Odd, that. There's only one answer to that, I suppose: "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Of course, I never said that. But it's nice to see that you're making progress.

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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.

That would be God as ArtistEnjoy.

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Officially, my position is that there is the genuine logically sound conclusion Ned stated, that there is no designer required for evolution. (similar words.)It is not mutually exclusive and it is also logically sound, to hold that a God could exist, with intentions for the universe he would have made.No arguments thus far, have refuted logic itself, which soundly permitts that a God could exist.Yes - you can posit the pink unicorn, but you ASSUME God is "made up". The P.U. IS MADE UP. First prove God is made up.I have highlighted it for you; BUT we are only talking about evolution.If you think the conclusion that evolution needs no designer somehow has a baring on the possibility of God's existence then I'm confused.You can't officially infer anything about God's existence, from this issue. "Fantasies" doesn't prove that God is a fantasy. It must be assumed he is. This is why epistemology allows for "truth" outside of human knowledge. This is why atheists will not grow to their correct agnostic position in life, because biases such as "fantasies" don't come from the principle of parsimony - they come from the atheist ideology, which is Dawkin's error.That I mention God doesn't mean I am saying that God is involved - I have not argued for God. I merely hold that God possibly exists...As for the boring post bit, just humour, as I thought you might read my post. ONLY pertaining to the direct claim.Unless there is a theory of everything, your comment can not be applied to the "whole" picture. Nobody is involving God - as I have agreed that God is not required.We are not scientific beings that live in a scientific bubble, only concluding scientifically. I observe many beliefs that are reasonable. My only reason to not allow the possibility of God, is atheist argument. No objective reasonings require this.(I'm just trying to be clear in this post, sorry if I come off as an asshat who thinks he knows everything, I assure you, I fall woefully short in many areas.)

Parsimony has the ability to makes us think of the mundane. Perhaps the fact that something is parsimonious speaks of a much order that we take for granted.What inferences can be drawn by looking at the laws of nature? If chaos were the unthinking thing we associate with it, would we expect a design or an inimitable law to come out of it by mere happenstance?I've made cursory glances at the chaos theory, but there is something that seems so implausible about uniformity deriving from chaos. Indeed, I have made a similar argument. But at the same time, if one wants to assert that the universe, and all contained therein, was intelligently designed, they will no doubt point to systems that apparently obviate those characteristics.In this way, proponents of the design inference have to say that design is obvious. But what of the seemingly arbitrary? What of the so-called 'poor designs?' It would be easy to simply say that we don't know the mind of the Designer, and therefore can't make assumptions about what those Designers intents were.But by the same rationale, how can we also then say that design is simple to see? The way I see it, is that there is room for both intent and chance. I will try and touch on this point in more depth as the dialogue goes on. I see no way that evolution in the beginning stages, or life in general for that matter, can be deduced when nothing literally means, no thing. If there was no thing, not matter, not time, not space, not energy, what deductions can we actually make? Why only the appearance though? If we look at something like the sexual organs of males and females, what kinds of inferences can we make? Given that the ToE categorically states that life began to proliferate via asexuality, what kinds of odds are we talking about for both a female and a male of the same specie, evolving at nearly simultaneous moments, with completely compatible sex organs, down to the sperm and the egg?Sex organs make great arguments for design, but more specifically, of irreducible complexity. This is because the sex organs could not have derived slowly, with slight, successive gradations because they never could have procreated without all of the components in their right place, at the right time. If God is the Great Artificer, as I believe Him to be, can this description be reconciled for a deist-- given that deism claims that God created, then stepped back? If God did not intend for anything, then we can't very well refer to Him as an artist, since art is an intentional endeavor, with intended results. Which is why that one famous atheist said that evolution has made it possible to be a satisfied atheist. Well, then I hope I was not also being verbose.

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"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy course; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat." -Theodore Roosevelt

Hi Nem. You sure covered a lot of stuff there. I'm very tired so I'll address what I can, but the evolutionary issues, well, I am not an ardent proponent of any position these days, so I willlet others debate you on them. My problem is that you can apply it across the board, but we can only use it on what we have. For all we know, without God, the universe itself could not contain itself. Yes. Is that a bad thing though? Afterall, we can only claim our bible is true, I think freewill is important and would hate to force my beliefs on others.I don't think we need tehologies to support us, just the brains God has given us.And agree with your link. I think many many people are comfortable critics because they themselves have only envy for those in the arena.Good to hear your opinions, I am open minded to possibilities.

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Parsimony has the ability to makes us think of the mundane

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Well, I was meaning that if parsimony exists, and chaos exists, why would chaos be anything but chaotic-- not ever lending itself to pattern?Wouldn't parsimony more highly represent intent? And if it does represent intent, isn't that indicative of a cognizant mind acting upon that intent?Very simply, isn't the fact that parsimony exists a better indication of some sort of higher intelligence?

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Which is why that one famous atheist said that evolution has made it possible to be a satisfied atheist.

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Only if that is the hope through self-manipulation. In other words, if its true, then no it couldn't be called bad. But if it were not true-- that people invent for themselves satisfying reasons not to believe, then any abjuring of the truth would be bad. Well, it would never work. And who would want to anyhow? Forcing someone to love God is no love at all, but rather, some mechanized approach that masquerades as love.

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"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy course; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat." -Theodore Roosevelt

Why not? Cool down Brownian (i.e. random, chaotic) motion and this is what you get: And this is what mathematicians investigating chaos theory stumbled upon: To me, both have a very "designed" look about them. But I'm not weird about it. I don't tie myself up to insist there must be some thinking entity behind them. That's what cursory glances tend to do, making things seem implausible. Take a better look and check out "strange attractors". They have "uniformity deriving from chaos" written all over them. Please stop making this argument, you've been around this forum long enough to know that evolution only comes into play when things exist, no one claims that evolution also explains the origin of the universe. Here's how males and females may evolve from an asexual being:(Step 1) Forget to recombine your single helix before splitting off a cell
(Step 2) Combine two single helix cells into one double helix cellThis is sexual reproduction by uniform sexes. A good start.Now, with the same amount of resources you can either:(Step 3a) Make your sex cells smaller and more numerous (sperms)
(Step 3b) Make them bigger and less numerous (eggs)More numerous sex cells give the genes they contain (an identical set for all of them) a better chance of succeeding in finding an egg. Bigger sex cells give the genes they contain (again, an identical set for all of them) a better start in life. Both strategies are advantageous for the respective sets of genes that cause them. Mutations in the direction of either strategy will be favoured by natural selection and the sexes will diverge. This is a process that can proceed by numerous minimal steps, obviating claims of irreducible complexity.

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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.

I saw a snowflake and something that looked like a Rorschach inkblot test. I don't know what I am supposed to make of it. Can you give me a little more detail? Then where does deterministic law come in to play, since physical laws, by their very nature, are deterministic?

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I see no way that evolution in the beginning stages, or life in general for that matter, can be deduced when nothing literally means, no thing. If there was no thing, not matter, not time, not space, not energy, what deductions can we actually make?

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Well, that seems awfully convenient. Cosmic evolution ---> chemical evolution ---> biological evolution. Is that not a very condensed version of the supposed events? Aside from sexual proliferation being far more costly than asexual proliferation, I wonder why nature would have selected such a reproductive method when mitosis seems far simpler.The stepwise gradation you've supplied, though it is anecdotal, seems plausible enough to begin to at least theoretically entertain the idea. But I wonder how difficult it would have been to have had both sexes with fully operational sex organs that were compatible with one another simultaneously.One could see, theoretically, how the two sexes became distinct, but I scarcely see how they would just so happen to fully functional and compatible. If proliferation is the stated or unstated goal of life, then mass reproduction seems like a winning ticket-- which bacteria and viruses are phenomenal at, and obviously vastly better than organisms that propagate through means of meiosis.What advantages did sexual reproduction have over asexual reproduction that ensured sexual reproductions survival alongside the asexual method?

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"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy course; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat." -Theodore Roosevelt

One result of sexual reproduction is that the sets of genes of the parents get shuffled and combined. The result is increased variation in the population, and a better chance of having a winning combination available when some kind of big environmental crunch happens.

The "inkblot" is in fact the so-called Mandelbrot set, a graphical representation of a mathematical object in the complex plane. There's a world of mathematics behind it, which you can explore if you Google "Mandelbrot". The bottom line is that there is beauty and "design" in the set on which you keep zooming in. I found a nice site about the Mandelbrot set that has a very nifty Java-applet to explore the set. You'll be amazed, I promise you.What I meant by showing you these picture is that simple, but above all unthinking, principles, can lead to eerie examples of seemingly designed structures. If you look into the subject of strange attractors, you'll find that some deterministic laws yield chaotic behaviour which sometimes settles down in uniformity. It's beyond the scope of this thread to go into any further. Not so much convenient as rather a simple fact. In the opening post, NosyNed specifically limited this thread to biological design/evolution. Just as difficult as any other organ. In the beginning there may not even have been sex organs because fertilization took place in water. Later, just bringing the gametes together by close body contact might have been enough. Later still, some indentations/protuberances might evolve, et cetera. Evolution proceeds in many small steps, remember?

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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.

Rob goes on about design in other threads but is absent from this one.

This thread is the place where you can explain how the "design" of life does look like it is the product of intelligently design as compared to the other kind of design we know about.This is based on your message Message 290From that message:
The apparent design of life is NOT from "nothing" or from "random" processes. I would have thought you would have finally understood that by now.Edited by NosyNed, : No reason given.

Actually I think it was an oversight.Ray

Maybe Ray you should actually read this thread then.The point is that we have known apparent designs that we also know are NOT designed by an designer. There are processes which can produce them.The designs that you point to as evidence are exactly those kind of designs. Thus the evidence you use is powerful evidence that there is no intelligent designer.