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Member (Idle past 1510 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
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Author | Topic: A thought on Intelligence behind Design | |||||||||||||||||||||
Peter Member (Idle past 1510 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
I have said a few times that I feel intelligent design
to be a tautology ... but having read varous posts over the last few months I have changed my mind. If we take design to be the production of a system which issuited to a particular purpose (note: not designed for that purpose, but the result is suited to it) then we do not require any intelligence behind the design. An algorithm that produces electrical circuits or landscapedrawings is performing design, but has no intelligence behind it. Heritable variation + natural selection operates to 'design'biological systems to suit a particular set of environmental constraints. Viewed this way evidence of design is not evidence of'intelligent design'. To find the intelligence behind a design requires somethingelse. Doesn't that reduce ID to a search for the designer?
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Peter Member (Idle past 1510 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
Well I never thought it was anything else, but I hadn't
thought of a clear and logical way of asking the question before.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1510 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
I was hoping for some kind of ID comment on any ideas
here .... ah well. In essence I am asking why ID uses 'evidence' of design toinfer a designer, when it can be shown that evolutionary processes can produce 'designed' objects.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1510 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
Still no takers?
No IDer's tuning in at the mo'?
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Peter Member (Idle past 1510 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
It seems to me to be even more insidious.
The definition of 'irreducible complexity' doesn't itselfpreclude step-wise development of the IC system. I have not seen any proof of 'IC cannot evolve' ... andopened a thread sometime ago suggesting it was an argument from incredulity. The main thing I was looking at here was the relationshipbetween 'design' and an 'intelligence' behind the design. It seems to me that ID focusses on the idea that 'design' automatically requires an intelligent designer ... so allthey look for (as far as i can see, correct me if I am wrong) is 'evidence' of 'design' and then say 'See!!' Given the 'genetic programming' model of evolution, and thehighly complex results leads me to conclude that 'design' is possible via mechanistic process being directed by some form of selective pressure. This removes the need for intelligence. We then need to look at any complex system and see if we canfind the fingerprints of intelligence ... more importantly to consider what such fingerprints might look like. The focus of ID has been on D when it should be on I.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1510 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
In science we pu forward hypotheses ... if they can be refuted
then we must conclude that the hypothesis is inaccurate. ID proponents say 'this could not have evolved.' This statementis refuted as soon as someone can present a biologically feasible route by which the evolution could have happened. This has happened over and again. This (in any other scientific discipline) would lead a proponentto the possibility that the argument is not quite right (at least). To then say 'But you don't know that that IS what happened.' isirrelevent (it's unsupported for a start). The test was 'cannot evolve' the refutation is the 'it could like this'. It's that simple.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1510 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
I'd also add that I think it unlikely as it would
proove impossible to build a safety case for a design that no-one knew how it worked. In aerospace safety is paramount, and there must always becomplete traceability in the event of a failure.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1510 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
All (1) says is that life has the appearance of design.
We are not disputing this ... genetic algorithms suggest thatwe do not require an 'intelligent designer' to produce complex, patentable designs via an evolutionary process. (2) is one way of looking at the fact of biological systems.Fundamentally biological systems are vastly complex chemical systems ... the emergent property of which is life. That many of us find it hard to beleive that such things couldhave come about by chance is not suprising ... evolution isn't about chance ... it's about filtering out the bits that are better suited to the prevailing conditions. The question rasied here is about the inference of 'intelligence'behind these 'designs'. With Mount Rushmore we don't need inference, we know it wasdesinged. If we find a watch in a field we assume design becuase we know about watches (and in our experience watches are built by people) ... but what about primitive cultures, like those that thought the conquistadors mounted on horseback were some kind of centaurian gods, or that aircraft were great silver birds? What evidence points to 'intelligence' when there is evidence thatpoints to 'designed' objects coming out of non-intelligent processes ... life is a 'dumb design' not an 'intelligent design'.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1510 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
So what claims does ID make based upon irreducible
complexity? I thought it was along the lines that 'IC systems could nothave evolved in a step-wise manner by succesive small changes therefore they must have been designed 'as is''.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1510 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
It's not that they just happen to have a useful sub-function
at all. Your argument shows that you have a (possibly sub-consious)assumption that the current function of an IC system was it's intended function all along. This is not the case. The sub-function (in Darwinian terms) provided some kind ofselective advantage and was passed on. Combine a number of such effects and you get (not by random chance but by reason of utility) complex interactions that cannot be backward decomposed without breaking them. It's not about chance ... it's about utility. And it's avoiding the subject of the OP::: If evolutionary process can be shown to produce complex,apparently designed objects (genetic algorithms producing patentable circuits) then we have separated 'design' from 'intelligence'. Showing that something can be considered 'designed' is no longersufficient to support ID ... one must show 'intelligence'. How does ID show 'intelligence' if 'design' does not requireit? [This message has been edited by Peter, 06-19-2003]
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Peter Member (Idle past 1510 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
quote: Why take that particular stance? I thought you were seeking evidence of ID ... your comment aboveis founded in the framework of ID being the correct proposition. If you believe that something indeed has an intended function you are automatically assuming intelligent design (since only an intelligent designer can have an intent). quote: Try a web-search on current ideas for the evolution of feathers. I read an article in Scientific American about research intodevelopmental biology wrt evolution. They have suggested a possible route to the evolution of modern avian feathers based upon the current growth and development of such. To support this they have uncovered fossil evidence of the stages along the way. quote: First, the program is not designed to achieve a specific goal(what would be the point of that?). By a process of reproduction and mutation the circuit output is compared to the desired output. Those that match best are allowed to reproduce (and random mutations are introduced). In one case, when the target signal was an oscillator, the processproduced a radio receiver. I always see the argument 'Yes but the program was intelligentlydesigned.' But the program simply runs the 'rules of nature' that are suggested by evolutionary theory. ...and how does the phenotype feedback into the genotype in thisprocess anyhow??
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Peter Member (Idle past 1510 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
I think your discussion at this point is in line with
my original question in this thread. ID proponents spend a lot of time supposedly identifyingdesign ... and then infer intelligence. If a mechanistic, dumb process can produce 'designs' thenthat inference is inappriate. What is the evidence for 'intelligence'? That's basicallywhat I have been asking.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1510 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
It's always been my assumption that those who insist
on intelligence behind the universe have problems relating to the possibility that we are just here, and that's all there is to it. Some people seem to need to feel that they are part of somegreater purpose. IDer's would doubtless claim otherwise, and say that evidenceof intelligent design is staring us all in the face ... and then forget to tell us what that evidence is. That life 'looks' designed is a reasonable (if subjective)statement. They need to show me the 'intelligence' though.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1510 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
I argued in another thread that the 'sign' of an
'intelligent design' was simplicity ... which didn't go down well with IDer's, but kind of died through then abandoning the train of thought ... funny that.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1510 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
Some people talk about how wonderful the human body is too ...
but try doing an FMEA on it sometime ... you'd never get it through a design review team!!!!!
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