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Member (Idle past 1478 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
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Author | Topic: A thought on Intelligence behind Design | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
MrHambre Member (Idle past 1392 days) Posts: 1495 From: Framingham, MA, USA Joined: |
The point is not that certain things are or are not IC. It's extremely convenient that you should limit IC to structures too small to fossilize and therefore extremely difficult to establish any sort of developmental pathway in detail.
However, my argument is that using IC as evidence for Intelligent Design is presumptuous. Why is this property (however it's defined) your automatic proof of Intelligent Intervention? What is it about this particular property that justifies an inference of Intelligent Design?
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zephyr Member (Idle past 4549 days) Posts: 821 From: FOB Taji, Iraq Joined: |
quote:Extremely convenient. It's awfully fertile ground for an argument from ignorance. I'm a fairly intelligent person and I have a hard time following technical discussions in that area. Even so, I knew enough to lose interest in Behe's book when he began building them up as a refutation of unguided evolution.
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MrHambre Member (Idle past 1392 days) Posts: 1495 From: Framingham, MA, USA Joined: |
I agree. Behe went to great lengths to point out molecular machines for which (at the time of his writing "Darwin's Black Box") there existed precious little evolutionary analysis, then turned around and claimed that the proof they were Intelligently Designed was the fact that scientists had only speculated about possible evolutionary pathways!
Recall that Behe was the person who claimed that scientists would never establish a plausible ancestral sequence between land mammals and cetaceans, mere months before Thewissen and co. started digging up whale fossils with legs. Nostradamus he ain't.
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Warren Inactive Member |
MrHambre<< However, my argument is that using IC as evidence for Intelligent Design is presumptuous. Why is this property (however it's defined) your automatic proof of Intelligent Intervention? What is it about this particular property that justifies an inference of Intelligent Design?>>
I never claimed to have proof of ID. ID is an inference. My ID inference hinges on the fact that molecular machines are machines (as all machines are IC at some level). They are not like machines - they are machines. What's more, life itself is machine-dependent (which means evolution, as we have observed it and its evidence, has been driven by machines). Now, I do indeed find it unlikely that machines are going to come into existence through random shuffling of parts that were not originally part of the machine, especially when the process of random shuffling is machine-dependent itself. But that's merely a supplemental consideration. The primary consideration is that experience leads me to connect machines with an intelligent origin. Call me crazy but I confess to assigning machines to engineering-type causes rather than rock-forming causes. Something about effects of the same kind being assigned to the same causes. Not enough to establish design, but enough to cause me to suspect it. [This message has been edited by Warren, 06-25-2003]
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MrHambre Member (Idle past 1392 days) Posts: 1495 From: Framingham, MA, USA Joined: |
quote: You're proving my point that Behe and his acolytes use metaphor and analogy in lieu of evidence or testable hypotheses: if molecular machines are (or are even just like) machines, then anything true of machines can also be said of molecular machines. I mentioned before that ID assumes what it is trying to prove. An inference of Intelligence already assumes that the only thing capable of producing machine-like phenomena is Intelligence. In fact, these same biological structures we're discussing are the things that run counter to your assumption, since there's no evidence that these machines (or anything else in biology) were the products of Intelligence. Therefore you have no reason to use them as support for your inference. [This message has been edited by MrHambre, 06-25-2003]
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Warren Inactive Member |
quote:
It's extremely convenient that you should limit IC to structures too small fossilize and therefore extremely difficult to establish any sort of developmental pathway in detail. Zephyr<< Extremely convenient. It's awfully fertile ground for an argument from ignorance. I'm a fairly intelligent person and I have a hard time following technical discussions in that area. Even so, I knew enough to lose interest in Behe's book when he began building them up as a refutation of unguided evolution. >> There's nothing convenient about it. This just happens to be where the design inference is the strongest for me. The evidence for design comes from matching cause and effect. For example, scientists did not expect life to be built around a highly optimized code. They did not expect life to be built around so many sophisticated and elaborate molecular machines. But they did expect to easily solve the origin-of-life puzzle after the Miller-Urey experiments. If life was not built around encoded information and sophisticated machines, and if the Miller-Urey type experiments did lead to nice theories/demonstrations of abiogenesis, I would not suspect design at all. I thought we all agreed that the OOL and evolution were separate topics. Therefore, explanations that may apply in evolution don't apply at the OOL. So on what basis should I assume that the process that produced the mammalian middle ear is the same process that produced the flagellum? [This message has been edited by Warren, 06-25-2003]
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MrHambre Member (Idle past 1392 days) Posts: 1495 From: Framingham, MA, USA Joined: |
No one mentioned origin-of-life, we're talking about the assumption that ALL MACHINES ARE THE PRODUCT OF INTELLIGENCE. Where is your support for this assumption, seeing that it is the basis of your inference? You want to call a flagellum a machine, that's fine, but the only reason you feel justified in invoking Intelligence to explain its origin is because you've already decided that ALL MACHINES ARE THE PRODUCT OF INTELLIGENCE.
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Warren Inactive Member |
Mr.Hambre: "An inference of Intelligence already assumes that the only thing capable of producing machine-like phenomena is Intelligence."
There is no evidence that non-intelligent processes can produce machines. We do know that intelligent agents produce machines. Therefore, there is sufficient reason to suspect ID was behind the origin of molecular machines. Is this absolute proof? No. Could new information erase this suspicion? Yes. But right now, based on what we do know, ID is a reasonable inference. [This message has been edited by Warren, 06-25-2003]
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1466 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
There is no evidence that non-intelligent processes can produce machines. What, every time I see a stick lying on a round rock, I'm supposed to believe that somebody forgot their lever? A wedge (a simple machine) can never form naturally? (Looking in a rock garded, I see that they can and do.) I think you're overlooking the simple machines that all complex machines are based on; things like cams and levers and wedges. Also you seem to be overlooking circuit design through genetic programming, especially in cases where GP produced a circuit that did something much more complicated than what the programmers were trying to get.
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Brad McFall Member (Idle past 5032 days) Posts: 3428 From: Ithaca,NY, USA Joined: |
There was some quip by Pascal's brother about the "reason" behind Pascal's device but admitedly this would not speak for any computation device analog and digitial together.
But when it comes to Pascal's division of THINKING in terms of geometry, mecahanics and arithemetic less thought is currently given to this than Leibniz's take which can either intellectually end run with relativity theory or ... well others already say the alternative.
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Brad McFall Member (Idle past 5032 days) Posts: 3428 From: Ithaca,NY, USA Joined: |
Yeah, is that a "statement" or a "question" for as to the post I should know, I BSM, wrote it without any knowledge of any changes between my fingers and your screen.
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MrHambre Member (Idle past 1392 days) Posts: 1495 From: Framingham, MA, USA Joined: |
A very wise man (okay, it was Wounded King) once summed up IDers' logic thus:
quote: And that's about the size of it.
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Warren Inactive Member |
Crashfrog<< What, every time I see a stick lying on a round rock, I'm supposed to believe that somebody forgot their lever? A wedge (a simple machine) can never form naturally? (Looking in a rock garden, I see that they can and do.)>>
I was not referring to a "simple machine" like a stick falling over a rock. When I refer to a machine I have in mind Behe's definition of an irreducibly complex system consisting of many well-matched parts. You are comparing apples and oranges. A simple lever and fulcrum found in a forest is different from a mulicomponent, closely matched, magnificent molecular machine. I can't prove molecular machines were designed. But I do find design to be the best explanation for the origin of a machine. One thing is clear. The Darwinian paradigm did not lead us to *expect* the existence of molecular machines. Folks like Haeckel and Huxley originally expected life to be very simple at its core - a slimy protoplasm that fell together with the right ingredients. And even until the last few decades, the cell had been viewed as a membranous sac that contained a soup. As it turns out however, cells are built around incredibly intricate molecule architectures populated by all kinds of really neat molecular machines. I read where one biologist referred to life as carbon-based nanotechnology. In biology, scientists commonly treat life as if it were technology employing codes, circuitry, sensors, feedback controls, molecular machines, etc. Yet if pressed, most biologists would argue these are only handy metaphors. A literal interpretation would argue these are literal machines, codes, sensors, etc. Life is technology. And evolution is an expression of this technology, not some side-effect. [This message has been edited by Warren, 06-25-2003]
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1466 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
When I refer to a machine I have in mind Behe's definition of an irreducibly complex system consisting of many well-matched parts. If you're referring to "molecular machines", I don't see how the molecules in the flagellum could be any better "matched" than any other chemical interaction. Honestly I see this as just equivocation on the term "machine". Machines are traditionally referred to as artifacts created by humans to serve some specific utility. Since the flagellum wasn't designed by humans or any other entity we know of (if it was designed at all), how can it be labeled a "machine"? Are machines the only things in your view that can do anything?
I can't prove molecular machines were designed. ...And evolution is an expression of this technology, not some side-effect. Again, this just appears to be equivocation on the word "machine".
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
So Warren, now you're back where are those testable ID hypotheses ?
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