A thought on Intelligence behind Design

Warren,You say
"There is no evidence that non-intelligent processes can produce machines."But there is. Conway's Game of Life is a perfect example. (I'm assuming you're familiar with it. If not, feel free to surf the net for information about it.) It produces complex structures that do things. A simple example would be a small structure that walks diagonally across the grid. If a machine is something more or less complex which is capable of doing something, then this is a machine: a machine that can walk. Yet the simple rules of the game state nothing about such emergent behaviour, they simply determine what happens to one cell of the grid as a result of the tally of "life" in the neighbouring cells. Nothing at all is said about the formation and behaviour of structures larger than one cell. And yet, here we are, staring in disbelief and awe at a running Game of Life and seeing this walker ambling by. And how about this: a lot of structures that arise in the Game of Life exhibit oscillation and it's sort of shockingly funny to watch a walker crash into such a beautiful flower-like structure and disrupt it completely.So, the walker is designed perfectly for walking (or disrupting other things), the oscilators are designed perfectly for oscillating, yet the algorithm behind it all is a dumb application of three simple rules, repeated over and over again, on a grid initially seeded with random noise. No intelligence there, just a stupid algorithm, a bit akin to a chemical reaction. Methinks this is "evicence that non-intelligent processes can produce machines."Cheers.[This message has been edited by Parasomnium, 07-16-2003]

( Peter, if you'll allow me: )Warren,You say,
"4. When asked what type of data about the flagellum would cause you to suspect ID, you are stumped."Say I were to pick up such a flagellum (bear with me, I know of the practical impossibility of the scene I'm sketching) and I would say "My, that's a fine flagellum, I wonder how it came to be." Then I'd take out my eye-piece and would study the flagellum up close. I'd turn it over and to my astonishment I'd see some small lettering on it. It would read:"Made in Heaven - For propelling purposes only - Pat. pend."Now, that would constitute proof of intelligent design. (Especially the fact that They would have thought of patenting it.) Until some such story is reported in the media (and believe you me, it would be the scoop of the century, nay, the millennium) I think we'd better stick to simpler, testable hypotheses and not introduce unnecessary elements into the story, for which there is not a shred of evidence from other reliable sources, and which cannot be tested anyway.Something else. You keep hammering on the teleological origins of biological features. All right then, may I ask you what, in your opinion, is the purpose of choking? Or the blind spot? Or the appendix?By the way, Warren, could you please respond to my expos about the Game of Life as an example of design without intelligence? (See message 125.) I would appreciate it.Cheers.

Everybody in this thread:Please read "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" by Daniel Dennett, if you haven't already done so. It spells out that there is a big difference between intelligent design and just design. Read it and you will understand that evolution does not exclude design per se. On the contrary, evolution is all about design and how it came to be. It's just that there is no need for a designer.So, read it and save us all a lot of trouble explaining things.Cheers.

Dear all,I think that if we would ever find that there is a certain goal toward which evolution’s design is progressing, we might suspect intelligence. (Well, 'agency' at least.) Or if it would be established beyond reasonable doubt that there is a 'meaning of life' (other than 42), or a 'higher purpose' or something. But there are no goals in evolution. And there is no meaning of life, other than that which we define for ourselves within our own limited bubble of existence.There is a lot of purpose in evolution though, on all scales even, but that's just acquired or emergent purpose, not 'higher purpose' (as in "The higher purpose of man is to worship his Maker"). After all, nobody in his right mind will deny that, for example, that overused paragon of ID-ers, the eye, is for seeing, i.e. it has the purpose 'to see things with'. But it evolved in a mindless process, without the end product (or rather: the current intermediate result) as a premeditated goal. Now that it's there, it's the best thing we have to see things with, although it has its flaws.We are uncertain about the existence of God. If he exists, then anything is possible and nothing can be said with certainty about anything.But we know for a fact that DNA is a replicating molecule. We know for a fact that sometimes the replication isn't flawless. We know for a fact that it encodes all kinds of hereditary traits. We know for a fact that replication mistakes lead to differences in those traits. We know for a fact that sometimes those differences give individuals an edge in the struggle for life. We know for a fact that sometimes they do the opposite. We know for a fact that beneficial mutations will tend to accumulate, and that detrimental ones will tend to disappear. That's a lot of facts we know there. And all of those facts together tell a story of how things may have come to pass. It's a compelling story that dispels the need for an intelligent creator, at least for those who are willing to set aside their preconceived notions, if even for a brief moment. Even before modern science presented us with the facts about DNA, Darwin’s story was already quite plausible. And then the knowledge about DNA started trickling in and fell into place, like the pieces of a puzzle, giving us a better idea of the whole picture. You have to be blind, or rather blinded, not to see this.I'm sorry for all those ID-ers out there, but that's what science tells us nowadays, and until there are compelling reasons to think otherwise, let's keep things simple and stick to what we do know and not to what our fantasy might lead us to believe.Cheers.{edited to correct a few small slips of the keyboard}[This message has been edited by Parasomnium, 07-23-2003]

No. I'm sorry, but you don't qualify. What you say is crap all right, but your sentences are way too grammatical. You should also work on sloppier spelling.Close, but no cigar.

Warren,You said:
"Subtle clues are what cause you to suspect abiogenesis. Right? So why don't you tell us what subtle clues would cause you to suspect ID? If you can't do that I suggest you have a philosophical need to see no design in nature."By the same logic I could ask you to tell us what subtle clues would cause you to suspect that George W. Bush is a destructive robot from the future. If you couldn't do that I would suggest you have a philosophical need to see no such robot in your president.But that wouldn't be sensible, would it? I think we can agree on that. But then I ask you: what's the difference between my suggestion and yours?Cheers.