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Author Topic:   A thought on Intelligence behind Design
Peter
Member (Idle past 1479 days)
Posts: 2161
From: Cambridgeshire, UK.
Joined: 02-05-2002


Message 226 of 261 (48797)
08-05-2003 11:55 AM
Reply to: Message 211 by Barryven
08-04-2003 12:29 PM


Re: Three Card Behe
quote:
If there is an organizing or directional principle in the universe expressed in the evolution of life on our planet in the reproduction and the natural selection of more complex and adaptible organisms it may be an, as yet, undiscoverd law or principle - something like the laws of physics or mathematics.
This is true -- until we have evidence of it we can make no
further comment than it is possible.
It is possible that I am a bluey-green octopod from a planet
in the vicinity of Beetlejuice -- without evidence one can niether
confirm or deny that (any other response is one of incredulity).
To BASE a whole system of thought around an untested, unevidenced
notion is as wrong as denying that the notion is a possibility
(no matter how remote).

This message is a reply to:
 Message 211 by Barryven, posted 08-04-2003 12:29 PM Barryven has not replied

  
Barryven
Inactive Member


Message 227 of 261 (48810)
08-05-2003 1:54 PM
Reply to: Message 225 by MrHambre
08-05-2003 11:37 AM


Your rightPaulK’s example seems to support rather than refute, that human creativity operates very much like evolution. He uses a kind of reductionist approach to that example that fails to acknowledge that human intelligence drove the experiment and that the removal of human intelligence would eliminate that specific evolutionary attempt and the opportunity for components to come into some kind of unpredicted relationship.
The only example that I know of that could be considered as evidence for the presence of some kind of intelligence, designing or creative principle within evolution is the varafiable and predictable presence of human intelligent driven creativitythat this creativity is exclusively a product of evolution and that it mimics evolution in so many ways . And, it is a scientific fact that evolution is in the business of replication....all this I’ve said before.
This doesn’t prove anything and I don’t claim that it does. But, I think that it is a piece of evidence.
Regarding your question of where does it end: I don’t see that kind of evidence anywhere else in any verifiable, predictable way as is demonstrated in human creative activity. So, at this point I think that should provide a limit to investigation or scientific questioning.
Holmes response that this is a lame analogy that wears him out...well, to say that this is not evidence and say that it is irrelevant to evolution seems to me to smack of the same kind of reasoning that creationists use when they say that similarities in genetic variation and physical variation are absolutely not evidence of some evolutionary process. Genetic variations are simply a component of how God independently created everything in its current state. If someone is absolutist in that perspective, there is little that one can say to change that.
I do have some assumptions that support why I think this evidence should be considered. First is that human intelligent driven creative activity was exclusively produced by evolutionnot by an independent act of some other force or some deity in the sky. The human mind is a product of evolution. The five senses are products of evolution. All of it exists because of billions of years of evolutionary driven replication.
The differences seem to be that evolution produces variations in organisms and their relationships. Human creativity produces (for the most part) variations in artifacts and their relationships. (and cultures) That’s a difference. There may be other differences that demonstrate why intelligence driven human creativity has no relationship or relevance to evolutionI’m open to looking at thatMy perspective may be limited..
If one ran an experiment and predicted that human creativity would act like evolution in all the ways I mentioned before, I think the prediction would prove out. I think if you removed human intelligence from the experiment and randomly mixed human developed processes and materials elimating any elements of purpose or direction well, I don’t think that the results would have the same similarities to evolution.
The resistance to this argument, I think, is that if this was seriously taken as a piece of evidence it could open up fissure in the defenses that science has developed in reaction to the creationist’s efforts. And, it seems to me that science knows that if there is any crack at all in these defenses it will simply encourage and maybe empower creationist’s do their thing in our educational system and, who knows, where else.
And, you know they will since evolution ultimately proposes that human nature is almost certainly a product of evolution and not the result of Adam and Eve’s original sin.. For Christians that brings up a huge question: What did Jesus die on the cross for?? Since the foundation of so many Christian’s beliefs is based on the idea that Jesus died for the atonement of the sinful nature that was caused by fully formed, fully responsible human beings Adam and Evewell, you know they are going to fight any threats to that with everything they haveI don’t think one should expect anything else.
So, the best thing might be to say that the emergence of intelligent driven creativity in human beings that so closely replicates evolution has absolutely no evidentiary value or relevance in terms of the question whether or not there could be a corresponding creative or directional principle in evolution. But,you know I don’t really think that that’s the best thing.
Barry

This message is a reply to:
 Message 225 by MrHambre, posted 08-05-2003 11:37 AM MrHambre has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 230 by PaulK, posted 08-05-2003 4:32 PM Barryven has not replied
 Message 247 by Silent H, posted 08-06-2003 2:09 PM Barryven has replied

  
Warren
Inactive Member


Message 228 of 261 (48814)
08-05-2003 3:34 PM


Intelligent Design
HrHambre: "At face value, intelligence doesn't seem to be present in natural design. The haphazard history of life on Earth, with all its circuitous routes and mass extinctions, doesn't point to a guiding intelligence. Complex organisms and organs demonstrate design cobbled together from remnants of previous systems, not crafted anew for a unique purpose or function. Natural design displays amidst its messiness an ingenuity that would have been unnecessary if we assume the presence of intelligent intervention."
This kind of argument against ID only works if one assumes the ID position is that every aspect of biotic reality was a consequence of intelligent intervention. But that isn't the ID position.You are erecting a strawman argument against ID and then patting yourself on the back for knocking it down. Now here is what ID theorists are really saying if you're interested.
1. Certain key evolutionary changes may have been due to intelligent intervention.
2. Evolution may have been front-loaded such that its unfolding was channeled.
3. Evolution may have been designed such that it could acquire new information over time.
4. Permutations of 1, 2, and 3.
Despite all my posts to the contrary you still insist on misrepresenting ID as anti-evolution. That is pure bunk and you should know better by now. ID is pro-evolution but disputes the process is entirely blind, random, accidental, coincidental etc. Suboptimality arguments have no power against this perspective. Taken to their logical conclusions such arguments would suggest that unless eyes were completely impervious to puncture, bones unbreakable and without mass, and all organisms had an optimum life-history that involved immortality and infinite fecundity, we have no logical choice but to conclude that nature is the sole result of blind watchmaking. I find such an argument ludicrous.
[This message has been edited by Warren, 08-05-2003]
[This message has been edited by Warren, 08-05-2003]

Replies to this message:
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MrHambre
Member (Idle past 1392 days)
Posts: 1495
From: Framingham, MA, USA
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 229 of 261 (48816)
08-05-2003 4:12 PM
Reply to: Message 228 by Warren
08-05-2003 3:34 PM


Travis Bickle Returns
quote:
You are erecting a strawman argument against ID and then patting yourself on the back for knocking it down. Now here is what ID theorists are really saying if you're interested.
1. Certain key evolutionary changes may have been due to intelligent intervention.
2. Evolution may have been front-loaded such that its unfolding was channeled.
3. Evolution was designed such that it could acquire new information over time.
4. Permutations of 2, 3, and 4.
You talkin' to me?
Once again, we get a pronouncement from on high, courtesy of the keeper of the holy books of Intelligent Design Creationism. Once again, we have to give the high priest the same answer.
Warren, intelligent intervention certainly may have caused evolutionary changes or directed the course of life on earth. However, we see no evidence of that, and so it may be beyond the scope of science to make the case one way or the other.
It's conceivable that the weather and gravity and people getting sick are due to the workings of a divine intelligence as well, but we accept materialistic mechanisms to explain thunderstorms, landslides, and disease. In the same way, I accept the materialistic explanations for biological complexity, because we haven't seen evidence that biological organisms and structures thereof are accessible to the mechanism of intelligent design. Have you?
------------------
En la tierra de ciegos, el tuerco es el Rey.

This message is a reply to:
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PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 230 of 261 (48818)
08-05-2003 4:32 PM
Reply to: Message 227 by Barryven
08-05-2003 1:54 PM


Rather than suggesting that I am making an error in thinking in a "reductionistic" fashion perhaps you should give the issues a more thorough examination than the simple binary classification you use to dismiss one of the examples I have given.
(And don't knock reductionism - it is one of the reasons that human creativity can do what evolution cannot, as shown in the second example I gave).
Instead of simplistically classifying all examples as "intelligence" or "non-intelligent forces" we can try a three way classification (although we should recofgnise that these are pints on a continuum).
1) The direct work of human intelligence
2) Humans employing non-intelligent forces to do the actual work
3) Non-intelligent forces operating on their own.
Now let us be clear that in the second class the non-intelligent forces are producing the actual design (or whatever the object of the exercise is). This is clearly distinct from the first class - and it is a distinction you are ignorning..
Now Thompson's experiment was a case of the second class, and it produced results vey different from direct human design - confirming that the distinction is important. What is more it directly contradicts your assertion that the experiment supports the idea that human intelligence and evolution produce similar results - it could only do that if it had produced something that was like a human design.
So your assertionis based on a simplistic binary classification which lumps together every case where humans are involved without considering the nature of that involvement and on ignoring the actual results.
I remind you of the proverb concerning glass houses and stones.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 227 by Barryven, posted 08-05-2003 1:54 PM Barryven has not replied

  
Barryven
Inactive Member


Message 231 of 261 (48819)
08-05-2003 4:37 PM
Reply to: Message 219 by MrHambre
08-04-2003 8:42 PM


MrHambre,
Here's my promised reply to #219
Quote: If I understand your argument correctly, it seems that you don't believe there is any design that can be considered the product of purposeless, undirected forces. I don’t think I or anyone knows enough to say scientifically that any appearance of design in the universe is or isn’t the product of purposeless, undirected forces. And, so I don’t propose that idea should be given serious scientific consideration - for or against - with the exception of the evolutionary process present in organic life.
Quote: This is because it is always conceivable that we simply don't understand the basis of the designer's intentions, so declaring a phenomenon void of teleology is always premature. It will be premature to declare any universal kind of conclussion until proof or evidence exists. So, I do think it is premature to declare anything like that. Not because of the idea that we simply don’t understand the creator’s intention, but because we simply don’t understand.
Quote: In that case, why do you accept the notion that disease is the product of microbes? I don’t understand why you asked this question.I accept it because science has disclosed that microbes are one of the causative factors of disease.
Quote: Shouldn't we either ascribe purpose to the microbes themselves or acknowledge the possibility that the Creative Principle is using the microbes for its greater purpose? I do think they have an essential role in evolution.a purpose....what would it be like without them? and, if there is a creative or directional or intelligent principle in the evolution organic life, they would have a purpose.
Quote: Isn't it conceivable that the weather only seems to be the result of air pressure, electrical polarity and other natural forces, and is in fact directed by Creative Intelligence? Even though weather may be a factor in stimulating an adaptable (desirable) response from organic life in evolution, I don’t see any evidence that would indicate that science should investigate intelligent design in weather in the same way that there is evidence in the evolution of organic life- the evolutionary produced a replica of itself in intelligent driven human creativity.
Quote: In other words, where do we draw the line? The above is as good a place as any I think.
Barry

This message is a reply to:
 Message 219 by MrHambre, posted 08-04-2003 8:42 PM MrHambre has not replied

  
Warren
Inactive Member


Message 232 of 261 (48820)
08-05-2003 5:38 PM


Intelligent Design
MrHambre: "Warren, intelligent intervention certainly may have caused evolutionary changes or directed the course of life on earth. However, we see no evidence of that, and so it may be beyond the scope of science to make the case one way or the other."
Warren<< You see no evidence of ID because you don't know what evidence for ID would look like. Heck you can't even tell me what would cause you to merely suspect ID was behind some aspect of biotic reality. And sure, ID is beyond the scope of science if you define science as an enterprise that rejects any hint of teleology. You look at nature through the lens of non-teleology and see no evidence for design. Well, duh! >>
MrHambre<< Isn't it conceivable that the weather only seems to be the result of air pressure, electrical polarity and other natural forces, and is in fact directed by Creative Intelligence?>>
Warren<< Sure, but that isn't the kind of argument that ID theorists are making. Life is machine-dependent and code dependent. We associate machines and codes with intelligent design not geochemistry. You want to make the case that codes and machines can be produced via non-intelligent processes? Then present your case. I'm all ears.
As for your weather analogy. You show me evidence that the weather is machine-dependent and code dependent and I will suspect it's intelligently designed. >>
[This message has been edited by Warren, 08-05-2003]

Replies to this message:
 Message 233 by crashfrog, posted 08-05-2003 5:43 PM Warren has not replied
 Message 234 by mark24, posted 08-05-2003 5:47 PM Warren has not replied
 Message 238 by MrHambre, posted 08-05-2003 7:51 PM Warren has not replied
 Message 239 by Peter, posted 08-06-2003 6:58 AM Warren has not replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 233 of 261 (48821)
08-05-2003 5:43 PM
Reply to: Message 232 by Warren
08-05-2003 5:38 PM


Re: Intelligent Design
Heck you can't even tell me what would cause you to merely suspect ID was behind some aspect of biotic reality.
Can I ask you: how long will you investigate ID without result before you conclude that your suspicion was in error?
After all, at the end of the day, it's not about suspicions - it's about evidence.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 232 by Warren, posted 08-05-2003 5:38 PM Warren has not replied

  
mark24
Member (Idle past 5195 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 234 of 261 (48822)
08-05-2003 5:47 PM
Reply to: Message 232 by Warren
08-05-2003 5:38 PM


Re: Intelligent Design
Warren,
You see no evidence of ID because you don't know what evidence for ID would look like. Heck you can't even tell me what would cause you to merely suspect ID was behind some aspect of biotic reality. And sure, ID is beyond the scope of science if you define science as an enterprise that rejects any hint of teleology. You look at nature through the lens of non-teleology and see no evidence for design. Well, duh!
The "Duh!" is on you. How can ANY method of getting closer to the truth accept teleolgy as anything other than unsupported belief, when we don't know what an ID'd thang looks like?
It goes like this:
1/ Hypothesis. Mmmmm, I wonder if all that complexity in living things is the result of ID.
2/ Predictions/Tests ?????????
Well? The inducively derived hypothesis can hardly contain the same observations as the predictions without getting circular, right?
Mark
------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 232 by Warren, posted 08-05-2003 5:38 PM Warren has not replied

  
Warren
Inactive Member


Message 235 of 261 (48823)
08-05-2003 5:58 PM


Chrashfrog<< After all, at the end of the day, it's not about suspicions - it's about evidence. >>
Why don't you give me an example of what you would consider evidence for ID.
[This message has been edited by Warren, 08-05-2003]

Replies to this message:
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 Message 240 by mark24, posted 08-06-2003 9:47 AM Warren has not replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 236 of 261 (48824)
08-05-2003 6:13 PM
Reply to: Message 235 by Warren
08-05-2003 5:58 PM


Why don't you give me an example of what you would consider evidence for ID.
Haven't we been over this?
I'd accept observed intelligent design of organisms as evidence for ID. That is, I'd have to see an intelligent designer in the process of designing life. Barring that I'd need to see a designer or designers capable of designing life as we see it. Barring that I'd accept a maker's mark as evidence.
Why don't you tell me what, short of actual evidence for the existence of a designer capable of making life, prompts you to suspect the presence of a designer?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 235 by Warren, posted 08-05-2003 5:58 PM Warren has not replied

  
MrHambre
Member (Idle past 1392 days)
Posts: 1495
From: Framingham, MA, USA
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 237 of 261 (48826)
08-05-2003 6:18 PM


Now That's Science!
Barry and Warren both have their reasons for suspecting a purpose-driven intelligence behind the evolutionary process. Barry sees the evolutionary development of human intelligent creativity and decides that this must have been the purpose of the evolutionary process. Warren sees the functional complexity of biological structures and decides that this must have been the purpose of the evolutionary process.
I have argued that other things could be (and have been in the past) considered the products of creative intelligence: the weather, or disease. Both have fully acceptable material explanations: we understand the weather in terms of electrical polarity, air pressure, and atmospheric saturation levels. We understand disease as bacteria or viruses coming into contact with the human immune system. Both Barry and Warren argue that the material mechanisms presented as explanations for biological complexity are insufficient because they fail to take into account the purposeful, creative intelligence that may or may not be directing evolution.
Teleology seems to be only where we look for it, and is always where we want to find it. If certain things in nature are complex and functional, it is because they were Intelligently Designed. If certain things in nature do not look Intelligently Designed, that's only because we don't yet understand the purpose of their Intelligent Design.
Human intelligence evolved over billions of years, persuasive evidence of Intelligent Design. We're not allowed to ask whether human intelligence evolving in, say, twenty years would be better evidence for Intelligent Design. If it had, that too would be evidence of Intelligent Design. We have five keen senses, persuasive evidence of Intelligent Design. We're not allowed to ask why an Intelligent Designer wouldn't have given us, say, a hundred senses. If He had, that too would be evidence of Intelligent Design.
Anything can be offered as evidence of Intelligent Design, and no conceivable evidence can falsify it. The fact that Intelligent Design only seems to create mousetraps and outboard motors but has never created a tree or a baby or a flagellum is not a reason to think that it couldn't, and that maybe someday we'll be able to detect it in some way. Maybe.
------------------
En la tierra de ciegos, el tuerco es el Rey.
[This message has been edited, as if it makes any difference, by MrHambre, 08-05-2003]
[This message has been edited by MrHambre, 08-05-2003]

Replies to this message:
 Message 241 by Barryven, posted 08-06-2003 11:13 AM MrHambre has replied

  
MrHambre
Member (Idle past 1392 days)
Posts: 1495
From: Framingham, MA, USA
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 238 of 261 (48834)
08-05-2003 7:51 PM
Reply to: Message 232 by Warren
08-05-2003 5:38 PM


But My Ears Are Connected to a Brain
Warren writes:
quote:
We associate machines and codes with intelligent design not geochemistry. You want to make the case that codes and machines can be produced via non-intelligent processes? Then present your case. I'm all ears.
We associate trees and babies with biochemistry, not intelligent design. You want to make the case that trees and babies can be produced via intelligent processes? Then present your case. I'm all ears.
------------------
En la tierra de ciegos, el tuerco es el Rey.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 232 by Warren, posted 08-05-2003 5:38 PM Warren has not replied

  
Peter
Member (Idle past 1479 days)
Posts: 2161
From: Cambridgeshire, UK.
Joined: 02-05-2002


Message 239 of 261 (48880)
08-06-2003 6:58 AM
Reply to: Message 232 by Warren
08-05-2003 5:38 PM


Re: Intelligent Design
quote:
Sure, but that isn't the kind of argument that ID theorists are making. Life is machine-dependent and code dependent. We associate machines and codes with intelligent design not geochemistry. You want to make the case that codes and machines can be produced via non-intelligent processes? Then present your case. I'm all ears.
Electrical circuit designs have been produced via non-intelligent
processes -- that's what evolutionary programming is for. Yes the
'system' is set up, but the 'process' that does the design and
outputs the 'circuit' is non-intelligent.
Show me that there are any codes in biological systems. DNA
is referred to as the 'genetic code' in a somewhat loose
analagous way, not literally as a 'code'.
The things that go on in cells are all chemical, the transcription
etc. processes may appear code-like, that does not make it
a code in the informatics sense.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 232 by Warren, posted 08-05-2003 5:38 PM Warren has not replied

  
mark24
Member (Idle past 5195 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 240 of 261 (48908)
08-06-2003 9:47 AM
Reply to: Message 235 by Warren
08-05-2003 5:58 PM


Warren,
Why don't you give me an example of what you would consider evidence for ID.
The point is, whether anyone can give a valid example of what they would consider ID evidemnce. It isn't the rest of the worlds fault that all of the so called ID evidences are flawed logically; argument from ignorance, compostional errors .... etc.
ID is simply an unsupported assertion, an untestable hypothesis, & certainly an unfalsifiable one.
Mark
------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 235 by Warren, posted 08-05-2003 5:58 PM Warren has not replied

  
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