What exactly is ID?

You have a misunderstanding in your terminology, not that I think I can convince you Theodoric. We have had arguments before around here.The term 'create' is different than the term 'make' or 'assemble' but the English language tends to synonymize them. If I happen to make a table I don't 'create' it, I fashion it from pieces of wood. Essentially I make the pieces and assemble them together.There is something I discovered also, I went back in attempt to look for the original Hebrew meanings of the words in the book of Genesis. The Hebrew word 'vaya'as' was used but not excusively used in the first chapters. The word means "to make" but not "to create".The English Bible has lost some of its meanings in the processes of translation.

I already explained your faulty logic just a moment ago. I cannot go back in time and prove that 'god-did-it', I can only show anecdotal evidence that a designer was present at the time. From the evidence I have no idea what the current intentions of the designer are or if the designer still exists. In my opinion, God did it but science cannot prove or rule out the existence of God. I could assume the designer could have used technologies beyond our current technology or possibly could have employed the services of others. We should use your current science in an attempt to seek some possible answers. It uses competing theories based on abductive reasoning to explain it. The flagellum propels certain types of bacteria. It was probably assembled one way or another. I don't necessarily buy the creation explanation. The creation explanation cites supernatural causeations. Supernatural doesn't necessarily mean we couldn't necessarily duplicate the results one day. The concept of 'supernatural' also assumes we could never understand the science behind some of it. Maybe the sciences will surprise us someday. Science has shown us that the TTSS isn't ancestral to the flagellum and this surprised me how science can determine what occurred billions of years ago. "We don't know" is also my position also but intelligent design exists a casual explanation. ID may or may not be scientific. If it isn't scientific that would not disqualify it as an explanation. You are correct it is actually centuries old but most people have not been introduced to the paradigm. Most only know know the Creationist and the Darwin paradigms which are practically opposites. Yours is a flawed perception. It assumes that possibilities can only be derived from science. If you wish to continue to think this way then may your science serve you well. I wish you no harm. The gaps are shrinking is only a conceptual phantom in your mind. The reality is that science is showing that life is more complex than scientists once thought it was. The flagellum and the cilium were gaps that weren't known to exist some 20 years ago.Edited by traderdrew, : No reason given.Edited by traderdrew, : No reason given.

Another strawman argument that goes like this - Dembski defined CSI and therefore traderdrew cannot define it in another logical way.I know that you know that I haven't read "Design Inference" from a previous debate we had. At least your debate gives me some things to think about such as the following - That might be true but we should follow the evidence were it leads us. There are people who use it in their own way. Darwinian conjecture is also fairly amorphous. It is flexible. If Darwin cannot be explained on a biochemical scale, (random mutations occur on that level) then why should it be used to explain the development of life?

I agree this doesn't cut it. On the other hand, you must explain how certain things came to be by random processes. Yes, this is a lame assumption. Flawed in what way? Don't Darwinian evolutionists play with numbers? I think they orgasm over natural explanations and are automatically turned off by any thought of design.

Ironic because I have not read "Design Inference"? I have read your posts to me and I have not read Dembski's definition in any one of your posts. We have been going around and around with it and it is time to stop since it is not going anywhere. With Darwinian evolution, common descent has to be all or nothing. The age of the Earth is something Creationists can debate over. I am willing to change it based on what science says and remain somewhat flexible on it as science should be. In other words, the details can never be reconstucted in labs???

And so I am a Creationist according you this? I already explained the differences between 'to make' 'to assemble' and 'to create'. People design and assemble things but they don't create things with supernatural abilities. How long have you been seaching the net and this forum? Are you sure you want to find it? After 1,000 posts around here I would think you would have found some if you were looking for it but still you apparently haven't.If you don't know it by now you probably will never ever ever know it.

I did it again to you Ned. I wrote a message and I lost it. Maybe later when I have more time.

Irreducibly complex systems have undergone some change. I am familiar with this. Some flagellum have some extra rings or maybe have lost some. That doesn't disqualify ID.I.C. structures are subject ot forces that may alter them. (causing mutations). Where are the novel structures due to these mutations? Have we induced them in labs across the world?This is not a perfect world Ned, it is a chaotic world.If you are referring to the Barry Hall experiment, I remember you posted to me in that thread, even Barry Hall told us that E. coli has limited evolutionary potential. He took one part out of a five to six part system. E. coli has dozens of operons. If those operons are loosely connected through some kind of integrated system this could mean they are not really irreducibly complex. This does not necessarily disprove an argument from design although I can understand why science would wish to settle for the natural explanation.The designer could very well have known (foresight) that bacteria such as E. coli have the need to adapt to different circumstances. Jason Shapiro's Natural Genetic Engineering could have been part of the original design. Gee, I wonder why they are not overwhelmed by the evidence? Maybe they understand the strengths and weaknesses of science? I don't see eye to eye with you on that. Perhaps natural selection isn't random. It is more aligned with chaos. Even randomess generates temporary sequences of what might appear to be order.Random mutations preside over natural selection since random mutations occur first in order for natural selection to act upon them. Unless you believe the mutations are not random. If this is the case then you are leaving Darwinism.Smooth Operator told us that natural selection selects for fitness. I don't entirely agree. The "reality" is, it selects for anything that gives an organism an advantage whether it is fitness, size, color, shape and mutations, etc.My goal is to be more in tune with reality. The energies of our paradigms tend to interfere from that goal.I think the process you refer to (random or not) really depends on where it applies. Let me ask you some questions.Can your processes build complex biological machinery?Before natural selection, there were the first life forms. The question is, could random processes arrange left handed amino acids into chains in the right order to ensure the first living cell? Can the amino acids be assembled in any order in a cell? I don't believe they can considering the sheer complexity of the cell. It must have parts that work together coherently.And another thing, ID may or may not be science. If it is a science it is part of the historical sciences not biological sciences.Just because ID isn't scientific doesn't disqualify it as an explanation. The statement, "Science is the only begetter of truth and the only thing that can find it." in itself cannot be proven by the scientific method.Edited by traderdrew, : No reason given.

I'm tired of the debate. How do designers make a book or cook a dinner? You see there maybe more than one way and more than one tool to use. Mutations (not random of course) are probably one way to do it. The cilium, the flagellum, the minimum complexity threshold of the first living cell. It is repeated in the above questions to NosyNed.

I read the above and then I read the rest of your post and I can see why I let you have the last word. Evolution is robust I do agree. When the evidence doesn't fit a evolutionary hypothesis, neoDarwinism is robust enough to allow a large amount of flexibility. It is not a precise science such as mathematics.There is science to support ID but that would take to much to get into here. I can start by citing the genetic code in each and every cell. As Bill Gates said, it is computer like. We have never scientifically proven a software language inside something (the first cell) that is more sophisticated than anything humans have ever designed can be assembled out of some sort of accidental process. We know that people have intelligently designed software codes and therefore you have the basis for a scientific explanation.Edited by traderdrew, : No reason given.

Hi Smooth Operator,For a change, you will get no fighting or debate from me in this post. I was thinking Dembski's CSI was partly arbitrary although, I do not know how he came up with the number of 400.I was trying to think of another way to describe information formed by intelligence. I would think this complex information is complimentary to other parts. (Not repetitive and redundant information, as pointed out by Stephen Meyer).Take the example of a postage stamp. The serrated edges might imply design but it is a form of redundancy. The image on the stamp refers to an actual object and this part of the stamp is not redundant. What is the word I am looking for?Something that is complimentary is a part of a whole such as a part of an engine or a flagellum.Coherence is another word I have been tossing around in my mind but it doesn't describe the relationship of an image of a postage stamp to the actual 3D subject or object the image portrays.Any thoughts of a new definition of information arising by intelligence? Edited by traderdrew, : No reason given.

Thanks for your response! I have been wishing to communicate with proponents of ID. Yes and adding to the description, the images on Mount Rushmore have a "specified" relationship to the people it depicts. We recognise the images as a designed sculpture with a high amount of details that refers to something else that is real.It now sounds to me that Dr. Dembski has checkmated the materialistic evolutionists. It is certainly worthy of more investigation.

Two of the flagellum's proteins are not interchangable. I'm just correcting you because you stated you don't accept speculation (which is not evidence). The question I have, does this loss of function mean loss of specific function? Also I have read that the active site for a specific function in relation to the size of the protein as a whole can be quite small. This suggests to me there can be quite a large amount of changes to a protein before that specific function is compromized. This also suggests to me certain proteins are predesigned to adapt to new functions.As pointed out in "Signature in the Cell", the precise shape and charge distribution enables DNA strands to coil efficiently around the nucleosome spools and store an immense amount of information in a very small space. Thanks in part to nucleosome spooling, the information storage density of DNA is many times that of our most advanced silicon chips.

I really think this is an interesting place to mine. So what is it about either chemistry or physics that enables the first self-replicating cell to form? Which particular abiogenesis hypothesis do you subscribe to?I think we can eliminate much of this dribble such as a rosetta stone coming out of a rhino butt with three horns if we go there.I don't think a bird is creating information when it is building a nest. The bird is shaping what is already there. It is creating a certain type of order. There is no new digital code being created in this process. However, the nest (apparently it depends on how you define information) is shaped by an intelligence.I was going to sit on the side lines watching Smooth Operator and PaulK but I don't want to see you people wear Smooth out.I think one of the most important points this debate boils down to is whether the digital code in the cell could have resulted from the laws of physics and chemistry or if it defies it and therefore, we could infer it as the result of intelligence.It seems to me PaulK believes there are certain properties in a protein that need to be specified for function but, he seems to believe the assemblage of the proper chemical constituents would have self-organized in a way to form the first life. There are more questions. Can physics and chemistry explain the first cell. The book "Signature in the Cell" devoted hundreds of pages that says "No it can't. That is why Dean Kenyon said, "We haven't the slighted chance of a chemical evolutionary origin for even the simplest of cells."If people like PaulK are right, then why don't we place all of the right chemical constituents with the right conditions into some sterile environments and let life form all over again?In the defense of materialistic science, we shouldn't assume that our known laws of physics and chemistry can't produce the first cell. I understand that. However, I think for many forum participants here, it isn't about science, it is about protecting a belief system or planting the seeds of destroying one.If you wish to we can continue this in the adjacent thread "The Grand Theory of Life"EvC Forum: The Grand Theory of LifeEdited by traderdrew, : Just inserting more "complex specified information"Edited by traderdrew, : No reason given.

In other words, you have "faith" that it's actually inevitable but you don't know what those conditions that don't involve intelligence are in order to make it possible. It doesn't mean it isn't either if science can't explain it through some sort of spontaneous generation, RNA first, or self-organization model. The height, structure, depth, width are part of descriptions which help describe the nest. The strength is partly determined by its chemical structure which has its foundations in DNA. You know that before a language was engraved on the stone, it existed as an ordinary stone. The linguisitic symbols on it have an orderly, specified and complimentary relationship. Why are we arguing what is obvious? I am simply pointing out the difference between building a nest and part of the foundation of DNA. Well then, maybe you can create a better nest than a bird if you have a better brain than a bird? :-) No I don't think so. There is still that 400 bits of CSI information that remains unanswered. PaulK can say it doesn't exist but he isn't accounting for the growth onto the original information or how that information can self-organize into specified complimentary parts of an overall whole and the relationship of all the parts in the entire whole. For self-replication to exist, don't you need machinery among other things? Don't you need things such as hydroporins on the surface of the cell in order to regulate water flow and other things to help regulate what comes into and out of the cell? How does it all deal with potential hypothetical problems? I'm sure I can think of many other questions. The digital code of DNA - PubMedAlso, look up Francis Crick's sequence hypothesis. And that quote of yours is not science. If it was science then you should be able to refute Dr. Dean Kenyon with scientific fact. Then again, you don't disagree with my statement that much of this debate isn't about science around here. Religion has been around for thousands of years and Darwinism has been here for 150 years. A theory such as Darwinism can be rationalized into something that serves evil. Religion has a head start but the Nazis had their roots in Darwinism - "Survival of the Fittest".