What IS evidence of design? (CLOSING STATEMENTS ONLY)

You and Jar are asking the same question of the wrong person. I already said Dembski only thinks he can detect design. As the section about specified complexity in the Wikipedia article about Dembsi says: Design and specified complexity are just two of the many dots Dembski has failed to connect. Where Dembski is right, in my view, is in thinking that the problem must be approached mathematically.--Percy

Why?For example I looked at the three pictures you presented up thread and can see ways to determine which are design without any math at all.

---

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Hi Mr Jack

quote:

---

An artefact can be identified as designed if:

​

1. It can be identified as having a purpose or function to a third party
2. That third party influenced the form of the artefact
3. That influence was intentional

---

It's not correct in my view to say that beavers' dams, birds' nests etc are designed.Implicit in my understanding of intention is that it is a conscious thing.

Hmmm. Without reading back, didn't you already agree that you hadn't defined design? Maybe not, but otherwise isn't what you're doing is identifying things done or made by people?--Percy

Yes, I agree that we have not defined design and in fact go so far as to say it is irrelevant and very likely impossible to define design.I think what can be done is identify where there was some influence and interference from some intelligent entity and that to do that it is necessary to determine the actual entity and possible methodology.

---

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

So, if I throw rocks into the river to divert the water, is my dam designed but the beaver's is not? The rock dam could have been caused by a natural rock fall whereas the beaver dam shows tool marks (teeth marks).You could probably tell the difference between a beaver dam and a replica made with human tools but how would you tell the difference between an intentional rock dam and an accidental one?Edited by ringo, : Fixed quote wrongly attributed to Robert Byers.

---

You can have brevity and clarify, or you can have accuracy and detail, but you can't easily have both. --Percy

Are beavers not conscious of wanting to make a dam? Are birds not conscious of wanting to make a nest? Is there any way that we can test such a claim?In any case, I did not intend to imply consciousness but it's very difficult to unpick intent and decision making from consciousness to a satisfactory degree.

I think, what this thread shows is that there are so many possible definitions of "design" that no one can really claim to know what it is without first defining it, and once it's defined, someone will come along and say their definition is bunk and heres why...And this is mostly relegated to just figuring out if we can decide what is designed by entities we're all intimately familiar with and can objectively agree exist. Any ID proponent has their work cut out for them if they want to argue that design is obvious, esepcially if they're proposing that the designer is something we can't study or even agree exists.

Ringo, that wasn't Robert - that was me!

quote:

---

Robert Byers writes:

​

It's not correct in my view to say that beavers' dams, birds' nests etc are designed.
Implicit in my understanding of intention is that it is a conscious thing.

So, if I throw rocks into the river to divert the water, is my dam designed but the beaver's is not? The rock dam could have been caused by a natural rock fall whereas the beaver dam shows tool marks (teeth marks).

---

Yes. Design is not a process of following instinct but using a conscious process to identify a solution to a requirement.

quote:

---

You could probably tell the difference between a beaver dam and a replica made with human tools but how would you tell the difference between an intentional rock dam and an accidental one?

---

Why should we be able to tell from the artefact itself that it is designed?

quote:

---

Are beavers not conscious of wanting to make a dam? Are birds not conscious of wanting to make a nest? Is there any way that we can test such a claim?

---

I don't know. But I'm pretty sure they don't go through anything resembling a human design process (identifying requirements, identifying solutions options, etc)

quote:

---

In any case, I did not intend to imply consciousness but it's very difficult to unpick intent and decision making from consciousness to a satisfactory degree

---

It is, I agree.

I'm extremely dubious of claims that conscious processes do anything much. In fact, I suspect all design decisions are actually made by subconscious parts of the brain. I'm pretty sure the majority of human designed objects don't go through such a process either.

quote:

---

I'm extremely dubious of claims that conscious processes do anything much. In fact, I suspect all design decisions are actually made by subconscious parts of the brain.

---

It's a mixture from my experience - but there is conscious supervision.

quote:

---

I'm pretty sure the majority of human designed objects don't go through such a process either.

---

No? For things that aren't primarily artistic, I disagree.

Then it would seem that complex designs do not require a conscious, intelligent designer.

quote:

---

Then it would seem that complex designs do not require a conscious, intelligent designer.

---

Well, if you call them designs, then yes, but that's begging the question.

I am aware of conscious design decisions I make in my own work. I cannot demonstrate that all decisions I make are conscious, but I don't need to do that to know that your suspicion is not correct.Creativity may involve the subconscious. But much of engineering design is done by consciously selecting/rejecting alternatives based on objective or subjective criteria in ways that can be explained to others. You'll need to exclude those types of activities from being design decisions in order to be correct.