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Author Topic:   What IS evidence of design? (CLOSING STATEMENTS ONLY)
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 286 of 377 (608512)
03-10-2011 7:43 PM
Reply to: Message 266 by slevesque
03-10-2011 2:37 PM


There are a couple of crucial points that you are omitting:
First, my example wasn't about an illusion trick. It was about a real observed phenomenon, lead really turning into gold.
Yes, but you wouldn't know that --- what you'd know is that you'd seen something which looked like I'd turned lead into gold. And I think that you would be skeptical that I had done so --- even if I actually had.
Second, even within your trick illusion example, you are forgetting that to support the claim 'it was done by a natural process' I have relevant observation of natural processes, ie experience of previous illusion tricks. (This is why I had bolded 'relevant', apparently you missed it)
But now imagine someone with no previous relevant observations, like a little kid who sees his first magic trick. From his point of view, the fact that he has seen 'natural processes' before is irrelevant, none of them correlate ot this.
I'm not quite following you.
This is why I'm saying claiming a naturalistic origin of any phenomenon cannot simply be supported by the fact you know natural processes exist in general. As I said, you have to have relevant obeservations and/or a possible natural mechanism.
Well, no. When I see, for example, Penn & Teller's bullet catch trick I don't have the ghost of a hypothesis as to how it was done, nor will I if I live to be a hundred. But I know that the universe tends to work in a regular and law-like way and that it is at least very unusual for someone to be able to suspend these laws at will. So my default position is that this is not what Penn & Teller are doing.
That is, my conviction that the explanation is naturalistic is indeed merely supported by the observation that most explanations for things are.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 266 by slevesque, posted 03-10-2011 2:37 PM slevesque has not replied

Drevmar
Junior Member (Idle past 4762 days)
Posts: 24
From: Spokane, WA, USA
Joined: 02-17-2011


Message 287 of 377 (608532)
03-11-2011 1:53 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by jar
03-05-2011 1:10 PM


Design Evidence
Okay I read most of what is in this "debate." It occurred to me that I would like to make two interjections.
1) Since there is nothing anywhere which shows, proves or in any way demonstrates anything in microevolution ever pushing through to macroevolution (which I KNOW nobody wants that word [macroevolution] used) this leads me to believe that even though a God could allow or even make (macro)evolution happen, it likely didn't. and,
2) I have proven to my own satisfaction (knowing) through my own experimentation (four successfully and dramatically answered requests) that God actually does exist, therefore I accept His claim to have created everything and I am convinced that evolution only occurs within a species (or whatever you would choose to call it) and does not ever make (for instance) a dog become anything else but a dog.
I know this is slightly different to the standard "debate" entry and probably "against the rules" but I thought it needed to be said.
Also, I would like to recommend to all "scientists" that they try for themselves to make contact with God, it does take some humility and sincerity, but it is worth finding out for sure.
Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Was 1 paragraph. Broke up and added blank lines.

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 Message 1 by jar, posted 03-05-2011 1:10 PM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
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Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


Message 288 of 377 (608541)
03-11-2011 5:03 AM
Reply to: Message 287 by Drevmar
03-11-2011 1:53 AM


Re: Design Evidence
Hi Drevmar,
You are making a couple of classic errors here. Firstly, a lack of evidence for evolution is not evidence for design. You can complain all you like about the alleged lack of evidence for macroevolution (something that you are quite mistaken about I assure you), but none of that amounts to positive evidence in favour of design.
Any hypothesis requires evidence. Actual tangible positive evidence in its favour. Lack of opposing evidence is not enough. Alleging that alternative hypotheses are inadequately evidenced is not enough. You need to bring positive evidence for design. That is the purpose of this thread, to explore what design evidence might look like. You have not done that.
I have proven to my own satisfaction...
Surely you can appreciate why this type of testimonial isn't very impressive. You may have convinced yourself with this "experimentation" (which you do not describe), but it is worthless to an outside observer. It's just too subjective.
I know this is slightly different to the standard "debate" entry and probably "against the rules" but I thought it needed to be said.
Well, I wouldn't worry too much about it, but one of our rules here is that threads should be kept on-topic. If you want to keep posting on this thread, you need to bring some positive evidence in favour of the design hypothesis. If you want to talk about this supposed lack of evidence for macroevolution that you mention, that belongs elsewhere on the forum. I'm sure you will find plenty of members eager to engage with you in that discussion, since you are quite, quite wrong about it.
Also, I would like to recommend to all "scientists" that they try for themselves to make contact with God, it does take some humility and sincerity, but it is worth finding out for sure.
Surely you are aware that countless scientists actually are Christians? You seem to have a very warped preconception of what a scientist is.
Mutate and Survive

On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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Peter
Member (Idle past 1478 days)
Posts: 2161
From: Cambridgeshire, UK.
Joined: 02-05-2002


Message 289 of 377 (608549)
03-11-2011 7:30 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by jar
03-05-2011 1:10 PM


Er ... it's even worse than this ....
jar writes:
The assertion that there is some evidence of design seems to get batted around a lot but never really explained.
Or at least, most of the explanations don't hold up to much scrutiny.
jar writes:
In some cases it's pretty easy. For example the keyboard I'm using right now has a "HP" label, a warning telling me to read a safety and comfort guide which it claims will somehow reduce the risk of serious injury, and also a bunch of labels identifying the functions of each of the keys and buttons.
If I go out front and look at my car it has Dodge written on it. If I look further inside the door I find Dodge/Mitsubishi which tells me that it was designed by one or both entities. I can look even further and find labels showing the designer for many of the different components in the car from engine to tires to seat-belts to radio to ...
That's evidence of manufacture ... and we infer design. Not necessarily the case with human-manufactured artifacts since some have developed over time, with people adding items ad-hoc.
In fact 'design' as a discipline is still a relatievly new thing in industry ... quite scarily so in some cases!
jar writes:
We also have a long history and lots of experience of human designers. We can look at a history of human designers going back thousands and thousands of years and see what constitutes a human designed object as opposed to something that was not designed.
We can only state that items for which we KNOW there was a designer were disgned ... the rest we infer that they were designed.
It's this whole inference led approach that has (in my opinion) mis-led IDer's.
jar writes:
We can look at two rocks and tell which one was designed as a functional tool and which was not. The way we determine that is by observing knappers today and experimenting ourselves with knapping. We can then look at an unknown sample and see whether or not it shows the same characteristics we seen in the known samples.
Again this is only an inference.
There are structures under the oceans (off-shore at least) that some claim to be man-made while others claim them to be natural .
Sometimes for the same reasons!!
jar writes:
We can look at a jumble of stones or mound of earth and determine whether it was the result of normal geological processes or human intervention. For example the jumble of rock that was once Stonehenge was determined to be a design because many of the rocks came from locations far away and at those locations there was evidence of HUMAN quarrying.
It's still an inference ... though in this case I'd suggest it's correct.
There are plenty of formations around that are not so clear whether they were man-made or not let alone designed.
jar writes:
But when we look at living things we do not seem to find similar examples of design.
We don't see evidence of human manufacture ... but then most of us have a pretty good idea of how living things get 'manufactured'.
jar writes:
As I pointed out in from an engineering perspective there is no Intelligent Design and again at Some thoughts from a designer, we do not see anything that approaches "Best Practices of Design" in living critters.
From an Engineering perpsective I don't think we can say.
Sub-optimal design in living things isn't evidence of no design, only of poor design. We have plenty of that in human-made objects.
jar writes:
So what exactly is this "Evidence of Design" that Creationists and Intelligent Design marketeers assert is there?
Hopefully you can already see my opinion.
Even with items that we are pretty certain were man-made there is doubt, and of those that we are absolutely certain are man-made we still can only infer design UNLESS we are given the design documentation.
Basically I agree that there is NO EVIDENCE of design in living things ... but wanted to point out that it's also very difficult to prove design in items that we KNOW must be designed.
And that's where the ID argument falls : 'It must be designed because it looks like it was designed.'
Not much or an argument really, is it?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by jar, posted 03-05-2011 1:10 PM jar has seen this message but not replied

jar
Member (Idle past 393 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 290 of 377 (608554)
03-11-2011 9:19 AM
Reply to: Message 287 by Drevmar
03-11-2011 1:53 AM


Re: Design Evidence
Drevmar writes:
Okay I read most of what is in this "debate." It occurred to me that I would like to make two interjections.
1) Since there is nothing anywhere which shows, proves or in any way demonstrates anything in microevolution ever pushing through to macroevolution (which I KNOW nobody wants that word [macroevolution] used) this leads me to believe that even though a God could allow or even make (macro)evolution happen, it likely didn't. and,
Which, of course is a false statement. But it is also pretty irrelevant. There is evidence of those processes we see discussed in the Theory of Evolution. There is NO evidence there is a God.
Drevmar writes:
2) I have proven to my own satisfaction (knowing) through my own experimentation (four successfully and dramatically answered requests) that God actually does exist, therefore I accept His claim to have created everything and I am convinced that evolution only occurs within a species (or whatever you would choose to call it) and does not ever make (for instance) a dog become anything else but a dog.
I know this is slightly different to the standard "debate" entry and probably "against the rules" but I thought it needed to be said.
Also, I would like to recommend to all "scientists" that they try for themselves to make contact with God, it does take some humility and sincerity, but it is worth finding out for sure.
Sorry but again that is simply irrelevant.
Until you can provide the method and model for "God" to interfere and intervene in creating species, you have nothing but an unfounded assertion.
When you can present evidence of at least the level presented in the examples in the OP, you have nothing, only some personal belief. When you can provide evidence that the 'God' you are marketing exists at the same level of confidence we can provide for humans or beaver or termites, you have nothing.

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

This message is a reply to:
 Message 287 by Drevmar, posted 03-11-2011 1:53 AM Drevmar has replied

Replies to this message:
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Perdition
Member (Idle past 3237 days)
Posts: 1593
From: Wisconsin
Joined: 05-15-2003


Message 291 of 377 (608555)
03-11-2011 9:21 AM
Reply to: Message 284 by Wounded King
03-10-2011 6:01 PM


Re: Is this true, Wounded King?
Thanks!
What I'm getting out of this is, we're not entirely sure why the affinity is as it is, but there are some hypotheses that indicate lines of investigation where we might figure out why it is as it is.
Am I sort of right?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 284 by Wounded King, posted 03-10-2011 6:01 PM Wounded King has replied

Replies to this message:
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Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 292 of 377 (608561)
03-11-2011 10:17 AM
Reply to: Message 291 by Perdition
03-11-2011 9:21 AM


Re: Is this true, Wounded King?
Am I sort of right?
Yes. The problem with this, as with much origins of life research, is that we may never have a definitive answer for how it did happen but rather several plausible mechanisms by which it could have happened.
The original hypothesis put forward by Crick, often called the 'frozen accident', is that the correspondences are essentially arbitrary and that at some point the modern genetic code simply became fixed in the common ancestral population although many other codes are equally viable, and some more optimal (Koonin and Novozhilov, 2009).
TTFN,
WK

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 Message 291 by Perdition, posted 03-11-2011 9:21 AM Perdition has replied

Replies to this message:
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Perdition
Member (Idle past 3237 days)
Posts: 1593
From: Wisconsin
Joined: 05-15-2003


Message 293 of 377 (608562)
03-11-2011 10:30 AM
Reply to: Message 292 by Wounded King
03-11-2011 10:17 AM


Re: Is this true, Wounded King?
The original hypothesis put forward by Crick, often called the 'frozen accident', is that the correspondences are essentially arbitrary and that at some point the modern genetic code simply became fixed in the common ancestral population although many other codes are equally viable, and some more optimal
Interesting.
But, no matter how the correspondences worked out, evolution would still have worked on them, keeping proteins that worked and discarding ones that didn't, right? So, ultimately, except from an efficiency standpoint, it doesn't really matter how the correspondences could have matched up?

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Taq
Member
Posts: 9970
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.6


Message 294 of 377 (608569)
03-11-2011 11:38 AM
Reply to: Message 283 by Dr Jack
03-10-2011 5:53 PM


No. If you read the last post you responded to he's saying that the codon-amino acid link is arbitrary. Which is it. The process is physical, yes, but you can't explain the coding itself in such simple terms.
It may be a case of talking past each other and differences in how one views these genetic systems. We can explain the coding in terms of physical interactions. The enzymes involved in attaching the amino acid to the tRNA phsyically interact with the tRNA's just like any ligand-receptor interaction which slevesque described as being different from genetic coding. The interaction between the tRNA, ribosome, and mRNA are all physical interactions that are dependent on the physical characteristics of the nucleotides themselves. Even the multiple hairpin shape of the tRNA's is an intrinsic property of the physical interactions between the nucleotides within the tRNA. That physical shape is necessary for the specific recognition of each tRNA in the whole process.
When I view the whole process I see all of the physical interactions and how they relate to one another. I don't see strings of letters on a screen. Perhaps this is why I am having difficulty in understanding how it is anything but the physical interactions that drive the genetic systems of a cell.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 283 by Dr Jack, posted 03-10-2011 5:53 PM Dr Jack has replied

Replies to this message:
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Dr Jack
Member
Posts: 3514
From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch
Joined: 07-14-2003
Member Rating: 8.7


Message 295 of 377 (608570)
03-11-2011 12:09 PM
Reply to: Message 294 by Taq
03-11-2011 11:38 AM


I agree that genetic processes work by chemistry, and the functioning of genes is intimately bound to their chemical properties; if you recoded genes into some other media they flat wouldn't work because a great many of the products bind DNA or rely on properties of the RNA intermediate to correctly splice, etc. But the actual amino acid codings? They're arbitrary.
Okay, so C binds to G and A to T, right? Why? Because of a physical interaction between the two. You couldn't have a DNA system in which C binds to T instead.
But the sequence AUA doesn't have a direct physical relationship to Isoleucine. In order to associate the two you need a tRNA with the right anti-codon; but that tRNA association could be different. It could be Methionine. That's not a theoretical assertion, btw, we know it to be true because that's one of the differences in nuclear/mitochondrial gene coding.
So the coding itself is not a physical certainty; it's a convention.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 294 by Taq, posted 03-11-2011 11:38 AM Taq has replied

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Taq
Member
Posts: 9970
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.6


Message 296 of 377 (608575)
03-11-2011 12:50 PM
Reply to: Message 295 by Dr Jack
03-11-2011 12:09 PM


But the actual amino acid codings? They're arbitrary.
That could be said about every protein-protein interaction. The relationship between ligand and receptor is always arbitrary, but it is intimately tied to physical interactions. What goes into a series of enzyme reactions and what comes out the other end is arbitrary, and this is true through the entire cell from metabolism to cell-to-cell communication to genetic systems. There is no physical relationship between ADP and ATP, and yet there is a physical system in mitochondria that transfers a phosphate to ADP to produce ATP. This process is no different, from a fundamental physical view, than the process that guides the extension of peptides.
So the coding itself is not a physical certainty; it's a convention.
Yes and no. Given the physical characteristics of the ribosomes, tRNA's, mRNA's, etc. it is a physical certainty that the specific codon will result in a specific amino acid. Could it have been different? Yes. If you changed the physical characteristics of the macromolecules involved then it will change the physical interactions and a different outcome will occur.
Many people use computer language to describe how DNA works. I think this is a mistake. A better, yet still lacking, analogy is the gears of a clock. It is the physical interactions of the parts themselves that produce the outcome. While our units of time may be arbitrary and could be different this doesn't mean that the output of a mechanical clock is not tied to physical interactions.
I am trying to keep this in context with slevesque's comment from message 269 which stated:
quote:
The difference I see is that the information you are talking about is directly related to how it physically interacts with something else. For example, a protein's interaction with a receptor, or any other molecule, is what gives it any information.
However, the case seems to be different with DNA. The information in DNA does not come from any interaction it has, but from an established code which we have all seen
I took exception to this argument. The information in DNA is a result of it's physical interactions with proteins and other biomolecules. The genetic code is a result of physical interactions just like those seen between receptor and ligand. I don't see how you can claim that receptor-ligand interactions are fundamentally different than DNA-protein interactions.

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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 297 of 377 (608586)
03-11-2011 1:27 PM
Reply to: Message 252 by slevesque
03-10-2011 2:06 AM


slevesque writes:
jar writes:
BUT, natural processes have been observed.
This is a fallacious reasoning once again. You cannot assert natural processes causes a particular thing just because we have observed natural processes in general.
How about this modification:
Only natural processes have been observed. No one has observed design by a supernatural process. What result can we reach using inductive proofs from this premise?
If you change lead into gold, what is your objection to my concluding, via induction, that you have accomplished the transformation using natural process.

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slevesque
Member (Idle past 4640 days)
Posts: 1456
Joined: 05-14-2009


Message 298 of 377 (608602)
03-11-2011 3:34 PM
Reply to: Message 280 by Percy
03-10-2011 4:53 PM


You must not have read part of my post, so allow me to quote myself:
Seems my reading comprehension was off that time. I thought the quote was from Koch, but it wasn't and didn't understand that you were telling me it wasn't.
(Still, all I said is still valid if you replace 'Koch' with 'True and Lindquist'.
The whole principle of irreducible complexity is that it couldn't have happened naturally and must have been carried out by a designer, and finding natural pathways would seem to work against that.
This is why you clearly misunderstand irreducible complexity.
IC has a clear definition that does not involve design in any way. It certainly isn't defined as ''any system that couldn't have happened naturally and therefore must be designed''.
If you found a genuine natural mechanism to produce a particular IC system, it wouldn't be redefined as not being IC after all, it would simply mean that you would have a natural mechanism that could produce IC systems.
Once again IC has a specific definition, and the IDers use it as evidence for design because it happens to be that the only currently known way to produce such a system is through design. This also shows the clear strawman of saying the ID arguments are just ''it looks designed so it must be designed''.

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slevesque
Member (Idle past 4640 days)
Posts: 1456
Joined: 05-14-2009


Message 299 of 377 (608604)
03-11-2011 3:49 PM
Reply to: Message 296 by Taq
03-11-2011 12:50 PM


I took exception to this argument. The information in DNA is a result of it's physical interactions with proteins and other biomolecules. The genetic code is a result of physical interactions just like those seen between receptor and ligand. I don't see how you can claim that receptor-ligand interactions are fundamentally different than DNA-protein interactions.
The information that DNA contains comes from the Code, and the code is an arbitrary convention with no physical basis for why it should be this one and not that one.
Think of it in a hypothetical primordial soup, was there any physical reason that this code was established and not another ? (If you can find a conclusive answer to this question be ready to receive your Nobel)
It's just like ink on paper. Sure there are physical itneractions between the ink and the paper, and this is why the molecules stay there etc. But the disposition of the molecules were arbitrary, and if a given disposition (a letter) carries any more information then another (a scribble) is strictly because we have all established an arbitrary code in which we decide that such a pattern means such and such, and that other pattern means nothing. Coded information only exists if their is a semantic aspect to it, without any code it has no information at all.
It is the same thing with DNA. Somewhere along the line from none-life to life, a code was established either via randomness, via an as-of-yet-unknown natural process, or via an intelligent being. But it wasn't because of any particular physical interaction.
With the proteins it seems to be different. It has information strictly because 'the key physically fits the hole', and this information comes from a real physical basis.

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jar
Member (Idle past 393 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 300 of 377 (608605)
03-11-2011 3:49 PM
Reply to: Message 298 by slevesque
03-11-2011 3:34 PM


Many ways to create an IC system.
slevesque writes:
Once again IC has a specific definition, and the IDers use it as evidence for design because it happens to be that the only currently known way to produce such a system is through design.
Except of course, that is simply not true.
Why couldn't an IC system evolve?
Take the spring off a mousetrap and it makes a great doorstop or paperweight; it can even be used to keep bacon from curling during frying.
Why is it that all the examples of so called Intelligent Design like IC systems are on really poor examples of how to get the job done?

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

This message is a reply to:
 Message 298 by slevesque, posted 03-11-2011 3:34 PM slevesque has replied

Replies to this message:
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