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Author Topic:   Evidence to expect given a designer
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 20 of 373 (644213)
12-16-2011 7:38 AM
Reply to: Message 19 by Just being real
12-16-2011 6:48 AM


Nor is there even a single example of a multicelled organism being observed having added beneficial "new" information to its chromosomal DNA, to even demonstrate that its possible.
Your argument is simply that we don't have eye witness testimony of these things. In fact we do have evidence that allows us to infer with a high degree of certainty that these things (not including abiogenesis) have indeed occurred.
With regard to abiogenesis, one might also add that we don't have even a single example of an observation of a human being brought to life from clay or a woman being created from a man's rib.
Oh please. The only possible "evidence" that could prove that they aren't would be an example of an observed case of life naturally forming from non life. I wasn't aware of any such evidence.
Using this logic, we'd have to say that the only possible evidence of a murder is eye witness testimony. Finger prints, dna evidence, ballistics, power residue, and even confessions don't mean doodly squat.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 19 by Just being real, posted 12-16-2011 6:48 AM Just being real has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 22 by Just being real, posted 12-16-2011 8:05 AM NoNukes has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 27 of 373 (644235)
12-16-2011 10:24 AM
Reply to: Message 22 by Just being real
12-16-2011 8:05 AM


That's because prior to 1985 no one had "observed" that DNA was unique to each human. With the exception of confession, the same can be said for each of those types of evidences. Which supports my point. There has to be a point in which it was clearly observed before it can later be "inferred."
That is of course complete nonsense. Direct observation is only one of the ways that we make determinations and reach conclusions. Nobody has ever directly observed quantum tunneling, stellar aging, cigarette tar inducing cancer, atoms and molecules, neutrinos and any number of other things/effects for which the only evidence is non-direct. We will never, ever be able to see an electron, yet we can make attribute observed effects to a particle whose existence is known only by indirect means.
No because we have previously "observed" that finger prints, dna evidence, ballistics, powder residue, and even confessions can be directly connected to people.
Yes, but we no longer need to remake those connections each time. The point is only that direct observation is not the only method for establishing facts or truth, despite your claims to the contrary.
And we can extend my claim to say further that it is not always necessary to develop correlations through direct evidence. For example, we can correlate the temperature and sizes of main sequence stars despite the fact that we've never had any direct evidence of the mass or the temperature of any star.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 22 by Just being real, posted 12-16-2011 8:05 AM Just being real has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 32 by Just being real, posted 12-17-2011 5:23 AM NoNukes has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 28 of 373 (644236)
12-16-2011 10:30 AM
Reply to: Message 25 by Just being real
12-16-2011 8:21 AM


Your DNA is different from that of every single one of your ancestors. Your DNA is not a simple combination of parts assembled from your your parents DNA. So your DNA has been produced rather than simply being reproduced. And we know exactly how that production was accomplished.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

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NoNukes
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 44 of 373 (644330)
12-17-2011 7:46 AM
Reply to: Message 42 by Chuck77
12-17-2011 7:28 AM


Design leaves fingerprints. Can't you see intelligent design all around us?
This is one of those threads where people who propose that design leaves fingerprints are being asked to describe those fingerprints. What are the markers for identifying designed objects that haven't been built by humans. Biological things don't have tool marks and generally don't look much like things we've watched being designed.
In this thread usually the answers boil down to either 1) that awesome wonderful thing reflects the designer's glory and must have been deliberate (complex specified information), or 2) that improbably cool thing must have been designed because it could not have arisen by accident (irreducible complexity) or 3) some mashed up combination.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 61 of 373 (644493)
12-18-2011 11:15 AM
Reply to: Message 60 by bluegenes
12-18-2011 9:49 AM


I think that they frequently look for signs of intelligently designed artifacts as evidence for ancient human cultures.
Perhaps this is what archaeologist do in effect, but it cannot be true that scientist actually search for intelligence. If their search was truly for intelligence, then design proponents could describe that procedure in detail and at least make the attempt to apply it to nature.
In fact what archaeologist do is search for non-naturally occurring objects or arrangements of objects based on their knowledge of the types of things man makes, their knowledge of man's forming techniques and their knowledge of how things occur in nature. There is a high probability that such objects are made by men.
The real technique is of course useless to people who want to believe that some of the things that occur in nature are actually designed. Archaeologists would have already sorted those things into the scrap pile.
Sometimes a triangular shaped rock was produced by erosion but still gets used as an arrowhead. Those things might get correctly identified as artifacts based on contextual clues. What would be the analogous tool that IDers could use?
Design proponents claim that real scientists simply know designed objects when they see them and that Iders should allowed to claim the same ability for biological things. But scientists don't do the sort of hand waving IDers accuse scientist of doing.
Edited by NoNukes, : Clear up an ambiguous "they"

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NoNukes
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 93 of 373 (644712)
12-20-2011 8:53 AM
Reply to: Message 92 by Percy
12-20-2011 7:17 AM


Information
Another way of looking at the creation of information is as follows.
When a random mutation is made in DNA, it is clear that the information content is different but it is not clear whether the information content of the DNA has increased even on an individual basis.
But if the information content results in a morphological change in an offspring, and the change is selected as a winner through natural selection, then the changed information content represents an increase in information. The new morphology is more well adapted to environment X even if it is less well adapted to environment Y.
And given that we know of, and have observed, natural mechanisms for increasing the bit length of the DNA as well as altering bits of information, there would not seem to be any limit on the information that can be added or subtracted by natural means.
But finally, there is simply no basis for saying that biological information cannot increase in such a way as to create new functionality. That's not something that can be demonstrated through the laws of thermodynamics or in any other way. If such were true, then JBR's argument might have some substance. As it stands though the "no new data" argument is no argument at all, but mere assertion.
What I find difficult to understand is the failure of JBR and others to understand why their argument doesn't persuade anyone. Regardless of whether they are convinced, surely the holes in the argument are extremely obvious. Yet no attempt is made to address them.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 92 by Percy, posted 12-20-2011 7:17 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 95 by Wounded King, posted 12-20-2011 9:49 AM NoNukes has seen this message but not replied
 Message 97 by Percy, posted 12-20-2011 10:24 AM NoNukes has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 94 of 373 (644713)
12-20-2011 8:59 AM
Reply to: Message 32 by Just being real
12-17-2011 5:23 AM


So are you implying different kind, species, alleles, or just different copies? It's sad that I have to ask such a silly question just so you won't try to trip me up on simple wording.
Your DNA contains mutations.

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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 99 of 373 (644734)
12-20-2011 10:48 AM
Reply to: Message 97 by Percy
12-20-2011 10:24 AM


Re: Information
You have to be careful not to inject human judgements about good and bad into determinations of whether information has increased or decreased. A deleterious mutation can increase information as easily as a beneficial one.
Your statement is correct but I don't think I made the mistake you describe.
The fact that a mutation is deleterious is not preserved in the system in the quite the same way as is the fact that a different mutation is beneficial. A deleterious mutation may be just as likely to occur again the second time as the first time. If we look at a population of fish, we may have no idea whether a mutation that creates a inefficient swim fin has ever occurred in that population or whether any ancestors ever had such a fin.
On the other hand, a beneficial mutation is far more likely to be passed on because its expression increases the possibility for survival 'till breeding time, thus resulting in increased offspring with that trait. So the population plus the environment preserves the information that mutation X is beneficial in that particular environment.
then the number of possible states of the system (in other words, the number of possible allele permutations across the genome) has increased.
Again, I don't have any issue with that either. But you do not address the question of whether a mutation can result in an increase in the information state of an individual when compared to the individual's parents. I completely agree that increased variation in a population represents an increase in information.
There are, in fact, many ways that information can be created and/or stored.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 97 by Percy, posted 12-20-2011 10:24 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 100 by Wounded King, posted 12-20-2011 11:42 AM NoNukes has seen this message but not replied
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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 105 of 373 (644756)
12-20-2011 1:24 PM
Reply to: Message 101 by Percy
12-20-2011 11:43 AM


Re: Information
This is talking about information concerning whether a mutation is beneficial or not. That's not genetic information. That's sort of meta information relative to the environment and has nothing to do with whether there is more or less information in the genome.
I suppose that is so. But if the second law actually did prohibit increases in information being produced from random variation, then the second law must apply to this meta-information as well.
I'm also not sure it makes sense to measure information content outside of the context in which the information is being interpreted.
Percy writes:
If we're looking at this at the allele level then the answer is simple. Even in the complete absence of mutations offspring will almost always have different amounts of genetic information than either of their parents.
Okay. You've convinced me that my wording was a bit sloppy. I don't see anyway to clarify my point without expanding it to at least a small population including the parent. So let's consider asexual reproduction. It is certainly possible that the offspring can contain more information than the parent and not merely different information.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 101 by Percy, posted 12-20-2011 11:43 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 106 by Percy, posted 12-20-2011 3:14 PM NoNukes has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 109 of 373 (644786)
12-20-2011 4:58 PM
Reply to: Message 106 by Percy
12-20-2011 3:14 PM


Re: Information
For a population where the number of possible states in the system is a function of the messages (individual genomes) in the population, if the number of possible states in the system increases then the amount of information has increased.
The above is not enough to allow us to actually assess the change in information of information that results when portions of a message are changed. Looking at an electronics communications stream, for example, some number of the bits may be used for error/checking or parity or other types of redundancy and may be used to correct errors during transmission. That means we have to have some sense of how the message is interpreted to determine whether any given change to the message translates to any change in content at all as far as the receiver is concerned.
There's a simpler and non-mathematical way to answer this question.
Excellent.

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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 147 of 373 (645030)
12-22-2011 2:20 PM
Reply to: Message 144 by mike the wiz
12-22-2011 12:37 PM


Re: My last comment
That's a counter-claim because the evidence shows that all organisms are made to do what they do NOW. The burden of proof is upon you to show that we are going to or coming from some place.
So when we find humans with tails, we know that the tail was made to do whatever it is it does. No that cannot be right because human tails have no use at all? That it is a mutation? Well, no because that would represent a gain of information from evolution. Hmm.
How would you explain a human's born with tails? I think the best explanation is that your proposition that all organisms are made to do what they do NOW is bogus. Certainly there is evidence that organisms do posses features that are have much lesser functionality than do those of their putative ancestors.

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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 320 of 373 (647841)
01-11-2012 3:05 PM
Reply to: Message 319 by Taq
01-11-2012 1:11 PM


Re: Evidence for a designer
Taq writes:
Of course, this really isn't getting us any closer to the question posed in the opening post. I, for one, would like to see any cdesign proponentist explain why their model would ever predict a nested hierarchy for genetics and morphology. This is my biggest sticking point with ID.
I'm sorry Taq, but I'll have to admit that the final sentence in the above quote almost made soda come out of my nose.
ID makes one and only one testable prediction; namely that the theory of evolution cannot explain at least one observed biological feature. Regarding everything else, there is just ad hoc hand-waving and/or Bible study about what a Designer might or might not have a motivation to do.
Of course the lack of any real testable predictions should be of no surprise to anyone. The entire purpose for ID is to moderate the effects of teaching of the theory of evolution in k-12 classrooms given that outright bans on teaching the ToE has been found to be unconstitutional. ID is required to actually predict jack doodly-squat nothing. The heavy lifting of actually attacking the evidence for the theory of evolution is left to other branches of creation science.
Just having methods, logic, mathematics, and organization does not make an inquiry scientific. Astrology and other forms of numerology have all of those things. Sorry DB.
Yes, your observation was completely correct, but I think the problem with ID is far more fundamental than your statement hints.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. The proper place to-day, the only place which Massachusetts has provided for her freer and less desponding spirits, is in her prisons, to be put out and locked out of the State by her own act, as they have already put themselves out by their principles. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 319 by Taq, posted 01-11-2012 1:11 PM Taq has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 324 by Taq, posted 01-11-2012 4:30 PM NoNukes has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 326 of 373 (647878)
01-11-2012 5:08 PM
Reply to: Message 324 by Taq
01-11-2012 4:30 PM


Re: Evidence for a designer
None of us came away with our minds changed about anything, but at least we were able to actually discuss biology which interests me more than a diatribe on the political motivations of ID supporters.
ID should be allowed to grow beyond the political motivations of the initial ID advocates. But it hasn't done so, and I have yet to see an argument that it has done so from DB, JBR, mike the wiz, Behe, or anyone else. Assertions yes, but not much more.
But your point is well taken, and in any case, I didn't sneeze diet Sprite onto my lap top.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. The proper place to-day, the only place which Massachusetts has provided for her freer and less desponding spirits, is in her prisons, to be put out and locked out of the State by her own act, as they have already put themselves out by their principles. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)

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