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Author Topic:   The $5,000,000 ID Research Challenge
Taq
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Posts: 9970
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.6


Message 66 of 285 (679732)
11-15-2012 1:45 PM
Reply to: Message 63 by tesla
11-14-2012 10:26 PM


Re: spend it on space exploration/ Brain research.
There are some people that believe in the six foot tall rabbit. What we believe personally is what matters.
I completely disagree. Our beliefs mean diddley squat. What matters is what is real. Reality does not conform to our beliefs, so every minute spent on coddling our beliefs is a minute not spent on figuring out how reality works.
That is the central point of this thread. Instead of saying "I believe . . ." you should be saying "This evidence demonstrates . . ." or "this hypothesis predicts . . .". You can believe that the Earth is stationary and the universe moves about it, but the Earth still moves.
But I can point out the areas I have already stated would be good areas to begin designing research experiments, and the question to be answered.
That is not ID research.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 63 by tesla, posted 11-14-2012 10:26 PM tesla has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 70 by tesla, posted 11-15-2012 5:27 PM Taq has replied

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


Message 67 of 285 (679735)
11-15-2012 1:48 PM
Reply to: Message 64 by tesla
11-14-2012 10:33 PM


Re: Human brain part of the world we live in? of course it is silly.
Message 44. Tools for the various fields would be tools related to the cause, which would be costly and numerous. due to that, the chosen researcher would have to detail the requirements of lab for their specific research needs, be it space travel engines and mechanisms, or brain scanning and mapping equipment with advanced statistical capabilities.
We didn't need any of these things to determine that life evolved.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 64 by tesla, posted 11-14-2012 10:33 PM tesla has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 72 by tesla, posted 11-15-2012 5:41 PM Taq has replied

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


Message 69 of 285 (679771)
11-15-2012 5:15 PM
Reply to: Message 68 by tesla
11-15-2012 5:09 PM


Re: The path of researchWhat needs to be known first??
The plan of researching if it was possible to land a man on the moon required first understanding if we could leave the earth’s atmosphere safely.
Of course, since leaving the atmosphere was part of landing a man on the moon. They also tested specific hypotheses that were directly related to the question of whether or not they could land a man on the moon.
So what are the tests for determining if life is intelligently designed? What are the hypotheses? How does one test those hypotheses using experiments?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 68 by tesla, posted 11-15-2012 5:09 PM tesla has replied

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


(1)
Message 73 of 285 (679780)
11-15-2012 5:46 PM
Reply to: Message 70 by tesla
11-15-2012 5:27 PM


Re: spend it on space exploration/ Brain research.
A hypothesis is still a guess, . . .
It is a TESTABLE guess. That is what makes all of the difference in the world. Do we accept Relativity because Einstein believed it? NO!!! We accept Relativity because it is testable, and it passed those tests.
Creating hypotheses and then devising experiments to test those hypotheses is the very essence of doing science. The great scientists are often those who devised a simple yet elegant experiment to test a hypothesis. One of my favorite examples is the Luria-Delbruck fluctuation experiment, but other favorites include the Rutherford gold foil experiment, Young's double slit experiment, and the Michelson-Morely interferometer.
You believe what you choose to believe because you have trusted the source of the information, and the interpretation of the results.
I understand the competitive nature of science, so I have every reason to accept the data as reported by several competing labs. For those things in the area of my expertise, I interpret the results myself.
But we don't even see this from ID research. They are not producing information, and they have no experiments to interpret. ID is scientifically stillborn.
In my opinion, if this universe was the outcome of a carefully balanced set of rules set in place by a very careful entity
How does one test this hypothesis with experiments? What predictions does it make, and what is the null hypothesis?
if one is going to tailor their research to examine I.D. then the research will have to be in understanding better the areas that target the 'intelligence' of intelligent design.
So we can't determine if something is designed by looking at the designed thing?
And since we do not have very strong interstellar capabilities: to search space for greater 'being', there needs to be better ways of navigating such large distances.
Don't we have the designed genomes right here on Earth?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 70 by tesla, posted 11-15-2012 5:27 PM tesla has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 75 by tesla, posted 11-16-2012 2:19 PM Taq has replied

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


(1)
Message 74 of 285 (679781)
11-15-2012 5:48 PM
Reply to: Message 72 by tesla
11-15-2012 5:41 PM


Re: Human brain part of the world we live in? of course it is silly.
The question in I.D. isn't that life evolves. The question is was it designed to evolve.
We have the evolving species right here on Earth, so why can't we use them to test this question?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 72 by tesla, posted 11-15-2012 5:41 PM tesla has replied

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


(1)
Message 77 of 285 (679943)
11-16-2012 3:29 PM
Reply to: Message 75 by tesla
11-16-2012 2:19 PM


Re: spend it on space exploration/ Brain research.
You think just because you cannot run a 'test' on God that there is no possible way to do research on whether or not God is reality.
God? I was speaking of the designer which doesn't need to be a deity.
You want to ignore the path that is necessary in I.D. research before you can "Run Experiments" on the desired object. Do you think you can run an experiment on moon rock without first obtaining the moon rock?
Did they have to run experiments on higher beings and consciousness before doing experiments on moon rocks or building rockets? No. Did they have ideas of what experiments they would do on those moon rocks once they had them? Yep, they sure did. If I had made this same challenge for moon rocks in the 1950's I would have received responses with extremely specific experiments that people would want to run, including radiometric dating, hydrogen isotope composition, and magnetic testing to test for a paleomagnetic field on the moon. They didn't need the technology to reach the moon in order to know what types of specific experiments they would use to test hypotheses.
Algorithms are necessary sometimes, and the study of so called I.D science requires a certain methodology of answered questions before you can answer the final question.
So what are those questions and how do you scientifically test them?
YOU say: You cannot run an experiment on planet (X), but if you show me how you could conduct scientific research on planet (X) I'll give you 5 million dollars.
No, I am saying that you can do experiments on Earth because we have Earth right here. What experiments do you want to run on the Earth? Life is right here. It is not a million light years away. It is RIGHT HERE IN FRONT OF US.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 75 by tesla, posted 11-16-2012 2:19 PM tesla has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 78 by tesla, posted 11-16-2012 11:21 PM Taq has replied

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


Message 79 of 285 (680382)
11-19-2012 11:58 AM
Reply to: Message 78 by tesla
11-16-2012 11:21 PM


Re: spend it on space exploration/ Brain research.
Yeah, but whats outside that box Taq? WHATS OUTSIDE THE BOX.
Life on Earth is outside the box. Either ID can explain it or it can't.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 78 by tesla, posted 11-16-2012 11:21 PM tesla has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 80 by tesla, posted 11-21-2012 12:20 PM Taq has replied

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


Message 83 of 285 (680867)
11-21-2012 2:44 PM
Reply to: Message 80 by tesla
11-21-2012 12:20 PM


Re: spend it on space exploration/ Brain research.
I.D. is not a science to explain life on earth.
Then the challenge is not for you.
[Intelligent Design is] about understanding why life is.
I will fully agree that ID is primarily a religious or creator oriented philosophy. That is not what the challenge is about, though. There are those who do claim that ID is science, and those people are my intended audience. I want them to explain how they would do the actual science as it relates to testing their ID claims.
I think it's an important question. Life is the ability of mass to preserve a form despite the interactive laws of the elements. It is in denying elements the ability to interact with each other so that a structure of elements is preserved. And then, the structure also supplies maps (DNA) for replication, and a method to make decisions of the total life-form, in the pursuit of preserving the arrangements.
IMO, that is a really bad description of life. Some of those same descriptions can be used to describe minerals and rocks. Personally, I think the emergent properties of life can be best described as feedback loops. In fact, that is how we often model the inner workings of the cell. Once that cycle starts it builds on itself, sort of like a tone resonating in a chamber.
So, a part of knowing where we are going--which is extremely important to know in order to make decisions today--is to understand how and why we got to where we are.
It appears we do view the world through very different eyes. Our history does not limit our future. If we were planted here by aliens or came about through entirely natural means, I really don't see how it should change where we want to go with society. We should choose a path that is the best for us regardless of what our history is. If a person was born a slave and expected to be a slave, should they be a slave? I say no.
and one highly probable potential is that a designer set the wheel in motion.
Where did you demonstrate that?
You want to say 'nothing'. But you cannot prove that. But you want to research that.
I want people to back their claims with evidence. If you say that we were created, then I want to see the evidence.
Well fine, then rule-out the possibilities scientifically. Don’t just 'decide'; "oh, I don't like the concept of 'God' because I can't wrap my brain around what that looks like, so I'll teach to ignore the potential"
I can wrap my brain aroud the idea that people can invent fantasies that don't exist. I don't see why I need to falsify these fantasies when no one can offer evidence for them to start with. In the words of Christopher Hitchens, that which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Is it really that hard for you to wrap your head around the idea that evidence is important?
You would do better, and so would science, to accept the challenge of the potential, explore the possibilities and rule them out and further science.
That is what this thread is asking YOU to do. Show us how it is falsifiable. What experiments can we run to determine if it is true or not?
Scientifically, as I’ve already outlined: through understanding nature’s way of recording and using data through consciousness of biological algorithms, and through understanding what’s outside the earth life wise.
That doesn't mean anything. It haven't shown how it relates to the question at hand.
I’m well aware we lack the necessary capabilities to truly do that yet, but if we do not begin researching and gaining those capabilities, the longer it will take, if ever, to bring science far enough to be able to legitimately answer the question of life and existing.
From where I sit, we do have the necessary capabilities, but you just don't like the answers.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 80 by tesla, posted 11-21-2012 12:20 PM tesla has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 84 by tesla, posted 11-26-2012 2:31 PM Taq has replied

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


Message 85 of 285 (681579)
11-26-2012 2:54 PM
Reply to: Message 84 by tesla
11-26-2012 2:31 PM


Re: spend it on space exploration/ Brain research.
Oh you do you? Show me.
We have the genomes of living species. This allows us to infer the history of changes in their genomes. We can also observe those mechanisms in action.
Do you deny the probability? Should I use statistics to show the chances that a singularity of energy and it changing/evolving without outside variables to institute change? Do you deny unlimited possibilities?
You are shifting the burden of proof. These are things YOU need to show through scientific research. It is not enough to dream up fantasies, and require everyone else to falsify them. That is not how science works.
Our body is God, and Bacteria represent humans.
In human bodies: when bacteria levels reach a certain amount, the bacteria attack in unison. If the attack is a negative result on the human body, we react by taking medicine or in the event of extreme infection; cut off a limb.
When has the threat of God's Wrath every really improved society? From what I have seen, it has never gone well. The history of the Catholic church is full of priests using the threat of eternal damnation to beat their followers into submission, even burning people at the stake. If anything, we should run away from your proposed beliefs like the plague. They have poisoned society in the past, they are poisoning societies now (e.g. Sharia law), and I see no place for them in society's future. I think it is time to ignore the type of superstition that you are pushing.
But even more, we are drifting away from the topic.
My argument is that researching the brain and space exploration, potentially connecting with further along evolved species would be a benefit to our scientific goals of understanding.
What is wrong with the data we have now?
What I don't understand is why you reject that as I.D. science.
Because it is not researching intelligent design. What you describe could be used as a description for any type of fantasy you can dream up. Leprechauns? Could be a possibility, all we need to do is research the brain and space capabilities so we can find an advanced race that can help us research Leprechauns. Flying Spaghetti Monster? Same thing. It is not an ID research program.
The science includes the acceptance that we could exist inside of a body that was designed by greater being.
No, it doesn't. Science doesn't include concepts that have no evidence to support them. Assertions made without evidence are dismissed without evidence, as Christopher Hitchens once quipped.
You keep making these grand assertions, but there is ZERO science behind it. This is why ID "science" is ignored by other scientists.
Dark matter. Need I say more?
I think you do. There are currently research programs and experiments that are looking directly at dark matter. They have devised experiments that can rule out different types of dark matter, and they continue to map the presence of dark matter in the universe.
But you lost. I.D. is a possibility.
We aren't talking about possibilities. We are talking about science.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 84 by tesla, posted 11-26-2012 2:31 PM tesla has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 86 by tesla, posted 11-27-2012 2:28 AM Taq has replied

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


Message 89 of 285 (681669)
11-27-2012 11:35 AM
Reply to: Message 86 by tesla
11-27-2012 2:28 AM


Re: spend it on space exploration/ Brain research.
Science is about exploring possibilities.
No, it isn't. Science is about testing hypotheses through experimentation.
Genomes do not explain where the universe came from, or if there is greater species and beings.
Genomes do explain where species came from, which is the question at hand.
You bring up church when referring to potentials of I.D. I did not bring religion into this.
"You think just because you cannot run a 'test' on God that there is no possible way to do research on whether or not God is reality."--tesla, message #75
It leaves a lot of unanswered questions.
Could you be more vague?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 86 by tesla, posted 11-27-2012 2:28 AM tesla has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 92 by tesla, posted 11-30-2012 11:49 PM Taq has replied

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


(1)
Message 93 of 285 (682512)
12-03-2012 11:47 AM
Reply to: Message 92 by tesla
11-30-2012 11:49 PM


Re: spend it on space exploration/ Brain research.
See, this is why our conversation is useless. You are discussing your closed minded idea of what 'life' is being questioned here.
I am using what ID proponents claim. They claim that an intelligent designer designed these genomes. They even claim that they can detect the desing in those genomes using such terms as "complex specified complexity". It's not like I am making this up.
I'm not referring to genome sequences. I'm referring to the entire body of life, which is everything that exists, has a measurable quantity of 'something' and occupies reality.
If you are going to do scientific research you need to be more specific than "something". Surely you know this?
If you are looking for God, a greater thing, do you find that inside yourself, or do you find it outside the known universe? To find that, you look in both places, or begin building on capabilities to peer deeper into those areas to answer the question as our capabilities improve, in knowledge, and in understanding or even seeing what today is beyond our grasp to see.
We already have the genomes sequenced. We have ample fossils. We know quite a bit about how the cell works, and how embryonic development works. What exactly are you waiting for? You have 150 years of scientific development that has culminated in a generation of scientists that have more knowledge at their fingerprints than all of the previous generations put together (at least for biology). You are just going to ignore this fount of data? Just push it aside without even looking at it?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 92 by tesla, posted 11-30-2012 11:49 PM tesla has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 96 by tesla, posted 12-06-2012 1:35 PM Taq has replied

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


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Message 95 of 285 (682827)
12-05-2012 3:43 PM
Reply to: Message 94 by ringo
12-05-2012 1:14 PM


Re: spend it on space exploration/ Brain research.
Are they doing that though? Are they doing anything active?
Douglas Axe is doing work in a laboratory, but it turns out to be lame attempts to disprove evolution and not anything that is directly testing ID.
What he tried to do is take two enzymes that are proposed to have developed from a common ancestral sequence, and then show that you can not get one from the other through a series of mutations. What he did was commit the Crocoduck fallacy. He tried to show that one modern enzyme could not evolve into another modern enzyme. Of course, we know that this is not how evolution works. What he should have done is try to construct the ancestral sequence and then see if you could reach either enzyme through step-wise mutations, but he didn't do that. Panda's Thumb has a nice run down of has a nice post on it here:
Still more fun: Douglas Axe's Crocoduck
Testing evolution is not testing ID, which is the whole point of this thread. Imagine if "evolutionists" behaved like ID proponents. At every meeting everyone would show that no ID proponent had found evidence for ID, therefore the system under consideration just had to evolve. End of presentation. Would anyone accept that as a valid argument?

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


(1)
Message 98 of 285 (683083)
12-07-2012 11:11 AM
Reply to: Message 96 by tesla
12-06-2012 1:35 PM


Re: spend it on space exploration/ Brain research.
I'll have to agree that sounds rediculous.
"Dembski asserts that CSI exists in numerous features of living things, such as DNA and other functional biological molecules, and argues that it cannot be generated by the only known natural mechanisms of physical law and chance, or by their combination. He argues that this is so because laws can only shift around or lose information, but do not produce it, and chance can produce complex unspecified information, or simple specified information, but not CSI; he provides a mathematical analysis that he claims demonstrates that law and chance working together cannot generate CSI, either. Moreover, he claims that CSI is holistic, with the whole being greater than the sum of the parts, and that this decisively eliminates Darwinian evolution as a possible means of its creation. Dembski maintains that by process of elimination, CSI is best explained as being due to intelligence, and is therefore a reliable indicator of design."
Specified complexity - Wikipedia
That seems to be a pretty good description of Dembski's position, at least in my eyes.
Your data has not yet broken the language of thoughts, and neither have we assessed what greater intelligence is because we have not discovered it.
That same argument could be used to argue for any fantasy that one can come up with. Are unicorns real? Well, we need to work on brain chemistry first and launch space probes to find intelligent alien races so we can find the tools to look for unicorns. Fairies? Well, we need to work on brain chemistry . . . I think you get the point.
I am looking for something much more concrete. I am looking for experiments that actually put ID at risk just like every other hypothesis in science.
At best, I think we can both agree that ID is not in the position to construct scientific hypotheses. If this is the case, then the challenge will have to be revisited.
Your data is important but it still does not prove that somehow fundamentally the system hasn't started from a designed point.
How does the data show that it has started from a designed point?
Again, science is not about excluding mechanisms. Rather, science is focused on finding evidence that will INCLUDE mechanisms.
In these types of discussions I often see people complain that this-or-that is automatically excluded from the start within science. Well, that just isn't true. If there is evidence for a mechanism then it can be included in science. What is expected is that people making claims support their claims with science, or at least a plan of how to gather that evidence.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 96 by tesla, posted 12-06-2012 1:35 PM tesla has replied

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 Message 102 by tesla, posted 12-11-2012 11:45 PM Taq has replied

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


(3)
Message 104 of 285 (683631)
12-12-2012 10:57 AM
Reply to: Message 102 by tesla
12-11-2012 11:45 PM


Re: spend it on space exploration/ Brain research.
Honestly, to assert that the universe could not do what it did is ludicrous. It did it. Now we do not know whether there was a point of development that led to directed elemental interactions that led to the human species.
What experiments would you run to determine if there was this point of development? What evidence is leading you to this hypthesis?
To assert either idea as a fact, one has to be 'proven' true or false.
So how do we do that?
Science fiction of yesterday is science today. why are you unable to believe that today's science fiction or 'super-natural' will not be tomorrow’s science?
I will believe it when you come up with experiments to test it. That is what I have been asking for this entire thread.
The data does not tell us either way if the system has a design point, or rather does not. The data is missing that could help answer that question.
You need to prove this statement.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 102 by tesla, posted 12-11-2012 11:45 PM tesla has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 106 by tesla, posted 12-13-2012 10:16 PM Taq has replied

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


(2)
Message 110 of 285 (683893)
12-14-2012 12:00 PM
Reply to: Message 106 by tesla
12-13-2012 10:16 PM


Re: spend it on space exploration/ Brain research.
1. Science does not have any data to support, or deny greater being.
What experiments did you run to determine this?
Science is too limited to know what greater being looks like, and does not fully understand the dynamics of the human brain.
Where did you demonstrate this?
Science can see only a very small fraction of what is in the universe, and believes that other life potentials on other planets could exist similar to earth life.
Scientists also believe that life could be quite different than life here on Earth. Your point?
That could also mean a more evolved species could be out there.
What does this have to do with anything?
Now that that is out of the way; to address your question: it's been answered. You refuse to accept that exploring the path that leads to further experimentation concerning the issue is the solution, since we cannot directly examine what we are not sure we are looking for. That is why it is called RE-SEARCH.
Exploring space is not a scientific experiment. Exploring how the brain works is not a scientific experiment. They never have been. I am asking for specific scientific experiments that test hypotheses. You have not supplied a single one.
You are not accepting answers you do not agree with, despite the fact they are working answers to the question, and I’ve informed you there are many types of tests that can be run and performed in brain research and interstellar travel.
Those are not experiments.
does anyone know if higher being designed anything is true or isn't, by scientific proof? No.
Obviously, this thread is aimed at people who answer "yes" to that question.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 106 by tesla, posted 12-13-2012 10:16 PM tesla has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 116 by tesla, posted 12-14-2012 8:18 PM Taq has not replied

  
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