Intelligent Design just a question for evolutionists

Message 136 of 146 (796827) 01-05-2017 5:38 AM

Reply to: Message 133 by Taq 01-04-2017 11:12 AM

I have addressed this silly strawman fallacy before. I don't know of one person that ever argues this apart from you.

I don't say biology "looks" designed, my argument specifically is that biology has all of the elements/feature of design which naturally will also make it look designed which is a trivial issue, because cars also look designed. I've also explained to you that on a micro-level it is not what something looks like that matters, but correct function.

Only evolutionists are stuck on the "appearance" of things. If you had actually read my new topic you would see I have answered the appearance-argument. We are not arguing appearance, we are arguing the actual features of design which are identical, such as specified complexity, contingency planning, information/density, correct materials. etc..

Edited by mike the wiz, : No reason given.

Message 137 of 146 (796828) 01-05-2017 5:48 AM

Reply to: Message 135 by frako 01-04-2017 5:33 PM

This old canard has been addressed so many time now. It is probably the oldest atheist P.R.A.T.T on the internet. (point refuted a thousand times).

The receptors need to be refreshed by the choroid, the mueller cells penetrate the nerve net so the "problem" you mention here is not a problem for it is cleverly solved and we have no problem with our vision because of this. For it to count as poor design you would have to show that vision is hindered. Your complaint it is "stupid" design is the opposite of the facts, for you clearly know little about this topic. The trumpet-like mueller cells are designed CLEVERLY so that the light is taken directly to the photo receptors.

You can read more about your add nauseam argument here;

http://creation.com/...lls-backwardly-wired-retina-v-dawkins

(no doubt you will now try and come up with more examples of bad design, but before you do, you should know that logical rules prove that even bad design is still design. Showing me a car that is not well designed in your opinion, doesn't prove design is not there. The arguments of poor design in biology, have all been addressed. I can take all of those arguments to pieces but they really are boring to have to address again and again, they are not many, they are few, simply repeated many times. Repeating a few things, many times is not the same as many things being repeated. Usually it's the wiring of the eye, which people don't understand has now been proven to be very clever design, the recurrent laryngeal nerve, or men's nipples, or the pharynx. Must I show the silly errors with each one, all over again?)

Edited by mike the wiz, : No reason given.

Edited by mike the wiz, : No reason given.

Message 138 of 146 (796829) 01-05-2017 5:54 AM

Reply to: Message 131 by Dr Adequate 11-04-2016 8:12 PM

"I am afraid it is you who are mistaken, young Skywalker...about a great......many.....things." - The Emperor, Return Of The Jedi.

Edited by mike the wiz, : changed "thing" to, "things"...

Message 139 of 146 (796830) 01-05-2017 6:18 AM

Reply to: Message 137 by mike the wiz 01-05-2017 5:48 AM

make 2 dots on a piece of a paper then look at one and move the distence of the paper from your ees untill the dot vanishes and it looks like the paper is blank, then tell me we dont have problems whit our vision because of this idiotic design.

Message 140 of 146 (796831) 01-05-2017 6:49 AM

Reply to: Message 139 by frako 01-05-2017 6:18 AM

Lol.

Oh absolutely, and you clearly have spent a lot of time thinking about that link, and about this issue haven't you?

But before you CHANGE THE GOAL posts, I must first ask you this; your complaint was X, and I have answered X, showing you were wrong and the nerve net in front is a clever design. Now you have changed the issue to locating dots on a page, does this mean you have acknowledged you were wrong about the previous complaint?

But this is logically, proof we don't, for if you have to ask me to do something strange with my eyes in order to show me there is something wrong with their design then doesn't that show how weak your argument it?

Frako, there's a problem with your legs as a design, take a hammer and smash your knee caps to pieces, then tell me there isn't a problem with this "idiotic design" of leg.

OR, you can grow a modicum of humility and just admit that you simply DESIRE to say that eyes are poorly designed.

Eyes are very complex, I watched a two hour seminar about them, and the things of cleverness mentioned took most of the time, the wiring of the retina, experts know isn't really a problem. Even if we accepted some complaints about the eye, I think logically it is much more realistic to regard those complaints as, "imperfections" rather than design flaws.

For example, chasing dots on a page hasn't really been a problem for my vision until, well....now, when you mentioned it.

So it seems to me you may have a case in arguing, "why isn't design perfect".

But even if I was evolutionist I wouldn't call the eye, "stupid". Eyes are miraculous, even if you are evolutionist you could say "a miracle of evolution", which although is an oxymoron, at least acknowledges the facts. The fact is eyes are not only beautiful but they are made in congruence with the rest of the face, brain ears. You don't look into a beautiful woman's eyes and think, "stupid", do you? The eyes are incredible, to know why would take hours of discussion, mentioning a few trivial complaints and saying, "we should infer idiotic design" is the fallacy of slothful induction, against the weight of the evidence that shows all eyes are not only viable designs, but are aesthetically pleasing, too.

Let's put the shoe on the other foot. If evolution is true, we could reasonably expect more design problems rather than slight imperfections, given there would be no designer at all. Is it conceivable that every design, every species, would be viable into the millions and there would never be even one bad design, like some type of species, "making do" with an eye where it is largely opaque because it really was wired wrong, (like it isn't).

If it's all evolution, you have to be realistic, you would expect many odge-bodge designs. To argue from hindsight, "we would expect what we see", is an easy game to play isn't it, but evolution would never predict millions of viable designs.

Your arguments strikes me as a rather desperate attempt to focus on the one or two rather trivial imprefections shall we say...it is like saying, "this forest contains no trees because look, here is a spot where there are none."

That's slothful-induction, when you ignore the majority of the evidence and instead focus on the few examples, and then infer a conclusion based on the few examples, rather than on the majority of examples.

The majority of the evidence (99.9999%) shows staggering intelligent design, and the 0.0001% that show "trivial imperfections", aren't even problems for design.

For example, how can a braking system on a car be "idiotic design" if they are viable, function correctly, don't break down, but because you can't go from 60mph to 0mph in 1 second, you conclude it is, "idiotic design". If it isn't designed to do that, then it isn't bad design. A bus also is not designed to go around a corner like a ferrari can. Our eyes aren't meant to do strange dot-chasing manoeuvres, but does it mean the design is, "idiotic"? Hmmmmm.

So it seems to me when atheists say, "stand on one foot, squint with one eye behind your back and whistle dixie! SEE! You can't, therefore terrible design!" forgive me for taking such arguments with a large pinch of salt.

Edited by mike the wiz, : No reason given.

Edited by mike the wiz, : No reason given.

Message 141 of 146 (796845) 01-05-2017 10:57 AM

Reply to: Message 140 by mike the wiz 01-05-2017 6:49 AM

But you always have a blind spot. Doing something strange with your eyes is just the only way you're going to notice it, but it's there affecting your vision all the time, without you noticing it. (And arguably a problem you don't know you have is worse than a problem you do know you have: for example a fool who thinks he's clever is worse off than a fool who knows he's a fool.)

And that's what we've got.

But if there was a perfect creator, you'd expect none.

Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Message 142 of 146 (796849) 01-05-2017 11:36 AM

Reply to: Message 141 by Dr Adequate 01-05-2017 10:57 AM

But you need to remember that the Biblical creator in Genesis 2&3 was far from perfect and in fact learning by doing so you would expect piss poor design.

Message 143 of 146 (796882) 01-06-2017 11:25 AM

Reply to: Message 136 by mike the wiz 01-05-2017 5:38 AM

That seems to be a distinction without a difference. What is different between "looks designed" and "has all of the elements/features of design"?

Also, biology does not have all of the features of design. First, things designed by an intelligence do no fall into a nested hierarchy. Biology does. Second, designs serve a function needed by a designer. Life doesn't. Life's only function is to replicate.

How do you determine what the "correct function" is?

How did you determine that these features can only come from design?

Message 144 of 146 (796886) 01-06-2017 8:06 PM

Reply to: Message 1 by mike the wiz 10-06-2016 6:04 PM

Correct. The ID movement is fundamentally based upon a teleological argument for the special intervention (almost universally) of a deity in the origin of the species constructed so as to appear to be a mere philosophical argument so as to 'wedge' Christian talking points into science classroom discussion.

Meh, the Bible beat him to it. Aquinas after that. The Greeks beat all of them.

Well Paley did say during his Watchmaker and Eye analogy:

quote:

---

If any thing can abate our admiration of the smallness of the visual tablet compared with the extent of vision, it is a reflection, which the view of nature leads us, every hour, to make, viz. that, in the hands of the Creator, great and little are nothing.

---

So yeah, Paley was using a teleological argument to defend the position of Creationism.

Teleology certainly could - but the ID movement, Aquinas, Paley, The Bible and the Greeks? Not usually, they are usually driving towards the notion that the designer is the Creator.

Can you recognise this?

Agreed.

That would be rare, but not unheard of.

Yes.

I agree with your syllogism. However, you didn't include intelligence in this, so I can hardly say you presented an intelligent design argument here.

Agreed.

Exactly. It could be a God, aliens or evolution by natural selection. Your argument is neutral to all these possibilities.

Except for the part about it not actually concluding 'it is intelligently designed'. Which seems to me like a rather important issue.

That said, it is not really much use as far as arguments go. Like basically all syllogisms, it isn't very useful at all except in so far as to explain some basic part of your position. If you are hiding the premise 'if something is designed, it is by intelligent agency', which you seem to be based on your extra-syllogistic discussion then you are making a logical error. But if we assume this additional premise, the syllogism can be entirely valid. I don't see any reason to suppose it is true, but valid? Sure.

I'll let you have it all if you will acknowledge that a thing that designs other things strongly implies 'the elements of design', and if that is so, it must also be designed...thus rendering it somewhat useless or at least trivial. To be saying anything of interest, you'd need to start discussing the course of the regression.

Materialists tend towards explaining things in ever more simple with the argument that wherever the regression ultimately leads, it could hardly be called 'intelligent'.

If you are proposing an ever increasing series of intelligent designers {interplanetary alien scientists, interstellar alien scientists, intergalactic alien scientists, pan-universal alien scientists} you'd have to keep a tight leash to avoid the tempting offer to cut things off before you started describing typically divine properties (transcending time and space, eternal, an intelligent unmoved mover etc).

Agreed. All believers in some kind of Creator deity or deities for thousands of years have used 'the argument from design' to support their particular worldview.

Yeah, that's because ID is a specific thing. If you don't want to be tarred with that, avoid the term 'ID'. Go with teleology. At least you'd be signalling to the educated that you aren't necessarily arguing for a Creator - although those that know you will probably perceive a man furiously working behind a curtain you'd like us to pay no attention to.

I made this post without having actually read any of the replies, so apologies for repeat points. I thought it might be interesting to get my blind response.

Message 145 of 146 (796887) 01-06-2017 8:26 PM

Reply to: Message 17 by mike the wiz 10-07-2016 6:05 AM

Well the 'we know this feature is designed, so this suggests this similar feature is also designed' idea is in fact a theory. A theory is what you apply to data (the object and its features) in your case for making an argument that this is evidence for you theory that similar features were intelligently designed.

You explain, I suppose, the eye as having been intelligently designed based on the theory that it has (for instance) lots of clever parts interacting in a specific way so as to allow vision. And intelligent agents can in fact arrange parts cleverly in a specific way for optical purposes. Your theory then is that the data you find in the eye suggests the explanation for the existence of the eye lies in some kind intelligent designer having deliberately designed it much like, for instance, a camera.

So it would be foolish of you to throw out the concept of using theory when analysing data because then you would have no evidence to support your conclusions.

Right back at you.

I'd say 'what is the theory?' and 'what data do you have, that in light of this theory serves as evidence for it?'

Which, according your theory, all indicates an intelligent designer - right?

Likewise I could list a number of features that suggest unintelligent design, and even more - a specific kind of unintelligent design by recourse to a different theory.

So it comes down to 'how do we assess different theories?', 'Are there methods for determining which theory is the stronger, or better, in some way or my some measure?'

Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Message 146 of 146 (796889) 01-06-2017 8:44 PM

Reply to: Message 32 by Genomicus 10-07-2016 11:08 AM

Sure, but they are messy stochastic machines that operating by bumping into each other with bias. If my car drove 2 miles forwards and then 1.5 miles backwards I'd hardly regard it as intelligently designed. Likewise if it proceeded down the road by bumping into the wall on one side, bouncing off, hitting on coming traffic and spinning around, driving the wrong way and being turned around again and then stopped working altogether and used gravity to direct itself for twenty minutes, then started up again at a normal angle to my destination, drove off a bridge, got carried half a mile off down a river where it hit a rock that knocked it back on course and away I went....that'd hardly be the hallmark of intelligence.

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If the genetic code is to be thought of as a code, it is not passing on its messages in a way that any intelligent agent ever has. Optimised? Maybe. Messy, ugly, referential, double meaningly, ambiguously and contingent on very specific conditions to be read? Sure.

Nope, the more messy and stochastic and chaotic and disorganized it becomes.

That behave in a way that no intelligent person would design something to work if they wanted to keep their job as an engineer.

Only if you look at simplified representations of them for the purposes of understanding stochastic tendencies without showing those stochastic tendencies because they typically confuse the crap out of people who are trying to learn what's going on in general.

They've taken us no further than the ancient Greeks managed to get. Did Paley advance the argument in some compelling way? There is no explanation present.

Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.