Spotting Beretta's "designer" {Now only 1 summation message per member}

You know I'm not an IDist, so I don't think I can give a real answer to this. But I also don’t think this is a fair question: it’s vague. I think it needs to be refined a bit before they can actually work with it.If it’s alright with you (it’s your thread), maybe we should discuss the following question:How much do IDists need to know about the designer before they can accurately make testable inferences about his/her/its/their design style or modus operandi?If not, perhaps I could start a new thread to work that out.----At this point in time, I don't know that they actually have to know anything about the designer itself, so long as they know something about the actual process of design. Currently, most attempts at investigating design come from comparisons to human design (paintings, buildings, cars, etc.), which, to me, seems like a reasonable place to at least start, because, in investigating the concept of “design,” the human style of design is the only example we actually have currently. So, until we meet advanced, designing aliens (or until dolphins begin making technology), all we have to work with is human-style design.The obvious rebuttal to this is that the human-style design model has utterly failed to explain nature. Thus, the next task would be to either expand the human-design model to better explain the data, or to scrap it and try to uncover an entirely different (non-human) style of design that fits the data.But, if you divorce your line of inquiry from human-ness, what do you get? Well, you get science. And science is what rejects creationism.

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Darwin loves you.

Hi, subbie. This is true: there isn't much diffrence in ToE explaing 100% of the data and explaining only 98.5% of the data. However, the real trick is that, while it wouldn't falsify ToE, it would actually be substantial evidence for ID, because IDists don't have to disprove all the concepts in the ToE, they just have to make it make room for a God of the Gaps. For instance, if they could prove an intelligent agent is responsible for designing flying squirrels, they've still proven that the intelligent designer exists. Even better if they could prove some IDing in primate lineages.That little bit would completely vindicate them.Edited by Bluejay, : Added salutation so everyone knows who I'm talking to.

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Darwin loves you.

Hi, Ikabod. To me, this sounds a lot like claiming that, in order to understand a scientific study, you'd need to know something about the author (human design reference #1 by Bluejay). During my undergrad, I did a review on the thermoregulation of polar bears, which required me to cite a lot of studies by Nils Are Oritsland. I never saw his picture, never e-mailed him or anything, but, having read his materials and methods, I know exactly how each of his research papers was carried out.Under this logic, I think your point fails: I don't have to know anything about somebody to understand his materials and methods. And, I could easily develop a "theory" to explain his entire research career based on the materials and methods sections of his papers. The same for an intelligent designer: if I could figure out how he/she/it does things (i.e. his/her/its "materials and methods"), I would not need to know anything at all about him/her/it personally.Now, I would grant to you that, if I did know anything personal about Oritsland, I might be able to recognize other aspects of his personality in his research, but I don't think it's necessary to know him in order to understand his work. You offer two possibilities here. I would like to focus on the first, which is, of course, essentially omphalism: I agree that everything should fit nicely in a designed system, just like all parts of a car should fit together and perform a function to run smoothly (human design reference #2). However, I don't understand why the design shouldn't have data that couldn't be explained by evolution. That's weird.

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Darwin loves you.

Hello, Rueh. So, basically, you're saying what we've all been trying to say: they need to describe the mechanism for ID, the "materials and methods" of God's grand Creation experiment. To me, this seems like a no-brainer: its just a theistic way to describe the main thrust of science. It's like we've been given the "Results" section of God's paper (which is the universe in its current condition), and we've got to figure out the "Material and Methods" based on that.To us, part of the universe's "Materials and Methods" section has already been found: evolution by natural selection. To IDists, that's not the case. While many IDists accept the principle of natural selection, they do not see it as capable of "completing the work," as you say, of producing the vast diversity of life we have on Earth today. They believe that the universe needs more materials and methods than evolution can account for. So, they don’t necessarily agree that the mechanics of evolution were enough to “complete the work.”In a sense, every new major life-form ("baramin," as they like to say) that arises is another act of Creation, not a deep divergence in the tree of life. So, when they attack the process of evolution, they're attacking it for the very purpose you've brought up here: they believe they are studying how an intelligent designer “makes” life.

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Darwin loves you.

Hi, rueh. Please understand that I agree with everything you say. However, I think we have to grant them a few assumptions in order to get at the gist of this thread, which is trying to discern the Designer's hand in nature. I think they do take it into account, Rueh. To us, what precedes a fossil in the fossil record indicates what that organism evolved from. To them, what precedes a fossil in the fossil record indicates what materials God used to create that organism. Of course, this is only one flavor of IDist. Others claim (almost correctly) that there isn't a good link between the various forms that were supposed to have evolved into one another.They haven't been able to prove any of this because they can't yet decide on the materials and methods of God's grand Creation experiment: some think He started with nothing, and "poofed" it all, while some believe He "poofed" some things into the next phase of His Creation in a manner that we scientists incorrectly interpret as unguided, opportunistic evolution.This is why they can't make a case for their "theory": they have, as yet, been unwilling to commit to any sort of explanation as to the actual processes behind God's design. They insist that design must be true, but they refuse to explain what they mean by design, how such design could happen, and how such design could be seen in the natural evidence. This gives them the advantage of flexibility: they can always adjust their stance a little and stay on top. It gives them the disadvantage of having nothing to say: you can't study a theory that doesn't actually nail down a natural phenomenon.So, there must be some settlement on a particular method, mechanism, and pattern of design, which can then be screened for in scientific studies. If we then come to the conclusion that the chosen method, mechanism and pattern of design is not supported by evidence, they could then be allowed to alter their views to another testable position, which we could then screen for. This still allows them the same flexibility, but it also gives them the potential to actually prove their ideas. But, the point is that they are currently evading this process completely, which is why they can't be in a science classroom.----To all IDists:Somebody, please put forth an idea as to how we could discern this Designer's influence in nature. I promise not to ridicule or attack your idea on grounds of current evidence, at least until we've nailed down a theoretical framework whereby the idea could be directly tested (I cannot promise that everybody else will do this, though).

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Darwin loves you.

Hi, Beretta. This is a good start. The next thing to do is to look at the natural world and see if anything fits this definition. If you go down to a molecular level, you see that DNA is really just a long, repetitive formula of 4 bases. Furthermore, genes can be divided into "families" or groups based on their sequence similarity to one another. There is a repeated pattern of nested hierarchy at the population, organismal and molecular scales, which seems to me to contradict your definition.If you studied insects (as I do), you'd also notice that everything about them is a repeated pattern. For us, legs are legs. For insects, legs are legs, antennae, mouthparts, and possibly even wings (I don't buy in to legs-to-wings (migrating coccopodite) theory, though). This is shown by a gene in Drosophila which causes the antennae to develop into legs. The development of legs and antennae is controlled by the same basic set of genes, except expressed differently in different parts of the body.So, the insect's bauplan is a repetitive pattern, and the insect can be reduced to a simpler "formula": doesn't this violate your definition as given above? Actually, there is ample evidence that the folding of proteins into their 3D structures is based almost entirely on the sequence of amino acids in the polypeptide. Also, the “information component” of DNA is just another effect of chemistry: tRNA’s are little nucleic acid chains that bridge the gap between the DNA template and the protein. These tRNA’s have two bond sites, one which is specific to a DNA codon (or to a set of codons), and one which is specific to an amino acid. This is why DNA can accurately code proteins, because the molecular machinery in the cell has become fine-tuned to favor the accurate transmission of sequence between DNA and protein. Science has never made the claim that the “obvious” must be true. Incidentally, neither did RickJB. In fact, science actually makes more of the counter-claim: that only rigorous testing yields reliable understanding. Much of what has been learned through the scientific method is very counter-intuitive (see “General Relativity” for a wonderful example of this). Experiments quite often return with results that the most astute of men would never have intuited in a thousand years. I tend to think of evolution as saying that, if there is a God, this is how He did it. If evolution is, in fact, the Divine method of Creation, then science believes Him to have played a major role. Scientists will not say this, because we are committed to caution in our claims. All we can claim is that we see a pattern in nature, and the pattern follows our theory. I have said time and time again that I would not oppose science teachers teaching their children evolution and saying, at the end, “and God did it.” I rather like the Jackson Pollock example. It shows that an intelligent designer does not necessarily imply an orderly design. It shows that the existence of God does not rule the possibility of a spontaneous, unguided “Creation” process. As a Christian, I believe that God could have created life from scratch. But, from what I’ve seen in the natural evidence, it does not look like He did.Personally, if I were a grand, all-knowing and all-powerful Creator God, I would find it more interesting---and more fun---to let spontaneity rule. Where’s the fun in doing something that doesn’t take any thought or effort? That’s boring. Spontaneity at least has the possibility of surprising you.Edited by Bluejay, : Additions.

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Darwin loves you.

Hi, Beretta. Maybe scientists are, in fact, being blinded by human wisdom; but, at least we're trying. God gave us about five senses and a relatively large brain, and we're just using these meager facilities to try to understand the world around us. All you're doing is telling us we shouldn't even bother, because the answer is so obvious that we shouldn't have to work to find it. Yet, when we do work to find it, we find something entirely different from what you thought was obvious. And, of course, you criticize us for that too.Still, you haven't put forward the method you use to determine what design is and how to distinguish it from non-design. Beretta, scientists are people who, in fact, have looked at their hand, considered the capabilities of their own brains, then said, "That's amazing!" and spent the time trying to figure out how they work. Creationists are people who looked at their hand, considered the capabilities of their own brains, then said, "That's amazing!" and decided that they didn't really need to understand how they work, because God designed them.This line of attack of yours is extremely rude and, frankly, extremely ignorant.

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Darwin loves you.

Hi, Beretta In all sincere honesty, Beretta, I do not understand this statement. Does this mean that organization cannot happen at all without an organizer? For instance, when sodium and chloride ions become arranged into cubes, are you saying that there must be an intelligent, organizing agent causing them to line up in the nice order? Or, are you saying that there had to have been an organizer to design them in such a way that they would line up spontaneously into their nice order under the right conditions? This is another thing that I just don’t understand. Chemical reactions are just chemical reactions: you set up a specific set of conditions, you get a specific result. The genetic coding is just a massive complex of chemical reactions. The “information” is just the description of how the reaction will pan out, it has nothing to do with controlling or directing the reaction.Could you please provide me a way to understand how I am wrong in this. All you have done so far is repeat it over and over again, and I just don’t understand it.

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Darwin loves you.

Hi, Beretta. But, the information comes from the DNA sequence, not the other way around. You can change the information that is transmitted by changing the DNA sequence. You can also add or delete information by adding or removing pieces of DNA. Clearly, the chemicals are in charge, not the information.So, wouldn’t it be more accurate to say that DNA produces information, rather than information is superimposed upon DNA?So, what we should be asking now is, “How do DNA sequences (and thus, information) change? Or, how do they form in the first place?”The answer to the first part---How do they change?---is pretty straightforward. Mutation. Actually, this is kind of tautological itself: “mutation” is a word that just means “change to the nucleotide sequence.” Changes can happen pretty much randomly: replicating and transcribing machinery occasionally just substitutes the wrong base pair somewhere for no apparent reason. Also, various external chemical conditions (pH, radiation, free radicals, other chemicals, etc.) can also cause mutation. This has been observed in the laboratory countless times, even without the researchers’ assailing the E. coli with radiation. And, these mutations have been shown to be capable of producing beneficial and useful effects.The answer to the second part---How do they form in the first place?---is really the crux of the whole debate. Since we’ve already shown that useful sequences can arise from non-useful sequences via mutation, if we can also show that DNA sequences can be formed without a designer, wouldn’t that completely refute your claim about design?I believe I have heard of DNA sequences forming without a designer, in fact. If you throw a bunch of assorted nucleotides into a solution with DNA polymerase, you can create a random stretch of DNA.All that remains then is to change it via mutations until it does something.

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Darwin loves you.

Hi, Beretta. "Logical" doesn't mean "common sense," Beretta. "Logical" refers to a systematic process of thinking based on premises and evidence, whereas "common sense" refers to the complete absence of thought. So, yes, it defies common sense to imagine that cells "made themselves," but, if you would like, I could provide a long list of other things that have been proven, but defy common sense. I am a theist myself, so I have never liked the wording RickJB prefers. I like to think of it as "naturalistic" being synonymous with "divine." When you compare things we humans make with things that God made, there is a stark difference, because what we make follows our functional and aesthetic patterns, whereas what God made follows natural and ecological patterns.To me, that's damn good evidence that God is a naturalistic God, and not an anthropomorphic "designer." And we have been asking you to show us your results when you did this. Not your conclusions, your results. How did you compare the two ideas side-by-side, weigh the evidence, and find a Designer in the evidence?Please answer with evidence for the Designer, and not with evidence against evolution.

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Darwin loves you.

Hello, Beretta. How can you say that it has to be a Designer that is self-existing, though? As Onifre said, if there is something out there that can be self-existing, your argument that the genetic code could not be self-existing falls apart, because it is based completely on the idea that self-existence is not possible for something like that. And, you have admitted that self-existence is possible for at least some things.Now, you're trying to set up a boundary between God and the genetic code, saying that the one can self-exist, while the other can't. But, this boundary is not supported by any of your arguments. You now have to defend your placement of the boundary: why can some things be self-existing, while others cannot?

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Darwin loves you.