CSI and Design

Arachnophilia responds to me:

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the problem with his biomorphs, and even the hamlet analogy, is that it is DIRECTED evolution.

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That is not a problem at all. All evolution is directed by the selection pressures that exist. That's the breakthrough of Darwin's theory of evolution: Natural selection is the driving force of evolution. Darwin did not come up with evolution. It was generally considered to be the way life diversified before he published. What he managed to conceptualize was the method by which it happened and to say that it was responsible for all change in morphology.Selection pressures can sometimes be so great that literally only one outcome is possible. I can't recall the name off the top of my head and I don't want to have to go look it up, but we have found that selection pressure can be so specific that it requires specific mutations in order for the species to survive.So therefore, what difference does it make if the selection pressure we set up is artificial to create a specific outcome or natural and more nebulous and undefined such that multiple outcomes are sufficient?Selection is the driving force of evolution.

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are the results of artificial and natural selection inherently different? not really.

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I would say they are identical. Looking only at the outcome, we cannot tell the difference between a selection pressure that is natural or artificial. We would have to cast about for other evidence in order to determine if the selection was natural or artificial.Once again, as crash points out, we cannot infer design without indications of the existence of the designer. We cannot tell the difference between processes that produce the exact same output.

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do creationists ever argue against artificial selection? i mean, people have only been breeding dogs for a few thousand years, right? a pug and a husky are essentially very different animals.

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Not according to creationists. They're still the same "kind" (all the while adamantly refusing to define what a "kind" is). They're still dogs. They would respond that the dog "kind" has all the genomic traits available to generate every breed of dog you care to name, that no new genetic traits ever arise, and the different breeds of dog are simply the results of breeding programs to collect pre-existing genes together.What they don't understand is that that, too, is evolution. Changing allele frequencies, no matter the method of change, is evolution.

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Of course, that leads us to a question of mine that never gets answered:
Is there anything that happens on its own or is god required for everything?

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so i'd say it doesn't really matter, and we'll just move on studying things scientifically and leave god to theologians.

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Well, that's pretty much a cop out. The question really is important: Does god personally, consciously, and deliberately make every apple fall from the tree or can the apple fall all on its own?One point among many in the question is to establish the difference between the creation of something and the fate of that object once it has been created. The processes that are involved in the minting of a coin are different from the processes that are involved in the use of that coin. The vending machine doesn't care if the coin was made in Philadelphia or Denver or if you manually carved it out of a blank. So long as the coin carries certain physical characteristics of size, shape, balance, etc., then it is considered valid.That's why Susan B. Anthony silver dollars and Sacagawea golden dollars work in the same vending machine without any adjustment. Even though they're different colors and have different faces and are made of different metals, they share the same properties required to have the machine declare, "It's a dollar."God may exist and god may have indeed created everything, but that doesn't mean god had anything to do with anything after that event.So is there anything that happens on its own or is god required for everything?

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Arachnophilia writes:

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train a leaves philadelphia headed for new york going 60 miles an hour.

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train b leaves new york headed for philadelphia going 40 miles an hour.

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at what time do they pass or collide?

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This question cannot be answered as "headed for" has not been defined nor has "pass."For example, if the trains are going in the same general direction such that one is going to the other the short way around the earth while the other is going the long way, at what point do we claim the long-way train has "passed" the short-way? In spherical surface geometry, they never share the same meridian and thus never "pass" each other.

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yes, and since we can't go relativist speeds currently

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We most certainly can. That's one of the ways in which we can give evidence for relativistic effects. Not only does the jet plane's clock have a different time due to the gravity, it has a different time due to its motion. Both effects must be taken into account and are detectable.All speeds are relativistic. Every single one. That's the entire point: What is your speed relative to another.What we cannot do (at present) is make anything with a hefty mass move near the speed of light. Things like a gold atom aren't too difficult...just trek on down to your local particle accelerator. But trying to get a Ford F-150 going that fast, well....

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

ByGrace responds to me:

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If a horse were designed, it would not have bone splints in its legs that sometimes atavistically develop into extra toes. A horse, after all, is a single-toed animal so why have structures for extra ones?

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Simple: It wasn't designed.

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How arrogant!

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Incorrect. You meant, "How observant."You see, the point of a "design" is to reach a form directly through active manipulation of the constituents. The "design" of a horse is a single-toed animal.Therefore, why are there structures to allow for more than one toe? Simple: It wasn't designed.

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What we actually find is that time and time again, so-called inefficent designs in the biological world are just labelled as such due to our inability to understand the complexities and the system interactions that show the designs are inevitably better than what we could design.

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But that's the entire point! Why would a designer deliberate create inefficient designs? There's no reason to have the side splints in a horse's foot for extra toes. If you were going for a single toe and it required extra work that would take you out of your way to do it, why do it?

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Take the eye for example

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Yes, please do. It is a wonderful example of a non-designed structure.The mammalian retina is inside out. The photoreceptors are behind the nerves that transmit the impulses triggered by those photoreceptors. In other words, mammals don't see nearly as well as they could because photons are being absorbed by the nerves of the retina before they have a chance to strike the photoreceptors and trigger a nerve impulse.This also forces the creation of a blind spot where the nerves need to pierce through the photoreceptor tissue (the only other option being to route all the nerves to the edge of the tissue and then back again behind.)Compare this to the cephalopoid eye where the photoreceptors are in front of the nerves. This is much more efficient: Light is not wasted by a screen of nerves and there is no blind spot.So if this "designer" was capable of creating a better "design" for an octopus, why don't squirrels have it?

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For a long time the placement of the photo-sensitive cels behind the layers of retinal cells was considered "backwards" because this is not how "we" would have designed it.

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No, it is considered "backwards" because we have evidence of eyes where it isn't that way.

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It is now well known that the design of the eye is much more advanced, and the placement of the photo-sensitive cells is such that it greatly reduces the "noise" in the light signals and improves overall vision capability.

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Incorrect. There is no "noise" in the light signal from the source. In fact, by forcing the light to go through a screen of nerve cells, you introduce aberrations as the light is scattered. Light that was originally traveling in one path is now reflected in another direction, distorting the image. And that doesn't even begin to deal with frequency shifts as light of one color bounces off the nerve as another color.Compare this to the cephalopoid eye where the photoreceptors are in front. They have much better visual acuity.But in the end, it doesn't really matter which one is "better" than the other. The fact remains that there are retinas with the photoreceptor in front and retinas with the photoreceptor in back.Why would you ever use the poorer design?

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Can you say "Appendix" anyone?

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Yet another example of non-design.The appendix remains because we can't get rid of it. The way its blood supply is directed, making it smaller quite often leads to strangulation of the organ resulting in necrosis and peritonitis, possibly death.If we aren't supposed to have an appendix, why do we have one?

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In any case, some of the so-called inefficiencies or "mistakes" may well be the result of de-evolution or degeneration of systems which is precisely what we would expect from a creation-fall model.

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But how do you test for that?What must have Adam felt when his retina turned inside out?And notice that you are implicitly endorsing evolution: There was an ancestral form that is now radically different. It didn't happen directly through the intervention of a designer consciously, personally, and deliberately moving the molecules around.Instead, they evolved all on their own.You're not about to say that evolution can only created poorer results, are you? That beneficial mutations never, ever happen, are you?

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I suppose it comes down to "only time will tell", but this is where we have a percieved advantage...it looks like we only have to wait a lifetime or two, whereas hard-core evolutionists will have to wait a few millenia at least.

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BZZZZT!Pascal's Wager. I'm so sorry, ByGrace. Johnny, tell him what parting gifts he has!Well, Bob, ByGrace has won himself a lifetime of anguish in someone else's hell! Yes, that's right. After spending all of his life fighting against Satan and worshipping the Christian god, ByGrace gets a reward of going straight to Hades for his hubris. He'll be sentenced to solve a series of puzzles for which the instructions can be read in many ways. Every attempt to glean more information will be met with "Since it would just be a waste of my time to tell you, I won't." Of course, every proposed solution will conflict with something in the contradictory instructions. This being for his continued insistence that those around him are unworthy of explanations.But, he won't get hungry because he'll have an afterlife-time supply of Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco Treat.You didn't really think that the god that truly exists was the Christian one, did you?

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

yes, i know this. you mistook my argument. i'm not saying that natural selection is a directing process, quite the opposite. it however doesn't have a GOAL. the hamlet analogy determined success by approximity to specific set. it is of course artificial selection, which is a good indication of how things really work. i was just pointing out that the model wasn't a perfect duplication of nature. well, i think sometimes an artificial process can be inferred, but probably not shown. for instance, an animal domesticated to the point of being incapable of surviving in the wild would probably be the result of artificial and not natural selection. well, we know that humans meddle in animal evolution all the time. that's SORT OF design, in a sense. hahaha. yeah, that's a good point. well, that's really a philosophical question. on one hand, an intelligent god would design natural laws to make the universe easier to govern. on the other, those natural laws could then act out of god's control. and on a third hand, some people would say the god and natural laws are basically interchangeable.so, the truth of the matter is i don't know. i'll think about it though.but the point is that, with or without god, natural laws are observably consistent. so either god is really really good at what he does, or there really is a certain set of "rules" to reality. either way isn't especially different from the outside, and we can still study and observe and test things scientificially.i like this quote, from a review of behe's book:

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The hand of God may well be all around us, but it is not, nor can it be, the task of science to dust for fingerprints.

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Arachnophilia responds to me:

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I would say they are identical. Looking only at the outcome, we cannot tell the difference between a selection pressure that is natural or artificial. We would have to cast about for other evidence in order to determine if the selection was natural or artificial

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well, i think sometimes an artificial process can be inferred, but probably not shown. for instance, an animal domesticated to the point of being incapable of surviving in the wild would probably be the result of artificial and not natural selection.

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Again, only because we know a priori what a "wild" environment is supposed to look like. What is the difference between a parasite that is dependent upon its host and a pet that is dependent upon its keeper except for the desire of the provider? Neither the pet nor the parasite can survive without the provider so why is one a "design" and the other not?

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well, we know that humans meddle in animal evolution all the time. that's SORT OF design, in a sense.

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Again, you're starting with the knowledge of a designer and how it acts. Without any previous knowledge of how things are "supposed" to look, how do you till the difference between two processes that produce identical results?

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but the point is that, with or without god, natural laws are observably consistent. so either god is really really good at what he does, or there really is a certain set of "rules" to reality.

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Same problem: If the actions of god are indistinguishable from a completely natural and non-supernatural force, why call it "god" and thus claim it has intelligence, personality, and will? Why add chocolate sprinkles when you don't need to?The conclusion that denies Cartesian Doubt is quite appropriate: If I am absolutely and in all circumstances incapable of seeing behind the curtain and experiencing the hand of god at work directly, then that is equivalent to there being no god at all. A difference that makes no difference is no difference.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

an interesting way to look at it. i would say there is no effective difference. you don't, really. one is science, the other is faith. is it wrong to have both? and besides, ask any child, everything needs chocolate sprinkles.

Dude, you rule.

Isn't he great? If there's one thing I love to watch here it's the steady steamrolling of the unflappable Rrhain Machine.

He's my number one candidate for the evo side of EvC Real World.

Arachnophilia writes:

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one is science, the other is faith. is it wrong to have both?

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Epistemiologically, yes. If you have a perfectly valid explanation and an identical one that includes an extra bit, why choose the one with the extra bit over the one that doesn't have it?I'm not saying it's inappropriate to ever have faith. I'm saying it is inappropriate to have faith when you don't have to. We don't do this in any other place, so why do we make an exception for this one thing? We don't claim there are invisible pixies moving the electrons around in accordance with all the electromagnetic field equations, do we? And why not? Because we don't need to. The field equations are sufficient all on their own so there is no need to include something that adds nothing and has no evidence to indicate its presence.This doesn't mean god doesn't exist. It simply means that we understand the difference a process that needs god and a process that doesn't.So unless we are saying that everything requires god, then there is no reason to behave as if something does require it when it appears like it doesn't.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

i'm not sure there *IS* a process that requires god.but i don't think attacks on personal faith and philosophy are really neccessary, as there is nothing wrong with believing in god, leprechauns, invisible pixies, etc. it is when faith contradicts evidence, or is forced on others that it becomes wrong.i am not arguing against evolution, natural law, or whatever else. in fact, i usually argue against creationism and intelligent design pretty fervently. i just happen to also believe in god.so what if i choose the chocolate sprinkles? they add a little something extra to cake sometimes.there are many people who would argue that god and natural law are interchangeable, one and the same. i'm not sure if i am such a person at the moment, as i'm still in my life-long process of determining exactly where my faith stands, and how. but it is not a logical thing, i never claimed it was. it is by its very definition irrational.but it's my belief, my feeling, and my faith, no matter how irrational and silly and unnecessary.

Page not found · GitHub PagesWhile primarily concerned with the "no false positives" claim the essay takes a good look at the history of the CSI idea (from the Explanatory Filter on) with many links which can be followed for further information.

Arachnophilia responds to me:

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but i don't think attacks on personal faith and philosophy are really neccessary

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What attack?If someone comes along and tells you that god says that 2 + 2 = 5, is it really an "attack on personal faith and philosophy" to point out that he's wrong and show him precisely why?Why is it an attack to point out that somebody is wrong?

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so what if i choose the chocolate sprinkles? they add a little something extra to cake sometimes.

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Reality isn't cake.You may feel better with chocolate sprinkles, but is a comfortable lie better than an uncomfortable truth?

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

well, in your own words, unneccessary beliefs are lies. this is not what i'm claiming. in fact, i'm not claiming anything other than personal religious beliefs, outside of science, are acceptable unless pushed on others.although, do go ahead and show me precisely why it's wrong to hold personal beliefs. in your opinion. i happen to be quite partial to reality. i am not uncomfortable with the idea that there may be no god, gods, etc. i lived most of my life as an atheist. and a militant one at that.truth can't be shown in either, as neither the presence nor the abscence can be shown to be true, either in past, present or future. i happen to like this way better is all. and having faith in god isn't exactly comfortable all the time. i found dealing with difficulties in life easier not believing in god.the god episode of futurama was on tonight, btw.bender got lost in the depths of space, and a group of tiny people founded a civilization on him and worshiped him as god. he messed up, and they all killed each other. but then he ends up by a sentient galaxy, that claims to probably be god. so god says to bender, the secret is to use a light touch. if you do something right, no one will know you did anything at all. if you do too much, people become dependent, and if you do too litte, people lose hope.anyhow. there's a point to this.so fry and leela kidnap a bunch of buddhist monks and use their observatory to look for bender. they'd been looking for god in the depths of space. the observatory accidentally broadcasts a message aimed at god, who hears, and sends bender rocketting back home to land right in front of fry and leela as they're leaving after giving up. but then leela remembers that she forgot to let the monks out. fry says that their god will save them, to which bender replies that you can't count on god to do anything because he's a no-good lazy bum or something, and goes to rescue them himself.so the question is, within the context of the episode, who saved the monks?This message has been edited by Arachnophilia, 06-15-2004 06:46 AM

Arachnophilia responds to me:

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What attack?

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well, in your own words, unneccessary beliefs are lies.

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Where do you find me saying anything even remotely like that?Surely somebody can be wrong without lying, yes?

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this is not what i'm claiming. in fact, i'm not claiming anything other than personal religious beliefs, outside of science, are acceptable unless pushed on others.

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Where do you find me saying anything else? Not everything is amenable to scientific inquiry.

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although, do go ahead and show me precisely why it's wrong to hold personal beliefs.

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Since I'm not saying that, I fail to understand why you want me to show that.You seem to be equivocating on the word "wrong." The way I used it, I was referring to a statement of fact. You have switched definitions to refer to a statement of ethics. That 2 + 2 = 5 is wrong is not an ethical statement.

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so the question is, within the context of the episode, who saved the monks?

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The question cannot be answered as "saved" has not been defined.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!