What exactly is ID?

Does it really make no difference to you that most people who believe in Evolution are NOT atheists? That plenty of researched evidence has been done by Non-atheists & religious alike? I already brought this up in another post, this fact alone proves TO ME at least that there is no atheist conspiracy....but maybe they have mind control devices. Only you can decide whether or not to accept or reject what evidence is right in front of you. You demand that we all PROVE there is no atheist conspiracy, or PROVE that the Rosetta stone was not written with lasers, but we see you PROVING nothing. Could you maybe atleast explain WHY you think evolution is an atheist conspiracy, & feel free to explain (or rather speculate) WHY there are others of faith that accept it as well? That would be a start, thanks. If the information that is available isn't enough to prove anything to you, fine. But that certainly doesn't prove whatever it is you're arguing.

see Is ID properly pursued?

This is the "argument from douch-baggery" aka "How do you know, were you there?"Using YOUR standards, you can't tell how any sandwich was unless you made it. And, even then it wouldn't be a "sandwich" because you can't tell if the stuff which is exactly like bread is bread.It's a crap-tastical last ditch argument which is only used by people who are flailing. Apart from the fact that the Rosetta stone was _discovered_ prior to the invention of the laser, a laser would result in different tool marks than those found on the stone itself. They would examine the context of the find and the source material from which it was made.Since the stone is currently in a British museum it would be out of context with the other traditional artifacts and "modern" artifacts. Are you retarded? I've answered this question about 50x.We know the MECHANISM of stone carving. LET'S BE VERY CLEAR.You are saying that ONLY probable things CAN occur and that IMPROBABLE things NEVER occur in sets smaller than their probability.So, if you spin a roulette wheel ONE time, it doesn't land on any number. IT ONLY lands on numbers on the 38th roll at which point it lands on EVER number. This quote is EXACTLY why you will never understand. You just don't get it.ATE, ETA, TEA, EAT, TAE, AETALL of these words have meaning, just because YOU don't know the meanings doesn't mean they aren't words.You are claiming you can detect design based on your profound ignorance. If you don't know what it is or how it was made, it MUST be magic.

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NO! Becasue I already said that we are not going to invent functions that we do not know about. We know of one function it had. It lost it, therefore it lost all functions.

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So now - after trying to pretend that you didn't say it, you are going back to the same illogical argument. In fact you don't know whether the mutated version had lost all function or not. The tests weren't done. And even if they had been they would only apply to the version tested, and 20% difference allows for a LOT of different versions.

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No, D is teh descriptive language! I just quoted you the part where it said that!

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However the quote I was actually talking about said that D was the pattern. Expecting me to ignore the quote I am talking about and look at some other quote instead is really stupid.

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The flagellum is the event. Physical object equals teh event. Con tosses could be an event also. Anything is regarded as an event. And since the word "set" is not used anywhere, please do not use it . Do not invent notions that Dembski never did use.

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I'm not inventing notions that Dembski never used. And you are forgetting the quote from p165 where it describes D* (which is NOT D, remember !) as an event.

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Which means that D* = bidirectional rotary motor-driven propeller = 10^20.

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No, it doesn't mean that. D is "bidirectional rotary motor-driven propeller. D* is the correspondence of D and 10^20 is the number of four-level concepts.

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Which specification describes that?

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Which specification describes what ? The specificational resources aren't described by a specification. The specification I referred to is - as you ought to know by now - is "bidirectional rotary motor-driven propeller".

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Which means that D* is the pattern described by bold D. There is a bold and a regular D. One is a descriptive language, the other is a pattern.

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Since it specifically says that the pattern is D, it doesn't mean that D* is the pattern.
In fact neither quote says that D* is the pattern. They don't agree on what the pattern is, but that's Dembski for you.

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I never said it was. Obviously it's not. But 10^20 is the complexity of the specification.

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Well you're still wrong, it's the numerical value used to quantify the specificational resources.

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But do you not understand that a flagellum that describes the pattern bidirectional rotary motor-driven propeller and consists of 50 proteins has an IDENTICAL complexity of the specification as a one that consists of 1.000.000 proteins? So by your logic their probability of occuring by chance is the same! Which is totally FALSE! Since they describe the same pattern, the complexityy of what they describe is IDENTICAL! It's obvious you need to also include their own complexity into the calculation.

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I can only repeat that the complexity belongs to the specification, not to the event. As Dembski tells us, we calculate the probability of meeting the specification, not the probability of a partially specified event. Also an event may have many possible specifications which have different probabilities.And I have to add that MY logic doesn't say that the probability of getting each of the events described by the specification is the same as getting any particular one. Excepting the degenerate case where there is only one possible event that fits the specification that will always be false. My logic says that the events will often have different probabilities - but the difference is down to unspecified details which are not relevant to determining if the event is CSI.

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But it's HARDER do meet the specification with MORE proteins! Therefore the probability is LOWER. And it's EASIER to meet the specification with LESS proteins, therefore teh probability is HIGHER! And that also means that every instance of an event is calculated separately!

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But you will still have to combine them to get the probability we want. Remember we want the probability of getting ANY of these, not the probability of getting a specific one.

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And those events that consists of a complexity that is under 400 bits are not claculated at all! What would be the point if they are automatically claimed to be non designed!?

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If any one of the results comes to less than 2^-400 you had better abandon the whole thing since the probability of getting a "bidirectional rotary motor-driven propeller" is at least as high as the probability of getting a particular "bidirectional rotary motor-driven propeller". Time to give up on that specification, rather than fiddling the figures (which is what your suggestion amounts to).

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NO WE DO NOT!!!! What would be the point!?

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The point is following Dembski's method. Arguing that we shouldn't do it because it doesn't guarantee getting the result you want is just silly.

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Simple patterns that also conform to an independently givent pattern are specification. It's not enough that it's just simple.

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The pattern IS the specification. Simple patterns are usually the best specifications.

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Nope. I'm arguing that beneficial mutations are not going to reduce the effects of deleterious and slightly deleterious mutations, becasue they also CAN, not always, but sometimes CAN reduce genetic information. Which is true. They can reduce geentic information. Therefore, just by occuring, they will not save a population from extinction.

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In fact you originally argued that nearly all beneficial mutations contributed to genetic entropy - using sickle-cell as your main example. And as I have pointed out before your argument fails because genetic entropy is about reducing fitness and beneficial mutations (by definition) increase it.

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There is no calcualtion here, only simple logic.

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Take the number 100 to represent the amount of genetic information. How small would the number of reduction have to be, for this number never to reach zero? IS it one? Well obviously not, becasue in 100 steps, you will reach 0, and the population is dead. Is it 0.5? Nope, that just means that you will reach 0 in 200 steps. So tell me, how small does it have to be for you never to reach zero? Obviously infinitely small. Or, the starting number would have to be infinitely large.

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I could point out a number of flaws in the premises and reasoning, but the really fatal problem in your response is that you are addressing the wrong problem. The question is about the averaging effect of a large population in reducing the effects of "noise". You claim that there is no averaging effect (presumably meaning no significant averaging effect). However since the effect must be there to some extent, the only way to find out how significant it is is to use the numbers as they apply to real populations. Even if you were attempting to answer the actual problem instead of a completely different issue, you would need data and calculations - not theoretical speculations.

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The tests were performed on small populations becasue they experince the effects of geentic meltdown faster! What would be the point of producing an experiment that lasted for 10.000.000 years!?!?

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Unfortunately we aren't talking about the tests. We are talking about a general statement giving background information. A statement which specifically identifies it as a potential problem for small populations.

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A correlation of what? Be more specific?

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I was specific. A correlation between a mutation and one of the other factors you identified as influencing the selective process, such that a deleterious mutation would have a consistent advantage which would not average out across the population.

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YES YOU DO! How elese are ALL mutations that get in, going to get out if natural selection is nto working at 100% efficiency!?

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The dynamic equilibrium does not require that "ALL mutations that get in, get out" or even all deleterious mutations. As I have said, in this case deleterious mutations are held at a fixed level. It is only the number of deleterious mutations that matter. The fate of individual mutations - whether lost immediately or remaining in the population indefinitely is irrelevant. Therefore 100% efficiency (which would be the immediate removal of all deleterious mutations) is not required.

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9 out of 10, or 49 out of 50, or 799 out of 800 is less than 100% efficiency. And in that case genetic entropy increases. Only during 100% efficiency does it not increase, and you have a BALANCE! Only if you remove ALL mutations that get in, do you have a BALANCE, but that means that natural seelction is working at 100% efficiency! Which we know is not true.

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Unfortunately for your argument the balance also includes mutations lost by genetic drift. As the number of deleterious mutations goes up, the number of deleterious mutations lost through drift also goes up. And as I state above the balance is not about the fate of individual mutations, it does not require that we remove all mutations, only that the numbers (etc) remain roughly constant.Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

Hi Wounded King,
I've just spent the last couple of days going over the paper you linked to. I must say that I find it very fascinating. It really is the closest any have ever came so far to meeting the criteria I am looking for. But it is eerily similar to a paper of another study by Lenski, presented by a poster on another thread. And you're right, bacteria have always been a real "iffy" area for me. They seem to have a whole multitude of ways in which to adapt to their environment. And you do understand that us ID proponents can logically justify this to design features built into a very important group of organisms that don't have the luxury of moving to a new area like we do, when the going gets tuff. Your proposal of insects on the other hand is much more intriging and would be very convincing.Here is the major problem that I am having. I know that Evolution (or Universal Common Decent) theory doesn't say how life on Earth got started, but everyone does seem to agree that at some point in the past, all life was very primitive and probably can be traced back to only single celled organisms. Through millions of years of random mutations and natural selection, life is said to have evolved to the state with which we observe it today. ID theory, on the other hand, says that certain characteristics observed in all living organisms today, exhibit the appearance of structure and order on a scale that thus far we have only observed to originate from an intelligent cause. So if UCD is true then that means that over a long period of time a whole lot of DNA information has arisen. I'm sorry if it offends some when I say this (no offense intended) but we are literally talking "pond scum to people" evolution here. My problem is that we should not be "grasping" for observable evidence of this process in action. We should practically see it under every overturned rock and under every leaf. In other words it should be observed easily and often. Consider that for a single good mutation to survive in say a large population, of a two sex organism, it would have to overcome a large mathematical probability of being wiped out (about a 500 to 1 odds) before it could ever take over that population. It would have better odds in a smaller population, but it would also have a much greater risk of being wiped out with an entire "small" population. Plus we would have to factor in that since we are talking random mutations, 33% of the time we should also be getting neutral mutations, and 33% of the time we should be getting bad mutations. That of course would mean that only 33% of all mutations could be beneficial. But it would also seem to me that to go randomly monkeying around with the code of a program, that the odds of "accidentally" getting an improvement would be overwhelmingly small. To overcome these kinds of odds we would expect to see a mutation occurring almost in every single birth. Just this alone makes the whole theory very doubtful when compared to what is actually being observed. Also in multi-celled organisms, in order for a mutation to be beneficial, it would (most of the time) require several lucky random changes to occur consecutively. But none of this is a problem with ID as a source. The only problem is imagining who or what that source could be. Some try to argue that because we can not physically examine the source that we have no reason to conclude that there even is one. However this has never been a problem for archaeologists.

I've heard that argument myself, but I always come back with, "Well it didn't seem to be a science stopper in the past!" I mean many of today's technological scientific advancements are the direct results of men of faith. That would mean that not only were they IDers but they were also creationists. Included in that long list of history's great scientists are such names as Leonardo DeVinci -hailed by many to be the father of science, or the famous chemist and physicist Robert Boyl, or Isaac Newton, or Lewis Pasteur- developer of pasteurization, or the astronomer Yaohan Keplar, or Francis Bacon who came up with the scientific method, or mathematician Blaze Pascal, or geneticist Gregor Mendal, or electro magnetic physicist Michael Farad, and even Joseph Lister who invented antiseptic surgery. All men who believed in a supreme creator of the universe and life, and obviously all men who contributed greatly to science. Don't let evolutionists (and specially atheistic evolutionists) give you that bull that they hold the monopoly on good science.

Good point Taq. And if I saw the crude code for a computer program I might not recognize it as information either. Some foreign languages look like nothing but chicken scratch to me. "Better yet" my doctors hand writing looks like chicken scratch. But as long as the one who needs to read it can, then it is complex specified information. Interesting story. To bad that there isn't any empirical evidence to back it up. I mean how about that very first lotto winner. That's the luckiest SOB in the entire universe..."literally." First, one protein molecule has around one hundred amino acids and the probability of getting one protein molecule to generate from natural laws are equal to a blind man finding a marked grain of sand in the Sahara Desert 3 times in a row. And yet one protein molecule is not life. To get life you need about 200 of those protein molecules together. Second, we have the problem of the specificity of the amino acid sequences in a recognizable protein that are coded by the exact nucleotide arrangement in DNA. This is so specific that if any one of the nucleotides were out of order, the protein is rendered useless. Thirdly, if a cell needs only a few specific proteins out of an unimaginable number of possibilities that would have to have came together by chance, what possible explanation is there for how they were manufactured without the help of the DNA that could not have preceded them? And finally, after you factor in other technicalities such as essential enzymes and histones, the probability of generating even one small protein by random chance, easily surpasses the most liberal estimates of all the number of atoms available in the entire universe. Did you catch that? That means there aren't enough atoms in existence to equal the number of useless proteins manufactured in a random fashion before accidentally getting one useful variety. Most common estimates of the total number of atoms available in the entire universe are around 10 to the 80th, while most common estimates of the odds of generating one protein by unguided forces is one in 10 to the 130th.People who think this is plausible kind of remind me of a scene in the movie "Dumb and Dumber." Remember the scene where the character played by Jim Carey asks the girl (Mrs. Swanson), "What are the odds of you and me ever getting together?" Her reply was, "About a one in a million." And then he gets this huge grin and replies, "So you're saying we do have a chance?" People who say that the DNA code could have formed like a chain of lotto winners, cast their gaze right past the odds of a "gazillion" and focus right in on that "one" chance for life to form by unguided forces, and instantly respond with, "Oh, so you did say there was a chance." Yes we've met. As I have pointed out to Wounded King and others here, bacteria may be biologists favorite "lab rat" because of the convenience of being able to study several generations rather quickly, but they are really poor examples for use of evolution evidence. That's because, since they do not possess the ability to migrate to new environments when the environment they are in becomes hostile, they actually appear to be "designed" to mutate through use of many different mechanisms in order to adjust. Mechanisms not available to most other living systems. Case in point, your nylonase were able to metabolize nylon waste products through the loss of specificity of the enzymes on plasmids pOAD2 (in Flavobacterium sp. K172) and pNAD2 and pNAD6. Plasmids mostly only occur in bacteria. Bacteria may be fun to study, but they are nothing like us multi-celled, two sex, organisms.

How interesting. How does this work exactly? I mean if I live in a world were things increase through gradual loss, then my checking account should be as full as Donald Trump's by now. Oh...OK. Glad we got that all cleared up?

Hello Razd, I'm afraid that I missed Buzsaw's comment, but if it was something on the order of an extended hand of welcome...then I thank the both of you.Raz a lot of your comments I recently covered with Taq and Wounded King, so if you would, please glance over those and if there is something that you said in this post that I didn't address, please let me know. I'm just trying to save space on the thread. Also I wanted to thank you for the time and careful consideration and work you put into your post. A very instructive piece. Sure thing Raz. First, I couldn't tell by your post if the Nature article was citing any case study of an actual experiment done with Phasmatodea, or if it was entirely just another speculative story based on attempts to piece together the past. It did note some speculation in the portion that you quoted. (...wings were derived secondarily, "perhaps" on many occasions.) My emphasis added. My point of course is I was asking for an example of "observed" added new information to the DNA and not someone's surmising that that is what occurred. I have very good reason to doubt much of what evolutionary scientists claim about ages and dating processes and so therefore I don't think that these kinds of "piece meal" examples of the past are much help when trying to determine what was or was not in the DNA of an organism. (Note to all: I realize that last comment will spark a big fire storm, so before we get too carried away lets reserve that discussion for another thread lest we get called on the carpet again for getting off track.)With reply to your comment about what can cause certain adaptive traits such as wings to appear, disappear and reappear, I can think of a couple just off the top of my head. In HS my old biology teacher once explained that a group of flying beetles migrated to a small island. Strong winds would cause the flying beetles to keep getting knocked into the sea, however some offspring born with a genetic defect couldn't fly. The defect actually caused them to be able to survive in that environment and thrive. However any members born with ability to fly would continue to be blown out to sea and die. However if the species were thrust back into a main land environment, they would eventually revert back to the fliers being the dominant ones in the population. Another example of how these things work is the famous Peppered Moth that always gets brought up in these debates. Within any species there are often trillions of varieties of alleles that natural selection has to work with. When the trees bark were darkened by the industrial waste, the lighter colored moths were easily picked off by birds, and the darker moths became dominant. But when the government made all the factories clean up their act, the tree barks became light again and natural selection again took over and eliminated the dark moths and the lighter ones became dominant. In this case it was merely a manipulation of genes that already existed in the gene pool. The thing that's important to recognize is that these adaptations can only explain the survival of the species and not the existence of the species. I wasn't employing the used of a personal "opinion" or "denial" Raz, I was expressing a fact. The fact that I have not heard something. I phrased it that way because I would never be so arrogant as to suggest that I was a "know it all." So when I say I have never heard of something, I am merely leaving it open for the possibility that one of my opponents might actually have more information than I on that subject. And if that be the case I am welcoming them to enlighten me. I believe my above comment applies here as well Raz. I'm sorry Raz. You mean I haven't been clear on that? Ok well let me clarify---->BINGO<---- styles." Let me make sure you get this next comment Razd. This may be the most important thing I have said to you so far. Someone very wise once told me that it is impossible to know the truth unless you become a lover of the truth. What he meant by that is that unless you can look deep into your soul and know for certain that you will follow the truth where ever it takes you, even if that means completely abandoning all present pet beliefs and philosophies, you can never know what the truth is. In your pursuit of truth you may find you have to abandon religions, popular opinions, friends, and even risk losing close loved ones. When you can honestly say that you are there, then you can be free to follow the truth and find it. Let me assure you Raz that I am there. I will abandon creationism, I will abandon the Bible and Christianity if I am presented with facts that discount them. But let me warn you that I have made that statement for the last 20 years and no one has got the job done yet. (I say as I sit smug upon my heavenly Fathers lap.)

Hi Percy, I would agree with you in part, but not for the same reasons. My analogy fails in that most randomly dialed phone numbers, so long as they are dialed in a seven or ten digit form, will have the "effect" of reaching someone. And if nature really doesn't care who she calls then it would seem my analogy actually helps the other guys case better. But the really wild thing is that most "randomly dialed" mutations do not produce an acceptable effect. In fact their actually quite detrimental. So I would have agreed with you that most nucleotide choices are not specific, "if" they would have at least "dialed someone...anyone." But since most mutations are detrimental to the organism, and most nucleotide arrangements produce a very specific effect, they appear to be intentional in cause and formation.I bet at this point your probably thinking like one other poster put it, that its like looking at a long chain of lotto winners. But if that's the case then you have to explain the lottery of the universe. I mean you have to explain abiogenesis. How did the first organic life, form from non organic material? How did it form without DNA being in place to form it? If evolution is really like a big celestial shake of the scrabble board until a full sentence forms, then how does it keep the pieces that fall in the right place, there until all the rest fall into place? I mean wouldn't each shake continuously scrambling them all with each reproduction? And if there is some mechanism that knows which pieces to hold into place and which ones to discard, isn't that an intelligent source? Then there is the whole problem with explaining convergent evolution. That's where mother nature not only manages to get lucky and win the lottery once, but many times in a row. Don't forget concepts like electromagnetic forces, nuclear intensity, strength of gravity, mass of material, temperature, excitation of nuclei, and rate of expansion, speed of light, the centrifugal force of planetary movements, Jupiter's current orbit in relation to the Earth, the Earth's angle of axis in relation to the sun, Earth's 24 hour rotation, and a hundred and some other constants that need to be exactly as they are in order for there to be life. I'm not completely familiar with that particular argument Percy, but it kind of sounds like the "granny" rebuttal to me. Allow me to share it with you and see if it rings any bells. It goes like this: Grandma Jodi met Grandpa Richard at a dance in Nebraska City. They fell in love and had children, one of which was momma Laura. Momma Laura grew up and took a job working in a dress shop in down town Kansas City and she met Daddy Frank on a chance bus ride home from work one evening. They got married and had...me. I can look back at all that and think that it was pretty remarkable that I am here right now. If any one of the factors in that story were to be changed then I would not be here to have this conversation. But the fact that I am here to have this conversation means that all of those events did take place in just the right way. The argument goes on to say that if we were to try and calculate the odds of these events happening again, we would find that the odds are pretty impossible. If Grandma wouldn't have danced with Grandpa at that dance, or one of them were sick that night, or if Mom would have missed her bus that evening, or if she would have sat next to the fat woman instead of dad on the bus...etc...etc. The arguer will say, "Sure, its pretty lucky for me that it did all happen that way but in the grand scheme of things it really was not all that remarkable of an event." He will go on to argue that likewise, though all the events that make our existence here on earth seem pretty lucky for us, they too are not all that remarkable in the grand scheme of the universe. Does that about fit what you are conveying Percy?I'll be honest with you Percy, when I first heard the granny argument I was pretty taken back. I mean its pretty hard to argue agains that logic. It is a very good and logical argument against the appearance of fine tuning in the universe. After several days of thinking about this something dawned on me. Here is the answer (and in it were going to use 150 of your sharp shooters): The argument assumes that Grandma Jodi would have eventually met and married "someone" any ways and had children. But what if Granny, in her youth would have been condemned to die and would have been stood in front of a firing squad? And suppose there were one hundred fifty "well trained" marksmen on that squad. The Sergeant gives the order to take aim and then "FIRE!" If Granny would have died that day, then our objector would not be here today and he would therefore not find that too remarkable. In fact he couldn't find it remarkable because of the very fact that he is not here. But suppose all 150 trained marksmen missed Granny. Not only that, when she saw that she was still alive and unharmed, she turned and looked at the wall where she had been and saw a perfect outline of bullet holes in the shape of her body on the wall. Meaning that they had not only missed her, but they had perfectly and narrowly missed. So now our objector is here, and he is here specifically not because of random dumb luck. But he is here because of a truly unique event that consisted of one hundred and fifty precisely planned and calculated events working together. Had any one of the marksmen not intentionally missed Granny, then nothing else would have happened and the arguer who came up with the granny argument would not be here. Many of the laws of physics are balanced on a razors edge, without which would make it even impossible for the elements to exist especially carbon which is so necessary for life. When we start trying to explain away the solar system, we have to also explain how these laws of the universe were formed by natural unguided processes.Edited by Brad H, : No reason given.

In humans every offspring has on average ~130 de novo mutations which were not in either parent's genome (Kondrashov, 2003;Xue et al., 2009), except arguably in that small set of it in certain germ cells.Some studies estimate that the detrimental mutation rate is slightly over 1 mutation/zygote (specifically around 1.3) (Gianelli et al., 1999). There is no equivalent estimate that I am aware of for rates of beneficial mutations in humans as they are much harder to detect. Most would only be post hoc measures based on comparative genetics identifying mutations which seem to have been subject to positive selection.Maybe we should start a new thread on pesticide resistance.TTFN,WK

The most commonly cited instance, the putative frame shift mutation from the Ohno (1984) paper, certainly doesn't seem to involve any loss of specificity. For me ranting at length about frequent problems I have with discussions of this paper see 'Is the evidence concerning the Nylon bug being exaggerated'.TTFN,WK

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Does it really make no difference to you that most people who believe in Evolution are NOT atheists? That plenty of researched evidence has been done by Non-atheists & religious alike? I already brought this up in another post, this fact alone proves TO ME at least that there is no atheist conspiracy....but maybe they have mind control devices. Only you can decide whether or not to accept or reject what evidence is right in front of you. You demand that we all PROVE there is no atheist conspiracy, or PROVE that the Rosetta stone was not written with lasers, but we see you PROVING nothing. Could you maybe atleast explain WHY you think evolution is an atheist conspiracy, & feel free to explain (or rather speculate) WHY there are others of faith that accept it as well? That would be a start, thanks. If the information that is available isn't enough to prove anything to you, fine. But that certainly doesn't prove whatever it is you're arguing.

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My argument was actually irony. You've just wasted your time writing that post.

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This is the "argument from douch-baggery" aka "How do you know, were you there?"

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Using YOUR standards, you can't tell how any sandwich was unless you made it. And, even then it wouldn't be a "sandwich" because you can't tell if the stuff which is exactly like bread is bread.

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It's a crap-tastical last ditch argument which is only used by people who are flailing.

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It's a valid argument. If you go, right now, to a junkyard. And find a car there. Are you correct in concluding that it was made in the junkyard? Or even in that town? Or for a matter of fact, in that country? No obviously not. A Mercedes is made in Germany, but a crashed one cn be found in junkyards all over the world. That doesn't mean it was made where it was found. So how do you know the Rosetta stone was made where it was found?

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Apart from the fact that the Rosetta stone was _discovered_ prior to the invention of the laser, a laser would result in different tool marks than those found on the stone itself.

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Apart fromt he fact that same inventions were invente at different palces at different and at same times, your argument falls apart.The Baghdad Battery produces electric charge. Regardless of what it was used, electricity was discovered way before our modern times. The same goes for the printing press which was invented in China before it was invented later in Germany, So how do you know the same does not apply for lasers? And how do you know lasers could not have produced such marks on teh Rosetta stone?

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They would examine the context of the find and the source material from which it was made.

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Since the stone is currently in a British museum it would be out of context with the other traditional artifacts and "modern" artifacts.

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How would they know that the stone was actually not a replica? I mean, I can, right now, go into my backyard, and take a stone, and chisle some egyptian characters on it. And when someone finds it, among my LCD TV and my computer, is he correct to conclude that it was not made by me, but that it's actually from Egypt. And that it's from 196 BC? Obviously not. So why do you think it isn't the same for the Rosetta stone?

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Are you retarded? I've answered this question about 50x.

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We know the MECHANISM of stone carving.

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But how do you know that mechanism was used on the Rosetta stone? How do you know the Rosettas tone is a carving in the first place? Maybe it just looks like it? How do you know it's not a product of natural forces over long periods of time?

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LET'S BE VERY CLEAR.

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You are saying that ONLY probable things CAN occur and that IMPROBABLE things NEVER occur in sets smaller than their probability.

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So, if you spin a roulette wheel ONE time, it doesn't land on any number. IT ONLY lands on numbers on the 38th roll at which point it lands on EVER number.

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Wrong. I never said that. Improbable events constantly happen. Almost any event has low probability. What's the chance a person is going to win a lottery? 1 to a million? Even less? But it happens. What I'm sayign is that events that are specified and have low probability do not happen by chance. Not just low probability itself.

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This quote is EXACTLY why you will never understand. You just don't get it.

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ATE, ETA, TEA, EAT, TAE, AET

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ALL of these words have meaning, just because YOU don't know the meanings doesn't mean they aren't words.

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You are claiming you can detect design based on your profound ignorance. If you don't know what it is or how it was made, it MUST be magic.

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Yes, such short words do, but what about longer ones? What about the words "PROFESSIONAL"? Can you randomize that one so that every single time you will get a meaningful word? No you can't.The same goes for the DNA. It's long, very long. Human genome has over 3 billion base pairs. That's 6 billion bits of information, minimum! And not all sequences are functional. Only a tiny minority of all possible permutations of nucleotide combinations have meaning. Not all sequences code for biological functions. That is why random changes in teh genome, destroy geentic information on average. Becasue it's easier on average to get a non-functional sequnce, than a functional one.

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So now - after trying to pretend that you didn't say it, you are going back to the same illogical argument. In fact you don't know whether the mutated version had lost all function or not. The tests weren't done. And even if they had been they would only apply to the version tested, and 20% difference allows for a LOT of different versions.

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My argument was the same from the start. Only one function was known, it was lost, therefore all functions were lost. Yes, there could be some unknown left, but we are not going to invent them just for fun. The point remains that the KNOWN function is lost. That is my point. Plese continue from this, don't go back to what you think I was saying.

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However the quote I was actually talking about said that D was the pattern. Expecting me to ignore the quote I am talking about and look at some other quote instead is really stupid.

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If you are talking about the regular D than you are right. But if you are talking about the bold D than no. It's a descriptive language.

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I'm not inventing notions that Dembski never used. And you are forgetting the quote from p165 where it describes D* (which is NOT D, remember !) as an event.

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Yes you are. You invented the word "set". He never used that word. And D* is not just an event. It's an event that corresponds to a pattern (regular) D under *.

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No, it doesn't mean that. D is "bidirectional rotary motor-driven propeller. D* is the correspondence of D and 10^20 is the number of four-level concepts.

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Again, which D? Regular or bold? If regular, than yes, if bold, than no.And D* is surely not a correspondence of D and 10^20 is the number of four-level concepts. You see, on page 136 it clearly says that regular D is just a shorthand for D*.And * maps regular D to E, not to "bidirectional rotary motor-driven propeller. E in this case is the flagellum that consists of 50 proteins.

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Which specification describes what ? The specificational resources aren't described by a specification. The specification I referred to is - as you ought to know by now - is "bidirectional rotary motor-driven propeller".

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Yous aid that: "It in no way compensates for the fact that the specification describes many things that are not the E Coli flagellum". Which are those specifications?

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Since it specifically says that the pattern is D, it doesn't mean that D* is the pattern.
In fact neither quote says that D* is the pattern. They don't agree on what the pattern is, but that's Dembski for you.

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Regular D is just a shorthand for D*, in the case regular D delimits E.

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Well you're still wrong, it's the numerical value used to quantify the specificational resources.

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Read carefully...

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Moreover, given a natural language (English) lexicon with 100,000 (= 10^5) basic concepts (which is supremely generous given that no English speaker is known to have so extensive a basic vocabulary), we estimated the complexity of this pattern at approximately ϕ S(T) = 10^20 (for efiniteness, let’s say S here is me; any native English speaker with a some of
knowledge of biology and the flagellum would do).

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It clearly says, in plain english that THE COMPLEXITY OF THE PATTERN IS 10^20!

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I can only repeat that the complexity belongs to the specification, not to the event. As Dembski tells us, we calculate the probability of meeting the specification, not the probability of a partially specified event. Also an event may have many possible specifications which have different probabilities.

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It's both! We need both the complexity of the specification, and the complexity of the event. Becasue it is much harder for a lower probability event to mach the same pattern than it is for a higher probability event. That is why we need to include both complexities.

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And I have to add that MY logic doesn't say that the probability of getting each of the events described by the specification is the same as getting any particular one. Excepting the degenerate case where there is only one possible event that fits the specification that will always be false. My logic says that the events will often have different probabilities - but the difference is down to unspecified details which are not relevant to determining if the event is CSI.

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But it is important becasue a flagellum consisting of 300 bits will not be regarded as CSI, but a flagellum that describes the same pattern and consists of 500 bits will! Obviously we need to take into account their complexities.

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But you will still have to combine them to get the probability we want. Remember we want the probability of getting ANY of these, not the probability of getting a specific one.

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NO WE DO NOT! Why the hell would we want to combine them!?!!?!!?!?!?!??! A 300 bit flagellum is not CSI in the first place!!! What's tehre to combine? Where did Dembski say anything about combining!?

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If any one of the results comes to less than 2^-400 you had better abandon the whole thing since the probability of getting a "bidirectional rotary motor-driven propeller" is at least as high as the probability of getting a particular "bidirectional rotary motor-driven propeller". Time to give up on that specification, rather than fiddling the figures (which is what your suggestion amounts to).

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NO WRONG! It's obvious to me now that you misunderstand the whole concept. Why the hell do you think the UPB of 10^120 even exist!? By your logic it even does not have to exist! Obviously it doesn't according to you becasue youa re only taking into account the complexity of the specification!Yet the point is to compare if the probability if the event that happened is high or low in matching the complexity of the specification! That is why we also need the complexity of the event. How do you do that if you only have one complexity, that of the specification? Obviously, you don't, because you can't!The UPB of 10^120 exists so we can eliminate any specifications that correspond to events whose complexity is lower than 400 bits. They are automatically considered non-designed. Becasue as you may remember, Dembski said that chance can geenrate complex information, and specified information, but not complex specified information. This threshold exist to tell us is the specified information we observe complex enough to be considered complex specified information.It's possible to find specifications ranomly in nature. Nature can generate a specification. But not on event's whose complexity exceedes 400 bits. This is the threshold where we infer design.

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The point is following Dembski's method. Arguing that we shouldn't do it because it doesn't guarantee getting the result you want is just silly.That's not his method. He neevr said that anywhere!

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The pattern IS the specification. Simple patterns are usually the best specifications.

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If and only if it is detachable from the event in question.

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In fact you originally argued that nearly all beneficial mutations contributed to genetic entropy - using sickle-cell as your main example. And as I have pointed out before your argument fails because genetic entropy is about reducing fitness and beneficial mutations (by definition) increase it.

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No. I never said that. The beneficial mutations are so miniscule in amount that they are almost nonexistant. I don't care if the majority of minority of tehm reduce genetic information. Some do, some don't.I will repeat my point. My point is that some beneficial mutations reduce genetic informations, and can not be used as an argument agains genetic entropy, because they will not offset the effects of deleterious mutations.And you need to be more specific about the fitness. Genetic entropy is primarily about genetic information. The reduction of genetic information. Which I already said is not proportionally correlated with REPRODUCTIVE fitness. Soemthing like a sickle cell mutation can increase REPRODUCTIVE fitness, yet reduce genetic information, thus increasing genetic entropy. So you need to be more specific. What fitness are you talking about?

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I could point out a number of flaws in the premises and reasoning, but the really fatal problem in your response is that you are addressing the wrong problem. The question is about the averaging effect of a large population in reducing the effects of "noise". You claim that there is no averaging effect (presumably meaning no significant averaging effect). However since the effect must be there to some extent, the only way to find out how significant it is is to use the numbers as they apply to real populations. Even if you were attempting to answer the actual problem instead of a completely different issue, you would need data and calculations - not theoretical speculations.

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So you are telling me that 1+1 do not equal 2, right? A reduction is a reduction. Mutations o average reduce genetic information. More in smaller populations, less in large populations. But in any population, reduction still exists. You can not completely remove the reduction by invoking larger population sizes.

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Unfortunately we aren't talking about the tests. We are talking about a general statement giving background information. A statement which specifically identifies it as a potential problem for small populations.

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And we extrapolate this to larger popultions too. Becaue there is no reason to think that larger populations will fully remove the effects of genetic entropy. They will reduce them. but never fully remove them. Thus entropy continues to increase.

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I was specific. A correlation between a mutation and one of the other factors you identified as influencing the selective process, such that a deleterious mutation would have a consistent advantage which would not average out across the population.

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The only help for you would be that there was a correlation of all those traits with the genetic traits. If it was correlated that those who have all the good traits, plus the beneficial mutations always got selected, than the noise would not matter. But on average it doesn't happen. There is no correlation on average. And bad and good traits from every source are on average, equally spread through the population. Therefore, noise exists.I'm not saying that every time an individual will be born who has deleterious mutations but is epigenetically superior. I'm saying that on average good and bad variations from all traits will be equally distributed on average. And that is why those additional 6 traits will on average override the single gentic traits during the seelction for beneficial mutations.

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The dynamic equilibrium does not require that "ALL mutations that get in, get out" or even all deleterious mutations. As I have said, in this case deleterious mutations are held at a fixed level. It is only the number of deleterious mutations that matter. The fate of individual mutations - whether lost immediately or remaining in the population indefinitely is irrelevant. Therefore 100% efficiency (which would be the immediate removal of all deleterious mutations) is not required.

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The removal of all deleterious mutations is 100% efficiency. If it's not 100% deleterious mutations accumulate.

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Unfortunately for your argument the balance also includes mutations lost by genetic drift. As the number of deleterious mutations goes up, the number of deleterious mutations lost through drift also goes up. And as I state above the balance is not about the fate of individual mutations, it does not require that we remove all mutations, only that the numbers (etc) remain roughly constant.

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But on average genetic drift is a random process. Random processes always increase entropy. Therefore, while some deleterious mutations are being lost by genetic drift, more of them are accumulated.And if you say that there is no requirement for the removal of all mutations, than that means that the accumulate. They either get removed or they accumulate. There is no third option. Your dynamic equilibrium can only function if sometimes natural seelction removes all mutations, and at other times oes not.That would mean that some amount of mutations would accumulate, and than natural selction would remove all of them. And again, some would accumulate, and than after soem time, natural seelctionw ould remove all of them. In this case, dynamic equilibrium would exist. But this is impossible, becasue in the time span when natural seelction removes all mutations, it must work at 100% efficiency. Which we know is not possible.If it is working at those times at less than 100%, than some mutations stay. And genetic entropy increases. Let me give you an example.Let's say that 50 is the threshold to genetic meltdown. The population starts out with 0 mutations.00 - start
05 - Less than 100% efficiency
08 - Less than 100% efficiency
15 - Less than 100% efficiency
00 - 100 % efficiency09 - Less than 100% efficiency
17 - Less than 100% efficiency
25 - Less than 100% efficiency
00 - 100 % efficiencyAs you can see, the dynamic equilibrium is maintained by natural selectiona times working below 100% and at some times at 100%. At some times, mutations accumulate, but than, natural seelction removes all of them. And this is how the population keep on going. But his is not possible.A more realistic model is this, where natural selection works at less than 100%, and at other times at almost 100% and almost all mutations are removed. But soem stay00 - start
04 - Less than 100% efficiency
07 - Less than 100% efficiency
11 - Less than 100% efficiency
02 - Almost 100% efficiency08 - Less than 100% efficiency
10 - Less than 100% efficiency
15 - Less than 100% efficiency
17 - Less than 100% efficiency
05 - Almost 100% efficiency09 - Less than 100% efficiency
15 - Less than 100% efficiency
22 - Less than 100% efficiency
26 - Less than 100% efficiency
31 - Less than 100% efficiency
11 - Almost 100% efficiency15 - Less than 100% efficiency
24 - Less than 100% efficiency
28 - Less than 100% efficiency
31 - Less than 100% efficiency
14 - Almost 100% efficiency18 - Less than 100% efficiency
22 - Less than 100% efficiency
28 - Less than 100% efficiency
32 - Less than 100% efficiency
39 - Less than 100% efficiency
15 - Almost 100% efficiency20 - Less than 100% efficiency
29 - Less than 100% efficiency
34 - Less than 100% efficiency
38 - Less than 100% efficiency
41 - Less than 100% efficiency
17 - Almost 100% efficiency20 - Less than 100% efficiency
25 - Less than 100% efficiency
31 - Less than 100% efficiency
38 - Less than 100% efficiency
44 - Less than 100% efficiency
50 - meltdownThis is the more realistic model where at times natural seelction works in removing almost all mutations. But some stay and over time accumulate. And on average this leads to the genetic meltdown.