Why only one Designer

A scam to sell the Brooklyn Bridge correlates more closely to other scams than it does to the Brooklyn Bridge.

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If you have nothing to say, you could have done so much more concisely. -- Dr Adequate

Because of common descent. You have ears because your parents had ears.Whales, humans and bats have the same hand structure because of common descent, not because it makes any sense to "design" them that way. Human designers don't build submarines, cars and aircraft on the same frame.The fact that there are different eye structures in squid and humans, for example, suggests that if they were designed, it was probably by different departments with poor communication between them.

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If you have nothing to say, you could have done so much more concisely. -- Dr Adequate

Yes, that's exactly my point: It doesn't make sense to design them like that. Fish, which live in the same environment as whales, have entirely different swimming structures.The variety of marine life suggests that there was one designer or group of designers who made fish and different group who made whales and dolphins.

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If you have nothing to say, you could have done so much more concisely. -- Dr Adequate

But you can say that they came about by a cycle of chance and selection.Even designers select the features that work best and discard the others. All a designer can do is work with natural processes that are already in place.

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If you have nothing to say, you could have done so much more concisely. -- Dr Adequate

Yes, life forms are synthetic, synthesized by a natural process of mutation and selection. Not irrational. Scientific. We know a lot about those mechanisms through observation. Selection is a simple process. A lion "selects" the zebra that he can catch. The one he eats can't pass its genes on to the next generation, so any mutations that it carried are "selected out" of the gene pool.But this topic isn't about design per se. The OP suggests that if life was designed, it was probably by a group of designers instead of one - i.e. the design hypothesis points away from the Christian God.Edited by ringo, : Fixed tense: "is designed" --> "was designed".

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If you have nothing to say, you could have done so much more concisely. -- Dr Adequate

Creationist scams are a subset of scams. Design scams are more closely related to creationist scams and Brooklyn Bridge scams than they are to anything else.

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If you have nothing to say, you could have done so much more concisely. -- Dr Adequate

I'm saying that to Occam, one god requires one assumption and two gods still only require one assumption. It's an answer to a question that wasn't asked. I'm doing exactly the opposite. I'm saying that the "designer" that the "design proponents" are so coy about is one-and-the same, absolutely identical with the God that creationists are so fond of. His name is Yahweh.

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If you have nothing to say, you could have done so much more concisely. -- Dr Adequate

In reality, plurality is the rule and uniqueness is the exception. When I see an elephant, I don't think it's an assumption that there are more than one; it's more of an inductive conclusion.It probably isn't wise to use Occam to reverse reality.

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If you have nothing to say, you could have done so much more concisely. -- Dr Adequate

First, we're not talking about the "ultimate" creator-designer of the universe. We're talking about what the supposed "evidence of design" points to. If you dust your new car for fingerprints, you might find some from the guy who installed the radio but you're not going to find Henry Ford's. It's the cdesign proponentsists who make an unnecessary assumption that the two are related.Second, the unnecessary assumption is that any entity can be singular. Multiplicity is evidenced. Is there only one mountain? Only one cloud? Only one sea-floor vent? Only one ice cap?The idea that the creator is singular, as advocated by some religions, is completely unevidenced. It is purely an unnecessary assumption. It has no more validity than multiple creators.

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If you have nothing to say, you could have done so much more concisely. -- Dr Adequate

I think I said early on that I have no interest in discussing "first causes". Nothing I have said has been in reference to anything but the last cause of a design. I'm talking about what the "evidence for design" points to directly. Nothing I have said should be misconstrued otherwise. The assumption of one or more designers is a given in this thread. The question is about how many. I'm saying that "only one" is an additional assumption. I'm not disputing Occam's "unnecessary plurality". I'm saying you misunderstand it.Edited by ringo, : Added preposition "in" --> "in discussing".

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If you have nothing to say, you could have done so much more concisely. -- Dr Adequate

I think I pointed out earlier in the thread that "intelligent design" has implications for religion that the religious don't anticipate and don't want to hear about. One of them is the likelihood of multiple designers. Another is the necessity of denying any specific God. As far as I'm concerned, when religious people hear about intelligent design, they should run screaming in the opposite direction. I've answered that multiple times. The first assumption is that one or more designers exist. The second assumption is that only one exists. Two is more than one. Where are you getting your concept of plurality from? Design is one assumption.

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If you have nothing to say, you could have done so much more concisely. -- Dr Adequate

Fair enough. Fair enough. There's where you go wrong. You're making an unstated assumption, a third, unnecessary assumption about the number of designers. You seem to be confused by the terms "entity" and "plurality". As I understand it, Occam's principle refers to logical enities - e.g. assumptions - not "things". An unnecessary plurality of ideas is undesirable. It has nothing to do with a plurality of the things that the ideas are about. You seem to be missing the rather obvious point that that's an unnecessary assumption.

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If you have nothing to say, you could have done so much more concisely. -- Dr Adequate

Quantifying the "design presence" is neither logically nor evidentially necessary. First, note my signature.Second, my whole premise in this thread is that IDists don't understand the implications of their own assumptions. I don't see why I should have to accept all of their assumptions just to point out the ones that are wrong.

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If you have nothing to say, you could have done so much more concisely. -- Dr Adequate

I'm positing that putting any number on the "design presence" has no logical basis. Yes. A herd of unicorns is no more or less parsimonious than one. I'm not creating a strawman of ID. ID is inherently made of straw.

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If you have nothing to say, you could have done so much more concisely. -- Dr Adequate

That's a bit like asking how many elephants are required to ride a bicycle. I'm not the one who's making the claim, so I don't feel obligated to have an answer. My point, if you're still insisting on missing it, is that two elephants can ride a bicycle as easily as one. But I'm not the one who's making that comparison. The IDists are. They're "seeing" design that looks like human design and assuming that their God is responsible for it. Pointing out the flaw in their position is in no way making a strawman of their position.

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If you have nothing to say, you could have done so much more concisely. -- Dr Adequate