What is an ID proponent's basis of comparison? (edited)

No, ID starts with the assumption that only intelligence is able to create specified complexity. There is no reason to hold that assumption, all things with specified complexity that have been created by humans are created by humans. That's just a tautology. You have no logical basis to jump from "all human created specified complexity" to "all specified complexity" and no logical reason to jump from "created by humans" to "created by intelligence."All this is faulty reasoning stemming from a desire to prove a conclusion, rather than following the evidence to a conclusion regardless of preconceptions. As such, it is not science, it is religion.

Yes, that's a fact. Extrapolating from there that ALL CSI si created by intelligence is a leap in logic, and asserting it does not make it a fact. You are assuming it to prove your point when we have no reason to believe it's true, and in fact, we have evidence to the contrary. But, it's not the only way to create CSI. That is another assumption. Evolutionary programming is a new field of programming, but it has created many novel ideas, without being created by intelligence, unless of course you consider a computer to be intelligent.But still, it's unfounded to jump from "some" to "all."From your own quote: The theories are formulated and tested against each other. What does your ID claim postutlate that is in conflict with TOE? You say CSI can't evolve, TEO says it can, ok, so you now need to prove that it can't rather than asserting it. All else being equal, TOE is a better theory because it makes predictions, which have been verified, and postulates less entities, thus satisfying parsimony. Your conclusion is "Intelligence designed life," The evidence you're not following is that evolution has been observed to create new life, create new information, and is not intelligent.

How could you even begin to come up with the probability of a random action happening?

Nor is it decided by a book written 2000 years ago. Thankfully, people have devoted their lives to following the evidence and have given us ways to understand the universe we see. Thise ways are the Theory of Gravitation, Germ Theory, Theory of Evolution, etc. So, is a donkey intelligent? It can decide between options?And here we get reasonable probabilities. What do you consider reaosnable? When you consider the probability of a random event, say a transcription error, or a cosmic ray hitting a germ cell that ends up fertilizing an egg, what numbers do you plug in? How do you decide on those numbers? Or do you say, I don't think that's likely, thus it was intentional?

Actually, ALL CSI that we know the origin of has come from humans, thus it's logical (according to you) to say that humans have designed all CSI?The problem is, the CSI we know the origin of is because we're the origin. You're looking at a skewed sample set and asserting that the sample is a representational one, which is just false.RAZD likes to bring up his red car fallacy. If you look only at red cars, you can then say that all well-made cars are red, because all known well-made cars are red. This is fallacious, and just because we don't know where the other CSI comes from, you can't assume its from source A without any evidence. Assumption: Something believed to be true for the purpose of argumentation, or a claim asserted without evidence.Evolution. We have seen evolution in action. We have seen new information made in the lab. What mechanism do you propose that would stop information from arising naturally? Define intelligence then. The whole point of these algorithms is to take us out of the equation. They are allowed to go on their own, without input or guidance from us. Unless you assume the computer is intelligent, and in that case, an environment is intelligent, because the computer works in exactly the same capacity in these cases as a natural environment does on life forms.

I knew you would misunderstand this. No. I mean, the odds of a cosmic ray streaking from a nova thousands of light years away, diving through our atmosphere and hitting the germ cell of an animal, and that germ cell then developing into a new life form. Or, how about a transcription error during DNA replication? These are random events, which unlike the dice toss, are not initiated in a non-random way and for which there are not a finite number of possibilities.Here's another example. How about I'm sitting at my computer writing a story. My girlfriend calls to me from another room, so I lose my concentration while typing, and instead of saying, "She walked across the room." I type, by mistake, without intelligent direction, "He talked across the room." This is still a valid sentence, but it now says something completely different. The information has changed and is a different length, so the amount of information is different. If this can happen in our instance, why can't it happen in DNA. Again, what is the mechanism you postulate that would stop that from happening?Edited by Perdition, : No reason given.

But you're looking for a specific number or side. The real question is, when we roll the die, what are the odds that some number of dots will be on the upward face? 1. What are the odds when we flip a coin that one of the sides will be on top? 1.Evolution doesn't drive toward a specific goal, the odds of something happening approaches 1, and that's the problem with calculating odds: What question are you asking and how are you calculating those odds?For DNA, what are the odds that a specific Adenine will be switched to a Cytosine? Well, it would be 1 divided by the number of bases in the DNA strand times the mutation rate times 3. But that's the wrong question. What you really should ask is, what are the odds that one of the bases on the DNA will be changed during transcription? Again, the odds approach 1.

But why are you being so vague? We know, specifically, that all CSI we know the origin of is from humans. Why do you get to decide how vague we are? I could say, humans are natural, thus all CSI is natural, but you would have a problem with that, I assume. Mutation is a big one. What stops mutation from creating new information in DNA? And even if I didn't have such an obvious response, you're arguing from ignorance, which is a logical fallacy. Just because we don't know of an option doesn't mean the option doesn't exist. You're assuming we have all possible information at our disposal to answer this question. Why is that? No, but some of them will be, others won't be, but all well-made cars, as far as we know, are red, if we're only looking at red cars. No, the only known cause of CSI is humans. Do you have evidence of other intelligences making CSI? I don't know what the NFL theorem is, to me NFL is National Football League. How can it be tested? It's asserting an absolute, and absolutes can't be proven. Besides, what stops an error from occuring in DNA, or in a manuscript for that matter? The algorithm was designed, but the output wasn't. That's the whole point. The output wasn't designed by intelligence. But the algorthm could be deisgned anyw ay, and it would still create output. Whay can't an environment act in the same way as the algorithm? What makes the intelligence the deciding factor, rather than the fact that there are constraints, regardless of why or how they got there? You're focusing on the least important part and kaking it the most important.

But you're jumping to unwarranted conclusions. We have exhibit A: all CSI with known origins is created by humans.We have exhibit B: CSI we don't known the origin for.How do you go from these two exhibits to "Some other, unknown, unseen, unevidenced intelligence created this CSI for which we have no evidence for the origin of? Mutation is a change, an addition, or a loss of a base or group of bases. In your CD example, to make it more appropriate to biological mutation, you're copying the CD onto your computer. While it's copying, you jump really hard on the floor, and the CD skips back a couple millimeters. The recording software keeps recording, but now you have a duplicated part of the data you were copying. Well, what do you know, it's a gain in information. Amazing how that works.And, lest you say, but the jumping is an action by an intelligent agent, a CD can skip through technological malfunction, too. Just as the DNA copying mechanism can "skip" back and recopy a portion it has already copied. This is an increase, a gain, more information than was ther before. You have humans creating a specific subset of CSI, and other CSI for which we have no evidence on the source. You are then positing a source and claiming it si the only option. You have a lack of evidence and are using that as evidence in itself. If I have very sensitive weather equipment that shows that weather near the ocean shore is affected to a large degree, perhaps even created, by the interaction of the water and the air, and that's all the weather I look at, am I scientifically sound in saying that, because all weather I know the source of is from ocean water interacting with air, that all weather is created by ocean water interacting with air? When someone points out to me weather being created over mountains, and I assert, there must be some type fo ocean water floating above the mountain that we can't see, am I making an argument from ignorance, or am I making an inference to the best explanation? You're doing nothing more than my misled weather person. Life on this planet is predisposed by the enviornment in which it develops. Evolution ran its course, and got the desired output. DO you not understand using an experiment to mimic natural events?Yes, new information came from the algorithm. In one case, they wanted to get a better walking program for a robot. They started with what they could come up with on their own, and then let the computer work it over from an evolutionary standpoint. The computer came back with a novel program to create a novel walking style that the scientists had never seen, never considered, and wouldn't have been able to come up with on their own. In that case, the random mutations did better than an intelligence. OK, fine. I'll reset the example. You have a field of well made cars at a Ferrari enthusiasts convention, but you decide to only look at red cars. All the cars you look at are well made, they're all Ferraris. "Hmm, every well made car I know the color of is red, therefore, all well-made cars are red." Again, you're assuming your conclusion here ecause you want there to be a higher intelligence. You have no higher intelligence in evidence, in fact, you have one example of intelligence. So, you have one intelligence make a certain type of CSI. How can you infer from that that a higher intelligence would make more? How do you know this? Are you assuming it? What CSI, made form a known higher intelligence do you have with which to compare our own? Why does it need to plan ahead? It only needs to plan if a single output is the desired end point. If any end point can be an end point, then it matters not what path things take, thus no planning ahead is necessary.If you want to get form your house to the Grand Canyon, you need to plan a route, perhaps trying to get their faster or more efficiently than other paths. If you merely want to be somewhere else, and it doesn't matter where, there's no need to plan, you just go, and viola, you got there! See that, you said it yourself, "specific goal." There is no specific goal, there's just a variety of possible outcomes, and one is what actually happens. We're not the goal of the universe, we just happen to be what ended up here.

Again, this is an assertion. In your example, the random search of your house turns up other information you can use to build prior information for your next search in someone else's house.For example, you notice that nothing is sitting on the ceiling, that reduces the number of places you need to search next time. You can also say, well, since I found them on the bedside table last time, rather than going through all my previous steps, I'll start there next time. Even in a new house, that's a good place to start as it assumes people are generally the same. All of this is without using prior nowledge the first time, and using the new information the second time. If the situation is similar, the exact conditions don't matter, the process can still work faster than random.

How do you know? Is it possible, that if you lost your keys on your nightside table, and a lot of other people put their keys on the nightside table, that maybe this other person put their keys on their nightside table?Even if they didn't, the knowledge you gained from your first search, can help you in your second.ie, no keys on the ceiling, no keys in places to small for keys to fit. If you're truly operating from no prior knowledge in the first case, you would have to consider those possibilities the first time, but could rule them out the second. It does if you assume the conditions are similar, and until you find they aren't, this is a good assumption to make. They don't need to be there 100%, they just need to be there more often than not. No, it's not information, it's an assumption. I generally assume things are similar to previous experiences until I am shown a place where they differ. It obviously does. You're assuming its different. Why? If it's similar, it will help, if it's not, it will generate new information for the next time. In fact, this is how all information we have is generated, by taking one experience and applying it to the next. The first experience is almost always random (just watch a kid) and patterns emerge out of it as the kid learns.

But you know what? Improbable things happen all the time, and the probability often depends on how one looks at it. Until you can provide a mathematical formula for this probability, then apply the formula to something specific, then show why the probability becomes zero (which it must, otherwise you're admitting it is possible for the thing to happen) you have nothing. Yes it can. In fact, it often does. Show me how it can't. If you see that no keys are found on your celing, why would you look on the ceiling in another house? After looking at many houses, and finding that no keys are ever found on the celings in any house, doesn't that make it less probable that keys will be found on the celings of the next house? Doesn't this information ceom from the random first process, refined through subsequent iterations? Yes. So information is generated through the random search, go on... Yes, so the first random search generated information you could apply to the second house. How can you say you wouldn't do any better? You can eliminate search options because of the first search, thus making it take less time to exhaust all possibilities in the second. It doesn't have to always work, it only has to work more often than not. And then when I find a new situation for which it doesn't work, the final solution gets factored into my new "search information." Why do you think it has to be better in all cases? It only has to be better in most for it to be a worthwhile algorithm to use. There may be a better way in one instance, and in fact, we can often come up with better ways to design things in nature than the way they turned out because the process isn't perfect. That's my point. Yes, but that prior information was generated by the first random search, and then gets incorporated. Thus, information can arise out of a random process. Once you get information, all you have to do is add to it. No, but they're similar enough for a process created in one to be a benefit in another.All car models are slightly different, but I don't have to learn how to drive each type of car individually. I can learn on one, and apply the knowledge from that to the others. No, in that case, it won't help in that one instance, but after that one instance, you've learned something more, and expanded the circumstances under which your process will now work. It adapts to a new environment you might say. Right, so he starts at square one again, and starts with nothing, then builds a process for all experiences that are similar to this new one. Given enough time, you'll experience enough different sets of circumstances to have a process in your repertoire to deal with just about any subsequent experiences.

You know Dembski? The guy who created this unsubstantiated claim? He disagrees with you.

quote:

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chance can produce complex unspecified information, or unspecified complex information, but not CSI
  —Dembski through Wikipedia

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WikiHe claims that CSI can't be created, but CI and SI can. He proposes no mechanism that stops CI from becoming specified, and thus CSI or the other way, SI becoming complex and thus CSI.He claims that natural laws can't create information (but chance can) they can only shuffle around or lose information, but again, he asserts this without proposing a reason that a natural law can't create information, since the sun burns via natural laws and creates information all the time.

Almsot everything of a complex nature is improbable from the view of the end result. The fact of the matter is, any end result would have been equally improbable, so relying purely on probability is a losing game. Ok, but then you're not modelling anything in reality, so I'm not sure what your model is trying to prove. Everything retains elements from previous iterations, and so will generate information based on those previous iterations that can be used in subsequent ones. I may have missed this, but can you please lay out the math that let's you determine this? I don't mean an explanation, I want the actual mathematical formula you used to conclude this. Yeah, ok, so the fact that I have prior information and can come up with better solutions than nature shows that nature didn't have that prior informatrion, right? So, either the designer of nature lacked the information, didn't use the information, or nature happened on it's own. So, nature is either natural or the designer is inept. Why do you say this. As I've said before, this is an assertion. And even Dembski disagrees with you. He agrees that chance can create Specified information, or complex information. He only, for some inexplicable reason, stops at it creating CSI. Not really. It's merely using everything I have at my disposal, whihc includes and is limited to, the information I learned in the first house. The fact that the next house is similar, just means the information I learned in one is at least partially applicable to the next one. I can apply some information from cars to flight. I was just in a plane on Saturday. The wheel in front of me turned the same way to make the plane turn the same way. The pedals in front of my feet were similar to the pedals in a car. The things they controlled were different, but I already knew how to use the pedals, if not what they were controlling, so yes, you can apply some information. The amount of information you can apply is directly proportional to the similarity of the situation. The more similar, the more information you can use. Yes, but that prior knowledge (or information) was generated through the initial random process and refined through the next, less random, process. It's how we build information in real life. But in eveolution, we have many, many trials. Each time a new organism is created (born, divided, etc) we have a trial because the next generation is never the same as the previous one. There is always something different.