10 Categories of Evidence For ID

1) Function. Whilst this been addressed above quite well, another thought came to me. You spoke of hammers having the function of driving a nail. Why would we want to drive a nail? To build something. So what is our function?2) The fossil record shows very little but a seeming progress (an evolution if you will) of life over a long period of time. There is no evidence that the life was designed by an intelligence. What would we expect to see if the creatures were designed by intelligence? I do not think the question can be answered.3) Your evidence shows that extraordinary circumstances must have been in place for life to have been created. This is already an accepted fact.4)Evolution was word that Darwin was loathe to use because it implied progression...which he was very much against proposing. Evolutionary theory does not propose that creatures will evolve, just change, how can we know what creature is more 'progressed' than any other creature. The most succesfull lifeforms are the simplest. However, as Schneider's Ev program clearly shows, loose information, guided by a selection routine will increase the information content. No need for an intelligent agent.5) Irreducible Complexity is not an issue. As has been shown time and time again, ICS can evolve. It does not imply an intelligent designer, just a designer.In conclusion, you have succesfully shown that life has been designed. You have yet to demonstrate how it was designed intelligently. Evolutionary theory proposes a mechanism for both the design and the creation of new creatures, and uses the same evidence. I'm fascinated by the field of ID, but I've only ever seen the 'D' part really discussed. Now, about this 'I' component...how to detect intelligence? That's the golden egg for IDists. Several thousand years later and we aren't massively closer to an answer. Evolutionary theory is less than two centuries old.

That's what I was saying...extraordinary meaning beyond the usual. I think its fair to say, that where usual is defined as our experiences, and that we have never experienced life popping out of nowhere, then the creation of life is beyond usual. It is certainly not ordinary for us to experience this phenomenon so it must be extraordinary. The circumstances in which this happens is not our usual experience or what we would call 'ordinary'...thus 'extraordinary'I think we can both agree that devolving this into a semantics competition won't be conducive to learning all about the fascinating evidences that the ID camp has hidden up its sleeves.This message has been edited by Modulous, 05-11-2005 08:59 AM

My mistake, I should have been more explicit. You said:

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Function is an attribute assigned by intelligence to cause something to cause 'something else' to do something.

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If we're designed by an intelligence, what is our function? As an addition is gravity a function? Since that causes planets to cause other planets to do something. Is gravity assigned by intelligence. Can you actually demonstrate that function is assigned by intelligence? I didn't say there was evidence of gradualism in the fossil record. What I said was that the fossil record shows that life has changed throughout time. I erroneously used the word progress, which was my bad. Let me reiterate for clarity

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The fossil record shows very little but a seeming change of lifeforms that have existed on earth over a long period of time. That is not evidence that the life was designed by an intelligence. What would we expect to see in the fossil record if the creatures were designed by intelligence? I do not think the question can be answered.

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How does the fact that life has changed over time demonstrate intelligence? We both agree that extraordinary circumstances surround the origin of life. I believe it was an environment that we no longer see around us today that we have not accurately modelled yet. There is evidence that the environment on earth was dramatically different when life originated than it is now. Now, where is your evidence that the extraordinary circumstances was not a unique and unknown environment but instead some unknown guiding hand? They have failed with Schneider's Ev program. The program does two things. First is random information generation (loose information), the second is a selection method. If you take away the selection method the information content tends towards 0. When you add the selection method it increases. Thus, loose information coupled with a selection method increases information content. Agree or disagree? The only genuine issue I've seen is that of the selection method used. Which is kind of irrelevant. However, the source code is freely available and Schneider has invited IDists/Creationists to develop new selection methods that show the program to fail. So far they have failed to do so. That's right, looks like descent with modification he is proposing there. Did I see the word 'evolution' used here? No. Evolution comes from 'evolutio' which means unfolding. It implies the end is already known. That is why Darwin didn't use the word (actually in the end he gave up and started using it because everyone else was). As Darwin himself said:

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After long reflection, I cannot avoid the conviction that no innate tendency to progressive development exists

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[Charles Darwin, December 4 1872. Letter to the American paleontologist Alpheus Hyatt.]I'm sure you are well aware, having studied it. One example is Schneider's Ev program. Another is tackled in the radio example above. In fact plenty of examples are discussed in many threads here. The underlying problem with IC is that it presupposes that the function of an ICS has to have remained the same throughout its existence, which is not true. I am not here to defend evolutionism. It has been tackled plenty of times elsewhere. Nothing has yet convinced me that it isn't science, I doubt you are going to change that, since I think better minds than you and I have been trying to demonstrate it as not being science for longer than you or I have been alive. However, I am willing to listen to what IDists have to say. So we are agreed then that something can be designed by natural processes. We can establish that something has been designed, but how can we demonstrate how it was designed at the hands of an intelligence? In order to differentiate betwen intelligent design and natural design you need to establish the intelligent side of it over the natural side. A great way to demonstrate ID (but will probably never happen) is to actually see these blueprints the designer used to develop life.This message has been edited by Modulous, 05-11-2005 11:11 AM

You have defined 'function' as something that must come from intelligence. Show me that this is true, in whatever way you can. Ah right. So even if evolutionary theory was true, this would be evidence for ID? After all evolutionary theory also predicts that organisms in the fossil record would be fully formed. It also states that they will be in a certain order, and there would be two forms A and C where an organism B would appear between the two. Since ID doesn't do this, its evidence is far from compelling. It only explains what aspect of the fossil record, not all the other properties it has.However, I'll let you have this one as an extremely weak piece of evidence that needs significant support. Are you saying that extraordinary circumstances cannot arise in nature according to the laws of science? That's a bold statement. Both of our scenarios may well require science. One requires that prebiotic earth was very different to the way it is now, the other requires a sentience above and beyond earth/space/time to guide evolution for some reason. Excellent, I'd like to see this guiding hand modelled. You of course know that I cannot tell you how abiogenesis occurs. That is simply honesty, there is plenty of research going into it, and progress is being made. As yet, no insurmountable barrier has been found so we cannot discount it as a possibility. I am happy to accept that God/Bob/XGFT's VII from the Tr'EF! formation created life on earth. I simply refuse to close my mind to the possibility that it was a perfectly natural occurance requiring no sentience. I've read Truman's response. I don't constitute it as taking the program apart. Yes, they choose what to keep and to reject. Nature also selects what to keep and reject. Well, no it isn't impossible, just dramaticaly improbable. Right and if you flipped 500 coins and got 250 heads, and then copied that state randomly fliping 5 of the coins and you did that twice you might get:One collection with 245 heads
One collection with 255 headsWhich would be totally within the realms of possibility. If both of these collections were subject to the same event we might see1 x 240 heads
2 x 250 heads
1 x 260 headsIf having more heads is better for survival then the 260 heads entity is more likely to gain resources than the 240 head monster then we might expect it to reproduce more often, say twice as often. Very soon we start seeing the the number of heads in one of the piles increasing, and the 240 head branch becoming extinct.Ev is using an extreme form of selection. I have already established this, so you don't need to reiterate it. If you, or any one else, wishes to write an alogorithm for the program that matches natural selection more closely, then go ahead.However, we are agreed on the important issue, that loose information and a selection method can increase information. You just believe that the selection method has to have arisen from an intelligent agent and I maintain that it might have, but it could have arisen naturally. You haven't demonstrated the need for the intelligence yet.This message has been edited by Modulous, 05-11-2005 12:31 PM

My point exactly. That is why I said:

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I do not think the question can be answered.

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twice.You make the claim, now you want me to devise a way of proving it? OK, so now you have demonstrated that a thing that was given function by a known entity, was indeed given function by an intelligence. Now do the same where the entity is unknown. All you have said is that some things with a function are designed by intelligence therefore everything with a function is designed by intelligence. I don't know where you got that from. You say that ID predicts fully formed creatures appearing and that is what we find in the fossil record. I grant you that, but also point out that ToE goes further, and says that they will occur in a certain order. Since they do appear in that order, this evidence is stronger in favour of ToE than ID. That's all I said. So because we don't know what those environments were they could not have existed? That doesn't sound like science to me. Thanks for posting the link. I've read it before and totally disagree with it, but that's another story, right? I know you do, and I think he doesn't. Your point? What intelligence do these programs do exactly? Are you proposing Schneider has written AI? I never said the selection methods were synonymous - actually I think I have said twice now that they weren't synonymous. Actually I have seen the maths thanks. It is not impossible anymore than it is impossible for it to be any combination. If I flipped the coins 500 times, according to the maths you propose the chances of them coming out in the order that they do would have been impossible. I'm doing no such thing! It turns out that nature favours heads over tails. The ones which have more tails than heads survive, but they don't reproduce as much as the ones that have more heads than tails. I was letting the rules of the system dictate what happens. Is this truncation method guided by intelligence? Or was it merely defined by intelligence and then left alone?This message has been edited by Modulous, Wed, 11-May-2005 07:53 PM

So, am I right in understanding you want to make this a semantics debate? Well, given that the conditions for life only existed for a mere 2 billion years surely demonstrates how extraordinary they are? After all, in context to the current age of the universe its only a fraction, and in context with the possible total age of the universe when time ceases to pass, it is but a flash of the eye.

Its real simple. I granted jdb that the conditions for life to begin were not conditions we (as human beings) would consider 'normal', or 'ordinary'. Indeed, I described these conditions as being beyond ordinary or extraordinary. I believe that based on our experience of ordinary, prebiotic earth certainly comes under the description 'extraordinary'.Wounded King retorted that he disagrees. The conditions, he says might have been specific, but not extraordinary.I replied that Wounded King and I agreed, the only disagreement we were having was one of semantics. I made the comment that it would probably not be constructive to bicker over semantics.Wounded King then retorted that if the conditions for the origin of life were extraordinary then half the total time of earth's existance was under extraordinary conditions.My final reply, that you responded to was basically giving up and engaging Wounded King at a game of pedantic semantics.No major errors, no misunderstandings, just a pointless waste of thread space discussing one person's objection to the use of a subjective adjective.This message has been edited by Modulous, Thu, 12-May-2005 08:59 PMThis message has been edited by Modulous, Thu, 12-May-2005 09:02 PM

I was in agreement with you, we just disagreed over word usage. I didn't think any more needed to be said. I was getting shirty because we were discussing word meanings in an ID thread. It all really depends on how we define normal doesn't it? And that was largely my point. We could define ordinary as "Commonly encountered", that is how I was defining it. Encountered by whom? The user of the word, and his audience, of course. Pre-biotic earth conditions are not commonly encountered, therefore they are not ordinary, they are beyond ordinary therefore they are extraordinary. Given that ordinary is an anthropocentric word (What is ordinary for me, might be extraordinary for you. If I was a field geoligist studying volcanoes, overlooking a pool of magma might be ordinary. To you that might be an extraordinary experience), I see no problems with using it. How is extraordinary equivalent to astronomically unlikely? My actual job is surrounding motor insurance (think Jack from Fight Club), I experience lots of extraordinary occurances on a weekly basis. Cars, driving down the road one minute, and ending up in a first floor (or second floor to the Americans) room in a quiet house. Like this. Would you define that as extraordinary? I would. Would I define it as astronomically unlikely as the anti-evolutionary propaganda regarding abiogenesis? No, I wouldn't.If the word extraordinary is so offensive to thine eyes, then consider it cast off in thy mind. Just mentally replace it with specific, or unusual, or unique, or temporal or whatever word you think best describes prebiotic earth that doesn't require us to be subjective.

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Eternity is in love with the productions of time.
The busy bee has no time for sorrow.
The hours of folly are measur'd by the clock; but of wisdom, no clock can measure.

1)Premise: Function is an attribute assigned by intelligence
Observation: The heart has a function
Conclusion: The heart, as well as other biological systems that have a function, was designed by an intellifence.Objection: The premise has not been shown to be true. We cannot accept the conclusion if it is possible the premises are false.Alternate sequence:Premise: Function is an attribute assigned by design
Observation: The heart has a function
Conclusion: The heart, as well as other biological systems that have a function, was designed.2)Prediction: ID predicts that species would come into the fossil record fully formed
Observation: Species come into the fossil record fully formed
Conclusion: ID has made a successful prediction, this is evidence for IDObjection: ID doesn't predict species come into the fossil record fully formed, biology makes this prediction since there is no such thing as a half-formed species. For humour see Eric the Half a BeeAlternate sequence:Prediction: Biology and common sense predicts that species would come into the fossil record fully formed
Observation: Species come into the fossil record fully formed
Conclusion: Biology and common sense prevail.3)Premise 1: DNA is very long
Premise 2: Ribose has a half life of 44 years
Premise 3: Life had billions of years within which to form
Conclusion: DNA is designedObjection: Non sequitur4)
Premise: "As loose information is diffused, information entropy will tend to increase unless energy, guided by intelligence, is added into the system to stabilize it"
Observation: Information is not decreasing.
Conclusion: There must be intelligence guiding the energy that is being added to the system.Objection: No energy guidance has been observed. Also, it has been shown that loose information, coupled with a selection mechanism, increases information. It has yet to be shown that natural selection cannot be a suitable selection method.Alternate sequence:Premise: As loose information is diffused, information entropy will tend to increase unless guided by a selection method
Observation: Information is not decreasing.
Conclusion: There must be a selection method.5)
Premise: ICS cannot evolve
Observation: There are biological systems with ICS
Conclusion: Biological systems with ICS can't have evolved and so must have been designed.Objection: The premise has not yet be confirmed as being true. Indeed, there is evidence that the premise is false. We cannot accept the conclusion until the premise has been shown to be true.I hope the other five evidences are better than this Jerry, since it is a rather weak collection so far. When pressed about your evidence you begin to attack strawmen alternative theories and strawmen comments. If you want to attack evolution go to the evolution forum. In here you are defending ID. Do so.This message has been edited by Modulous, Fri, 13-May-2005 01:43 PMThis message has been edited by Modulous, Fri, 13-May-2005 02:29 PM

No worries - I know the feeling :-)