10 Categories of Evidence For ID

First of all, information (intelligently designed or not) is CONSTANTLY increasing in an entropic universe. When entropy causes a salt crystal to dissolve in water, do you think that there is more information about the position of Na/Cl ions in the rigidly ordered crystal (easily compressed information) or in randomly dissolved ions (impossibly compressed information)?Second of all, when you talk about DNA replication in the lab (sorry, I don't know how to use quotes), you are talking about PCR - polymerase chain reaction. In nature, the primers are not designed, but are synthesized according to the template DNA when replication occurs in the 5'->3' direction (since you used that quote, I assume you know what the above sentence means- if you don't, read about Okazaki fragments). And DNA can be synthesized from scratch in labs - that's how we make the designed primers.Furthermore, a supposedly "CSI" DNA fragment can be made without any other DNA - HIV replicates using RNA genomes that "reverse transcribe" into DNA. And RNA (ribozymes) is capable of catalytic functions (i.e, self-excising introns)- which means that it's not too much of a stretch to imagine self-replicating RNA. Since most ribozymes are less than 300 bases long, it is also not too much of a stretch to imagine that self-replicating RNA could have arose given that there was an entire planet to experiment upon. And that would be the definition of life - replication.But I actually, instead of the usual position where the evolutionist refutes the IDist argument, would like to take a different tack. I want you to explain something for me. Evolutionary theory supposes that any mutation that does not have a negative effect on the reproductive success of the organism in question will essentially be "ignored" by evolution and will persist or die out based upon its chromosomal proximity to positive/negative alleles or stochastically. ID theory supposes that everything about the organism is designed, so there is a reason for every base pair in the genome.Evolutionary theory can explain why there is a non-functional vitamin C synthesis gene in all primates (as an omnivore, the primate ancestor had sufficient vitamin C in their diet and the nonfunctional vitamin C gene allele became fixed stochastically/linkage to a separate successful gene allele). ID theory would state that there is some reason for the non-working vitamin C synthesis allele in all primates (which are coincidentally, said to be related by evolutionary theory). What exactly would this reason be? And if ID theory cannot answer this question, what exactly is the use of this theory?Evolutionary theory can posit that morphologically more "evolutionarily" related organisms will tend to have more similarities than differences in their genomes. ID theory cannot posit the same. An "intelligent designer" could have used any number of different genes to achieve nearly the same morphological outcome - the possibilities for genes are essentially infinite. With evolutionary theory, you can take certain things as "givens" (i.e, that mouse immunobiology is similar to human immunobiology, as we share a common ancestor). However, with ID theory, that cannot be said to be true, as the intelligent designer could have changed some essential feature between the mouse and the human. We cannot be sure of that until we understand EVERYTHING about mouse biology. Therefore, it would be unethical to try to translate findings about cancers in mice to clinical treatment for cancers in humans. It would essentially, according to ID theory, be experimenting on humans with no a priori understanding of the clinical situation (like the Nazis).However, all previous results from mouse studies have agreed with the (evolutionary) supposition that mouse/human biology is very similar, with the understanding that mice and humans are separated by 80 million years of evolution. Since ID theory is obviously a hindrance to mouse/human clinical translation (and nearly all other scientific fields of endeavour), what exact scientific benefit does it provide? With ID, you must reinvent the wheel (or the "wheel" that evolutionary theory describes) every time you study anything, because you can take nothing as an almost given (not even if evolutionary theory predicts it 99.9999% of the time).

Well and good, but for the vitamin C gene to mutate in the exact same way and for this allele to become fixed in every primate species is a staggeringly improbable event. Either each primate species was designed with this non-workable gene, or they share a common ancestor with the mutated form of this gene.

Hi-
Thanks for the welcome. I looked under 'Boltzmann,' 'information,' and 'entropy,' and I found no indication that information and entropy are opposites. In fact, by common sense, the opposite would seem to be true. To continue the example of the (simpler than sugar) salt crystal, to define the position of the Na/Cl ions would be simpler in the undissolved state. To define the positions of Na/Cl ions in a crystal (no matter how large), you could simply state "each Na+ ion is surrounded by 6 Cl- ions at a distance of X angstroms, and each Cl- ion is surrounded by 6 Na+ ions of X angstroms," and define the dimensions of the crystal. To define the positions of the ions in the more entropically (word?) stable dissolved salt, you would have to individually state the position of each ion within the solute (a LOT more information). I apologize. Apparently, we are in agreement that DNA can be synthesized from scratch in labs without primers. Again, apologies. I should not have brought speculative ideas based upon evolutionary theory into this particular forum (unless you want to discuss the link between extant ribozymes and possible self-replicating extinct ribozymes). However, I do believe that any "CSI" algorithm would see the HIV genome as CSI, whether it was in DNA or RNA form. And yet again, apologies. I should have stated that "ID theory supposes that there is a function for every NON-MUTATED (since time of creation) base pair in the genome." Fine. For argument's sake, let's take "evolutionary theory" as "evolutionary hypothesis" (and please don't take offense at my refusal to use the word 'Darwinism'- equate your 'Darwinism' with my 'evolution'). So I'm not going to restate my arguments - just take 'theory' as hypothesis. As an aside, I hope that, from a scientific standpoint, you know what this statement means. I'm not exactly sure what this argument entails - are you describing an argument that I might use ('lower life progressed to more complex life') or your own argument? I am responding to it as if it were your own argument.
If NS could cause fixation of the specific mutated allele of the vitamin C gene in all (separately created yet said to be evolutionarily related) primate species (according to ID), why would it not fix the allele in similar species (ie, lemurs - similar morphology and diet)? Evolutionary "hypothesis" states that all primates share a common ancestor with the mutated vitamin C gene allele (which is incidentally called a pseudogene). That hypothesis predicts other pseudogenes between the "related" primate species, a prediction borne out by scientific study. ID predicts nothing as far as pseudogenes (which are essentially errors) go, between these species, as each species was admittedly independently designed. Since ID essentially predicts no useful information regarding biology (see my mouse/human remarks), why should it not be ignored? Taking as a given that ID is true, and yet evolutionary hypothesis explains a number of things in the field of biology, evolutionary hypothesis should primarily be used. An example would be that, as the (admittedly) wrong Newtonian physics take a back seat to the correct quantum physics in most calculations, since Newtonian physics makes useful predictions that quantum physics does not.

Ok, I understand what the problem is now. The term "information" that you are using, applied to thermodynamic or informational entropy, implies the amount of information you CAN know about a particular system, not the actual amount of information. In a crystal at absolute zero, there is no entropy and maximum "information," since you can know where every atom is. In a dissolved crystal at room temperature, there is much more entropy and much less information that you can know about the position/relationships between the atoms. However, the ACTUAL information content has increased. Like I said before, the position of atoms in a crystal is an easily compressible function. The random positions of dissolved ions is an uncompressable function, since random numbers, by definition, cannot be compressed. There is nothing wrong with my math, and in fact, this would seem to be common sense.
serendip.brynmawr.edu/local/ scisoc/emergence/Boltzmann_Shannon.pptBut I'm not actually all that interested in entropy (I detested the general/organic chemistry that I had to take). I am much more interested in ID's response to the fact that it makes no useful predictions about biology. Whether ID is true is irrelevant to this discussion. Since the evolutionary synthesis makes predictions that, for the vast majority of the time, hold true, it would seem that, regardless of the truth content, ID should be relegated to philisophical discussion. This would, again, be analogous to the fact that Newtonian (wrong) physics holds sway in the macroscopic world, while quantum (right) physics holds sway in the microscopic world.
I would be perfectly happy to say to the IDists "Yes, fine. We don't know enough about the bacterial flagellum to state with absolute certainty whether it was designed. If you want, you can say it was designed. Now go away."This message has been edited by zyncod, 05-13-2005 02:53 PM