Is there a legitimate argument for design?

The terminology is problematic for some types of organisms. When one bacteria becomes two, is either one an 'offspring'?

Which one is the offspring? The one on the left?

Seriously, have you even taken a General Chemistry course? The absurdity of ridiculing someone's discussion of science by posting something even more infantile and unscientific is beyond belief.

Not bothering with you. You are obviously an idiot if you think "full of code" and just saying "complex specified information" are anything that needs a rebuttal. I don't believe you are capable of understanding chemistry, and your inability to discuss your position in meaningful terms while mocking others who are trying to do so shows it.

There is no meaningful way to talk about DNA without talking about chemistry, yet you PRATT on with stuff we've heard and discussed here 100s of time as though it is all new. Offline we refer to that as being a dumbass, but I'm too polite to do that here.

Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Using the provided definition, a computer program would not consist of code. Perhaps, as is often the case, arguing by dictionary is not so persuasive here.

I think comparing DNA to computer code is more informative. Computer code is written by a designer to specify the details of a computer program, where as a segment of ATCG simply describes parts of a DNA molecule and does not alone mean that someone has designed it.

So yes I agree that the word 'code' is not probative. But your particular line of argument is not productive at showing why.

IDers try hard to get away from 'I know a design when I see it, and complex, specified, information [CSI] and irreducible complexity are just two such attempts.

Ed67 and Dembski's argument is that every system with CSI is designed. But of course the word 'specified' essentially means 'designed' making the argument circular. And the observation does not apply to biological systems, none of which we know a designed origin for anyway.

The flaws and scientific criticism of Dembski's arguments have been well publicized and no one takes this crap seriously anymore. You could not tell that from the discussion here though. One problem is the assumption that CSI cannot have an unintelligent origin is never demonstrated. It is simply hidden in as many layers of obscurity as Dembski can manage. The layers include the bad, uninformed probability calculations and circular definitions.

Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

No. He's a troll. EvC is about the easiest troll target I could imagine, and Ed67 is simply taking advantage of our desire for new creationist/ID meat to chew on.

And every message including yours and the one I am writing now simply feed the troll. Even AZPaul3's was an acknowledgement of irritation.

Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Yes. And for melting ice and freezing ice cream! Who programmed that code?

Not quite. Not having CSI does not mean not a candidate for design. CSI is not argued by Dempski to detect all designs. For example a monkey wrench is designed but has no CSI because it is not complex. An arrow head might be designed or it might be selected from some naturally created shards of flint. How can we tell when an arrow head is designed?

What does the Dempski mean by the term specified? Can you explain this without requiring a specifier in your definition?

Your argument is of exactly the same form as the one Dr. Adequate proposed, and like the one he proposed, it is not valid. One problem is that there are is more than one way to produce similar looking features.

Evolution is perfectly capable of producing figures that look designed. Further, your identification of features of an airplane as being designed are all adhoc. You know ahead of time that an airplane was designed, so any feature of an airplane could be used to build your argument that an airplane is design, despite the fact that you did not actually use that feature to reach your conclusion. Additionally, there is the fact that things which exploit aerodynamics are constrained by that to have features that generate lift. Humans might well have exploit the example of birds regardless of where birds came from. And then one might well note that no bird really operates just like an airplane in any significant fashion.

I could list more counter arguments. But there is really no point to doing so. Your argument is still the same I know design when I see it, cloaked as something different, and the answer is that you don't. You might at best be able to detect man made objects, but you simply are not calibrated to distinguish between evolution and design of biological organisms simply by looking. No one is.

In contrast, for mechanical objects we know apriori that they were not made using the begatting of variation and natural selection process because those things cannot participate in such a process. We have few conclusions to choose from other than man made, which means intelligent design.

Is a beaver dam a product of ID? Why or why not?

Your talking about doing a significant amount of work either way, and if you do a good job, you'll get some discussion going. Do whichever is easiest for you.

I want to know what characteristic ideas might have that could make it impossible to judge ID. Can you make up a hypothetical quality that ideas might have that might interfere with our assessment of ID?

Because if you cannot come up with anything, then it seems likely that you it is your objection that is not real.

What we do know about ideas is that they can be conveyed to others, that they can be tested against reality, and that they do not morph into something else when we are not looking. We also know that some subset of those ideas can be expressed in formal language that allow others to reach the same understanding of the ideas that the originator has. Those quantities are all that we need to conduct scientific inquiries.

I don't think that will be necessary. From your post in 416, I see that I am in the wrong thread.

Yes we can investigate such thing scientifically. Remember that not all scientific investigations require us to replicate at a whim. Cosmology? Geology? Paleontology?

Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Picasso is dead. Were he alive you could ask him why he did what he did. You might also look at his other works and see if his answer holds true. You might talk to artists whose work inspired Picasso and you could look at their work as well.

Of course not all artists are dead.

There is no guarantee that your investigation will be successful, of course. But that does not make the investigation non-scientific.

This is a bit of an exaggeration. The Big Bang is estimated to have produced about 75% hydrogen, 25% helium, a tiny bit of Lithium and perhaps a bit of Beryllium. How likely is it that the early stars were formed of pure hydrogen?