Is there a legitimate argument for design?

Everyone knows that the 3 elements are earth, wind, fire and water. Oh, bollocks, can't get anything right today.

I feel a Monty Python Sketch coming on

“No one expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise, fear and surprise; two chief weapons, fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency! Er, among our chief weapons are: fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, and near fanatical devotion to the Pope! Um, I'll come in again...”

Time to shit or get off the pot Mr Dadman, before the riducule metre can't take any more.

To get back to the discussion, it seems pretty easy to me to accept Demski's meaning of the terms Complex Specified Information. His own example is pretty clear:

"A single letter of the alphabet is specified without being complex. A long sentence of random letters is complex without being specified. A Shakespearean sonnet is both complex and specified."

He's just saying that life looks designed therefore it is. That argument is no more than the Watchmaker argument and can be debated as though it is.

His attempt to move the argument further was to introduce mathematics into the game and claim that if he calculates the probability of something happening by chance to be less than 10^150, then it requires a designer. The problem is therefore mathematical not semantic and if you can't discuss it mathematically, there's no point proceding beyond the Watchmaker stage.

Sadly for ID, those that have considered mathematically and are qualified to do so, tell us that it's bunk.

mike writes: Dawkins constantly says that life looks designed, only to then shoot down his strawman, but the "appearance" of design is only ever mentioned by evolutionists for the shooting down of that strawman.

Actually, Dawkins wrote a whole book about it - The Blind Watchmaker - not to introduce a straw man but to explain why the design argument is false. It's never brought up by 'evolutionists' because they know that life evolved, obviously. It's only mentioned by them when some creationist brings it up to explain why it's an error - as you see that RAZD has just done.

If life looks designed, this in itself is not all that important. But an examination of mind-blowing anatomical structures, is very relevant.

It's exactly the same argument. You say it's mind blowing, so what? Science agrees with you, but then shows you that the anotomical structures evolved naturally using processes that we largely understand.

Mike writes: Forget those subjects for a moment,

With pleasure, you're all over the place as usual.

and tell me, how would we know whether a lifeform is designed? That is the hypothetical discussion that is relevant to this thread. That is ALL I am assessing.

We don't need to ask hypothetically if a lifeform is designed or not because we now know that it isn't - we have the evidence and know how it came about. Exactly as we don't need to ask if we know hypothetically if a watch is designed - we have the information and evidence. We only have to discuss these things in wisy-washy philosophical ways when we don't have empirical evidence. This one was settled 150 years ago.

"The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered" Darwin.

This argument is as old as the hills, if you actually care about it, start with the wiki.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleological_argument

Ed writes: Wrong. You JUST QUOTED Dembski in saying that a long string of random letters is complex but not specified, disqualifying it as a candidate for design. Obviously there's more to Dembski's argument than raw probability.

Dembski's entire argument for CSI rests on his probability calculations, the rest is just ancient Paley - "it looks designed so it must be"

Do you expect us to take YOUR word for it? Please provide citations.

You'll find them here, but surely you're already aware of them?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specified_complexity

A study by Wesley Elsberry and Jeffrey Shallit states that "Dembski's work is riddled with inconsistencies, equivocation, flawed use of mathematics, poor scholarship, and misrepresentation of others' results."[5] Another objection concerns Dembski's calculation of probabilities. According to Martin Nowak, a Harvard professor of mathematics and evolutionary biology "We cannot calculate the probability that an eye came about. We don't have the information to make the calculation."[6] Critics also reject applying specified complexity to infer design as an argument from ignorance.

Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

taietc writes: That's two.

How many do you need?

taietc writes: Only one actually. But you need to make it good. Something exhibiting total chaos with nothing that could be mistaken for design down to the subatomic level would be a good one to start with.

So two examples from the real, everyday, understandable world is one too many. You now want a single sub-atomic, chaotic example of life? You'll be muttering the words 'quantum uncertainty' next and talking knowledgeably of sonic screwdrivers and teleport machines.

Have a thought for what you're saying.

Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

taiji2 writes: The Tao created from the Wu Chi (nothingness).....the Tai Chi (somethingness, a simple duality.......... positive, negative.....etc.

Well, that's just another set of stories about why there's something rather than nothing - there's no reason at all to accept that particular myth over any of the other creation myths that humanity has littered history with. But there's every reason to ask the boring question of who or what created the creator? Sooner or later you have to address the problem of the uncaused cause.

1.6 writes: We can choose to believe there is a reson de entre' or we can simply say it is what it is.

Or we just say that we don't know. Yet.

For God's sake, stop whining and try to make a decent point. Nobody here is interested in who you are, what you've done, what wars you've fought and who the bad guys are. The only thing that matters here is whether your arguments stand up to returning fire.

I have no skin in this one but have been waiting for something interesting to be said - so far zip. The people here will argue the exact hour a good shit on a Monday morning must happen and exactly what colour it must be to qualify as "good" if they've got nothing else to meither at - it's a hazard of this place; it's for argument and in sparse times anything will apparently do.

The other problem you have is that so far you've said absolutely nothing of consequence - everything you've attempted to say has already been done to death here a million times. You'd be better off reading the history that saying something trivial and hoping to be shown sympathy.

Right, that said, have a think, find some humility and try to take simple, rational steps. The other thing that can happen here - damn rare that it is - if people really do want to learn, there are some very knowledgeable people here that are prepared to spend hours in explanation if they think you're really interested in finding answers.