Evidence for Design?

[Al_Moritz]

Be fair now, Al - here is the rest:

That is, they hold that origins science theories “must” fit in with the view that undirected blindly mechanical forces of nature and chance circumstances acting on matter and energy in one form or another, triggered purposeless changes and developments across time: *(you know what) *, from hydrogen to humans.

In any case this thread is about evidence for design which this link is very solid.

Oh the confusion of metaphysics with science. Science does not make the metaphysical claim that natural causes are “purposeless”. In fact, in my rather long scientific career I have not read a single scientific article that mentions the term “purposeless”. Yes, there are scientists (e.g. Richard Dawkins) that write popular science books in which they make metaphysical claims to the effect that natural causes are purposeless. However, you would be hard-pressed to find such a claim in the actual literature of strict science, i.e. scientific journals that publish original scientific findings.

And the scientific term “random” is not synonymous with the metaphysical term “purposeless” either. Random simply means according to a probability distribution, uncorrelated or unpredictable.

 

[rossum]

Here is where your design detector must have been used. Dawkins recognizes things that look like they were designed. He then tests them and concludes that they were not designed. This must be a necessary part of science since he describes biology as the study of things that look like they were designed.

Dawkins has shown that they were not designed by showing the paths taken to assemble these objects. At no point along these paths was a designer apparent. Hence, in scientific terms, it is reasonable to exclude design. What Dawkins has is a “non-design” detector, which will reliably eliminate design as a possibility for those objects that can be tested.

Clearly, Dawkins is pointing to some other kind of intelligence which must possibly exist.

Clearly, you have misunderstood Dawkins. Dawkins does not deny the possibility of intelligent space aliens, but he most certainly denies the existence of spiritual entities.

If it was not possible for a non-human intelligence to design things, then nothing in nature could look like it was designed.

All domestic animals and crops, as well as various GM organisms have, in part, been designed by humans.

Right – so we recognize things that “appear to have been designed for a purpose” – thus the designer would have certain capabilities and characteristics.

Or else their appearance is deceptive and they were not designed. All we are seeing is a face in the clouds, that looks designed, but actually isn’t.

Could you explain how that would be possible? Can you deliberately do something that has no purpose at all?

Yes. If I were sleepwalking, say.

Intelligence and reason are required for purposeful cause to exist. Life itself is a purposeful cause which (I think from your perspective) had a material “origin”.

Look at the top right of my posts. I am Buddhist, so I have no problem with non-material life. My point is that the very first life, whether material or not, cannot have been designed. Design does not, and cannot, explain the origin of life. Unless we allow the possibility of a non-living designer(s).

If a person is willing to state that he cannot tell the difference between design and non-design, that’s an interesting point of view and a good starting point for the argument.

There are some cases in which I cannot tell the difference. A skilled archaeologist can tell “this is a specially shaped palaeolithic flint tool” and “this is a naturally battered lump of rock”. I am not sufficiently skilled to make that determination.

In other cases I can tell the difference, because I have the appropriate skills and experience. I am not a universal design detector.

rossum

 

[rossum]

The Positive Case for Design

Many critics of intelligent design have argued that design is merely a negative argument against evolution.
This could not be further from the truth. Leading design theorist William Dembski has observed that “[t]he
principle characteristic of intelligent agency is directed contingency, or what we call choice.”1 By
observing the sorts of choices that intelligent agents commonly make when designing systems, a positive
case for intelligent design is easily constructed by elucidating predictable, reliable indicators of design.
Design can be inferred using the scientific method of observation, hypothesis, experiment, and conclusion.
Design theorists begin with observations of how intelligent agents act when designing, to help them
recognize and detect design in the natural world:

more…

I have seen an interesting analysis of this definition of design, design as choice. One of the mechanisms of evolution is natural selection. What natural selection does is to select from among the various genetic variants present in a population those variants that lead to the greatest reproductive success. Natural selection, as the name indicates, selects certain variants. Hence, in some sense, natural selection makes a choice, to use Dembski’s word. This allows evolution, which includes natural selection, to be seen as a form of design. However it is a form of design that does not use intelligence to make its choice, but merely reproductive success. Call it “Unintelligent Design” perhaps.

rossum

 

[Spirithound]

I had rather hoped that people would read it and smile.

There is another of my pieces relevant here as well, an actual design for a working design detector: Proposal for a Theistic Design Detector. That is another, indirect, approach to the same problem.

rossum

Are you saying that, given an atemporal, omniscient being, design holds for anything that weighs more than that fraction of a gram?

 

[Spirithound]

A deformity.

What happened to God’s causal primacy?

 

[grannymh]

That is false. You confuse metaphysics with biology. The biological origin of humans (not “human beings”, a metaphysical term not commonly used in science) is gradual through evolution. The metaphysics of humans require that a soul is fused with the biological body (this event is not a biological, but a metaphysical origin), but this sudden event stands apart from the gradual biological origin through evolution that is observed. No demarcation line is required here.

I will readily concede that here you have a valid point. Mere biological features are often confused with human nature as such, and the culture of anthropological science is guilty of this. In defense of science though I will point out that there is a discipline in anthropology that does just that: trying to define the earliest demarcation line of what makes us uniquely human and sets us apart from other animals. This unique human feature would be rationality, and science tries to discern where it started, judging from past behavior that they observe. But how do you do that? Is certain toolmaking the beginning of rationality? Or does it start with the cave paintings of 35,000 years ago? I would suggest that this would have to the very latest possible date for the origin of rationality, since these paintings require conceptual thinking that is a hallmark of rationality. However, there may very well be earlier tell-tale signs of rationality, perhaps certain tool-making indeed.

Science can very well – and should – study the biological origin of humans. For that science does not need to claim to know the metaphysical origin of rationality – even though, as I will readily concede, many scientists try to find a naturalistic explanation for the origin of rationality.

That is not true. In order to declare some beings are rational and some are not, you can do this from outward signs, for example from distinction by tool-making. You do not need to know the metaphysics of rationality for that.

Atheists and theists both agree that humans are rational, even though they disagree on the metaphysics.

Personally, I really like the very few pictures I have seen of cave drawings. I believe that they are valuable regarding the history of human beings.

Allow me to explain what I personally like about the line of demarcation even though the odds are it will never be found drawn as a line in sand. I base this kind of sudden change on the fact that the spiritual does not evolve. Because human nature per se includes both the material and spiritual, there is a big division between humans and non-humans.

 

[Al_Moritz]

Allow me to explain what I personally like about the line of demarcation even though the odds are it will never be found drawn as a line in sand.

I also believe that it will never be found drawn as a line in sand.

I base this kind of sudden change on the fact that the spiritual does not evolve. Because human nature per se includes both the material and spiritual, there is a big division between humans and non-humans.

As you know, I agree.

 

[buffalo]

I have seen an interesting analysis of this definition of design, design as choice. One of the mechanisms of evolution is natural selection. What natural selection does is to select from among the various genetic variants present in a population those variants that lead to the greatest reproductive success. Natural selection, as the name indicates, selects certain variants. Hence, in some sense, natural selection makes a choice, to use Dembski’s word. This allows evolution, which includes natural selection, to be seen as a form of design. However it is a form of design that does not use intelligence to make its choice, but merely reproductive success. Call it “Unintelligent Design” perhaps.

rossum

I cannot answer this properly since ###### is banned.

I will say that NS as a mechanism is fast falling as we find it is conservative not creative.

However, the positive case for design is made in the flagellar motor. I believe it is 30 or more genes must be functioning. Anyone of them mutates and the motor shuts off. We have a motor that can spin 100,000RPM and in 1/4 revolution stop and go 100,000RPM in the other direction. We cannot even design a motor with this efficiency.It has functional complex specifies information (FCSI) and a purpose (motility).

In addition it has to be assembled in a specific way, according to a plan.

 

[Al_Moritz]

I will say that NS as a mechanism is fast falling as we find it is conservative not creative.

ID myth. Or to be more precise, NS is neither conservative nor creative. Mutation is creative. For example, gene duplication (a common occurrence) with subsequent mutation of one of the genes does lead to information increase, contrary to ID myth. This then can be selected for by NS.

 

[buffalo]

ID myth. Or to be more precise, NS is neither conservative nor creative. Mutation is creative. For example, gene duplication (a common occurrence) with subsequent mutation of one of the genes does lead to information increase, contrary to ID myth. This then can be selected for by NS.

We are talking design.

 

[Al_Moritz]

We are talking design.

We are talking apparent design.

 

[tonyrey]

What happened to God’s causal primacy?

Nothing! God is the Ultimate Cause…

 

[rossum]

Are you saying that, given an atemporal, omniscient being, design holds for anything that weighs more than that fraction of a gram?

Yes. Given the definition of CSI used by Dembski, and the numbers I quoted, pretty much anything in the universe that is made of more than a few atoms is designed.

The point was to show up the uselessness of the concept of CSI as a design detection mechanism. It has other problems as well, but those would have distracted from the point of that piece. I did consider calling it, “A Modest Proposal for …” but that would have given too much of the game away.

That is why I am making my point about how to find something that is not designed. Given an omnipotent designer, then it is very difficult to find such an object.

rossum

 

[rossum]

I cannot answer this properly since ###### is banned.

Indeed. The # key on my keyboard is getting much less use than it once did.

I will say that NS as a mechanism is fast falling as we find it is conservative not creative.

But there is also the process of random mutation, which is creative, not conservative.

We cannot even design a motor with this efficiency.It has functional complex specifies information (FCSI) and a purpose (motility).

The flagellar motor has zero CSI, and hence zero FCSI, because it fails to meet the specification, “to provide an effective clotting mechanism for a high pressure mammalian blood circulation system”. The mammalian blood clotting system has zero FCSI because it fails to meet the specification “to provide motility for a bacterium”.

Dembski said that you were not allowed to paint the target on the barn wall after you had shot the arrow. It looks to me as if the specifications ID people pick are doing exactly that.

Natural selection always uses the same specification for everything; the specification does not change no matter what is being considered. Everything runs on “to provide better reproductive efficiency that the available alternatives in the current environment”.

It is ID that is painting the bullseye round where the arrow landed. Natural selection always uses the same pre-existing target: reproductive efficiency.

rossum

 

[buffalo]

Indeed. The # key on my keyboard is getting much less use than it once did.

The flagellar motor has zero CSI, and hence zero FCSI, because it fails to meet the specification, “to provide an effective clotting mechanism for a high pressure mammalian blood circulation system”. The mammalian blood clotting system has zero FCSI because it fails to meet the specification “to provide motility for a bacterium”.

m

Explain this more.

When one studies design they are essentially doing reverse engineering.

 

[Spirithound]

Yes.

That is why I am making my point about how to find something that is not designed. Given an omnipotent designer, then it is very difficult to find such an object.

I personally am a fan of the cosmological argument, which concludes that all natural objects must have a creator. For this reason, I say that it is impossible to find an undesigned object.

 

[buffalo]

I personally am a fan of the cosmological argument, which concludes that all natural objects must have a creator. For this reason, I say that it is impossible to find an undesigned object.

rossum and I have went around and around on this many times now. It is possible that if we live in a designed frame of reference it is difficult to discern design. What the ID folks are working towards is the degree of design. The greater the complexity, the more extensive the “operating system”, the more bits of information, the greater the unlikelyhood of an event occurring without outside information driving it the more likely it is designed.

Racheting this up a bit - I look at beauty, and God as an artist. A rock can be thought up by God and added to His canvas. So too a biological system.

 

[Spirithound]

rossum and I have went around and around on this many times now. It is possible that if we live in a designed frame of reference it is difficult to discern design. What the ID folks are working towards is the degree of design. The greater the complexity, the more extensive the “operating system”, the more bits of information, the greater the unlikelyhood of an event occurring without outside information driving it the more likely it is designed.

Thank you for explaining this. One further question: What threshold must be crossed to prove design?

 

[buffalo]

Thank you for explaining this. One further question: What threshold must be crossed to prove design?

They have come up with the Universal Probability Bound. It is roughly adding up the elementary particles in the universe with all the events since the big bang. It is 10^105. Then add the the maximum rate per second at which transitions in physical states can occur - 10^45 = 10^150.

Universal Probability Bound

A degree of improbability below which a specified event of that probability cannot reasonably be attributed to chance regardless of whatever probabilitistic resources from the known universe are factored in. Universal probability bounds have been estimated anywhere between 10^–50 (Emile Borel) and 10^–150 (William Dembski).

The certainty goes way up over 10^150 but one can see that even 10^50 is pretty good odds.

Protein folding alone is way above 10^150. There is an astronomical amount of ways a protein can fold. They all go against nature’s tendency toward disorder.

 

[tonyrey]

The obvious answer is that we don’t know what their purpose is but the sheer number of galaxies is irrelevant. You seem to be implying that the more there are the more likely they are to be purposeless - which is absurd.

The number and size of galaxies are irrelevant to the purpose of the universe.

I say that many of them may well have a similar purpose to ours!

Then heaven must be really big.

Heaven is not a place!

The connection between purpose and design is not potential but real - unless you believe one of them is an illusion. You obviously prefer to believe purposes and reasons are produced by inanimate objects which lack purposes and reasons!

I agree with the connection but am saying by that logic you can’t say there’s evidence the universe is designed unless you can objectively state the purpose of the universe. Can you?

The existence of rational beings on this planet is evidence that::

(a) There are probably rational beings on other planets

(b) The universe serves as a basis for life

(c) The universe does not exist for no reason or purpose

(d) Materialism is absurd

1. We know inanimate objects do not design purposeful entities

Surely that can’t be true. Gravity designed the Earth, are you saying the Earth is without purpose?

Gravity designed nothing…