Intelligent Design

[rossum]

The part where they tell us they are writing a paper based upon something already in nature.

They DO NOT first hand witness any changes at all.
They are simply writing a proposal of how they believe a change occurred in the past.

How do you know Jesus was born from Mary? You do not have an eye witness acount. Jesus wrote noting. Mary wrote nothing. Joseph wrote nothing. All you have are four Gospels, written after Jesus’ crufifixion, and only two of which have any accounts at all of his birth. No eye-witness accounts survive.

Perhaps the difficulty is in attempting to hand-hold me into a false conclusion.
I read the link very carefully, the answers provided are there to be seen.
Perhaps you are reading more there then actually is…after all, the entirety of the link is what one would expect on a card in the card catalog of a public library.

It is a card catalogue. It is a reference to the full article, it is not the full article. The abstract is a short summary of the contents of the full article. Just enough to let you know if it is worth the trouble of finding and reading the whole article.

Here is another scientific article, this time it is the whole article, not just the card index: Behe and Snoke (2004). That will give you the flavour of the thing. The abstract is a quick summary at the top. The meat of the piece is in the main body of the paper. Yes, that is the ID Professor Behe there, his 2004 paper was referenced at the Dover trial.

Maybe you should attempt to link the actual papers or maybe come up with some other evidences.

Unfortunately Tauber and Tauber (1977) is not free, it has to be paid for so I cannot link directly to it. I suggest that you try a University library which should have the 1977 volume of Science. Your local library may be able to get a copy.

If you want to get involved in scientific discussions then you will need to learn to read scientific papers.

rossum

 

[tonyrey]

If you want to get involved in scientific discussions then you will need to learn to read scientific papers.

I think you will agree the issue of Design is not scientific but metascientific. The flaw in the arguments of people like Dawkins is that they interpret the whole of reality in the light of empirical evidence…

 

[tonyrey]

Nonsense. God may have other worlds at his disposal but who can deny His glory in creating the universe?

Those who regard the glory of the universe as the result of a sequence of purposeless events!

 

[chessmane4e5]

The crucial words are “with a population and natural selection”.

Start with a population of 5000 coins. Toss them. All the tails die and all the heads survive due to natural selection. We now have 2500 surviving coins. The surviving coins, all heads, breed and have two offspring coins each. The offspring inherit the single head from their parent. Remember that in evolution we inherit our DNA from our parents; these coins inherit the successful head throw from their parent.

Now we have 5000 coins in a new generation, each with one inherited head throw. Throw all the coins. About 2500 die and 2500 survive. The survivors now have two head throws, one inherited and one of their own. The two-head survivors breed and each have a pair of two-head offspring. We now have a population of 5000 two-head coins.

Repeat for a further 998 generations and you will have a population of 5000 coins, each with 1000 heads, 999 inherited and 1 of their own. I can run this model on my computer in a very short time indeed.

Any proposed model of evolution that does not include the correct elements of natural selection in a population with inheritance is not a useful model of evolution. Creationists often put forward a pure random model, which is not a correct model evolution.

My coin model is very crude, but it is enough to show that the overly simplistic pure random model cannot correctly describe the process of random mutation and natural selection in a population with inheritance.

rossum

I don’t see anything “natural” about the way for which you selected the coins. In fact, what I see is “intelligent” selection.

What I have found is that examples of “natural selection” involve intelligence. Maybe you can explain why this is not so and why natural selection is not random, because it seems to me that if it is not random, then it is intelligent.

 

[rossum]

I think you will agree the issue of Design is not scientific but metascientific. The flaw in the arguments of people like Dawkins is that they interpret the whole of reality in the light of empirical evidence…

No. Archaeology and Forensic Science both deal with design and are not metascientific. As currently constituted, ID may well be such. Metascience does not have a place in science class, it belongs in philosophy.

rossum

 

[rossum]

I don’t see anything “natural” about the way for which you selected the coins. In fact, what I see is “intelligent” selection.

The example of the coins was selected by ricmat. I was merely working with his example.

What I have found is that examples of “natural selection” involve intelligence.

How much intelligence does a weed need to become Roundup resistant? How much intelligence does a bacterium need to become antibiotic resistant?

Maybe you can explain why this is not so and why natural selection is not random, because it seems to me that if it is not random, then it is intelligent.

Consider two eagle chicks. One is normal while the other has a mutation that means it is blind. Which eagle chick is the more likely to survive and have offspring, the sighted chick or the blind chick? Is this result random? That is natural selection. It is not random and it is not intelligent.

Put some soil through a sieve. Small pieces fall through while larger pieces do not. Not random and not intelligent. Natural selection is like a sieve; DNA which reproduces passes through to the next generation, DNA which does not reproduce does not pass through to the next generation.

rossum

 

[chessmane4e5]

How much intelligence does a weed need to become Roundup resistant? How much intelligence does a bacterium need to become antibiotic resistant?

No one denies that living things respond to stimuli. As for how much intelligence is required? Well at first people thought none. But as our knowledge of how complex even the simplest cell is, ‘none’ seems like a gross simplification.

Consider two eagle chicks. One is normal while the other has a mutation that means it is blind. Which eagle chick is the more likely to survive and have offspring, the sighted chick or the blind chick? Is this result random? That is natural selection. It is not random and it is not intelligent.

Put some soil through a sieve. Small pieces fall through while larger pieces do not. Not random and not intelligent. Natural selection is like a sieve; DNA which reproduces passes through to the next generation, DNA which does not reproduce does not pass through to the next generation.

rossum

But why was the one chick blind? Was it from a random genetic mutation? I have no problem saying that natural selection would predict that the blind bird would probably not survive. This though is an example of a “negative” mutation, one that caused the species to not survive.

But how does natural selection account for “positive” mutations, ones that benefit an organism. For example the development of wings? This is a much different mutation than a response to a noxious stimuli. When wings first started to develop on an organism, it seems as though they would have been a hindrance at first, because they would not even be able to function yet. But we are to believe that over the next million years (or how ever long it would take) this organism continued to develop something (randomly?) that had no benefit until one day it did?

But I suppose this thread is called Intelligent Design and not Natural Selection, so we are off topic. Maybe a good question to ask is, Why do people think ID is/isn’t “science”? (And yes rossum, I saw your post calling it metascience) Actually, before that we should answer, what is Science?

Here is a definition I found online

knowledge attained through study or practice, or knowledge covering general truths of the operation of general laws, esp. as obtained and tested through scientific method [and] concerned with the physical world.

 

[Sair]

I think you will agree the issue of Design is not scientific but metascientific. The flaw in the arguments of people like Dawkins is that they interpret the whole of reality in the light of empirical evidence…

With respect, what other kind of evidence is there? I think this topic was dealt with on another thread, so I won’t get into a lengthy discussion here, but the fact of the matter is, anything we observe or experience is empirical evidence. We just have to try and sort out what it’s evidence of. That’s where scientific theories come in.

It’s one thing to talk about metascience, but it’s quite another thing to make claims that are primarily based upon a lack of evidence on the one hand, and a metaphysical paradigm - belief in a supernatural creator - on the other. The thing is, until positive evidence for a designer is presented, ID can only point to the fact that scientists have yet to find direct evidence and a working explanation for how living organisms evolved from nonliving chemicals. Some of them think they have identified “specified information” as their direct evidence, but ultimately, this is only a repetition of what scientists already know - we don’t know the precise process by which DNA evolved from simpler molecules. There are a few chemical clues in the operation of DNA and RNA, but nothing concrete.

The point is, scientists are still looking. ID proponents, as I mentioned before, are stopping at vague suggestions of the possibility of a designer, without offering any further predictions as to where and how we might discover the designer, how it constructed the things it is supposed to have designed, or even what kind of being the designer might be. Without these things, ID has nothing to offer but a baseless assertion. And if the designer is claimed to be undetectable by empirical means, what is the point of ID attempting to pass itself off as science?

 

[Sair]

Those who regard the glory of the universe as the result of a sequence of purposeless events!

I used to think this was a depressing way to look at the universe, but I’ve since come to see that it’s quite the opposite. It’s intriguing and magnificent. Thinking that there must be a purpose and an overarching plan to everything - a purpose and plan, what’s more, that must be inscrutable to human minds - seems kind of odd, when you think about it. Is there really much practical difference between a purpose we necessarily can’t understand (that whole “mysterious ways” business) and no purpose?

Consider coming across a magnificent rock formation and marvelling at its beauty. Wouldn’t you be kind of disappointed if you discovered that someone had carved it?

 

[rossum]

No one denies that living things respond to stimuli. As for how much intelligence is required? Well at first people thought none. But as our knowledge of how complex even the simplest cell is, ‘none’ seems like a gross simplification.

I am afraid that I cannot discuss evolution in this thread in any depth, it is temporarily banned. There is a thread with the same title in the Water Cooler/Back Fence forum where discussion of evolution is allowed.

No intelligence is required for a gene duplication. One method of Roundup resistance is massive gene duplication, up to 160 copies of the relevant gene.

But why was the one chick blind? Was it from a random genetic mutation? I have no problem saying that natural selection would predict that the blind bird would probably not survive.

Correct. That is why natural selection is not a random process. The initial mutation was random, but the result of natural selection is not random.

But how does natural selection account for “positive” mutations, ones that benefit an organism. For example the development of wings?

Mutations are random: most neutral, many deleterious and very few beneficial. Natural selection acts to reduce the deleterious mutations in the population (as with the blind eagle chick) and to spread the beneficial mutations in the populations. An eagle chick with slightly better eyesight might have 1% more offspring on average. Over the generations that gene would spread.

When wings first started to develop on an organism, it seems as though they would have been a hindrance at first, because they would not even be able to function yet.

Wings can function for flight, for cooling, for mating displays, to catch insects and to help climb steep slopes. As long as the proto-wing is useful for at least one of these functions it will be favoured by natural selection. For example, Ostriches use their wings for cooling, not for flight.

But we are to believe that over the next million years (or how ever long it would take) this organism continued to develop something (randomly?) that had no benefit until one day it did?

No. The wing did have a benefit, it is just that initially the benefit was not flight.

Here is a definition I found online

Your definition refers to the “scientific method”. Currently ID is only part way through the scientific method. It has started but it has not finished. ID has looked at the data. It has formulated a general hypothesis: “Certain elements of biological systems were designed”. It has failed to progress to the next stage of science. It needs to derive detailed predictions from its general hypothesis. It needs to set failure criteria, how do we tell if something is not designed? It needs to design and carry out experiments to test those predictions. It needs to use the results of those experiments to refine its hypothesis.

ID has started down the track towards being science but it has not completed all the work that is required.

rossum

 

[vz71]

How do you know Jesus was born from Mary? You do not have an eye witness acount. Jesus wrote noting. Mary wrote nothing. Joseph wrote nothing. All you have are four Gospels, written after Jesus’ crufifixion, and only two of which have any accounts at all of his birth. No eye-witness accounts survive.

Is it really your intent to attempt to liken sacred scripture with the hypothetical writings of a few scientists?
Is your argument so weak that you must attempt a derailing manuever such as this?
I expected better.

It is a card catalogue. It is a reference to the full article, it is not the full article. The abstract is a short summary of the contents of the full article. Just enough to let you know if it is worth the trouble of finding and reading the whole article.

The abstract told me what I needed to know.
They had theory based upon observation of two possibly different species.
They did not witness the two becoming a different species, nor do they know when it happened or for that matter if it happened at all.

If you want to get involved in scientific discussions then you will need to learn to read scientific papers.

I’m sorry. But I will not do your homework for you.
When someone calls you to back your argument, it is generally expected that you will back it with something more then a card.
In either case, I did what was reasonably expected, I read the reference.
I then pulled the information from it.
If the conclusion I have reached concerning the card you referenced is in error, please point out the error.
Else simply accept that you made a mistake. The reference matewrial you believed supported your case not only failed to do so, but actually supported the opposition.

 

[vz71]

Put some soil through a sieve. Small pieces fall through while larger pieces do not. Not random and not intelligent. Natural selection is like a sieve; DNA which reproduces passes through to the next generation, DNA which does not reproduce does not pass through to the next generation.

Who decided what size material the sieve would filter?

 

[rossum]

Is it really your intent to attempt to liken sacred scripture with the hypothetical writings of a few scientists?

Firstly, read the bit in the top right corner of my posts. The bit that says “Religion: Buddhist”. What I think of as “sacred scripture” is different from what you think of as “sacred scripture”.

Secondly, the Tauber’s writings are not hypothetical, they are real.

Thirdly, my intent was to show the ludicrousness of requiring actual eyewitness evidence for any and all claims that you will accept. I used Christian scripture merely as an example of a claim that I presume that you accept yet there is no actual eye-witness evidence for that claim. If you do not apply the same evidential requirements to your own beliefs then you are not being consistent.

The abstract told me what I needed to know.

It didn’t. There is more in the main body than there is in the abstract. You are missing relevant facts.

They had theory based upon observation of two possibly different species.
They did not witness the two becoming a different species, nor do they know when it happened or for that matter if it happened at all.

Go and read the full paper. You are missing facts, and since you do not accept second hand evidence there is no point in my telling you what the paper contains. To be consistent with your own rules of evidence you will have to read it yourself firsthand.

When someone calls you to back your argument, it is generally expected that you will back it with something more then a card.

I did. If someone backs an argument with “Genesis 1:6-8” would you expect an opponent to dismiss that support or to actually pick up a Bible and read the reference? You have not read the referenced paper so you are in no position to dismiss my evidence.

So far, all you have read is the equivalent of the literal “Genesis 1:6-8”. The full paper is the equivalent of:And God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” And God made the firmament and separated the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

I have given you the reference. You have informed me that you do not accept indirect evidence so it is incumbent on you to go and read the full paper for yourself. I can’t read it for you.

In either case, I did what was reasonably expected, I read the reference.

You didn’t, you just read the card index. The reference is to the full paper.

rossum

 

[rossum]

Who decided what size material the sieve would filter?

I was using a metaphor. Do not try to press the metaphor too far.

The sieve can select large particles from small particles. The sieve does not need any intelligence to operate.

If you think a sieve is too complex a metaphor then simple fluid flow will separate large particles from small particles. Rivers, streams and tides can all sort particles by size. None of them display intelligence.

Natural selection does not require intelligence. If intelligence is present then it is better called artificial selection, as with humans breeding animals and plants.

rossum

 

[balt_orioles54]

The Constitution is a political document that prevents religion being taught in science classes in public schools in America. ID2 is a political movement that tries to smuggle religion into science classes. There is a lot of truth that is not taught in science classes: History, French, English, Geography and many other subjects. The place for religion is in a comparative religion class, not a science class.

No. A Judge determined what was legal or not. It is not legal to teach ID in a science class in an American public school.

The DI would like you to think that. Since the Dover trial the DI has switched from “Teach ID” to “Teach the Controversy”. The Dover trial certainly had an effect on the Discovery Institute.

rossum

A couple of things Rossum. First, being from London your perception of the U.S. constitution is skewed as it currently is by activist liberal judges in the U.S. No where does it say you cannot teach religion in any classroom in the U.S. It has come to this because of activist liberals who want to remove all religion and God from Earth’s conversation. The U.S. constitution clearly states that no “One” religion shall be promoted as “The Religion” of the U.S., based primarily on the history of your country, England, who mandated the state religion, “The Church of England.” I.D., if you know anything about it, and its proponents, come from many religions, not one religion, i.e., Christianity. The I.D. movement is composed of people who, like Einstein, and other great scientists can see the pure logic standing before them, a universal order constructed in life’s elements, i.e., DNA, irreducible complexity, etc. Your relgion of Darwinism and secular humanism’s mission is to stamp out any headway made that a single hypothesis, not proof, just a hypthosis, in a free thinking college or university setting is suppressd, and that is that it is “possible” that an intelligent designer designed the complexities in DNA - i.e., the code, the “language,” so to speak. If you see Ben Stein’s “Expelled, No Intelligence Allowed,” this summarizes the closed mindedness of current science and the religion of atheism. Rossum, no one is asking you to believe there is an intelligent designer, all I.D. is asking is to consider it as a hypothesis, especially since much of the macroevolution that Darwin claimed is proving to be impossible - the convergence of natural parts randomly overtime to create the irreducible complex components that scientists associated with the Discovery Institute and others are proving to be a challenge to classic Darwinist scientists, who are coming up with fewer and fewer cogent responses, so they resort to fascist character assassinations, which is typical of the liberal elite. :ballspin:

 

[buffalo]

I was using a metaphor. Do not try to press the metaphor too far.

The sieve can select large particles from small particles. The sieve does not need any intelligence to operate.

If you think a sieve is too complex a metaphor then simple fluid flow will separate large particles from small particles. Rivers, streams and tides can all sort particles by size. None of them display intelligence.

Natural selection does not require intelligence. If intelligence is present then it is better called artificial selection, as with humans breeding animals and plants.

rossum

A mousetrap does not need intelligence to operate either.

 

[tonyrey]

Those who regard the glory of the universe as the result of a sequence of purposeless events!

The purpose is not inscrutable but indisputable if one recognises the immense value of existence - not only for human beings but for other living beings.

Consider coming across a magnificent rock formation and marvelling at its beauty. Wouldn’t you be kind of disappointed if you discovered that someone had carved it?

Not at all. Sculptors do precisely that! The greatest disappointment in life must be for those who come to believe all the goodness, beauty and love in the world are doomed to be swallowed up in oblivion… http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=7725230#post7725230

 

[tonyrey]

I think you will agree the issue of Design is not scientific but metascientific. The flaw in the arguments of people like Dawkins is that they interpret the whole of reality in the light of empirical evidence…

Design cannot be restricted to science because it has metascientific implications.

Metascience does not have a place in science class, it belongs in philosophy.

The absence of philosophy from most school curricula necessitates an antidote to the false impression given by materialists that NeoDarwinism is the sole explanation of human existence.

 

[vz71]

The sieve can select large particles from small particles. The sieve does not need any intelligence to operate.

The analogy works better then you think.

So who is operating the sieve?

 

[vz71]

Thirdly, my intent was to show the ludicrousness of requiring actual eyewitness evidence for any and all claims that you will accept.

I’m not. Are you trying to argue to extremes?
I simply want to know if anyone anywhere at anytime has witnessed one species becoming another.

The paper you hold sacred provides us with identiies of scientists that are studying the matter, but they too have never witnessed this transformation.

One would think that this process would be caught somewhere in front of witnesses.
But it has not.
At present it would appear there is more evidence for UFO’s then there is for this macro-evolution.