One-third of Americans reject evolution, poll shows

[Peter_Plato]

Your analogy fails in that you are presuming a designer before looking for evidence of design. What empirical measurements can tell us is that my username was entered at a specific time from a specific IP address. Science is not a tool for determining the motivations behind an event, as motivations presume an active mind - something that is unmeasurable.

Actually my analogy holds up because you are merely pushing the “intelligence” requirements backwards in order to try to make them disappear. Even if bots or some other method is used to defeat Captcha and secure entry into the system, those methods were created by some intelligent agent who grasped the need to create the methods and programmed the algorithms necessary to defeat the sequential complexity required to gain access. The methods did not create themselves by accident and did not secure entry into the login sequence randomly.

That is the point of No Free Lunch theorems. They show that somewhere the information had to have been arrived at by overcoming the probability requirements necessary to create it. It doesn’t just happen by chance. Neither can we plead our way out by pushing the explanation back a step of two to bots or software, because those, too, require intelligence to design them. (Nor some necessary but unknown material explanation, because THAT is an argument from ignorance,)

 

[buffalo]

Read the papers. All that the programs did was evaluate the fitness of the members of each generation for the specified purpose - just like natural selection does when the purpose is “move more efficiently” or “store more energy”. The computers were simply acting as the “universe” in which the program and generations existed. At no point was there a specification for “use undetected physical properties of this specific chip” or “incorporate a certain number of bends with specified angles in the antenna design”. Those features - both quite complex parts of the designs in question - arose independently of the program, computer, or the researchers’ intents.

On another note, a “speciation” event has been found to be in progress right now with a large animal: With the shrinking of the northern sea ice, polar bears have started interbreeding with grizzly bears on a vastly increased basis, and the children of these unions are fertile and breed true with each other. The new species has been tentatively given the common name of “Grolar” bear.

Specified purpose - key element of design.

They are bears and their offspring are bears.

 

[Monkey1976]

By whose definition? Intentional perhaps, but suggesting “conscious” is necessary is invoking an anthropomorphism which sets up the ID thesis for precisely the criticisms that you and Skeptic92 launch against it.

How, precisely, could an unconscious intelligence engage in and be the source of design in your view?

Even if you did “flip a dictionary” there would be “a reason” you did so in order to choose your word. The dictionary would not cause your choice in the matter. You still had a reason for implementing the dictionary strategy; perhaps not a very good reason, but a reason nonetheless.

The fact that your reason is obtuse or not available to objective assessment does not argue against the hypothesis that your username is still NOT the result of a material cause.

And if my reason was to create a username using processes which appear random to the outside observer, what purpose is served by invoking me as a designer? To look for the reasoning behind a piece of data is to move from science to philosophy, and from the empirical and objective to the entirely subjective.

You didn’t understand the argument. Setting the code on a bicycle lock is not sufficiently explained by material causation precisely because the numbers “allowed” by the lock mechanism itself are not materialistically determined. The reason a bicycle lock works the way it does is because the number sequence is not set deterministically by material causes. We can’t explain the actual sequence of numbers (the code) with reference to anything “material” about the lock. If we could the sequence itself would be secured by those material causes themselves and would not be open to being set by external factors, i.e., my choice of numbers in the sequence.

Certain characteristics of the code can be determined by examination of the materials - the length of the sequence, the largest available number of each dial, etc. Objective measurement can give us a reasonable probability of what the code could be. To go further, one has to question the intelligence which programmed the code. How would one question an unconscious intelligence?

Darwinian evolution proposes that the extensive code found in DNA was arrived at randomly and selected for continuity by forces in nature. That presumes an initial random code was achieved that could self-replicate before natural selection could have any effect.
That pre-existing random code to produce a self-replicating forms of life would be akin to random turns of a bicycle lock that blindly “hit upon” just the right combination to successfully open the lock, i.e, made possible the self-replication properties in genetic code that make it amenable to such possibilities. Yet the level of code required to accomplish that access would far exceed the probabilistic resources available.

An analogy would be gaining access to the vast creative resources found in a computer network (protein synthesis) by randomly assembling numbers and letters without knowing beforehand that hitting on the “right” combination would get you into the network. Not merely hit and miss, but hit and miss with regard to a capacity that never knew existed until it was effectively created by the lengthy specified and complex code that was accidentally and blindly “hit upon.”

This is a case, not of an infinite number of monkeys, but of a finite number of monkeys on an finite number of typewriters coming up with the works of Shakespeare and at the same instant creating the actors and stages that perform them.

I don’t think you properly consider the extent of the information ‘stored’ in genetic code and what is required to produce it. Otherwise, you would reconsider the facility with which you dismiss the issue.

I’m well aware of the amount of information stored in the genetic code. For humans, it’s between 1.5 and 3 Gb, depending on how one defines a genetic “byte”. What you’re missing is that evolution is silent on the question of where DNA came from. It’s the biological equivalent of the Big Bang singularity - the theorems and laws which have so far been accurate and useful break down and are incapable of making predictions. Evolution is a theory about organisms, not molecules. Is it possible that the primordial DNA strands arose through a process which we could someday explain using biochemisty? Sure, but that says nothing about evolution, nor does it remove God from the picture - it simply tells us something new about His tools.

 

[Monkey1976]

Specified purpose - key element of design.

For organisms, the specified purpose is simply “reproduce”. Is that sufficient basis to infer an intelligence behind the design? Orb spiders create highly symmetrical webs, and the specified purpose of those webs is to catch food. Are spiders intelligent?

They are bears and their offspring are bears.

So grizzly, polar, sloth, sun, panda, brown, black, spectacled, and cave bears are all identical simply because they’re called “bears”? Are polar bears and grizzly bears the same species? How do you define “species”?

 

[Judas_Thaddeus]

They are bears and their offspring are bears.

More like they are bears and their offspring are bears that are a little different.

 

[Peter_Plato]

And if my reason was to create a username using processes which appear random to the outside observer, what purpose is served by invoking me as a designer? To look for the reasoning behind a piece of data is to move from science to philosophy, and from the empirical and objective to the entirely subjective.

Courts of law determine premeditation, motives and suchlike using evidential means. There is no reason to think intelligence implies total ignorance, otherwise the judicial system would be impotent in determining crucial aspects of finding guilt, responsibility and culpability.

I don’t think the gulf between empirical and rational is as detached and distinct as you make it out to be. In fact, your view seems very amenable to Skeptic’s critique regarding Cartesian dualism since that seems the underlying metaphysic which leads you to separate objective and subjective in the manner you do.

 

[Peter_Plato]

For organisms, the specified purpose is simply “reproduce”. Is that sufficient basis to infer an intelligence behind the design? Orb spiders create highly symmetrical webs, and the specified purpose of those webs is to catch food. Are spiders intelligent?

No but that doesn’t preclude their instinctive behavior from being intelligently designed.

Your example of bot worms, trojans and computers viruses, even those that self-replicate, are instances of entities that were designed (by external intelligent agents) to act according to the coded intelligence programmed to direct their behaviour.

Spiders need not be intelligent to act intelligently if the DNA code that determines their behaviour was intelligently designed.

 

[buffalo]

More like they are bears and their offspring are bears that are a little different.

They are bears and their offspring devolved by losing an ability they once had.

 

[buffalo]

For organisms, the specified purpose is simply “reproduce”. Is that sufficient basis to infer an intelligence behind the design? Orb spiders create highly symmetrical webs, and the specified purpose of those webs is to catch food. Are spiders intelligent?

So grizzly, polar, sloth, sun, panda, brown, black, spectacled, and cave bears are all identical simply because they’re called “bears”? Are polar bears and grizzly bears the same species? How do you define “species”?

Why should the first cell even want to reproduce? Could the answer be, because it was designed to?

 

[HansTrappist]

Why should the first cell even want to reproduce? Could the answer be, because it was designed to?

Speaking of the first cell, I was reminded of something that Ben Wiker and Scott Hahn wrote on that subject in their excellent book Answering the New Atheism: Dismantling Dawkins’ Case Against God:

"…Now if the universe existed forever, well then, time’s not a problem. You’ve got more than enough time to spare. But setting a definite beginning point to the universe creates an enormous difficulty for the godless workings of chance. You haven’t got forever; you’ve only got 13 ½ billion years. Actually, as it turns out, since our focus is on the possibility of random chemical combinations on Earth, then we’ve only got 4 ½ billion years. Even more daunting, since the Earth wasn’t cool enough for living things until about 3.8 billion years ago, we’ve got even less time. Well, what actually happened? Against all odds, the simplest cell formed on our planet almost immediately upon our planet being cool enough to allow for the simplest biological life. If getting the right chemical combination to allow for the simplest cell by chance is anything like getting a perfect deal in bridge, we are (if we take Dawkins’ view of things) really, really, really lucky. It looks like somebody stacked the deck.

That is obviously not the conclusion he wants to draw. Rather than allowing a deck-stacker, Dawkins wants to be an odds-stacker. We’ve seen that Dawkins gets around the overwhelming-odds problem by the blank declaration that the chance of the rise of something like DNA is about a billion to one— and even declares that he does “not for a moment believe the origin of life was anywhere near so improbable in practice.” He believes the odds were even better than a billion to one. Believing the odds to be that good allows him to avoid inferring a divine deck-stacker. The difficulty is this: we are not aware of very many competent biologists, physicists, or chemists who share Dawkins’ jaunty optimism about the possibilities for the chance production of DNA, let alone the cell in which it could function. Why is Dawkins’ confidence so rare among scientists who deal with origin of life questions?

…If the odds are this bad— so bad that they amount to the closest thing next to impossible that’s possible— what could account for Dawkins’ incalculable faith in chance? To begin with, he thinks he’s got nothing to prove: ‘however improbable the origin of life might be,’ Dawkins assures the reader, ‘we know it happened on Earth because we are here.’

That is not an argument. It is, at best, an assumption dressed up as a demonstration. One could just as well demonstrate that fairies create life, for ‘we know it happened on Earth because we are here.’ Again, we have the fallacy of a* petitio principii*: it proves nothing because it proves anything.

…It should be obvious that there is something very fishy about assuming what you would have to prove. Earth is the only place that we know of where any life exists. You can’t just assume that life occurred on Earth by chance* because* you know that life happens to exist on Earth. You don’t* know* life exists on Earth by chance; that is what needs proving. As we’ve seen above, such a demonstration would have to overcome nearly incalculable odds (or, at least far, far greater than what Dawkins has assumed in asserting that DNA would arise on a billion planets out of a billion billion)."

 

[vz71]

On another note, a “speciation” event has been found to be in progress right now with a large animal: With the shrinking of the northern sea ice, polar bears have started interbreeding with grizzly bears on a vastly increased basis, and the children of these unions are fertile and breed true with each other. The new species has been tentatively given the common name of “Grolar” bear.

Fascinating.

So how exactly are we defining a species?

Are we certain this is an example of one species breeding with another, or is this an example of the same species with radically different physical traits. Like one breed of dog looking nothing like another but still able to mate.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Fascinating.

So how exactly are we defining a species?

Are we certain this is an example of one species breeding with another, or is this an example of the same species with radically different physical traits. Like one breed of dog looking nothing like another but still able to mate.

The evidence seems to point in the direction of two “species” that diverged from one about 4-5 million years ago but have continued to mate with each other since.

The evidence from DNA analysis is more complex. The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of the polar bear diverged from the brown bear, Ursus arctos, roughly 150,000 years ago. Further, some clades of brown bear, as assessed by their mtDNA, are more closely related to polar bears than to other brown bears, meaning that the polar bear would not be a true species according to some species concepts. The mtDNA of Irish brown bears is particularly close to polar bears. A comparison of the nuclear genome of polar bears with that of brown bears revealed a different pattern, the two forming genetically distinct clades that diverged approximately 603,000 years ago, although ***the latest research is based on analysis of the complete genomes (rather than just the mitochondria or partial nuclear genomes) of polar, brown and black bears, and establishes the divergence of polar and brown bears at 4-5 million years ago.

However, the two species have mated intermittently for all that time, most likely coming into contact with each other during warming periods, when polar bears were driven onto land and brown bears migrated northward. Most brown bears have about 2 percent genetic material from polar bears, but one population residing in the Alexander Archipelago has between 5 percent and 10 percent polar bear genes, indicating more frequent and recent mating. Polar bears can breed with brown bears to produce fertile grizzly–polar bear hybrids, rather than indicating that they have only recently diverged, the new evidence suggests more frequent mating has continued over a longer period of time, and thus the two bears remain genetically similar. However, because neither species can survive long in the other’s ecological niche, and because they have different morphology, metabolism, social and feeding behaviors, and other phenotypic characteristics, the two bears are generally classified as separate species.***

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_bear

Grizzlies are a sub-species of brown bears.

 

[Monkey1976]

No but that doesn’t preclude their instinctive behavior from being intelligently designed.

Your example of bot worms, trojans and computers viruses, even those that self-replicate, are instances of entities that were designed (by external intelligent agents) to act according to the coded intelligence programmed to direct their behaviour.

Then how does ID show that the “designer” of life was not “designed” by something else?

Spiders need not be intelligent to act intelligently if the DNA code that determines their behaviour was intelligently designed.

Point of order: The origin of DNA is outside the scope of evolution. Therefore, its use as an argument against evolution is a strawman.

 

[buffalo]

Then how does ID show that the “designer” of life was not “designed” by something else?

Point of order: The origin of DNA is outside the scope of evolution. Therefore, its use as an argument against evolution is a strawman.

I have to jump in here.

It well could have been, that is the whole point. ID the science does not tell you who the designer is.

Then let’s talk about the functional specified complexity of the DNA code. It shows design, but as you rightly point out it does not make a claim as to who the designer is.

 

[Judas_Thaddeus]

I have to jump in here.

It well could have been, that is the whole point. ID the science does not tell you who the designer is.

Then let’s talk about the functional specified complexity of the DNA code. It shows design, but as you rightly point out it does not make a claim as to who the designer is.

Oh dear, but that specified complexity is not a scientific idea, it’s just a myth.
Many things can look like it was designed, when some may just be natural.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Then how does ID show that the “designer” of life was not “designed” by something else?

It doesn’t, necessarily, which is why IDvolution is not susceptible to the claim that it necessarily invokes God. It doesn’t. It empirically attempts to demonstrate that genetic code is sufficiently like functionally specified complex information that probability calculus would rule out it having arisen as a result of chance events.

That’s where the science ENDS, unless further evidence can be mustered to point more specifically at the kind of intelligence involved.

At that point, philosophy or metaphysical argumentation would take over in terms of what kind of intelligence would have the capacity, means, motives, etc. to “write” the code in the first place.

That is why all these claims on this thread that IDvolution is “creationism” in disguise are simply untrue. The physical evidence only goes so far. Which is why IDvolution IS science. It may be found correct or incorrect, but that cannot be determined until the opportunity is extended for its case to be made.

A judge cannot make a reasonable judgement until ALL the evidence has been accumulated and assessed. Which is why I think ID ought not be dismissed as unscientific but allowed to detail its case and support that by appropriate experimentation.

Point of order: The origin of DNA is outside the scope of evolution. Therefore, its use as an argument against evolution is a strawman.

I don’t buy that. Not considering the origin of DNA means that the argument for evolution is at a distinct advantage. It can insist the DNA code can be successfully and consistently altered by mutation and natural selection without justifying that claim with regard to what the DNA code was like to begin with. It makes a huge difference to the legitimacy of evolution if it need not account for the original form of the code.

If the initial code was fully functional “super” DNA and evolution theory ignores that little fact, then its case about mutation and natural selection has some plausibility because the DNA code might be sufficiently robust in its original form to allow mutations and deal with them by creating variation.

However, if evolution claims that all life evolved from a common source, then an accounting of that source ought not be ignored. The nature of that source and at what point it can possibly be called “living” is an important distinction because evolution has to explain and account for it (from the point it became a form of life,) otherwise it hasn’t fully done its job as a theory explaining life on Earth.

When and how a chemical entity became a biological one are important because evolution needs to explain the changes from that point on. So “fixing” the point is part of the job of evolution theorists in order to demonstrate their view can be the correct one.

We cannot claim a theory accounts for all life without working out the details of when life began and what, precisely, distinguished it from “non-life.” It comes with the territory and biochemistry is one of the disciplines charged with looking at it. Evolution theory has to “play nice” with abiogenesis and ultimately be reconciliable with the origin of DNA.

Darwin’s book, after all, was to account for the “origin” of species. The tree of life INCLUDES the roots, so to speak. A tree lopped off at ground level is a dead tree.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Oh dear, but that specified complexity is not a scientific idea, it’s just a myth.

By what prerogative do you make THAT claim?

The idea of specified complexity is an aspect of probability theory which fits under the broad scientific field of informatics.

 

[buffalo]

Oh dear, but that specified complexity is not a scientific idea, it’s just a myth.
Many things can look like it was designed, when some may just be natural.

Here we go again. :banghead:

 

[Peter_Plato]

Oh dear, but that specified complexity is not a scientific idea, it’s just a myth.
Many things can look like it was designed, when some may just be natural.

This paper by philosopher Peter Williams shows that specified complexity is seriously considered by academics even in areas such as evolutionary biology. He surveys seven scholars including three atheists and four theists, ALL outside the ID movement.

Merely because the top hits showing up on a Google search give a certain impression, does not mean that view prevails.

 

[Monkey1976]

It doesn’t, necessarily, which is why IDvolution is not susceptible to the claim that it necessarily invokes God. It doesn’t. It empirically attempts to demonstrate that genetic code is sufficiently like functionally specified complex information that probability calculus would rule out it having arisen as a result of chance events.

That’s where the science ENDS, unless further evidence can be mustered to point more specifically at the kind of intelligence involved.

At that point, philosophy or metaphysical argumentation would take over in terms of what kind of intelligence would have the capacity, means, motives, etc. to “write” the code in the first place.

That is why all these claims on this thread that IDvolution is “creationism” in disguise are simply untrue. The physical evidence only goes so far. Which is why IDvolution IS science. It may be found correct or incorrect, but that cannot be determined until the opportunity is extended for its case to be made.

A judge cannot make a reasonable judgement until ALL the evidence has been accumulated and assessed. Which is why I think ID ought not be dismissed as unscientific but allowed to detail its case and support that by appropriate experimentation.

IDvolution makes a very specific claim as to the designer:
"IDvolution.org:

IDvolution - God “breathed” the super language of DNA into the “kinds” in the creative act.

If it is a science, then it needs to show empirical proof for God. Otherwise, it is making a claim and providing no support.

I don’t buy that. Not considering the origin of DNA means that the argument for evolution is at a distinct advantage. It can insist the DNA code can be successfully and consistently altered by mutation and natural selection without justifying that claim with regard to what the DNA code was like to begin with. It makes a huge difference to the legitimacy of evolution if it need not account for the original form of the code.

If the initial code was fully functional “super” DNA and evolution theory ignores that little fact, then its case about mutation and natural selection has some plausibility because the DNA code might be sufficiently robust in its original form to allow mutations and deal with them by creating variation.

However, if evolution claims that all life evolved from a common source, then an accounting of that source ought not be ignored. The nature of that source and at what point it can possibly be called “living” is an important distinction because evolution has to explain and account for it (from the point it became a form of life,) otherwise it hasn’t fully done its job as a theory explaining life on Earth.

When and how a chemical entity became a biological one are important because evolution needs to explain the changes from that point on. So “fixing” the point is part of the job of evolution theorists in order to demonstrate their view can be the correct one.

We cannot claim a theory accounts for all life without working out the details of when life began and what, precisely, distinguished it from “non-life.” It comes with the territory and biochemistry is one of the disciplines charged with looking at it. Evolution theory has to “play nice” with abiogenesis and ultimately be reconciliable with the origin of DNA.

Darwin’s book, after all, was to account for the “origin” of species. The tree of life INCLUDES the roots, so to speak. A tree lopped off at ground level is a dead tree.

Evolution is a theory which explains the diversity of life, not the origin of life itself. Darwin’s book is indeed correctly titled, because it explains where the species we see today came from - earlier species. The “requirement” that evolution must “play nice” with abiogenesis is something pushed on it by those who have a theological or philosophical axe to grind. If we look at organisms which exist without DNA (RNA-only viruses are the only example of this so far), evolutionary theory is still valid for them as they are still subject to mutation regulated by selection. DNA is not necessary for evolution. The Scopes trial was in 1925. DNA wasn’t recognized as the carrier of genetic information until 1943, and the experiment which determined that wasn’t confirmed until 1952. We can’t even say for certain that DNA is necessary for complex life (as in, anything above a virus) until we find an example of it that that’s extraterrestrial in origin. At the moment, it’s a coin toss - we’re working with a sample size of one when we claim complex life requires DNA.