Intelligent Design - theory, examples, implications

[Tormod]

Thanks for your nice comments about the server, Lolic.

 

I think my main problem with your argument is that even though ID-ers may claim no religious tint that is still what the ID movement comes out of, and it will be what they will have to struggle with for many, many years to come.

 

As for the book, it is still residing on my shelf because I had some priority reading to do (ie, paid work - I review books for national radio) so please hang in there - it has been so incredibly busy around myself lately so I need to take one thing at a time. ;)

[Lolic]

Hi Tormod,

 

Some weeks ago (I don’t remember your exact wording) you asked me for the scientific basis of ID, or to state it in a scientific fashion. More recently you mentioned how you didn’t think you could separate ID from religion, or thought it would always have religious undercurrents, something to that affect.

 

Well, I certainly wasn’t prompt but did want to get back to you. Below is a short section from a much longer article from http://www.ideacenter.org/about/mission_affiliations.php

“Religious and Scientific Affiliations” Copyright © 2004, IDEA Center. All Rights Reserved. Permission Granted to Reproduce for Non-Profit Educational Purposes.

 

How intelligent design theory works:

 

i. Observation:

The ways that intelligent agents act can be observed in the natural world and described. When intelligent agents act, it is observed that they produce high levels of "complex-specified information" (CSI). CSI is basically a scenario which is unlikely to happen (making it complex), and conforms to a pattern (making it specified). Language and machines are good examples of things with much CSI. From our understanding of the world, high levels of CSI are always the product of intelligent design.

 

ii. Hypothesis:

If an object in the natural world was designed, then we should be able to examine that object and find the same high levels of CSI in the natural world as we find in human-designed objects.

 

iii. Experiment:

We can examine biological structures to test if high CSI exists. When we look at natural objects in biology, we find many machine-like structures which are specified, because they have a particular arrangement of parts which is necessary for them to function, and complex because they have an unlikely arrangement of many interacting parts. These biological machines are "irreducibly complex," for any change in the nature or arrangement of these parts would destroy their

function. Irreducibly complex structures cannot be built up through an alternative theory, such as Darwinian evolution, because Darwinian evolution requires that a biological structure be functional along every small-step of its evolution. "Reverse engineering" of these structures shows that they cease to function if changed even slightly.

 

iv. Conclusion:

Because they exhibit high levels of CSI, a quality known to be produced only by intelligent design, and because there is no other known mechanism to explain the origin of these "irreducibly complex" biological structures, we conclude that they were intelligently designed.

 

 

In this description, only the scientific method, via observations of the natural world, is used to conclude that life was designed. There is no appeal to the supernatural, and no reliance upon faith or divine revelation (including any religious text). This scientific approach is the method that the IDEA Center takes when discussing intelligent design theory.

 

However, it should be noted that many religions may teach that life was intelligently designed. While intelligent design theory makes claims about the natural world which are consistent with these religious claims, intelligent design theory is science not because of the claims it makes, but because of how it makes those claims. Remember, science is a "way of knowing"--not a set of things which can be known. If a conclusion may be arrived at through the scientific method, even if some religious faith or divine revelation is coincidentally teaching that same conclusion, it is scientific.

 

In determining if something is science or religion, what matters is not the claim you are making, but how and on what basis you are making the claim. What you 'know,' or what your claims are about, do not determine whether those claims are religious or scientific. Rather, it is the 'way,' or means by which one makes those claims that makes them religious or scientific. Intelligent design theory is a purely scientific way of arriving at the conclusion that life was designed, even if that

conclusion may also be reached via religious means.

[Fishteacher73]

If an object in the natural world was designed, then we should be able to examine that object and find the same high levels of CSI in the natural world as we find in human-designed objects.

 

There are increadibly complex systems that were not designed. Take elemental cycling for example.

 

Irreducibly complex structures cannot be built up through an alternative theory, such as Darwinian evolution, because Darwinian evolution requires that a biological structure be functional along every small-step of its evolution.

 

This is erroneous. There are a myriad of vestigal structures in organisms spanning the whole spectrum of life. If anything, these stucture re-inforce evolutionary theories.

[Tormod]

First things first:

 

More recently you mentioned how you didn’t think you could separate ID from religion, or thought it would always have religious undercurrents, something to that affect.

...

The leadership of the IDEA Center are Christians, who believe that the identity of the designer is the God of the Bible. While the IDEA Center as an organization promotes intelligent design as a scientific theory, our leaders also have their own religious view that the identity of the designer is the God of the Bible.

 

So apparently your source supports my assumption that ID is closely related to religion.

 

Now, I am sorry that I can't jump into a long discussion ATM because I am going on vacation for three weeks. But I'll just point out a few things.

 

i. Observation:

The ways that intelligent agents act can be observed in the natural world and described.

 

What is the definition of "intelligent agents"? Never mind. The IDEA Center do not want to identify it because it must be apparent from what they observe. So anything that seems too complex must by definition have been created by something, which is then an intelligent agent. This is circular logic.

 

From our understanding of the world, high levels of CSI are always the product of intelligent design.

 

This is an admission of strong bias. But - who are the "we" here? The IDEA Center, apparently, with a strong, Christian fundament. So this means that whatever experiment they carry out, it will be based on the assumption that God of the Christian Bible created the universe.

 

ii. Hypothesis

If an object in the natural world was designed, then we should be able to examine that object and find the same high levels of CSI in the natural world as we find in human-designed objects.

 

An interesting hypothesis. It must mean that everything that a human being has ever designed, from a stone axe to a microprocessor chip, from dental records to webcams, must be reproducible in nature without any human interference.

 

However, this hypothesis also predicts the opposite: if an object in the natural world was designed, then humans should be able to create objects with the same level of CSI.

 

I would like to ask: can human beings create a galaxy? Or even a stellar nebula?

 

iii. Experiment:

We can examine biological structures to test if high CSI exists. When we look at natural objects in biology, we find many machine-like structures which are specified, because they have a particular arrangement of parts which is necessary for them to function, and complex because they have an unlikely arrangement of many interacting parts. These biological machines are "irreducibly complex," for any change in the nature or arrangement of these parts would destroy their function. Irreducibly complex structures cannot be built up through an alternative theory, such as Darwinian evolution, because Darwinian evolution requires that a biological structure be functional along every small-step of its evolution. "Reverse engineering" of these structures shows that they cease to function if changed even slightly.

 

The problem here is that this is not an experiment but an extension of the hypothesis, and a further elaboration of the bias.

 

iv. Conclusion:

Because they exhibit high levels of CSI, a quality known to be produced only by intelligent design, and because there is no other known mechanism to explain the origin of these "irreducibly complex" biological structures, we conclude that they were intelligently designed.

 

Whoever wrote this has absolutely no idea what the scientific method is - or they are willfully misinterpreting it. There is no experiment in iii. above. Or tell me - how would you go about performing that experiment?

 

An experiment must yield the same results to all experimenters in order to qualify the demands of scientifig rigidity. What you have above is an observation, with the provided bias from i. and ii., and it is not an experiment.

 

Point iii above, which claims to be an experiment, also brings in the idea that irreducible complexity is a fact. There are however enough examples provided in this thread already to show that the given examples if IC are not accepted as such.

[Lolic]

Hi Tormod, Hope you have a good vacation!

You said:

“What is the definition of "intelligent agents"? Never mind. The IDEA Center do not want to identify it because it must be apparent from what they observe. So anything that seems too complex must by definition have been created by something, which is then an intelligent agent. This is circular logic.”

Dembski’s explanatory filter is slightly more complicated and well supported than that. Have you read it? You chose to make a simplistic argument and shoot it down, good for you, but that doesn’t negate the scientific underpinning of ID.

 

ID is not a deduction from religious dogma or scripture. It’s simply the argument that certain features of the natural world—from miniature machines and digital information found in living cells, to the fine-tuning of physical constants—are best explained as the result of an intelligent cause.

 

ii. Hypothesis

If an object in the natural world was designed, then we should be able to examine that object and find the same high levels of CSI in the natural world as we find in human-designed objects.

 

you said:

“An interesting hypothesis. It must mean that everything that a human being has ever designed, from a stone axe to a microprocessor chip, from dental records to webcams, must be reproducible in nature without any human interference.

However, this hypothesis also predicts the opposite: if an object in the natural world was designed, then humans should be able to create objects with the same level of CSI.

I would like to ask: can human beings create a galaxy? Or even a stellar nebula?”

Tormod, how do you get that interpretation from the above hypothesis? I hope the following examples will help clarify.

You said,

“Whoever wrote this has absolutely no idea what the scientific method is - or they are willfully misinterpreting it. There is no experiment in iii. above. Or tell me - how would you go about performing that experiment?

An experiment must yield the same results to all experimenters in order to qualify the demands of scientifig rigidity. What you have above is an observation, with the provided bias from i. and ii., and it is not an experiment.

Point iii above, which claims to be an experiment, also brings in the idea that irreducible complexity is a fact. There are however enough examples provided in this thread already to show that the given examples if IC are not accepted as such.”

Perhaps you are focusing in only on empirical science and forgetting other branches of science. As you know, not all branches are like a chemistry experiment that can be repeated over and over, in some areas of science we are dealing with past historical events and have to examine the evidence that is left behind to draw a conclusion.

 

ID holds that design is empirically detectable in nature, and particularly in living systems.

 

Dembski says “Intelligent design begins with the observation that intelligent causes can do things that undirected natural causes cannot. Undirected natural causes can place scrabble pieces on a board, but cannot arrange the pieces as meaningful words and sentences. To obtain a meaningful arrangement requires an intelligent cause. This intuition, that there is a fundamental distinction between undirected natural causes on the one hand and intelligent causes on the other, has underlain the design arguments of past centuries.”

I site this for a reason because of what will be talked about shortly.

 

But…..

• Intelligent Design is not creation science

• ID is simply an hypothesis about the direct cause of certain past events based on an observation and analysis of data

• ID does not arise from any religious text, nor does it seek to validate any scriptural account of origins

 

In his books The Design Inference and No Free Lunch, Dembski outlines a methodology for detection of design using a “design-detection filter” or “explanatory filter”.

 

Have you read either book? Forgive me as I try to summarize a lot into a little….

 

This method recognizes that there are three explanatory causes for any event, pattern, or object (past or present):

• chance

• necessity (natural law)

• design

 

First ask whether a pattern in question exhibits function, structure, or purpose that is independent of the meaning or significance of each of the elements that make up the pattern.

• For example, the pattern “DESIGN” conveys a recognizable meaning that is independent of the significance or meaning of each of the letters which comprise the pattern.

• Dembski calls this a “specification.”

• The sequence “NDISGN,” lacks a specification and therefore cannot support a design inference.

 

The next step is to determine whether this apparently meaningful pattern could be explained by a natural law.

• Is the pattern required to be so?

• Do the elements that make up the pattern have to take that specific form?

• If so, then design may not be inferred.

 

For example:

• Salt or ice crystals would be attributed to natural law, not design

• A paragraph from Shakespeare would not be attributed to natural law

 

Events can occur by chance. A chance event is one that

• a) cannot be predicted,

• :) is not controlled by intent or law.

 

Dembski calculates the outside limit of probability to be 1 in 10^150. He arrives at this number by multiplying:

• the total number of elemental particles estimated to exist in the entire universe (10^80); times

• the number of transitions that each elemental particle can make in a second (10^45); times

• a billion times (10^9) the estimated age of the universe (about fifteen billion years, or 10^16 seconds) which is about 10^25 seconds.

 

I think you will admit that nature contains both human and nonhuman “minds”. Some scientists are searching for alien minds (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). Hence, it is not absurd to postulate the existence of other unseen minds or an intelligence that may have operated in the past.

 

Here is a simple example of all three “causes” at work in a series of three events involved in the flipping of a coin

• The decision and action of flipping are designed or intended;

• The falling of the coin in the flight up and down is dictated by the law of gravity;

• The outcome—heads or tails—is the result of chance.

 

You seem against the idea of design and detecting design in nature. I can’t help but wonder why? There are well-accepted, uncontroversial scientific disciplines that are dependent on detecting design! (That is, on inferring the past actions of an intelligent agent by examining present evidence)

 

• Forensic Sciences, where someones death is investigated to determine whether the person died by accident (chance/necessity) or by intent (murder).

• Cryptanalysis, where code breakers examine patterns of characters to determine whether they convey a message or are simply random and meaningless noise.

• Archaeology, where artifacts are examined to determine whether they were fashioned by man or by nature. Is the rock just a stone, or a tool?

• Arson investigation, where one attempts to discern from charred remains whether the fire was set intentionally (by design) or resulted from a frayed wire (chance/necessity).

• Copyright infringement and plagiarism, where scientists examine writings to determine whether they were accidentally or intentionally similar to previous work.

 

One clear example of design detection can be found in the SETI program

• The SETI program is scanning the skies with radio telescopes, searching for patterns of signals that could only come from intelligent sources.

• in the movie “Contact”, a pattern containing a sequence of prime numbers was identified coming from space

 

Step 1. Does the sequence contain a message or meaning that is independent of the significance of each of the symbols that make up the pattern?

 

Yes. A pulse or a pause has no independent meaning, only the pattern (the sequence of prime numbers) has significance.

 

Step 2. Is the sequence determined by known physical laws? Did it have to be that way?

 

No. No natural law requires the sequence to be broken into a series of prime numbers

 

Step 3. What is the probability that the sequence was produced by chance?

 

there are two options—a pulse or a pause, yes or no, zero or one. There are 1,126 “events” (pulses or pauses) in the sequence. So the probability of it occurring by chance is 1 in 2^1,126 or about 1 chance in 10^338.

 

Since that number is vastly greater than 10^150, we exclude chance as a reasonable cause of the pattern.

 

There are three possible causes:

• design,

• chance,

• necessity.

 

After ruling out chance and natural law, and finding meaning consistent with design, we (and the SETI researchers) conclude that the best (current) explanation or the source of the pattern in this example was intelligence.

 

There is a quick example that doesn’t involve the controversy of evolution. Now let’s look at the cell. Here, we enter the oldest known organism on earth—a bacterium which is postulated by neo-darwinism and it’s philosophical orientation towards naturalism that has arisen by unknown natural processes almost at the time the earth became habitable to any form of life

 

We find a vast library containing the instructions for the synthesis of all cellular proteins, the chemicals that are the foundation of life. DNA is a very long molecule (for the simplest cell, over four million “letters” long) carrying coded messages.

 

Now, for those that say ID is “God in the Gaps”, lets go through the following exercise….

 

1) Does the DNA sequence contain information, does it have a purpose?

 

Yes. It provides the “instructions” for the assembly of molecular machines that perform the life functions of the cell.

 

Each DNA “letter” is meaningless by itself, it is only the chain, the sequence, the pattern of letters that contains meaning.

 

The meaning is independent of the significance of each of the symbols. It is a pattern that functions in the same way that sequences of letters of the English alphabet are used to convey meaning.

 

2) Is the sequence determined by physical laws?

 

No. If a law determined the sequence, then the sequence could carry no information.

 

Why? When writing a sentence in English, does every letter “a” have to be followed by a letter “b”? Does some law dictate that “c” always follow “b”? Of course not; if they did, we could not spell any words and we could have no (written) language.

 

It is precisely because any letter can follow virtually any other letter that gives our alphabet the ability to support a language, a means of communication.

 

If the order of the symbols within DNA was determined by a chemical law then it could not carry the vast amount of information necessary for life. It is precisely because any genetic letter can follow any other genetic letter that allows the genome to carry an almost infinite array of instructions necessary to produce the variety of life on Earth.

Irregularity is essential, and laws only produce regularities (that is why they are called laws).

 

3) What is the probability that DNA assembled by chance in the first cell?

 

It is postulated that the first cell would need at least three hundred genes to become a functioning organism capable of replication

 

The statistical probability of assembling a single gene coding for one hundred amino acids by chance alone has been calculated to be something in the order of 1x10^-190

 

So our answer is No!

 

The likelihood that a functional DNA chain appeared by chance is essentially zero.

 

The facts and data drive us to the most logical conclusion:

 

The message carried by the DNA in the first functional cell has all the hallmarks of having been derived from an intelligent source

 

Chance and natural law cannot account for it

 

In this description, only the scientific method, via observations of the natural world, is used to conclude that life was designed. There is no appeal to the supernatural, and no reliance upon faith or divine revelation or use of a any religious text.

 

But here’s the rub…

• If naturalism is true, then DNA must by definition (not by logic or evidence) be the product of natural laws and random variations even if our analysis says it is impossible.

 

• This is the problem that strict adherence to naturalism engenders, and this is why many in the ID community believe it is scientifically counterproductive.

 

• So I ask, why adherence to a philosophy instead of following the scientific facts and data?

 

Now please tell me, out of Forensic Sciences, Cryptanalysis, Archaeology, Arson investigation, Copyright infringement and plagiarism, and ID, for which of these do you object to using scientific methods to detect design?

 

Which of these are “biased” and which are not?

 

Why are the same scientific methods reasonable to use in some of these areas but not others?

 

Why does the statistical impossibility (as shown above) that DNA arose by natural means to produce the first life imply “God in the Gaps”, or a “bias” towards anything?

[Biochemist]

This method recognizes that there are three explanatory causes for any event, pattern, or object (past or present):

• chance

• necessity (natural law)

• design

L- I think it would help if you would practice using the quote-frame breakouts in these long posts. It makes it a lot easier to follow your interaction with previous posters.

 

I do understand the argument here, and I understand the breakdown above offered by Dembski. However, that model is not particularly useful in setting up an experiment. By definition, (even for an ID advocate) the categories above are not mutually exclusive. Design (by definition) would include natural law (because laws themselves are designed). Further, natural law includes chance (in fact, we call them "laws" of probability). This three-tier framework is useful as a thought paradigm, but it does not assist much in setting up an experimental model. You cannot (for example) assume that design is implicated (for a particular system) because natural law cannot be demonstrated. The problem is that most natural laws cannot be demonstrated (due to chaotic behavior). Ergo, the framework is useful, but not as an experimental input.

 

I cannot yet conceive of an experiment consistent with the scientific method that would confirm evidence of design. I can envision experiments (as I have posted in other threads) that might demonstrate that a high degree of complexity has (or has not) existed for a long time, but it does not prove existence of a designer. It just pushes the information load further back into antiquity.

 

Evolutionists generally concede that the information load in DNA is high. It would be useful if the IDers could build a reference model to characterize exactly how high it is (using complexity theory, perhaps). That alone would not implicate design, but it would probably steer the discussion in an interesting direction. For example, if IDers could demonstrate that the biological environment was always very complicated, it negates some of the import of gradualism as an evolutionary element.

 

I think the problem with ID (for evolutionists) is not that it is unreasonable, but that it does not appear testable. To my knowledge, no one has offered a testable hypotheiss that peers could attack (as is standard in the scientific body politic).

 

I think someone ought to propose one, and let the dogs start barking.

[Lolic]

I think the problem with ID (for evolutionists) is not that it is unreasonable, but that it does not appear testable. To my knowledge, no one has offered a testable hypotheiss that peers could attack (as is standard in the scientific body politic).

I think someone ought to propose one, and let the dogs start barking.

Hi Biochemist,

Enjoyed your post. Your objectivity was most pleasant. So not to argue but to further clarify and ask some questions....

 

While it’s not a chemistry experiment that creates life, (and could be repeated with controlled variables, etc), why is the analysis of DNA and the impossibility of it production by chance not an acceptable test? (Not an experiment but test.)

 

We have known logical specifications of what would take to support life, we have Dembski’s methodology and improbability limit that seems quite conservative considering physics uses 10^50 .

 

Why does this not demonstrate that DNA could not arise by chance…that the probabilistic resources simply don’t exist to have it exist without design? I realize that is distasteful to some, but are we following logic, science, and math; or philosophy?

 

Like a death that occurred three years ago, we aren’t asking the person to die again and again to run an experiment to determine the cause, but we can test the evidence to see if the death was caused by chance, law, or design (murder). Archeology infers design vs. natural material. SETI does it, why is this not good enough in the ID vs. Evol debate?

 

I think the argument “we must have a repeatable experiment” is sometimes a ploy to stay within the confines of empirical science and naturalism. It rules out by definition any answers a person doesn’t want before beginning the search for truth. That’s poor science and terrible logic. Why is this testing not as good as an experiment? Plus it can be done on other objects besides DNA.

 

Creation of the universe, DNA, and natural laws, etc are historic events, and of course we have to live with that. SETI researchers press ahead along with other scientists who test for design, why can’t the rest of us?

 

Second questions, what good does it do to push the “information load” back further? One can posit contingent beings that provided the information, but sooner or later you realize you are in infinite regress and that a first cause is necessary….An uncaused first cause that designed the first contingent being in this case.

 

Third question, when do natural laws create information such as a designing, intelligent mind can? I see natural law creating repetitive crystalline formations, consistent trajectories caused by gravity, etc, but not novel information. Can you think of examples? I don’t see why the two should be confused.

 

I will try to use the quote feature more. I edited the post it to put them in. Good idea, thanks.

 

Take care and hope to hear from you again. ;)

[Lolic]

An open letter to the Kansas State Board of Education from Professor Philip S. Skell, Member, National Academy of Sciences, Evan Pugh Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus Penn State University.

 

http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=2568&program=CSC%20-%20Views%20and%20News&callingPage=discoMainPage

 

Full letter is above, here's a bit:

 

All too often, the issue of how to teach evolutionary theory has been dominated by voices at the extremes. On one extreme, many religious activists have advocated for Bible-based ideas about creation to be taught and for evolution to be eliminated from the science curriculum entirely. On the other hand, many committed Darwinian biologists present students with an idealized version of the theory that glosses over real problems and prevents students from learning about genuine scientific criticisms of it.

 

Both these extremes are mistaken. Evolution is an important theory and students need to know about it. But scientific journals now document many scientific problems and criticisms of evolutionary theory and students need to know about these as well.

 

Many of the scientific criticisms of which I speak are well known by scientists in various disciplines, including the disciplines of chemistry and biochemistry, in which I have done my work. I have found that some of my scientific colleagues are very reluctant to acknowledge the existence of problems with evolutionary theory to the general public. They display an almost religious zeal for a strictly Darwinian view of biological origins.

 

Darwinian evolution is an interesting theory about the remote history of life. Nonetheless, it has little practical impact on those branches of science that do not address questions of biological history (largely based on stones, the fossil evidence). Modern biology is engaged in the examination of tissues from living organisms with new methods and instruments. None of the great discoveries in biology and medicine over the past century depended on guidance from Darwinian evolution---it provided no support.

[TeleMad]

ii. Hypothesis:

If an object in the natural world was designed, then we should be able to examine that object and find the same high levels of CSI in the natural world as we find in human-designed objects.

 

So if I take three sticks and lie them on the ground in the shape of a triangle that triangle possesses a high level of CSI? Nope.

 

Hypothesis refuted.

[Lolic]

As a science teacher I thought you would appreciate this.

 

http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?id=118

 

It should be noted that all of the scientists quoted above are believers in Darwinian evolution, and that all of them think the controversy will eventually be resolved within the framework of that theory. Stern, for example, believes that new developmental studies of gene function will provide "the current missing link." (p. 1079) The important

point here is that the controversy has not yet been resolved, precisely because the

evidence needed to resolve it is still lacking. It is important for students to know what the

evidence does or does not show -- not just what some scientists hope the evidence will

eventually show.

 

Since the controversy over microevolution and macroevolution is at the heart of Darwin's

theory, and since evolutionary theory is so influential in modern biology, it is a disservice

to students for biology curricula to ignore the controversy entirely. Furthermore, since

the scientific evidence needed to settle the controversy is still lacking, it is inaccurate to

give students the impression that the controversy has been resolved and that all scientists

have reached a consensus on the issue.

Several months ago you gave me links to articles on specaition. I read them. Why do you believe that speciation would necessarily give creedance to macro evolution?

 

take care, like your picture!

[TeleMad]

While it’s not a chemistry experiment that creates life, (and could be repeated with controlled variables, etc), why is the analysis of DNA and the impossibility of it production by chance not an acceptable test? (Not an experiment but test.)

 

Because it is a strawman. Science does NOT propose that DNA that controls cells arose by pure chance: it is the product of evolution, which is NOT pure chance.

 

What science, at least in the RNA world theory, propose is that a self-replicating RNA molecule arose by chance. What is the probability of that happening? Can't say. But we can give a crude calculation. The closes thing to a RNA replicase yet found in directed evolution experiments was about 180 nucleotides long. If we assume that ends up being the minimum length, and further that there is only 1 sequence of that length that can function as a self-replicating ribozyme, the probability of it arising by random incorporation of nucleotides into a growing strand is 4 ^ 180, which is 1 in 2.35 x 10^108. Guess what? That probability is LARGER than Dembski's universal probability bound of 1 in 10^150, so it doesn't qualify as a small probability event, and therefore does not get assigned to design.

 

Lollic: We have known logical specifications of what would take to support life, we have Dembski’s methodology and improbability limit that seems quite conservative considering physics uses 10^50 .

 

PHYSICS DOES NOT USE 10^50. I've told you this before. That is an OLD, OUTDATED, and UNSUPPORTED value calculated by Emil Borel. It's bogus. Stop using it.

[Buffy]

Hi Lolic!

 

While it’s not a chemistry experiment that creates life, (and could be repeated with controlled variables, etc), why is the analysis of DNA and the impossibility of it production by chance not an acceptable test? We have known logical specifications of what would take to support life, we have Dembski’s methodology and improbability limit that seems quite conservative considering physics uses 10^50 .

Every experiment must justify its methodology, not only for how the experiment or test is done but also how it analyzes the information. Dembski's computation conveniently assumes that the process for evolving DNA was that from a completely random assortment of chemicals, a DNA molecule was formed, and although many of us argue that even in that case his math is off, that is not a valid description of the process of Evolution. Evolution implies successive refinement from less to more complex. Dembski simply ignores this. Do you feel his methodology is correct? If so, why?

I think the argument “we must have a repeatable experiment” is sometimes a ploy to stay within the confines of empirical science and naturalism. It rules out by definition any answers a person doesn’t want before beginning the search for truth. That’s poor science and terrible logic. Why is this testing not as good as an experiment? Plus it can be done on other objects besides DNA.

No one here is saying that experiments must be reapeatable, in fact, that is the argument used by most of those trying to support creationism or ID: because evolution cannot be shown in a repeatable experiment it must be false. The argument against ID makes no such requirement, in fact *yes* the tests you describe are *welcomed*. I happen to have devoted over 10 computing years to SETI myself. What is missing in your argument goes back to your posting of 5/10, where you describe the "experiment" of ID: there is no methodology given for measuring CSI, and while in your post yesterday you posit that using CSI you can divide various observed data into "chance", "necessity" or "design" again there is no methodology for providing judgement on classification.

 

I think you will find virtually every scientist admits that a certain amount of judgement is involved in drawing conclusions, you must be able to justify those judgements based on empirical data. This does not necessarily mean "repeatable experiments", but it is hard not to read your explanations as simply being "well its *obvious* that this has a "high" CSI, so it must have been designed". Other than this, the only data appears to be based on probability which uses false assumptions as I described above. Is there a methodology for measuring CSI? What is the justification for having one value of CSI mean "necessity" versus "design"?

 

Its these kinds of questions that need to be answered in order for a scientific analysis of these claims to be evaluated.

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[paultrr]

, and because there is no other known mechanism to explain the origin of these "irreducibly complex" biological structures...

 

An evolutionists would argue that point strongly as would most scientists. Its the contention of science in general that nature itself through the process we call evolution produced these. The proof is in the consistant pattern of evolution found in the record nature has left us. Granted that record only goes back so far as concerns life on earth. But given the length of that record its considered strongly supporting that theory or viewpoint.

 

Going over to nature itself the same general line of thought is there using the observational universe as evidence in this case along with experimentally supported theory we have at the present. Here again we have a gap of say some 300000 years due to a visual horizon after the initial T=0 point. But again if the evidence stretches that far back then making an assumption it goes further back is not beyond reasonable and logical.

 

I would suggest that ID in general takes the same evidence science looks at and comes to a vastly different conclusion because there is a rose colored glass via faith coloring their world view to begin with. Real science wants the evidence itself to tell the story.

[Lolic]

Is there a methodology for measuring CSI? What is the justification for having one value of CSI mean "necessity" versus "design"?

Hi Buffy,

I don't believe the value of CSI does this. It differentiates between Chance and Design.

If natural law can't account for the issue at hand, then the method looks at chance vs. design using the theoretical probability limit.

 

Please note my reason for summarizing this information was because three people who fervently post for evolution "doing it all" basically refused to read the books describing the opposing view. While I greatly disagree when someone says, "it's not my job to read it" I still took my time to try and summarize a number of issues from a variety of sources. Now people come back with questions...which is fair, but now is the time for me to say that people do need to do their own reading to understand the basis behind the approach. Trying to summarize 400 page books is going to lead to a porous explanation and I don't have time to constantly dig things back up and re-summarize answers to those questions no matter how fair or good they are. If someone cares about truth in this matter, they will take the time to read the important literature on the topic. You may disagree, you may not "respect" me or my posts, but that is something I will just have to live with and I hope others will live with borrowing the books from the library or purchasing them and digging into the issues.

 

Evolutionist can't just go in saying "it's a fact of science", and "we're here aren't we" and other trite phrases and be taken seriously. Behe did a nice job in his book of summarizing one particular problem with text books in this area. TO SUMMARIZE, he showed that the text book was happy to advance an evolutionary frame of thinking and say it's accepted and correct, or a fact of science, HOWEVER in the reference section containing thousands of entries there might be 1 or 2 actual reference to evolution that proved little if anything.

 

If you do take up a reading program that seriously looks at the opposing view, even though it's not your job as you told me before, perhaps you would enjoy starting with this book. He's quite a good writer and his advancement of irreducible complexity far surpasses any refutation I've seen here or in evolutionary literature. Next I could only hope you would choose Dembski…. it would probably answer many of your questions. good luck

[Biochemist]

While it’s not a chemistry experiment that creates life, (and could be repeated with controlled variables, etc), why is the analysis of DNA and the impossibility of it production by chance not an acceptable test? (Not an experiment but test.)

L- These are indeed interesting observations, and in the normal course of events, they generate the sort of inferences (as you have) that drive basic scientists to set up experiments. Then the experiments corroborate the inferences, and you get a theory. Then you design additional experiments to round out the theory. Ad infinitum. If you don't design a series of experiments that corroborate the theory, then the process is not compliant with the scientific method.

Why does this not demonstrate that DNA could not arise by chance…that the probabilistic resources simply don’t exist to have it exist without design? I realize that is distasteful to some, but are we following logic, science, and math; or philosophy?

Again, this is not a demonstration, it is an inference. The reaction you get from the evolutionist sorts is not a lot different than the string theorists got from traditional particle physicists in the '80s. There were (and are) a number of really seductive mathematical reasons why string theory might be true, and they integrate relativity and quantum mechanics together into a unified view. However, most of the fundamentals of string theory are not currently testable. There is a hope that larger particle accelerators may address some of the shortcomings in the current test environment. But it took over a decade for the mainstream particle physicists to even consider string theory real, because it was not testable. Keep in mind that string theory has some predictions: it just turns out that they majority of the predictable otucomes are not in a testable range.

 

ID is one step weaker, in that it does not predict anything (yet). I think that is what the folks on this site suggest when they say "this is not science". I think that is an inappropriate view, but it is true that ID is not corroborable by the scientific method. Yet. Not until someone proposes an experiment that is falsifiable.

Archeology infers design vs. natural material. SETI does it, why is this not good enough in the ID vs. Evol debate?

Yes, these are inferences. Now you have to use the inferences to predict something.

I think the argument “we must have a repeatable experiment” is sometimes a ploy to stay within the confines of empirical science and naturalism.

I recognize that the association of empiricism with naturalism is normative, but that is an accident. The core issue is that the scientific method is empirical. If you expect to communicate with folks that worship at the shrine of the scientific method, you have to design experiments with falsifiability.

It rules out by definition any answers a person doesn’t want before beginning the search for truth.

Use of the scientific method does not preclude bias. In fact, it assumes it. That is why falsifiability and reproducibility are key components of the process. Until we have reproducible, falsifiable experimentation, all we have is a war of opinions based on inferences. That is what happened with string theory, too.

That’s poor science and terrible logic. Why is this testing not as good as an experiment?

Testing is a valid precursor to experiment, but it ain't experiment. It would probably be useful if you could differentiate inference from falsifiability in your mind. The evolutionists have hundreds (thousands?) of inferences of their own, and it is pretty easy to look at some of those and chuckle (e.g., whales have hip bones, they must have once had legs or were about to select for legs...). But there is also falsifiable experimentation (those British moths actually did appear to select for darker phenotype) that further directs the inferences. The ID camp needs to get on record with some experimentation to steer the inferences in a different direction.

...what good does it do to push the “information load” back further?

Maybe nothing. But it would be 1) informative, and 2) a potential change to the core thinking of evolutionary theory. If one could demonstrate that the information load in an amoeba is 99% of the information load in homo sapiens (and I suspect it might be) all of the noise about interspecies variation becomes secondary to finding the abiogenic source for the amoeba (or whatever putative first cell we hypothesize). This is an inference argument I have offered previously. If one could demonstrate that the DNA factory that was in place for the first tricycle was sophisticated enough to build BMWs, it is one of those things that "makes you go Hmmmmmm". How could we have built a factory that complicated in only 1 billion years? This surely would not feel like gradualism.

….An uncaused first cause that designed the first contingent being in this case.

Most scientists consider discussion of first cause as pure religion. Some here contend (I think humourously) that it is an automatic default to "no creator" for first cause. It is difficult to design the falsifiable experiment for that conclusion, but agnosticism is a reasonable default for people that rely on the scientific method

... when do natural laws create information such as a designing, intelligent mind can? I see natural law creating repetitive crystalline formations, consistent trajectories caused by gravity, etc, but not novel information. Can you think of examples?

Well, specific natural environments frequently tend (unevenly) toward order, even though overall entropy is increasing. Fortunately for us, creation is not constrained by my ability to envision the complexity of that order. Many folks on this site actually contend that nothing novel happens. It is impingent upon us to demonstrate the reverse.

[Buffy]

Is there a methodology for measuring CSI? What is the justification for having one value of CSI mean "necessity" versus "design"?

I don't believe the value of CSI does this. It differentiates between Chance and Design.

If natural law can't account for the issue at hand, then the method looks at chance vs. design using the theoretical probability limit.[/Quote]That is what I was refering to, and that's the problem with concept. All I have read on the subject is a vague definition of CSI as being based on probablity computations that are based on the assumption that the entire process of going from simple to complex happened in one step--usually using the "junkyard into 747" analogy--which denies the basic thesis of Evolution which is that this complexity occurs by stepwise refinement. Thus for Evolutionists, this computation is provably false based on vast evidence of micro-evolution, that even many ID folks agree is proven (e.g. dog breeds). Dembski and others do not respond to this issue beyond the non-scientific "its obviously true" defense, and thus its not surprising at all that their arguments are dismissed, because conclusions based on false premises are not proof even if the conclusions might someday turn out to be true.

Please note my reason for summarizing this information was because three people who fervently post for evolution "doing it all" basically refused to read the books describing the opposing view....Trying to summarize 400 page books is going to lead to a porous explanation and I don't have time to constantly dig things back up and re-summarize answers to those questions no matter how fair or good they are.

Some do, some don't, but you should be careful on this point because there is a distinction between discussing the points of the theory and demanding a complete presentation of the statistical data. At the top level that we get into here, there should be clear responses to questions on methodological or theoretical foundations, and the whole point of us discussing this is to bring up the issues and provide explanations. If you are going to participate here its important to bring whatever level of understanding you have to the discussion, and most importantly, its okay if you don't have a full understanding, but at the same time, you should be prepared to respond to the questions that come back or at least not be surprised when you don't respond and people are skeptical. As Bio points out on string theory, there's no evidence and even though the theories are propounded by very smart people, many if not most physicists do not consider it an accepted theory.

Evolutionist can't just go in saying "it's a fact of science", and "we're here aren't we" and other trite phrases and be taken seriously. Behe did a nice job in his book of summarizing one particular problem with text books in this area. He's quite a good writer and his advancement of irreducible complexity far surpasses any refutation I've seen here or in evolutionary literature. Next I could only hope you would choose Dembski…. it would probably answer many of your questions.

I've actually read Behe and Dembski, and their arguments suffer from both of the problems I discuss above. Behe in particular I find uterly contemtuous of any evidence placed in front of him, in the case you mention, using a poorly written high school text with a bad bibliography as somehow "proving" that there is no basis for Evolution. To many of us, this verges on extreme intellectual dishonesty, calling virtually everything he says into question.

 

Now what we are asking you for here in your posts is not necessarily to go back and research, but describe to us *in your own words* what *you* think the response to the questions posed here are. Some hard-line skeptics here will say that if a reasonably intelligent (not necessarily smart) person reads a book and believes it ought to be able to defend its propositions or there's something wrong with those propositions. The scientific method is all about being challenged and responding, *not* just "accepting".

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[paultrr]

L- ID is one step weaker, in that it does not predict anything (yet). I think that is what the folks on this site suggest when they say "this is not science".

 

Look, even though I have done a few articles on the subject of String and Brane theory I still have some very strong questions in that area over that same reason about being able to test the theory out. With String theory we keep approaching that Tev range to do just that where some of the predictions come into play while others need higher energy ranges. My own suggestion there is wait and see. But the same logic still provails there and at least String theory does make predictions.

 

The ID position is more than one step weaker. It makes strong assumptions about the origin of order, that while based upon simular evidence we who hold to evolution use, is simply at heart an assumption. What a lot of people do not realize is some of the early researchers on evolution before it became fashionable to make the claim there is no God where people who believed in a Creator. But when they examined the evidence over time they felt compeled to admit it does not show a signature of an outside Creator. The difference in this case was that these people let the evidence speak for itself instead of making assumptions like those that order must translate to intelligent design.

 

The same applies with most scientists when it comes to String theory. Yes, there are aspects of the idea that would settle some problems. But generally we want to see it tested before we will fully accept the idea. With the weaker approach that ID takes and that big assumption in its theory it doesn't even begin to have the caliber that String Theory had to begin with. At least String Theory depended upon tried science before it via symmetry(QED & QCD) enlarged into supersymmetry. ID as presented starts with an unproven assumption and tries to leap forward from there. You cannot bootstrap forward unless one first proves that assumption as valid. Using human's, who by evolution are way up the chain, so to speak, as an example or proof that everything with order must be designed does not work as evidence. You have to start at the beginning and work forward showing evidence of order being the result of design. Even Darwin started with something besides human's as an example. An assumption with no chain forward of evidence to support that assumption is no proof.