Help me understand Intelligent Design

(added after partly replying) It's actually really hard to determine what exactly you're arguing here, lol. I had typed quite a few lines in response to the first part of your post, only to read later on that you accept "...there is no need for an 'intelligence' to explain the actual phenomena." ??So where is the problem here??? I really think you're reading far too much in this. It all seems to come down to your difficulty to accept that blind (= no purpose) processes can result in something that has the appearance of being designed (on the surface, we might add).AFAIC, Ruse is simply pointing out that treating the parts as designed on purpose, is a fruitfull 'working hypothesis' to ask the right questions and look in the right places.We might need to talk about the meaning of "designed" here, though. And whether "design" is necessarilly linked to your idea of "purpose".Does "design" require a designer? Or put in another way, does a designer have to be conscious? As Ruse points out, it is indeed not uncommon for evolutionary science to talk in terms of "design". But they clearly don't assume a conscious designer.I think the really important distiction is between "design" by a process with a "long-range radar" and "design" by a process that is blind for anything but the circumstances at the very moment of design. The first one could be assigned purpose, but the second one I think not!Creationists will argue for "design" in the first sense, evos will always use "design" in the second sense. Who's right? Well, only one of them elegantly explains vestigial structures, for starters... Why don't skyscrapers get wider from bottom to top? Because they would collapse under gravity!Why do currently living liveforms exist of (mostly) functional parts? Because they would die or be outcompeted by others if they didn't!What's the big deal??? Comparisons with human artefacts will never work. Again, there are important differences between things that WE design (the only examples of "design with a purpose" that we have available) and the design that we observe in nature. The differences are important enough to argue that they simply are not the same.Of course, we COULD in principle design in a similar way as nature "designs". But it would no longer be "intelligent design" as we know it! It would be a mimicry of "natural design".So the "perfectly natural" conclusion as you put it, would be better described as "superficial & rather short-sighted". I always had the impression that it is the Creos who will argue that Darwinism can not be combined with belief in a God, and that this is their main motive to oppose it.I don't know enough about the whole history to debate it, though. From what I read about Darwin, circumstances seem to have pushed him towards agnosticism but it doesn't look like opposing religion was his main driving force behind ToE. He would be if there weren't counter-arguments against an intelligent designer. But there ARE (cfr vestigial structures just to name one), and this option HAS been considered (and dismissed). If you put blind processes and intentional design next to each other, the first simply makes most sense. Certainly if, like you, you admit that ...there is no need for an 'intelligence' to explain the actual phenomena.

No, it's not. That's why mutations are considered "random." It's not even a coherent objection. You've simply asserted that you don't believe it, but you won't say why.You haven't "raised an objection"; you've simply asserted that you don't believe in evolution. Well, great. That doesn't constitute an argument.

Right. Which doesn't in any way touch upon my original point.Neither does your most recent post. Once again, you've failed to substantially reply to the main issue. Because systems with function provide a measurable survival advantage over systems that have no function. Yes, it is wrong. Suggesting an intelligent intervention that isn't necessary to explain something is bad science, by definition. It's the classic violation of the principle of parsimony. Once again, you've completely misrepresented me. (Ned's charge of dishonesty definately applies to you. You've been lying about my arguments in several posts now.) I've never denied the existence of purpose. We're simply having a dispute about where it resides.

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Let us remeber also that in the previopus post I also pointed out that there were degrees of resemblance. Simply looking enough like a leaf or stick to evade a casual glance or to stand out that much less against the background would be helpful. It is not an all-or-nothing thing - there are degrees of resemblance that are progressively more helpful.

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I agree with you Paul, it isn't an all-or-nothing. However, you mention yourself the specific usefulness of looking just like a leaf to escape predators. At the same time, you take a bug, that mimmics, the word Borrato uses is mimmic, a leaf. Which also happens to be it's food. If the process is random, which I've already explained in details what random means in the mutation process (and it also has purpose), then Barroto shot a fatal blow to his stance. Because it makes no sense for a bug, with absolutely no conscious capacity to guide this mimmicing process willingly, to mimic randomly. Even over time. That's why I said in another post, that "you won't randomly mutate into Mr. Potato-Head if you eat nothing but potatos for 2 000 000 years straight, even if you and your ancestors live in a potato field for that amount of time." Even if it's convenient, either to protect myself from wolves, or catch potato hungry rabbits. If you watch a stand-up comedian mimic another person, he's not doing so randomly, but consciously. So if the bug doesnt pocess the conscious nor the regulative mutational faculty to "mimic" a leaf, over time, of it's own accord, but YET... it is, as you say, useful for it do so, what or who guides this mimicary of it's immediate, I repeat, mimicary of it's immiadiate environment? See by ackowledging the verb "to mimic", even the least objective rational mind will admit that Borrato shot himself in the foot. Apparentely, he and his cohorts seem to be the only ones who don't realise that? Because mimicing leaf to that much perfection, when we thoroughly understand what mutation is during the evolution process, is too unlikely to be taken seriously.Sir Ronald Fisher, step-father of non-teleological darwinism, states that ``Natural selection is a mechanism for generating an exceedingly high degree of improbability.''(and he's not even talking about genetic mutation yet, which has an even higher degree of improbabilities to overcome)Thus far, I find that when we look at the two propositions, that of neo-darwinism's anti-teleology school vs. every other prominent thinkers in the last 4 000 years and present proponents of a teleological or "Intelligent Design" what have you, it's examples like the bug leaf and many others that put nails on Fisher & cie's coffin of Nietzschian-type non-teleology.

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If there were a non-random force mutating the insects wht wouldn't all species acquire the same degree of resemblance ? Why would some come to look like leaves and others like sticks ?

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You said it yourself, it is useful. But did random chance produce this useful mutation? To copy the stick of a tree, the leaf of a plant? As Mr.Fisher said, although he was talking about selection not mutation, that would be an examle of producing an extremely high degree of improbility. So here we have two possible candidates for Final Cause; A) Intelligent Design (God) or whatever name you wish to use, an B) Extremely High Degree of Improbility. Which in turn, purely on the basis of mathematics (I happen to love statistics myself and respect Mr.Fisher in that field), but it is easier, using Ockham's Razor I guess, to conclude Intelligent Design instead of Extremely High Degree of Improbility when you compare the two and watch the results. Because the randomness that occurs in mutation, as it occurs with a purpose, doesn't justifiably answer for Improbility of this diversity and functionality (synoymous to purpose) in nature itself, which means, answering for example, for the usefulness of the mutations to the organism itself, outside of itself, and in reference to organisms with which it has to interact on so many other levels, namely, it's environment. This randomness, on this level, is so unlikely to happen, that Fisher calls it, an Extremely High Degree of Improbability. Now Paul, Crash, Nuggin, Ned, if you're going for a job interview, and the Human Resources call you the next day, and tell you, "Paul, there is an Extremely High Degree of Improbability that you will ever get this job." Well...guys, honestly, I'd start applying for another job...Wouldn't you?But in the end, which one you pick is entirely your choice though. I can respect that.

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So far as can be told they do not challenge the conventional view on the grounds that it could not work in principle. Rather they challenge it on the basis of the claims that Bottaro actually DID answer - e.g. the assertion that the leaf insects were mimicing leaves before any leaves existed.

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Fine, therefore I should forward this thread to Mr.Bottaro? But in the end, we both know he focused on the technical errors of Behe to discredit Behe's position in general. This, he did not achieve.

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It is perfectly obviosu that you have no grounds for doing so.

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You ask in another post why people are so "hard" on ID. Well it seems claer that the answer is honesty. Apparently you see something wrong in raising truthful critcicisms of ID but regard the riasing of completely spurious attacks against criticisms of ID as morally required - perhaps even divinely commanded. That's a pretty warped view.

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Now your just assuming this, I already said I haven't read a single book form IDers yet. If this is directed at me I find that comment a little ludacrous.

YOu do seem to musundertand on thing about 'improbablity'. You are assuming that there are not an equal amount of 'improable' outcomes, and you are also ignoring the fact the development is small increments followed by the filter of natural selection.I.D. takes a look at the 'end result', then proclaims that the current end result is improbable.. and therefore demonstrates their aprior conclusions there is an 'intelligent designer'. It is, of course, somehting like taking an arrow, shooting it randomly into the air, then
when it hits the earth, drawing a target around it, and saying 'How improbably is it that it hit the middle of the target??'That is the point you are missing.

Surely this can't be as simple as you simply having a problem with 'sloppy' use of words that have a connotation of purpose and intent (like "mimicing")?? I'm pretty sure (even though I didn't read the article) that this Borrato guy didn't intend THAT connotation. "Mimicing" is simply the standard term used for this kind of phenomenon. And evolutionists will certainly be guilty of using it, simply because it is more convenient than pointing out each time that it is not intentional but a combination of blind variation and natural selection. The word isn't more than an unfortunate shortcut.And the fact that "we" don't change into Mr. Potato-Head has more to do with the fact the evolutionary path that would be needed is much too indirect. As pointed out, mimicry is typical in INSECTS because their exosceleton and related genes (or colors in wings etc. )happen to be quite mallable. As such requiring relatively short paths through "design-space" to end up looking like leaves or branches. And paths that happen to deliver a certain degree of advantage right along the entire way from start to "finish".You mention they have "no conscious capacity". And this is indeed true. Their "capacity" lies in the flexibility of their physical attributes.If YOU would start to gradually look like a potato, I don't think you would have a lot of protection the first 2.000.000 years (although I've never seen you in person, LOL). It would be in the absence of the failed experiments. But who counted those?

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does "design" require a designer? Or put in another way, does a designer have to be conscious? As Ruse points out,
it is indeed not uncommon for evolutionary science to talk in terms of "design". But they clearly don't assume a conscious designer
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Well, that is what this entire debate is about now isnt it?

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I think the really important distiction is between "design" by a process with a "long-range radar" and "design" by a process that is blind for anything but the circumstances at the very moment of design. The first one could be assigned purpose, but the second one I think not!
Creationists will argue for "design" in the first sense, evos will always use "design" in the second sense. Who's right? Well, only one of them elegantly explains vestigial structures, for starters...

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Right now you're reiterating the positions on both sides of the debate, but this hardly constitutes an argument, it simply reminds us of what each side is saying. But thank you for that reminder though.

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I always had the impression that it is the Creos who will argue that Darwinism can not be combined with belief in a God, and that this is their main motive to oppose it.

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Maybe they (creos) do, but I don't. I'm not a Christian in that sense.

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He would be if there weren't counter-arguments against an intelligent designer. But there ARE (cfr vestigial structures just to name one), and this option HAS been considered (and dismissed).

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Vestigial organs in humans and animals are certainly not a counter-argument against the existance of a Designer. It's an argument against people who think God created every creature as they are right now, and did so, 6000 years ago at that.But vestigial organs in humans are becoming increasingly rare these days. Take toncils, just to name a few. Thought vestigial, not so anymore. But even the list of vestigial organs in humans remained intact from the one cratfted in 1890, it says very little baring against Intelligent Design, it says something about how people understand the Bible though, I agree.

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If you put blind processes and intentional design next to each other, the first simply makes most sense. Certainly if, like you, you admit that ...there is no need for an 'intelligence' to explain the actual phenomena.

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Not if I consider what Ronald Fisher has to say about it.

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(added after partly replying) It's actually really hard to determine what exactly you're arguing here, lol. I had typed quite a few lines in response to the first part of your post, only to read later on that you accept "...there is no need for an 'intelligence' to explain the actual phenomena." ??

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So where is the problem here???

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Another case of me not explaining myself properly, I apologise. But what I mean by that is that you don't need to focus on that when you study the phenomena. However, the phenomena clearly points to it being designed and mind you, not by pure chance. That would be an Extremely High Degree Of Improbability.

You are make a basic mistake. Selection is not random. You take a comment relevant to selection (non-random), and treat it as if it had something to do with mutation (random).Pick up a tuning fork. Bang it against something. I makes a nice tone.The banging induces completely random vibrations into the tuning fork. The resonance of the tuning fork selects just those vibrations that are near the resonant frequency, and emphasizes those. You seem to be saying that this is impossible, and that there must have been an intelligent designer purposely controlling the way the tuning fork was banged, for the purpose of producing that tone. But that is nonsense.Yes, you are quite right that you are seeing purpose. The purpose you see is coming from your own imagination. You need to look at it more objectively.

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Surely this can't be as simple as you simply having a problem with 'sloppy' use of words that have a connotation of purpose and intent (like "mimicing")?? I'm pretty sure (even though I didn't read the article) that this Borrato guy didn't intend THAT connotation. "Mimicing" is simply the standard term used for this kind of phenomenon. And evolutionists will certainly be guilty of using it, simply because it is more convenient than pointing out each time that it is not intentional but a combination of blind variation and natural selection. The word isn't more than an unfortunate shortcut.

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It is an unfortunate short-cut to one holding that position of course. The same as the words "design" and "purpose" are really impossible to circumvent as well, because to not use them would hamper their ability to understand the phenomena, as Ruse so eloquently pointed out. But the exoskeleton's potential for such transfomation, only serves to establish that, what you call "blind" or "random" long-term variation, in and of itself, without it's NS counter part, has Extremely Improbable chances, at the Highest Degree, of turning up Exactly like a leaf. Which furthermore, also by chance, happens to be useful. At least if it wasn't useful, then there wouldn't be a need to stop an wonder. Actually, there would but, that's beside the point. Other insect species have survived without this advantage however. Obviously. Which reduces that specific Probability factor even further, in terms of it "getting" to that point of actually looking like a leaf. That looks more like a designing "gift" of Nature then anything else.A tremendous advantage indeed. A parculiar one at that.

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I agree with you Paul, it isn't an all-or-nothing. However, you mention yourself the specific usefulness of looking just like a leaf to escape predators. At the same time, you take a bug, that mimmics, the word Borrato uses is mimmic, a leaf. Which also happens to be it's food.

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That it hapens to be its food is irrelevant. And "mimic" in this case merely refers to a resemblance in appearance. And as you seem to agree this could appear gradually through cumulative selection.And the name is "Bottaro"

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If the process is random, which I've already explained in details what random means in the mutation process (and it also has purpose), then Barroto shot a fatal blow to his stance.

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Well I haven't seen your explanation, but I don't need to. All it means is that the probability of a mutation occurring is not directly related to whether it would happen to be useful.

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Because it makes no sense for a bug, with absolutely no conscious capacity to guide this mimmicing process willingly, to mimic randomly. Even over time. That's why I said in another post, that "you won't randomly mutate into Mr. Potato-Head if you eat nothing but potatos for 2 000 000 years straight, even if you and your ancestors live in a potato field for that amount of time." Even if it's convenient, either to protect myself from wolves, or catch potato hungry rabbits.

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Well the eating is a complete red herring, it has absolutely nothing to do with the actual subject. As for the rest of it if you can show that you have an actual argument THAT WOULD ALSO APPLY TO LEAF INSECTS then go for it. But if all you have is the ability to write a silly parody then you don't have a real case.

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So if the bug doesnt pocess the conscious nor the regulative mutational faculty to "mimic" a leaf, over time, of it's own accord, but YET... it is, as you say, useful for it do so, what or who guides this mimicary of it's immediate, I repeat, mimicary of it's immiadiate environment?

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As I have already told you: selection.

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See by ackowledging the verb "to mimic", even the least objective rational mind will admit that Borrato shot himself in the foot. Apparentely, he and his cohorts seem to be the only ones who don't realise that? Because mimicing leaf to that much perfection, when we thoroughly understand what mutation is during the evolution process, is too unlikely to be taken seriously.

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A truly objective mind would not automatically agree that your subjective opinion - which is all you are offering - must be correct. Thus if anyone has shot himself in the foot it is you - by once again betraying your biases

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Thus far, I find that when we look at the two propositions, that of neo-darwinism's anti-teleology school vs. every other prominent thinkers in the last 4 000 years and present proponents of a teleological or "Intelligent Design" what have you, it's examples like the bug leaf and many others that put nails on Fisher & cie's coffin of Nietzschian-type non-teleology

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Unfortuantely for you, your personal opinions do not constitute proof. Until you can present an objective case your assaults are futile.

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You said it yourself, it is useful. But did random chance produce this useful mutation? To copy the stick of a tree, the leaf of a plant? As Mr.Fisher said, although he was talking about selection not mutation, that would be an examle of producing an extremely high degree of improbility

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As I have stated it is a selective process retaining helpful mutations which shape some lineages of these insects to a more leaf-like shape. And your reference to Fisher is puzzling since Fisher's whole point is that selection CAN do this.

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So here we have two possible candidates for Final Cause; A) Intelligent Design (God) or whatever name you wish to use, an B) Extremely High Degree of Improbility. Which in turn, purely on the basis of mathematics (I happen to love statistics myself and respect Mr.Fisher in that field), but it is easier, using Ockham's Razor I guess, to conclude Intelligent Design instead of Extremely High Degree of Improbility when you compare the two and watch the results.

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So you respect Fisher so much that you declare that he must be wrong and no objective person could possibly believe him. That doesn't sound much like respect to me.Of course if you actually accepted what FIsher said then Occam's Razor would conclude Natural Selection - given a process known to operate capable of producing the result there is no need to postulate any additional entity. Thus unless you can show that Fisher was wrong your argument utterly fails.

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Fine, therefore I should forward this thread to Mr.Bottaro? But in the end, we both know he focused on the technical errors of Behe to discredit Behe's position in general. This, he did not achieve

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This is very questionable. More likely he did so to undermine attempts to use Behe as an authority. ID supporters with qualifications in the life sciences - and a record of publishing science are quite rare. But by showing that Behe makes claims about biology that are clearly false, Behe is shown to be unreliable as an authority.

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Now your just assuming this, I already said I haven't read a single book form IDers yet. If this is directed at me I find that comment a little ludacrous.

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Now that really is rubbish. I said nothing about your having read a book by an ID supporterIt is a fact that you have accused others of being "hard" on ID.
It is a fact that you have attacked an article criticial of ID
It is a fact that your attacks are groundless
It is a fact that you called people who commented on the article "fanatical atheists"
It is a fact that you linked that accusation to the fact that nobody else made the same groundless attack that you did.
It is a fact that all of these things appear in this thread.None of these are assumptions. None of these have ANYTHING to do with whether you have or have not read books written by ID supporters.

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You are make a basic mistake. Selection is not random. You take a comment relevant to selection (non-random), and treat it as if it had something to do with mutation (random).

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Pick up a tuning fork. Bang it against something. I makes a nice tone.

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The banging induces completely random vibrations into the tuning fork. The resonance of the tuning fork selects just those vibrations that are near the resonant frequency, and emphasizes those. You seem to be saying that this is impossible, and that there must have been an intelligent designer purposely controlling the way the tuning fork was banged, for the purpose of producing that tone. But that is nonsense.

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Yes, you are quite right that you are seeing purpose. The purpose you see is coming from your own imagination. You need to look at it more objectively.

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You can't accuse me of making an "apples & oranges" comparison, and then turn around and make one of your own. That is is very objective nwr.But I know that selection is not random, the random mutation as it is subbjected to NS is what makes the process an Highly Improbable one. That much is obvious. But I'll hold the unecessary "d'uh" that should come after the this sentence. (a little humour is good for the soul: cheers)

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Not if I consider what Ronald Fisher has to say about it.

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It sounds like the reason you reject what Fisher said is on the grounds that Fisher said it. Is that your only reason ?

Rupert Sheldrakecuriously thought something like this.In my teens I had rejected everything associated with "morphic resonance" sensu stricto and thinking I had thought something Roger Penrose said, I made up my own version of a single-wave that not only could in effect cutout an entire valley but also change the chemical makeup of creatures given the relative long permanence of forms over geological time.Seeing that Larson insisted
Review of Edward Larson's Evolution : The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory (Modern Library Chronicles) - BrothersJudd.com
the Fisher "shout out" against Wright was simply that the population genetics are subject to continual continental changes and it has only recently been possible to do causal analysis where Wright used "back variables" to trace back paths of inheritance(Shipleyread it for free @) whereas Wright said that path analysis of forms (size,homologous organs, individual organs, measurements) IS NOT even in effect of the cause lik psychological measures of IQ, it seems that ID might have struck a new nerve chord, regardless it is clearer than day that Croizat inverted Wright's vision in any thought Sheldrake might have had cellularly. We know on EVC that there is no evidence it is new. I just say it might be trying to say something probabilistically where ID is not like IQ but more like ANATOMICAL PATH ANALYSIS of HEIRIBILITY contra Shipley's economic prescription.I have not reviewed Shipley so this is hardly fair but I think the thought of an idol picking out the "resonance" is not impossible if various uses of infinite math were instructing current science. Granted they are not but it has always seemed to me a logical possiblity. I would have then have said that a "correlational shadow" is case by the Intelligent Designer. This could become part of the sources of instruction but I still do doubt that Sheldrake's specific idea will be found within it.I tend to disregrad all of this becuase I think that more thought is needed on Boscovich's "ATOM" Page Not Found - MacTutor History of Mathematics
in the frame of determinant "genetic atomism" but hey that is just me in the small.

Sheldrake is great entertainment. But I cannot take him seriously. He has a knack of seeing mystery in what is quite ordinary.

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That it hapens to be its food is irrelevant. And "mimic" in this case merely refers to a resemblance in appearance. And as you seem to agree this could appear gradually through cumulative selection.

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But certainly not by chance. Not when we look at what is involved in the actual "randomness" of mutatation itself. It's Highly Improbable enough to be dismissed.

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Well I haven't seen your explanation, but I don't need to. All it means is that the probability of a mutation occurring is not directly related to whether it would happen to be useful.

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...and selection does the rest, yes. We heard this 1 million times already.You are not adressing the improbability factor here, you're refusing to deal with it with great lack of objectivity...So you always comeback to something I'm not even arguing about. Therefore, your arguements keep getting shut down at every turn.

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Well the eating is a complete red herring, it has absolutely nothing to do with the actual subject. As for the rest of it if you can show that you have an actual argument THAT WOULD ALSO APPLY TO LEAF INSECTS then go for it. But if all you have is the ability to write a silly parody then you don't have a real case.

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Moving right along...

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As I have already told you: selection.

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Right, a million and one time. I understand, but the selection is not a function of the mutation, mathematically speaking. It's like whenever your cornered with the fallacy of the random mutation question, you shoot back the evolution equation but backwards. The Selection variable is not a function of the mutation variable, it's the other way around.The real question is, before there can even be a NS, does the mutation occur randomly? According to Fisher, the step-father of non-teleological darwinism, it's an Extremely High Degree of Improbability, so therefore, in light of Ockham's razor, I would have to say no. It doesn't. You can't shoot back Selection to that question/objection because it's mathematically embarrasing when you do so.

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So you respect Fisher so much that you declare that he must be wrong and no objective person could possibly believe him. That doesn't sound much like respect to me.

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Of course if you actually accepted what FIsher said then Occam's Razor would conclude Natural Selection - given a process known to operate capable of producing the result there is no need to postulate any additional entity. Thus unless you can show that Fisher was wrong your argument utterly fails.

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I'm quoting Fisher because I find Fisher goes to extreme lenghts to go out of his way to say there is no Intelligent Design, God or what have you, behind this mechanism. It's almost an oximorron.

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This is very questionable. More likely he did so to undermine attempts to use Behe as an authority. ID supporters with qualifications in the life sciences - and a record of publishing science are quite rare. But by showing that Behe makes claims about biology that are clearly false, Behe is shown to be unreliable as an authority.

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Big deal, so the man quoted a man who made a wrongful taxonomical estimate. I'll reject the taxonomical error as such, sure, but the fundamental question still stands, that's my point.But if it'll make everone happy, I'll be careful when I read Behe.There..all settled..