Designed Virus

I am YEC, not ID. I disagree with much of ID as I've encountered it here at EvC, but I've also not studied it. I dispute that (macro)evolution is testable, and therefore I dispute that it is science, but I am not going to get into this here.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-08-2006 12:43 PM

So, if you believe in God, how do you explain the "misdesigned" viruses? If God wanted to punish man wouldn't he make a very "well-designed" virus? What is the point of making a virus we can defend ourselves from? If God created everything in the first 6 or 7 days why would he create "a tool of punishment" before the offence was commited?

Whether or not the Christian God based on Biblical literalism could qualify as the intelligent designer of ID might make an interesting topic, but it isn't the theme here.ID is the idea that there is evidence out there that demonstrates life could only have changed under the guidance of an intelligent designer at some point. The OP shows a wonderfully clever design use for virii, and seems to be asking something along the lines of 'Why did the designer not think of doing this, why are all virii seemingly harmful/designed badly?'The YEC position for any evidence of good design is 'God did it' and evidence of bad design is 'The Fall'. This is not a position that ID can take since it makes pains to seperate itself from one religion or the other (otherwise it can't get taught in schools!).So may I ask that both Faith and yourself desist in discussing the YEC view in an ID thread? Thanks.

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Apologies in advance if YECers (or indeed RAZD) think I am over simplifying or misrepresenting their position.This message has been edited by AdminModulous, Sat, 08-April-2006 09:14 PM

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Ok,
but with whom shall I argue is there is nobody to make an ID argument on this topic? Its an interesting topic but there is nothing to argue; Evos conclude evolution, YECs cant object because they believe in the Fall, so I think we need someone from the ID side or this thraed is going nowhere.{My humble apologies for going OT}

A dilemma for sure!It might be the case that no IDer steps up to the plate on this one. Currently we don't seem to have many IDers regularly participating. It might be the case that this thread won't get much attention to start with, but an IDer might be referred here to discuss it later on. A good example of this phenomenon is this thread - it didn't spark much in the way of debate, but I referenced it recently when someone brought up the argument where it was off topic to discuss it.It's no good just filling the thread up to 300 posts for the sake of arguing though. If you want to tackle YECers, there are plenty of threads to do that very thing! It would be wonderful if one day the guns fall silent and there is no more debate, so one might argue that the more threads go unresponded to the better...Incidenally, the apology isn't needed, but it is appreciated. Topics tend to drift all the time, us Admins just try to catch them before the drift becomes terminal. I've had my fair share of warnings about it

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Pinch-hitting for absent IDers. 1) It is not imperative that the designers use mechanisms we think are the best to employ, perhaps there are better ways we do not know of as yet.2) It is possible that we have simply not seen the virii used by the designers, and it just so happens that many (and indeed most) free range virii are capable of doing all sorts of bad things, including mutation to harmful entities we need protection from.3) It is possible that the "bad" virii are in fact serving a purpose of the designers, even if from our point of view they are doing it inefficiently.Now let me take a shot back (turnabout being fairplay)...Here are some people that altered a virus to intentionally have a novel function. Lets say that this had not been revealed to the public, perhaps a secret defense project. Then lets say the lab was hit by some explosive device destroying all those with knowledge of the project and records regarding what was going on... and at the same time scattering some of the virii.If someone was to come upon these virii, and see this behavior, should they conclude that this was a result of normal mutation to a virus or the result of design? What characteristics would they use to make such a determination?To those not in the know, I am not an ID theorist, I just play one from time to time on EvC.

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holmes
"Some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." (Lovecraft)

Perhaps because the unknown designer and/or implementer(s) don't want to carry out any improvements at this point in time.Since the ID crowd generally try to avoid any attempt to identify the designer - which means we cannot know the motives or goals of the man behind the curtain - there is no reason to expect to see improvements. Of course, there is no reason not to either. Because that's what the signed-off Specification says they should do

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I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then

Perhaps they were designed by the Not-Quite-As-Intelligent Adversary of the Intelligent Designer. There seems no inherent reason within ID to posit only one designer, and the other designer could be a devil or a competing though somewhat less advanced alien.Hey, once you plump for one Intelligent Designer, why not go for two?

Oh, I don't know. It seems pretty clear to me that the designer - based on the number of spandrels and vestigial bits floating around in various organisms that have no function or even rational explanation - had to be a committee. Why design a bug whose massive (in the sense that it's wayyyy more than needed for a bug) DNA contains ten million three nucleotide repeats? Obviously someone was asleep at the switch.

By Jove, I think you've got it! I just didn't pursue the logic far enough. A committee of designers, indeed--perhaps the Roman pantheon.Let's see, using the standard Mob IQ Equation, we take the average member IQ and divide it by the number of members...no, wait, that's Congress...Anyway, you're on the right track. If we put our heads together, we'll probably forget what we're taking about altogether. If not, RAZD could help out.P.S. If you don't send me an address, I'll have to drink that bottle, and my surgeon says that might just kill me.OTOH, it's your conscience.

The designer was paid based on piece work, and ten million three nucleotide repeats was a banner day. Gotta put some cabbage aside to pay for the braces and so them little designers can go to college.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Curious about this bug. How much of its DNA is of the sort called "junk DNA"?

Piece work? The Intelligent Designer is an ILLEGAL ALIEN?!

Omni, that's about one witticism too far--or half a wit short--but definitely not on topic.Please return to form.

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Trust me.

Thanks holmes. Unfortunately IDers seem to be fewer than ever ... But that doesn't explain how counterproductive systems are allowed to interfere with the design process then. This points to a certain lack of competence, eh? In other words the lab "lights are on but nobody's home" answer?Given that we can trace viruses back to the beginning of life, or at least to time of the split of the three major divisions of life that puts them in a major position to be a force majeure in the process control arena.The structure of a thermophilic archaeal virus shows a double-stranded DNA viral capsid type that spans all domains of life (click for the full PNAS article): This means that either (a) the designers are incompetent at preventing them from acting against their design processes or (b) they are design mechanims but haven't been used in some time and thus have become corrupted by lack of quality control, and that this has been going on for some time. This is a "god works in mysterious ways" cop-out, and is - of course - an unfalsifiable precept (and hence is not scientific), and one that only works (as does most of ID) on continued ignorance of {who\what\when\where\why\how} (otherwise known as the rest of the story ...).So we are left with:

1. incompetent {supreme of some kind} being(s)
2. {supreme of some kind} being(s) that no longer are involved in the minutae of daily human life (a deist position btw) or
3. "we can't know" - as the essence of ID "scientific" input

If they could not rule out normal mutation as a process then that leaves them with a real challenge eh? It would be interesting to see if any of their design identification concepts could be applied to this virus and show significant differences from other viruses.Enjoy.

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