What exactly is ID?

Bump for all the posts of mine that you are ignoring.And which have shown that your concept of genetic entropy is:

-- either so long term (the sun will expand to engulf the earth before genetic entropy becomes a problem) that it doesn't even rate a yawn, or

​

-- it is based on a belief in a ca. 6,000 year old earth and a perfect creation from which we have "fallen" -- which is a religious belief flatly contradicted by science.

So, are you going to respond to these points, or are you going to continue to ignore the inconvenient facts that I have pointed out upthread in the hope that both the facts and I will go away?

---

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Are you talking here about Sanford's "genetic entropy", or Smooth Operator's gibberish of the same name?

I am responding to Smooth Operator. What he has been preaching is clearly flawed.I have not read Sanford.

Well you see Smooth Operator is equivocating (surprise!)In Sanford's whacky version of reality, "genetic entropy" entails a loss of fitness through genetic drift leading to a "genetic meltdown" in which the accumulation of deleterious mutations actually drives the species to extinction. Unlikely as this sounds, it can happen with sufficiently small populations: Sanford's delusion is that this must happen to all populations, in which case your criticism would apply.Smooth Operator, however, is using the term "genetic entropy" to mean something quite different, since in his version of reality it neither causes extinction not prevents an increase in fitness. No, in his dreamworld, "genetic entropy" involves a reduction in "information", something which like all creationists he is unable to quantify.As apparently this reduction in "information" does not prevent adaptive evolution, and indeed is apparently concomitant with it, you may wonder why he's dribbling on about it in the first place; and as it has nothing in common with Sanford's "genetic entropy", you may well wonder why he's stolen this name and attached it to his own fantasies.I would speculate that both these apparent paradoxes arise out of Smooth Operator's desperate wish to pretend that he has an argument. Sanford's "genetic entropy" was at least an argument against evolution, though a horribly bad and fatally flawed one; Smooth Operator's drivel is just a long plaintive meaningless whining noise. By attaching the name of the former to the latter, he might momentarily confuse someone into associating the two.

quote:

---

That is becasue that was the only function they had.

---

In fact you don't even know that. Many enzymes will work with a number of different chemicals. Degrading the function for one could improve the function for another.

quote:

---

No, the semantics of our statements were identical.

---

I guess this is just another case where you've forgotten the statements entirely. Because your assertion is completely false.Here are the statements again to refresh your memory.Yours: Mine: Your statement was simply wrong.

quote:

---

Yes, they are! Form 1 to 8, they talk about how to detect design. It's the requisite precondition. Not the definition of specification.

---

None of them talks about how to detect design. It is simply a list of definitions for the terms that will be used later in the chapter.

quote:

---

Tell me what is a valid specification for a flagellum.

---

We've already agreed on a valid specification. We're just waiting for you to USE it properly.

quote:

---

And I will. Just tell me what number do you want me to use, and I'll do it.

---

So you say that you will do your work - but only if I do the hard part for you. Tough. If you want the right number, do the work yourself.

quote:

---

That's what you say. On the page 144, which you so much like to bring up, and those 8 steps, look at step n. 6.
Step 6.) A probability measure P where P(.|H) estimates the likelihood of events in E given H.

​

You see, the probability, that is, the measure of complexity belongs to E, which is the event in question. And the event in question is the E. Coli flagellum.

---

Firstly it isn't a step, it's a definition - and that is why your interpretation is wrong. Secondly Dembski himself says that you are wrong. See the discussion of the Caputo case, especially p 165. Thirdly, anyone who thinks about the matter should see that it is the case (although I will grant that Dembski tends to confuse the issue).

quote:

---

Beautiful, just beautiful. I'm waiting, tell me how Dembski got his own method wrong. And you know it better than him.

---

It's not a case of knowing better, it is simply a case of reading TDI and comparing it to the calculation in NFL.

quote:

---

So why claim that the flagellum is not designed, since we never saw it areise without intelligent intervention either? And the mechanisms that make it grow. Where did we see them arise by pure natural undirected causes? Nowhere.

---

Because we haven't seen any designer at work doing those things either. But then again according to you designers don't do anything. There are automatic mechanisms which do everything.

quote:

---

But by your logic you can't find that.

---

Wrong. According to your assumption that designers don't do anything you will never find design. But your own idea of a person handwriting a book refutes that.

quote:

---

You are claiming the flagellum is not one. Neitehr is the mechanism that makes it grow. Neither is any living being. So what is?

---

How about a hand-written document or Mount Rushmore ? To use two of your own examples. If you continue to insist that these must be produced by completely automated processes please tell me what they are, because I have no idea what you could possibly mean.

quote:

---

What's the difference? They are both the same kind of beneficial mutaion.

---

So far as I know the homozygous state of the HIV-resistance mutation is either not deleterious or much more mildly so than the sickle-cell allele. Thus my point applies specifically to sickle-cell.

quote:

---

The point remains that the mutations happened and that they have spread. They didn't go away. They are still here. Nautral selection did not remove them. By definition, they are both beneficial.

---

Sickle-cell is only beneficial in malarial areas. Where there is no malaria there is no benefit.
In different areas sickle-cell is maintained at different levels. This pretty obviously has little relation to "genetic entropy". It also indicates that if malaria was eradicate, natural selection - if left to operate without intelligent intervention - would eliminate sickle-cell

quote:

---

I never said the majority of beneficial mutations are degradations

---

I suppose that is technically true since you've pretty much stated that ALL beneficial mutations degrade the genome.... Message 319
Message 333
Message 343

quote:

---

Maybe they are I don't know. I don't really care. I now some are. And that's enough to show you that just by having beneficial mutations you aer not offsetting genetic entropy.

---

No, it isn't. Partly because a couple of examples are nowhere near enough, but most importantly because genetic entropy involves driving a species to extinction. Beneficial mutations will not make any significant contribution to that (indeed by definition they help maintain the population size).

quote:

---

And everybody knows what a degradation means. It's a loss in efficience of functionality.

---

It certainly wasn't obvious that that was what you meant. Indeed, if it is what you meant then your overall point is clearly wrong. Where the genes are found the negative effect (loss of efficiency) has clearly been offset by the positive effect (disease resistance) and therefore these mutations do not lead to extinction. And that only goes to demonstrate the my point that beneficial mutations can offset the effects of deleterious mutations.

Hi Son, I am pretty new to this forum so bare with me. ID theory doesn't try to answer what the age of the earth is, or list exactly what the designer created, nor does it even attempt to reveal who or what the designer is. Intelligent design theory, simply stated, is the theory that highly specific and complex information requires an intelligent intentional source. The theory suggests that since all biological organisms exhibit complex specified information (csi) they therefore require an intelligent source. ID proponents further argue that all attempts to explain csi by purely random processes fail upon closer evaluation. You also should note that most of the confusion surrounding ID usually stems from the fact that uninformed creationists and evolutionists alike, refer to ID and creationism interchangeably.(Could someone please tell me the process for posting hyperlinks?)

---

I would rather inspire one, than impress a thousand.

Please provide one instance where this prediction has been, in fact shown to be true.ABE: just copy and paste the link into the text.Edited by Larni, : Hyperlink advice

Why is this so different from the definition of "intelligent design" given by the man who coined the phrase "intelligent design"? ... which one day they will quantify ... Do they have anything to say about attempts to explain "csi" as a result of the processes of evolution? Or are you trying to tell us that they're a bunch of dishonest halfwits flailing away at an idiotic straw man of their own construction? You're thinking here, presumably, of "uninformed creationists" like the guy who came up with the phrase "intelligent design" in the first place. How "uninformed" of him not to know what he himself actually meant. You'd think he'd at least know that, but creationists have clearly taken being "uninformed" to a whole new level. Well, you can just post them:Creationist Idiocy: Morons of the Month: A Holy Trinity of StupidOr you can use the url tags as usually found on forum software: Like this.By hitting the "peek" button (just next to the "reply" button) you can see how I did that.Welcome to the forums.

Last Tuesday I saw a magic fairy making an elephant. With magic!Some people will tell you that elephants are produced by a process of reproduction with variation, but they're all atheists, you don't want to listen to them.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

But....my new book on evolution I got from my wife for Xmas.......That lying bitch!

quote:

---

. The theory suggests that since all biological organisms exhibit complex specified information (csi) they therefore require an intelligent source. ID proponents further argue that all attempts to explain csi by purely random processes fail upon closer evaluation.

---

Unfortunately nobody knows if any biological organisms contain CSI in Dembski's sense, and there are no serious arguments using any other sense. So really what you are saying is that ID starts with the assumption that an intelligent designer actively intervened in the history of life. (Also, what you have stated is better referred to as a hypothesis rather than a theory. There is no theory of ID in the full scientific sense)

quote:

---

You also should note that most of the confusion surrounding ID usually stems from the fact that uninformed creationists and evolutionists alike, refer to ID and creationism interchangeably.

---

Not really. As we have seen the original edition of Of Pandas and People, the ID textbook essentially defined ID as creationism. That wasn't written by an uninformed person. In fact I would go so far to say that creationism is the heart of ID, and the few non-creationists (or ex-creationists like Behe) who are permitted to be members of the movement represent a tiny minority - likely outnumbered by the Young Earth creationists.Consider that the age of the Earth is rather important to any ID history of life. If we take a YEC timescale then what happened must be radically different from a view based on the scientific view (more so if you include the "no death before Adam" doctrine which many YECs believe). If ID simply placed the age of the Earth outside the scope of its theory, then the scientific thing to do would be to accept the work of those scientists who DO deal with the age. But the ID movement hasn't done that. It's left the question open (even though, scientifically it is settled). How do you explain that, other than as a sop to the YECs in the movement ?

Hi Dr Adequate,My goal in turning from participant to moderator was to counter generalization, obfuscation and evasion and return attention to the evidence and arguments. Contributions like this work against this goal: Next contribution like this will draw another suspension.

---

--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

quote:

---

Wrong. They are specifically searching for messages in certain wave lengths. If they receive a message on a given wave length they can infer that the aliens have TECHNOLOGY similar to ours which ALSO DO THIS.

---

Withous ever seeing the aliens, without ever seeing thier technology, without ever talking with the aliens, without ever etc...Yes, that's a design inference. The same one ID does.

quote:

---

SETI is _NOT_ looking for secret alien messages hidden inside fish eyes. They are _NOT_ looking for secret alien messages encoded into rain drops. Why not? Because we don't have any reason to believe that the aliens are using a technology which does this because WE DON'T have technology that does this.

---

Nope. Wrong on so many parts.First of all, SETI assumes aliens are tryign to contact us with radio waves, or that they are communicating with each other.Second. Yes, we do have this kind of technology. Craig Venter encoded his name into the genome. Scientists have been able to create a genome from scratch. Our level of genetic engineering is good enough to do it.Third. It doesn't matter if an instance of design is in teh form of a rock, a radio wave, a fish eye, a paper and ink, or anything else. The point is to try to tell apart naturally occuring patterns ony any sort of material, from those that could not have occured naturally.

quote:

---

In other words, we can determine data is designed ONLY if we know HOW it was designed.

---

YOu don't know how the Rosetta stone was designed yet you infer design.

quote:

---

Funny, that sounds familiar? Oh! Right! It's because I've told you think about 100 times now.

---

And, you are still wrong 100th time.

quote:

---

Can you give me a SINGLE example of something which you can PROVE was designed, but no one is able to determine how it was produced?

---

No, because nothing can be PROVEN in science.

quote:

---

So if I gave you a piece of paper upon which I had drawn circles, ID would declare that it _WASN'T_ designed? That's insane!

---

No it's not. Because not every instance of design can e detected. Some slip through. But when ID does detect design, than it's correct. Would you rather have a method that reliably says yes to design even if some minor instances slip through, than one which says yes to almost every pattern, even those that are not designed?

quote:

---

In other words "Oops, got caught in a bluff. Never presented the data".

​

Yeah, didn't think so.

---

EvC Forum: Message Peek

quote:

---

No. If those catalysts existed in the first place and simply needed to be expressed more, it wouldn't have taken 32,000 generations to do so.

---

And who said it took that log? Lenski simply checked after such a long time. That doesn't mean it didn't happen sooner. We know for a FACT that an experiment that produced the same effect was due to one simple mutation an an over-expression of a gene.

quote:

---

In ANY given generation, there would be a min and max producer. Amplifying the max producer would have occurred incrementally from the start.

​

Instead there was a sudden jump as the new ability came online.

​

Not that ANY of this is gonna sink in

---

Unlike what we would expect from along and gradual evolutionary process. This is a case of natural genetic engineering, where bacteria modify tehmselves with mechanisms they already have.

quote:

---

In fact you don't even know that. Many enzymes will work with a number of different chemicals. Degrading the function for one could improve the function for another.

---

Yes, we do know that. It was a Beta-Lactamase enzyme. It was the only function it had.

quote:

---

Your statement was simply wrong.

---

Please do tell me what is the difference in meaning between our two statements.

quote:

---

None of them talks about how to detect design. It is simply a list of definitions for the terms that will be used later in the chapter.

---

And what will tehy be used for? Making coffee? Baking a cake, or detecting design!?

quote:

---

We've already agreed on a valid specification. We're just waiting for you to USE it properly.

---

I dont' think we have, please tell me what it is.

quote:

---

So you say that you will do your work - but only if I do the hard part for you. Tough. If you want the right number, do the work yourself.

---

Basicly you don't know what you're talking about. You simply don't accept my numbers and that's that.

quote:

---

Firstly it isn't a step, it's a definition - and that is why your interpretation is wrong. Secondly Dembski himself says that you are wrong. See the discussion of the Caputo case, especially p 165. Thirdly, anyone who thinks about the matter should see that it is the case (although I will grant that Dembski tends to confuse the issue).

---

The statement I quoted shows I was right. Now you show me where in the Caputo case example, has Dembski said anything that would support your claim. It clerly says that it is estimating the probability of teh event E, not of the specification. Where is the quote anywhere in TDI that says otherwise. I'm waiting.

quote:

---

It's not a case of knowing better, it is simply a case of reading TDI and comparing it to the calculation in NFL.

---

Fine. Explain where he went wrong.

quote:

---

Because we haven't seen any designer at work doing those things either. But then again according to you designers don't do anything. There are automatic mechanisms which do everything.

---

The designer inputed the original information. The mechanisms are just expressing at transmiting it.

quote:

---

Wrong. According to your assumption that designers don't do anything you will never find design.

---

When did I say they don't do anything? They input the original design, and than natural laws modify that information.

quote:

---

But your own idea of a person handwriting a book refutes that.

---

No, becasue by your logic, the person holding the pen isn't doing the designing, the pen is!By my logic, it doesn't matter if the person is writing using a pen, a pencil, a stick with paint, a computer, or with a mind reading device with a printer that prints out text on the other side of the world, 10 years later. It doesn't matter. The initial infroamtion was supplied by an intelligence, no matter what the mechanism was.

quote:

---

How about a hand-written document or Mount Rushmore ? To use two of your own examples. If you continue to insist that these must be produced by completely automated processes please tell me what they are, because I have no idea what you could possibly mean.

---

By your logic no. Handwritten documents were done by a pen, and Mount Rushmore was done by a hammer and chisel.

quote:

---

So far as I know the homozygous state of the HIV-resistance mutation is either not deleterious or much more mildly so than the sickle-cell allele. Thus my point applies specifically to sickle-cell.

---

Your point is what again? Look, it doesn't matter. Bot mutations happened, and they didn't go away. They constantly get selected FOR, not AGAINST.

quote:

---

Sickle-cell is only beneficial in malarial areas.

---

I DO NOT CARE!!!!!It's not my problem! That's your problem. If you finally understand how stupid and inefficient natural selection is, than great! Soemthing that will confer slight reproductive advantage like sickle cell, will be favored by natural selection! And we both know that sickle cell is a crappy mutation which reduces the biological function of red blood cells. So yeah, that just means that natural selection sucks, and ill keep accumulating mutations like the sickle cell.

quote:

---

Where there is no malaria there is no benefit.

---

Great! But where there is benefit, sickel cell is selected for, and is by definition beneficial. Thus populations with this kind of mutations accumulate them and it increases their genetic entropy.

quote:

---

In different areas sickle-cell is maintained at different levels.

---

I know, but in otehr areas, some other crappy mutations occure and have the same effect like the sickle cell. And the genetic entropy increases.

quote:

---

This pretty obviously has little relation to "genetic entropy".

---

On the contrary, it has everything to do with genetic entropy. It shows that even beneficial mutations cause geentic entropy. Not all mutations are always beneficial. Not all mutations are always deleterious. It all depends on the environment. And teh fact remains that natural selection will under certain circumstances select those mutations that destroy genetic information, thus leading to genetic entropy.

quote:

---

It also indicates that if malaria was eradicate, natural selection - if left to operate without intelligent intervention - would eliminate sickle-cell

---

So what? That doesn't take away from the fact that malaria exists, and that natural selection is selecting a pretty crappy mutation because of it.

quote:

---

I suppose that is technically true since you've pretty much stated that ALL beneficial mutations degrade the genome....

---

You clearly quoted me where I said ALMOST all. Not ALL of them. Which means that even beneficial do, but not ALL.

quote:

---

No, it isn't. Partly because a couple of examples are nowhere near enough, but most importantly because genetic entropy involves driving a species to extinction.

---

How many do you want? A million examples? A trillion examples? An infinity of examples? What will it take to convince you?

quote:

---

Beneficial mutations will not make any significant contribution to that (indeed by definition they help maintain the population size).

---

In theory yes, in the real world no. Sorry, life is not a theroy. We are not living in a theory, but in the real world.

quote:

---

It certainly wasn't obvious that that was what you meant. Indeed, if it is what you meant then your overall point is clearly wrong. Where the genes are found the negative effect (loss of efficiency) has clearly been offset by the positive effect (disease resistance) and therefore these mutations do not lead to extinction. And that only goes to demonstrate the my point that beneficial mutations can offset the effects of deleterious mutations.

---

Ahhh.... Once again...I neevr said that they CAN NOT do that. Yes they can! Hello? Are you even listening to what I'm saying? Yes, beneficial mutations can do that. But on average, they won't. And that's what matters. What they'll do on average. They will not, offset deleterious mutations, and repair the genetic damage. And on average, genetic entropy increases, not decreases.

I'm really starting to get bored with your intentional idiocy.Give us an example of something that someone/something has designed - PROVEN DESIGN (not alleged) - where we have ABSOLUTELY no idea HOW it was done.For example: The pyramids. They piled rocks up. That's how it was done.Find us ONE example of something where we can't explain what happened and you WIN this debate.-OR-Alternately, PROVE the existence of the Giant Jew Wizard -or- his magic Jew Beams and you WIN this debate.Either way. Give it your best shot.