Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
3 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,817 Year: 3,074/9,624 Month: 919/1,588 Week: 102/223 Day: 0/13 Hour: 0/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Evolving the Musculoskeletal System
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 387 of 527 (599345)
01-06-2011 4:03 PM
Reply to: Message 382 by ICdesign
01-06-2011 3:04 PM


Re: Discussion Requires Responding to Arguments
ICdesign writes:
I fully understood Crash was giving an analogy but my point is still
the same.
Natural selection has to have intentionality to determine if a mutation is beneficial or not and choose the best for survival.
And your point still reveals a deep misunderstanding of how evolution works. No intent is required for mutations to be either deleterious or beneficial, and here's a simple example illustrating why.
A bacteria in a population of the same species of bacteria experiences a random mutation after cell division. This particular mutation is beneficial in that it enables the bacteria to take better advantage of the available nutrient resources, and instead of dividing once every hour like its brethren it divides once every 30 minutes. Within a few days the descendants of this bacteria dominate the population.
Please describe any intent you see in this process.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 382 by ICdesign, posted 01-06-2011 3:04 PM ICdesign has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 389 by Taq, posted 01-06-2011 5:50 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 398 of 527 (599419)
01-07-2011 11:44 AM
Reply to: Message 392 by ICdesign
01-07-2011 11:03 AM


ICdesign writes:
Lets do a little analogy since a word picture is a pretty effective way to make a point. OK?
Lets take a man and we'll call him Mr. Chance. Now lets say for the purpose of this test Mr. Chance is a being who can live for as long as we want, lets say billions of years. Now lets give Mr. Chance a big pile of parts to work with. Lets say it is 5,000 parts along with 50,000 nuts, bolts and screws of various sizes that when fully assembled in the correct sequence would create a beautiful new Rolls Royce.
Now for the purposes of this test Mr. Chance has never seen any kind of automobile and has no clue what he is suppose to build. Not only that but Mr. Chance is dumber than a room full of Creationists ...just checking to see if you were still awake. But no, lets say he has never been to a day of school in his life and wouldn't know a hammer from a screwdriver.
Now giving him any amount of time you choose, would he EVER be able to assemble the Rolls Royce?
As Bluejay has already explained, this again demonstrates your misunderstanding of how evolution works. You've got Mr. Chance bumbling around with no guidance whatsoever about what constitutes a good or bad action, where his actions are analogous to mutations. Mutations get constant feedback from the environment about whether they're good or bad. Bluejay's addition of a supervisor who expresses approval or disapproval, analogous to feedback from the environment, is a much more accurate analogy.
The filter of natural selection that is imposed by the environment in which populations of organisms live has been explained to you in this thread over and over again, and this is what we have to talk about. Until you stop ignoring it, as you did with Mr. Chance, the discussion cannot move forward.
In case it helps, we agree with you that in your version Mr. Chance would not have a prayer of assembling the Rolls Royce…but this is not the way evolution works.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Typo.
Edited by Percy, : Grammar.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 392 by ICdesign, posted 01-07-2011 11:03 AM ICdesign has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 400 by ICdesign, posted 01-07-2011 12:05 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 401 of 527 (599426)
01-07-2011 12:12 PM
Reply to: Message 399 by ICdesign
01-07-2011 11:47 AM


ICdesign writes:
So now your saying Mr. Selection can determine a wrong place then?
Yes, of course. Mr. Selection is analogous to natural selection. That's why Bluejay gave him the name Mr. Selection instead of Mr. Jones or Mr. Smith.
Breeding is analogous to natural selection. In breeding it is people who play the role of Mr. Selection in deciding who gets to breed and who doesn't, who gets to pass their genes on to the next generation and who doesn't. Deciding that a given animal won't be bred is analogous to Mr. Selection determining a wrong place.
In nature it is natural selection operating through the environment that decides who gets to breed and who doesn't, who gets to pass their genes on to the next generation and who doesn't. For example, instead of a person it is a cold winter or a drought or a flood or an influx of predators that decides who dies and fails to leave any descendants. Any mutations that leave an organism less capable of dealing with the vagaries of nature will not leave any descendants, analogous again to Mr. Selection determining a wrong place.
In reality nature isn't all black and white. Organisms can leave no descendants, one descendant, a few descendants, or many descendants. The more descendants an organism produces means the more successful it has been in its environment. Successful organisms with good mutations have more offspring. Less successful organisms have fewer offspring. Completely unsuccessful organisms have no offspring.
Basically it's a race to see who can have the most offspring.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Grammar.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 399 by ICdesign, posted 01-07-2011 11:47 AM ICdesign has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 403 of 527 (599430)
01-07-2011 12:26 PM
Reply to: Message 400 by ICdesign
01-07-2011 12:05 PM


ICdesign writes:
feedback? approval or disapproval? How is this not reasoning ability?
Mr. Selection has knowledge and reasoning ability, but that's irrelevant to the analogy with natural selection. Natural selection has no such reasoning ability. Mr. Selection's important contribution is the feedback he provides, not the cognitive skills he employs in order to provide the feedback. Mr. Selection was introduced into the analogy not because of his cognitive skills but because the purpose of an analogy is to liken something familiar to something unfamiliar in order to make it more easily understandable, and people providing feedback is very familiar. He's there providing the feedback to Mr. Chance in a manner analogous to how the environment provides feedback to mutations.
But the environment employs no cognitive skills to become cold and kill off those animals with insufficient fur or who didn't dig their burrows deeply enough. There's no reasoning ability in nature.
In case it helps, we agree with you that in your version Mr. Chance would not have a prayer of assembling the Rolls Roycebut this is not the way evolution works.
Actually with enough time it wouldn't be completely impossible.
Do we have an end product that has been assembled? Yes or no?
Why do you want to continue working with your flawed analogy? It doesn't matter whether or not it's possible for Mr. Chance to assemble the Rolls Royce because your version of the analogy is not the way evolution works. If you want to believe he can do it eventually then fine, it's irrelevant to evolution.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 400 by ICdesign, posted 01-07-2011 12:05 PM ICdesign has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


(1)
Message 411 of 527 (599452)
01-07-2011 2:09 PM
Reply to: Message 407 by ICdesign
01-07-2011 1:33 PM


ICdesign writes:
Actually, no I don't. All you guys seem to be talking about survival of the fittest for up and running, fully developed creatures. What I have been trying to get to is the construction process of creatures to begin with.
All species since the first life have been "up and running, fully developed creatures." You wouldn't say amoeba or algae aren't fully developed, right? You wouldn't say starfish or swordfish or frogs or toads aren't fully developed, right? You wouldn't say platypus or meerkats or bonobos aren't fully developed, right?
In fact, can you think of any organism that isn't fully developed?
Of course not! And neither can we.
So why do you have this crazy idea that evolution requires that fully formed organisms evolve from half-formed creatures?
Evolution is Mr. Chance with no brain. It wouldn't matter if there WAS a Mr. Selection because without thought nothing can happen.
Mr. Chance's brain is not a valid part of the analogy. Mr. Chance putting parts together randomly is analogous to mutations randomly altering parts of the genome. Mutations do not require thought.
The analogy to removing Mr. Chance's brain would be to prohibit mutations. In other words, it would make no sense.
The purpose of an analogy is to make something unfamiliar easier to understand by likening it to something familiar. Everyone is familiar with people, so constructing analogies to the natural world using people is a very common way of explaining things, but the fact that people are intelligent is rarely part of the analogy, and certainly not in the analogy of Mr. Chance and Mr. Selection.
Did you see my comparison of breeding (people make the breeding decisions) to natural selection (the environment makes the breeding decisions) in Message 401? This comparison should be pretty helpful in understanding that there's no intent and purpose in nature.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 407 by ICdesign, posted 01-07-2011 1:33 PM ICdesign has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 418 of 527 (599522)
01-08-2011 12:05 PM
Reply to: Message 415 by ICdesign
01-08-2011 11:32 AM


Hi ICdesign,
There's not much point to starting the discussion over again from the beginning. We *are* making progress. Do you think you could take a stab at responding to some of the specifics of what people have recently posted in their responses to you?
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 415 by ICdesign, posted 01-08-2011 11:32 AM ICdesign has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 420 by ICdesign, posted 01-08-2011 12:31 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 429 of 527 (599537)
01-08-2011 2:17 PM
Reply to: Message 420 by ICdesign
01-08-2011 12:31 PM


Hi ICDesign,
We were in the middle of discussing several things:
  • The Mr. Chance/Mr. Selection example
  • How natural selection works without purpose or intent
  • The nature of evolutionary predecessors and whether they're half-formed or not
If you can respond to at least some of what people said on these topics then we can continue the discussion.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 420 by ICdesign, posted 01-08-2011 12:31 PM ICdesign has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 430 by ICdesign, posted 01-08-2011 3:03 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 432 of 527 (599542)
01-08-2011 3:25 PM
Reply to: Message 430 by ICdesign
01-08-2011 3:03 PM


Hi ICdesign,
Well, then, I guess the only thing I can respond to is this from your Message 415:
ICdesign in Message 415 writes:
The best I have ever seen any of you offer is some insignificant little bacteria mutation that shows nothing of how a sophisticated system can construct without intelligence.
Almost all meaningful evolution is nothing more than insignificant little mutations. There is no direction, no goal. The complex systems we have today, whether muscles or bones or nerves or blood circulation or excretory or brains or lymphatic, evolved from minutely less complex systems, which themselves evolved from minutely less complex systems, and so forth back to life's beginning. Each minute change survived into the next generation because it provided some minute advantage.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 430 by ICdesign, posted 01-08-2011 3:03 PM ICdesign has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 433 by jar, posted 01-08-2011 3:33 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied
 Message 435 by ICdesign, posted 01-08-2011 7:14 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 434 of 527 (599544)
01-08-2011 3:35 PM
Reply to: Message 430 by ICdesign
01-08-2011 3:03 PM


Hi ICdesign,
Another thought occurs to me, about where you said this:
ICdesign writes:
There is no need to discuss points B,C,D,E,...when point A doesn't have an answer.
Point A, how complex systems evolve without intelligence, does have an answer, but it is at the end of the chain of explanation and information, not the beginning. How complex systems evolve should actually be labeled point E, and you do need to discuss the prior points A, B, C and D (or however many there are) first.
A side note: the only thing your hostile responses are doing, like accusing others of shell games and smoke and mirrors and so forth, is provoking more hostile responses, making the discussion even more difficult. Again I ask you to set your marine instincts aside and focus on the content. If evolution is wrong then the evidence showing it is wrong must be out there, but you won't find it by picking up your marbles and going home.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Improve clarity.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 430 by ICdesign, posted 01-08-2011 3:03 PM ICdesign has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 445 of 527 (599603)
01-09-2011 8:39 AM
Reply to: Message 435 by ICdesign
01-08-2011 7:14 PM


ICdesign writes:
Again, that is fine if you and yours want to believe such a story. In the real observable world we live in we see no such ability. ToE goes against everything we know to be true in the observable, testable world. Sophisticated systems require conscious intent.
Nothing you've said here is true. Evolution is what we see in the "real observable world we live in." We can observe the evolutionary process in action, but because it is a gradual process where significant change takes a long time we cannot follow the course of evolutionary changes that take millions of years.
However, this isn't a significant problem. Though astrophysicists cannot study a star through the millions of years of its life cycle, they have no difficulty finding stars in the cosmos at all stages of development and can piece these stages together to get a complete picture. And though geologists cannot follow a mountain range eroding away into plains, they can find mountains ranges in various stages of this process, and they can find the eroded remains of past mountain ranges.
In the same way, biologists can find organisms with biological structures at all stages of evolutionary development. They have examples of the eye ranging from light sensitive spots all the way up the the modern eyes of mammals and octopus. They have examples of the musculoskeletal system ranging from one tiny hard part all the way to modern animals. That there's an evolutionary history of relatedness is clear from DNA studies, and this is supported by the fossil record's history of organisms of gradually increasing complexity.
A long walk requires thousands of tiny steps. In a similar manner, the development of complex structures also takes thousands of tiny steps, tiny little mutational steps filtered by natural selection.
Imagine an ancient population of microorganism that for purposes of defense possess a couple of adjacent and identical hard parts. Like all life these microorganisms experience mutations, and every once in a while one of these mutations affects the region between the two hard parts and provides a small increase in lubrication. Adjacent hard parts that experience less friction and don't wear down over time provides a small evolutionary advantage and soon the change dominates the population.
Other mutations cause the two hard parts to evolve shapes independently, and mutations that make one hard part nestle more comfortably into the other hard part would provide an advantage, and these mutations would soon come to dominate the population.
Let''s say the microorganism moves by slowly changing its shape, and mutations could also cause the shape-changing cells to become more common near the hard parts. This would permit more efficient motion and would soon come to dominate the population.
This is an just an illustration of how the gradual process of tiny mutational changes creates increasingly complex structures that eventually, over millions of years, produce such complex structures as the musculoskeletal system. Mutations that confer an advantage, no matter how tiny, spread through populations and provide a foundation for future mutations to provide additional advantages.
In order to support your claim that this is just a story you would have to show that we don't really observe the ability for mutations to confer an advantage, and that complex systems cannot really evolve from less complex predecessors.
By the way, about your computer discussion, if someone writes a computer program that models the weather then you obviously understand that it's just a model of the real world and doesn't mean that weather requires intelligence. So if someone writes a computer program that models evolution why do you conclude that it means that evolution requires intelligence?
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 435 by ICdesign, posted 01-08-2011 7:14 PM ICdesign has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 447 by ICdesign, posted 01-09-2011 10:23 AM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 450 of 527 (599632)
01-09-2011 2:44 PM
Reply to: Message 447 by ICdesign
01-09-2011 10:23 AM


ICdesign writes:
There is an Euglena that has a light sensing spot because that is the feature God chose to give it for its environment. You have an octopus that God designed with its type of eye and many variations in between. So what? You claim it is evidence for evolution we claim it is evidence of a creative Creator.
The difference between creationism and evolution is that evolution has an observed and verified mechanism, descent with modification filtered by natural selection. Creationism has no such observed and verified mechanism.
Percy writes:
They have examples of the musculoskeletal system ranging from one tiny hard part all the way to modern animals.
Show me what you are talking about.
You mean you'd like specific examples of creatures ranging from those with just a single cartilaginous piece all the way up to modern musculoskeletal systems? I'd be glad to do this for you, but could you first let me know to what purpose? Do you doubt that they exist? You didn't seem to have any problem with the fact that a range of light sensing abilities exist in nature, why do you have a problem with the fact that a range of musculoskeletal systems also exist in nature?
One concern I have is that if I did the work to provide these examples that you would just reply the same way you did for the eye, that each different type of musculoskeletal system was just made that way by the Creator? Before I engage in any research at your behest I have to be sure I'm discussing with someone who is sincerely interested in serious consideration rather than dismissal of the evidence.
So what Percy? … Hard spots is your evidence as to how this happens? Are you friggin kidding me?
Such dismissals and expressions of incredulity drive my concern that I may not be discussing with someone who is sincerely interested in serious consideration of the evidence.
How does a little change in shape and hard or soft spots explain how an entire complex system develops that performs a very specific task?
A tiny cartilaginous piece evolves into a complex musculoskeletal system via one little mutation at a time, each providing an advantage in the specific environment.
We have system after system after sophisticated system that perform intentional purposes.
Although you have been asked to address how you tell when something has "intentional purpose," you've never answered. A watering hole on the Savannah has the purpose of providing water for the animals in the area. How do you know whether that purpose was "intentional" or not? Is it just a case of you can't explain "intentional purpose," but you know it when you see it? If so then you need to develop some scientific criteria for establishing when something has "intentional purpose" or not.
Because a computer is intelligence.
Really?
Coming up with a design on a computer program is not simulating evolution. If man has to help in the outcome of a design, it is not evolution.
I write design software for a living. Your computer uses chips designed using software that I helped write. I specialize in the areas of logic simulation and timing analysis. I am intimately familiar with how both computer hardware and software work, and I will not steer you wrong.
Neither computer hardware or software is intelligent. A computer running a software program is merely carrying out a lengthy sequence of steps, and it is no more intelligent than machines from before the computer era that could carry out lengthy sequences of steps, like automated looms, cannery lines and newspaper, magazine and book publishing.
Any sufficiently well understood process can be simulated by writing a computer program. Computer simulators have been written for all sorts of natural processes, among them the weather, plate tectonics, planetary and spacecraft motions, digital and analog circuit behavior, and also evolution.
One interesting application of evolution is in automated design. Simulations of the evolutionary process, commonly known as genetic algorithms, can be used to create designs that no intelligence we're familiar with would ever come up with. One of the first applications of genetic algorithms using gate arrays solved a digital design problem by exploiting analog pathways in the gate array that no one even knew were there. Another design problem was solved by taking advantage of a part of the circuit that, unknown to any human, behaved like a tiny broadcast antennae to send signals to another part of the circuit without using wires. Another example of the application of genetic algorithms is the unusual antennae that someone in this thread provided a picture of.
A genetic algorithm works by performing permutational Monte Carlo trials that first vary system parameters and then assess system behavior for each set of parameters. The parameters of the best performing systems are combined and mixed in a manner similar to sexual reproduction to produce the next generation, and then the process repeats. The genetic algorithm is in effect a simulation of the evolution of a population where each offspring receives a small set of mutations that make it different from its parents, and then natural selection imposed by the environment decides which of these offspring become the parents of the next generation. Only those with the best combinations of mutations (both new and pre-existing from previous generations) become parents.
In the real world we see it takes conscious intent to design and build systems.
You mean in the people world we see people using intelligence to design and build things. People are just one way to design and build. Evolution is another.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 447 by ICdesign, posted 01-09-2011 10:23 AM ICdesign has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 455 by ICdesign, posted 01-09-2011 4:21 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 465 of 527 (599672)
01-09-2011 5:55 PM
Reply to: Message 455 by ICdesign
01-09-2011 4:21 PM


Hi ICDesign,
You ignored much of a long post. We don't want to lose track of the progress we made. The points you're ignoring are:
  • Evolution has a mechanism, descent with modification filtered by natural selection. Creationism has no mechanism.
  • There are examples of any system at all stages of complexity and development.
  • Improvements occur in tiny mutational steps that confer some tiny advantage.
  • Improvements build upon previous improvements resulting in increasing complexity.
About computers:
ICdesign writes:
Then you should know without me having to point out such a simple truth.
Would a computer or a computer program exist without an intelligent mind such as yours? yes or no?
Of course hardware and software are the products of intelligence, but I never said otherwise and that wasn't your point. Your point was that a simulation of a natural process means that that process is itself intelligent. I explained that this was false because otherwise it would mean that anything simulated is intelligent, like the weather and aerodynamics and soil erosion. Evolution is a natural process just like the weather and aerodynamics and soil erosion. We observe the evolutionary processes of descent with modification (mutations and allele mixing) filtered by natural selection in all life, and this becomes especially clear in breeding programs where people decide which pairs produce offspring instead of the environment.
So do you now understand that simulating a natural process doesn't mean the process is intelligent?
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 455 by ICdesign, posted 01-09-2011 4:21 PM ICdesign has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 468 by ICdesign, posted 01-09-2011 6:17 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 469 of 527 (599682)
01-09-2011 7:23 PM
Reply to: Message 468 by ICdesign
01-09-2011 6:17 PM


ICdesign writes:
No that isn't my point exactly. My point is that all computer related products are an extension of an intelligent source. Simulations are an extension of an intelligent mind. Anything done on a computer would not exist if you took the intelligent mind out of the equation. Do you now understand?
Sure, I understand what you're saying now, and I'm sure eveyone would agree, but what you're saying now is irrelevant to this discussion. You were trying to claim that simulating a natural process like evolution means that that process was created by an intelligence. This is, of course, untrue.
I much prefer a point or two at a time.
That's fine by me as long as you finish one point before beginning another. You have a number of unfinished points right now. Let's not introduce new topics like whether the heart has "intentional purpose" until you've finished the other ones. My suggestion would be to pick up the Mr. Chance/Mr. Selection discussion that we were having.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 468 by ICdesign, posted 01-09-2011 6:17 PM ICdesign has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 471 by ICdesign, posted 01-09-2011 8:11 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 475 of 527 (599727)
01-10-2011 8:00 AM
Reply to: Message 471 by ICdesign
01-09-2011 8:11 PM


ICdesign writes:
How can you simulate a process void of intelligence...
Are you applying the modifier "void of intelligence" to the process or the simulation?
If you were asking how a simulation could be "void of intelligence" then the answer is that it couldn't, because of course the simulation was created by intelligence. Everyone would agree with this. But it's an irrelevant point because we're discussing whether evolution requires intelligence, not simulations.
If you were instead asking how you could simulate a process that is "void of intelligence" then the answer has been provided to you a number of times, and it hasn't changed. We use computers to simulate all kinds of natural processes, from nuclear fission to magnetic storms on the sun, and the fact that we can simulate such natural processes on a computer does not transform them into intelligently driven processes with "intentional purpose." I can write a simulation of a marble rolling down an inclined plain, but neither the marble nor the inclined plane nor gravity has any intelligence or "intentional purpose."
Asking the question again in the style of, "But Percy, you're looking at this all wrong. How could a simulation of a process not require intelligence?" can only draw the same answer, because the answer you've been provided a number of times now is the correct answer. Instead of expressing incredulity over and over and over again you're going to have to read and understand the answer and then express clearly what it is about that answer that you either don't understand or don't agree with.
Let's not introduce new topics like whether the heart has "intentional purpose"
Well you were all ready to talk about it 2 or 3 posts ago when the drinking hole was your example.
Fine, let's return to the watering hole example that you ignored (along with most of the rest of a lengthy message) in your reply in Message 455. Although you have been asked to address how you tell when something has "intentional purpose" a number of times, you've never answered. A watering hole on the Savannah has the purpose of providing water for the animals in the area. How do you know whether that purpose was "intentional" or not? Is it just a case that you can't explain "intentional purpose," but you know it when you see it? If so then you need to develop some scientific criteria for establishing when something has "intentional purpose" or not.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Grammar.
Edited by Percy, : Minor change to improve clarity.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 471 by ICdesign, posted 01-09-2011 8:11 PM ICdesign has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 477 by ICdesign, posted 01-10-2011 11:48 AM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 479 of 527 (599786)
01-10-2011 3:34 PM
Reply to: Message 477 by ICdesign
01-10-2011 11:48 AM


ICdesign writes:
Righting a simulation based on known laws of physics is one thing. A program written on a computer that produces an antenna after a bunch a brilliant scientists imput a bunch of information does nothing to prove that evolution was capable of producing complex systems that perform meaningful purposes.
You're combining two distinct and different things into one. The program implementation was performed by programmers, and that's one thing. The approach used by the programmers to perform the design activity employed a simulated model of evolution, and that's a different thing. Simulating evolution to design an antennae does not mean that evolution requires intelligence. Writing a simulation program requires intelligence, not the process you're simulating. Just as a weather forecasting program might employ a simulated model of the weather to make predictions, an antennae design program might employ a simulated model of evolution to produce designs. But neither the weather nor evolution requires an intelligence.
Just because water gathered in a hole from rain storms doesn't prove anything other than it rained. That is called subjective purpose. It would exist whether animals drank from it or not.
If stalactites and stalagmites that are created by the dripping of mineralized water were actually designed by God (see your Message 464), then isn't a watering hole also designed by God. And doesn't anything designed by God have "objective intentional purpose?"
The problem you're having is that you didn't arrive at your position through reasoning, and so you can't explain the reasoning for your position because it doesn't have any. You're reduced to claiming that your position is obvious while making unsupported assertions like "It's impossible" because you've never thought it through, it's just something you believe very strongly. You believe what you believe because it feels right to you, not because you've done any analysis of real world evidence.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 477 by ICdesign, posted 01-10-2011 11:48 AM ICdesign has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 481 by ICdesign, posted 01-11-2011 12:28 PM Percy has replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024