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Author Topic:   The $5,000,000 ID Research Challenge
tesla
Member (Idle past 1592 days)
Posts: 1199
Joined: 12-22-2007


Message 91 of 285 (682296)
11-30-2012 11:41 PM
Reply to: Message 88 by ringo
11-27-2012 11:14 AM


Re: spend it on space exploration/ Brain research.
And exploration is about going there to see what you can find, not just sitting in your armchar dreaming about what "might" be there. Five million dollars would buy a pretty nice Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria but IDists don't seem to be interested in leaving the dock.
Well let's make a distinction here, because what your describing does not represent all I.D’ists. You more adequately describe the religious. I'm sure the religious will decide to be I.D’ists, but that might not be a bad thing if they are actively supporting the science of understanding the body we live in, and potentially discovering God, in whatever form that 'could' be.

keep your mind from this way of enquiry, for never will you show that not-being is
~parmenides

This message is a reply to:
 Message 88 by ringo, posted 11-27-2012 11:14 AM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 94 by ringo, posted 12-05-2012 1:14 PM tesla has replied

  
tesla
Member (Idle past 1592 days)
Posts: 1199
Joined: 12-22-2007


Message 92 of 285 (682297)
11-30-2012 11:49 PM
Reply to: Message 89 by Taq
11-27-2012 11:35 AM


Re: spend it on space exploration/ Brain research.
Genomes do explain where species came from, which is the question at hand.
See, this is why our conversation is useless. You are discussing your closed minded idea of what 'life' is being questioned here.
I'm not referring to genome sequences. I'm referring to the entire body of life, which is everything that exists, has a measurable quantity of 'something' and occupies reality.
If you are looking for God, a greater thing, do you find that inside yourself, or do you find it outside the known universe? To find that, you look in both places, or begin building on capabilities to peer deeper into those areas to answer the question as our capabilities improve, in knowledge, and in understanding or even seeing what today is beyond our grasp to see.
But don’t just ignore it. Too many people will support it.

keep your mind from this way of enquiry, for never will you show that not-being is
~parmenides

This message is a reply to:
 Message 89 by Taq, posted 11-27-2012 11:35 AM Taq has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 93 by Taq, posted 12-03-2012 11:47 AM tesla has replied

  
Taq
Member
Posts: 9970
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.6


(1)
Message 93 of 285 (682512)
12-03-2012 11:47 AM
Reply to: Message 92 by tesla
11-30-2012 11:49 PM


Re: spend it on space exploration/ Brain research.
See, this is why our conversation is useless. You are discussing your closed minded idea of what 'life' is being questioned here.
I am using what ID proponents claim. They claim that an intelligent designer designed these genomes. They even claim that they can detect the desing in those genomes using such terms as "complex specified complexity". It's not like I am making this up.
I'm not referring to genome sequences. I'm referring to the entire body of life, which is everything that exists, has a measurable quantity of 'something' and occupies reality.
If you are going to do scientific research you need to be more specific than "something". Surely you know this?
If you are looking for God, a greater thing, do you find that inside yourself, or do you find it outside the known universe? To find that, you look in both places, or begin building on capabilities to peer deeper into those areas to answer the question as our capabilities improve, in knowledge, and in understanding or even seeing what today is beyond our grasp to see.
We already have the genomes sequenced. We have ample fossils. We know quite a bit about how the cell works, and how embryonic development works. What exactly are you waiting for? You have 150 years of scientific development that has culminated in a generation of scientists that have more knowledge at their fingerprints than all of the previous generations put together (at least for biology). You are just going to ignore this fount of data? Just push it aside without even looking at it?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 92 by tesla, posted 11-30-2012 11:49 PM tesla has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 96 by tesla, posted 12-06-2012 1:35 PM Taq has replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 411 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 94 of 285 (682806)
12-05-2012 1:14 PM
Reply to: Message 91 by tesla
11-30-2012 11:41 PM


Re: spend it on space exploration/ Brain research.
teslas writes:
I'm sure the religious will decide to be I.D’ists, but that might not be a bad thing if they are actively supporting the science of understanding the body we live in, and potentially discovering God, in whatever form that 'could' be.
Are they doing that though? Are they doing anything active?
The OP asks for concrete experiments to test ID and offers a hypothetical $5 million to pay for the research. So far, we haven't exactly seen a plethora of proposals.
The people who believe so firmly in ID, whether they're "religious" or not, don't seem very eager to test their faith.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 91 by tesla, posted 11-30-2012 11:41 PM tesla has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 95 by Taq, posted 12-05-2012 3:43 PM ringo has seen this message but not replied
 Message 97 by tesla, posted 12-06-2012 1:39 PM ringo has replied

  
Taq
Member
Posts: 9970
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.6


(1)
Message 95 of 285 (682827)
12-05-2012 3:43 PM
Reply to: Message 94 by ringo
12-05-2012 1:14 PM


Re: spend it on space exploration/ Brain research.
Are they doing that though? Are they doing anything active?
Douglas Axe is doing work in a laboratory, but it turns out to be lame attempts to disprove evolution and not anything that is directly testing ID.
What he tried to do is take two enzymes that are proposed to have developed from a common ancestral sequence, and then show that you can not get one from the other through a series of mutations. What he did was commit the Crocoduck fallacy. He tried to show that one modern enzyme could not evolve into another modern enzyme. Of course, we know that this is not how evolution works. What he should have done is try to construct the ancestral sequence and then see if you could reach either enzyme through step-wise mutations, but he didn't do that. Panda's Thumb has a nice run down of has a nice post on it here:
Still more fun: Douglas Axe's Crocoduck
Testing evolution is not testing ID, which is the whole point of this thread. Imagine if "evolutionists" behaved like ID proponents. At every meeting everyone would show that no ID proponent had found evidence for ID, therefore the system under consideration just had to evolve. End of presentation. Would anyone accept that as a valid argument?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 94 by ringo, posted 12-05-2012 1:14 PM ringo has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 100 by Genomicus, posted 12-07-2012 6:16 PM Taq has not replied

  
tesla
Member (Idle past 1592 days)
Posts: 1199
Joined: 12-22-2007


Message 96 of 285 (683006)
12-06-2012 1:35 PM
Reply to: Message 93 by Taq
12-03-2012 11:47 AM


Re: spend it on space exploration/ Brain research.
I am using what ID proponents claim. They claim that an intelligent designer designed these genomes. They even claim that they can detect the desing in those genomes using such terms as "complex specified complexity". It's not like I am making this up.
I'll have to agree that sounds rediculous.
If you are going to do scientific research you need to be more specific than "something". Surely you know this?
If we knew what is was we were doing, we wouldn't call it re-search. -Einstien
Sometimes what you are looking for isn't perfectly clear.
We already have the genomes sequenced. We have ample fossils. We know quite a bit about how the cell works, and how embryonic development works. What exactly are you waiting for? You have 150 years of scientific development that has culminated in a generation of scientists that have more knowledge at their fingerprints than all of the previous generations put together (at least for biology). You are just going to ignore this fount of data? Just push it aside without even looking at it?
You continue to devope it and do not jump to conclusions. Your data has not yet broken the language of thoughts, and neither have we assessed what greater intelligence is because we have not discovered it. hence space exploration.
Your data is important but it still does not prove that somehow fundamentally the system hasn't started from a designed point.
Maybe I.D. as a science can be ignored for no relevancy (If it must include such inconsequential data), but searching for 'God' should not be abandoned.

keep your mind from this way of enquiry, for never will you show that not-being is
~parmenides

This message is a reply to:
 Message 93 by Taq, posted 12-03-2012 11:47 AM Taq has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 98 by Taq, posted 12-07-2012 11:11 AM tesla has replied

  
tesla
Member (Idle past 1592 days)
Posts: 1199
Joined: 12-22-2007


Message 97 of 285 (683007)
12-06-2012 1:39 PM
Reply to: Message 94 by ringo
12-05-2012 1:14 PM


Re: spend it on space exploration/ Brain research.
Are they doing that though? Are they doing anything active?
Yes.
The OP asks for concrete experiments to test ID and offers a hypothetical $5 million to pay for the research. So far, we haven't exactly seen a plethora of proposals.
I've given two that have a diverse set of proposals to increase their science.
The people who believe so firmly in ID, whether they're "religious" or not, don't seem very eager to test their faith.
People ask for water you shovel them dirt, what do you expect?

keep your mind from this way of enquiry, for never will you show that not-being is
~parmenides

This message is a reply to:
 Message 94 by ringo, posted 12-05-2012 1:14 PM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 99 by ringo, posted 12-07-2012 2:22 PM tesla has replied

  
Taq
Member
Posts: 9970
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.6


(1)
Message 98 of 285 (683083)
12-07-2012 11:11 AM
Reply to: Message 96 by tesla
12-06-2012 1:35 PM


Re: spend it on space exploration/ Brain research.
I'll have to agree that sounds rediculous.
"Dembski asserts that CSI exists in numerous features of living things, such as DNA and other functional biological molecules, and argues that it cannot be generated by the only known natural mechanisms of physical law and chance, or by their combination. He argues that this is so because laws can only shift around or lose information, but do not produce it, and chance can produce complex unspecified information, or simple specified information, but not CSI; he provides a mathematical analysis that he claims demonstrates that law and chance working together cannot generate CSI, either. Moreover, he claims that CSI is holistic, with the whole being greater than the sum of the parts, and that this decisively eliminates Darwinian evolution as a possible means of its creation. Dembski maintains that by process of elimination, CSI is best explained as being due to intelligence, and is therefore a reliable indicator of design."
Specified complexity - Wikipedia
That seems to be a pretty good description of Dembski's position, at least in my eyes.
Your data has not yet broken the language of thoughts, and neither have we assessed what greater intelligence is because we have not discovered it.
That same argument could be used to argue for any fantasy that one can come up with. Are unicorns real? Well, we need to work on brain chemistry first and launch space probes to find intelligent alien races so we can find the tools to look for unicorns. Fairies? Well, we need to work on brain chemistry . . . I think you get the point.
I am looking for something much more concrete. I am looking for experiments that actually put ID at risk just like every other hypothesis in science.
At best, I think we can both agree that ID is not in the position to construct scientific hypotheses. If this is the case, then the challenge will have to be revisited.
Your data is important but it still does not prove that somehow fundamentally the system hasn't started from a designed point.
How does the data show that it has started from a designed point?
Again, science is not about excluding mechanisms. Rather, science is focused on finding evidence that will INCLUDE mechanisms.
In these types of discussions I often see people complain that this-or-that is automatically excluded from the start within science. Well, that just isn't true. If there is evidence for a mechanism then it can be included in science. What is expected is that people making claims support their claims with science, or at least a plan of how to gather that evidence.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 96 by tesla, posted 12-06-2012 1:35 PM tesla has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 101 by Genomicus, posted 12-07-2012 6:26 PM Taq has not replied
 Message 102 by tesla, posted 12-11-2012 11:45 PM Taq has replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 411 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


(3)
Message 99 of 285 (683110)
12-07-2012 2:22 PM
Reply to: Message 97 by tesla
12-06-2012 1:39 PM


Re: spend it on space exploration/ Brain research.
tesla writes:
ringp writes:
The people who believe so firmly in ID, whether they're "religious" or not, don't seem very eager to test their faith.
People ask for water you shovel them dirt, what do you expect?
I expect them to behave like scientists, if they want to be treated like scientists. If you offered five million dollars to real scientists, you'd be up to your ears in proposals. If IDists spent a fraction of their propaganda budget on actual research....

This message is a reply to:
 Message 97 by tesla, posted 12-06-2012 1:39 PM tesla has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 103 by tesla, posted 12-12-2012 12:00 AM ringo has replied

  
Genomicus
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 852
Joined: 02-15-2012


Message 100 of 285 (683128)
12-07-2012 6:16 PM
Reply to: Message 95 by Taq
12-05-2012 3:43 PM


Re: spend it on space exploration/ Brain research.
Douglas Axe is doing work in a laboratory, but it turns out to be lame attempts to disprove evolution and not anything that is directly testing ID.
What he tried to do is take two enzymes that are proposed to have developed from a common ancestral sequence, and then show that you can not get one from the other through a series of mutations. What he did was commit the Crocoduck fallacy. He tried to show that one modern enzyme could not evolve into another modern enzyme. Of course, we know that this is not how evolution works.
I respectfully disagree with your interpretation of Doug Axe's work ("The Evolutionary Accessibility of New Enzymes Functions: A Case Study from the Biotin Pathway"). The point of the study, as I understand it, was not to demonstrate that since the two enzymes could not plausibly evolve into another, they did not evolve. Rather, the point was that it is not very plausible for one enzyme to evolve into another one with a different function. I do have issues with Doug Axe's argument and study, which I will not outline here at the moment.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 95 by Taq, posted 12-05-2012 3:43 PM Taq has not replied

  
Genomicus
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 852
Joined: 02-15-2012


(1)
Message 101 of 285 (683131)
12-07-2012 6:26 PM
Reply to: Message 98 by Taq
12-07-2012 11:11 AM


On Testing Intelligent Design
I am looking for something much more concrete. I am looking for experiments that actually put ID at risk just like every other hypothesis in science.
At best, I think we can both agree that ID is not in the position to construct scientific hypotheses. If this is the case, then the challenge will have to be revisited.
The problem is that the ID movement, as characterized by the Discovery Institute, is quite obsessed with disproving Darwinian evolution, instead of constructing a positive hypothesis of intelligent design. Some of the leading proponents of ID admit as much; for example, Paul Nelson has said that:
Easily the biggest challenge facing the ID community is to develop a full-fledged theory of biological design. We don’t have such a theory right now, and that’s a problem. Without a theory, it’s very hard to know where to direct your research focus. Right now, we’ve got a bag of powerful intuitions, and a handful of notions such as ‘irreducible complexity’ and ‘specified complexity’-but, as yet, no general theory of biological design.
Nevertheless, there has been precious little effort within the ID movement to propose a testable design hypothesis. If the ID movement is to make any significant progress in academia, it will have to divorce itself from any religious underpinnings and formulate a hypothesis of biological design. Unfortunately, a lot of ID proponents are content with merely finding flaws in the current theory of biological origins. This has got to change within the ID community, or else we'll see a continual decay in the movement.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 98 by Taq, posted 12-07-2012 11:11 AM Taq has not replied

  
tesla
Member (Idle past 1592 days)
Posts: 1199
Joined: 12-22-2007


Message 102 of 285 (683594)
12-11-2012 11:45 PM
Reply to: Message 98 by Taq
12-07-2012 11:11 AM


Re: spend it on space exploration/ Brain research.
"Dembski asserts that CSI exists in numerous features of living things, such as DNA and other functional biological molecules, and argues that it cannot be generated by the only known natural mechanisms of physical law and chance, or by their combination. He argues that this is so because laws can only shift around or lose information, but do not produce it, and chance can produce complex unspecified information, or simple specified information, but not CSI; he provides a mathematical analysis that he claims demonstrates that law and chance working together cannot generate CSI, either. Moreover, he claims that CSI is holistic, with the whole being greater than the sum of the parts, and that this decisively eliminates Darwinian evolution as a possible means of its creation. Dembski maintains that by process of elimination, CSI is best explained as being due to intelligence, and is therefore a reliable indicator of design."
Specified complexity - Wikipedia
That seems to be a pretty good description of Dembski's position, at least in my eyes.
Honestly, to assert that the universe could not do what it did is ludicrous. It did it. Now we do not know whether there was a point of development that led to directed elemental interactions that led to the human species.
That is where the answer is still not known, therefore: To assert either idea as a fact, one has to be 'proven' true or false. And neither science nor religion, nor philosophy, or math has done anything close to verifying either statement to be true or false.
In light of that; it is arrogance only, or self-imposed belief of opinion, for anyone to state to 'know' either way.
Science should hunt for answers. We are very tiny in the grand scheme of things, and we need to recognize that for the sake of good science.
That same argument could be used to argue for any fantasy that one can come up with.
You are referring to this statement:
quote:
Your data has not yet broken the language of thoughts, and neither have we assessed what greater intelligence is because we have not discovered it.
Science fiction of yesterday is science today. why are you unable to believe that today's science fiction or 'super-natural' will not be tomorrow’s science?
How does the data show that it has started from a designed point?
Again, science is not about excluding mechanisms. Rather, science is focused on finding evidence that will INCLUDE mechanisms.
The data does not tell us either way if the system has a design point, or rather does not. The data is missing that could help answer that question.
If you are not about excluding mechanisms: then do not exclude my suggestions. Support them, and watch science grow.

keep your mind from this way of enquiry, for never will you show that not-being is
~parmenides

This message is a reply to:
 Message 98 by Taq, posted 12-07-2012 11:11 AM Taq has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 104 by Taq, posted 12-12-2012 10:57 AM tesla has replied

  
tesla
Member (Idle past 1592 days)
Posts: 1199
Joined: 12-22-2007


Message 103 of 285 (683595)
12-12-2012 12:00 AM
Reply to: Message 99 by ringo
12-07-2012 2:22 PM


Re: spend it on space exploration/ Brain research.
tesla writes:
ringp writes:
The people who believe so firmly in ID, whether they're "religious" or not, don't seem very eager to test their faith.
People ask for water you shovel them dirt, what do you expect?
I expect them to behave like scientists, if they want to be treated like scientists. If you offered five million dollars to real scientists, you'd be up to your ears in proposals. If IDists spent a fraction of their propaganda budget on actual research....
Look back at the comments you quoted. The 'people' to whom he is referring are the religious of 'faith'. Many of faith come to science to hope to learn more about God. But instead of finding any encouragement on how to find God through science, they are told God is dead, and they are going to cease to exist.
READ THAT AGAIN.
Now, if you were any human being that held a belief and it was crushed --Without any benefit of facts to support the scientific assertion and assumption, you probably would not consider the scientist smart, or knowledgeable, and to some people you could be considered an actual enemy.
AND THEN: the same ones those people were crushed by want to know why they are not supported more.
Having no real proof that you will not continue to exist in some other dimensional part of the universal system, (but do recognize the potential of other dimensions) and also having no proof of God being, or NOT being, having literally, NO data for a conclusion, you come to a conclusion? It can only be opinion, because if you cannot see the egg outside your closed front door, that doesn't mean there isn't one there.

keep your mind from this way of enquiry, for never will you show that not-being is
~parmenides

This message is a reply to:
 Message 99 by ringo, posted 12-07-2012 2:22 PM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 105 by ringo, posted 12-12-2012 11:01 AM tesla has replied

  
Taq
Member
Posts: 9970
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.6


(3)
Message 104 of 285 (683631)
12-12-2012 10:57 AM
Reply to: Message 102 by tesla
12-11-2012 11:45 PM


Re: spend it on space exploration/ Brain research.
Honestly, to assert that the universe could not do what it did is ludicrous. It did it. Now we do not know whether there was a point of development that led to directed elemental interactions that led to the human species.
What experiments would you run to determine if there was this point of development? What evidence is leading you to this hypthesis?
To assert either idea as a fact, one has to be 'proven' true or false.
So how do we do that?
Science fiction of yesterday is science today. why are you unable to believe that today's science fiction or 'super-natural' will not be tomorrow’s science?
I will believe it when you come up with experiments to test it. That is what I have been asking for this entire thread.
The data does not tell us either way if the system has a design point, or rather does not. The data is missing that could help answer that question.
You need to prove this statement.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 102 by tesla, posted 12-11-2012 11:45 PM tesla has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 106 by tesla, posted 12-13-2012 10:16 PM Taq has replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 411 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


(3)
Message 105 of 285 (683632)
12-12-2012 11:01 AM
Reply to: Message 103 by tesla
12-12-2012 12:00 AM


Re: spend it on space exploration/ Brain research.
tesla writes:
Having no real proof that you will not continue to exist in some other dimensional part of the universal system, (but do recognize the potential of other dimensions) and also having no proof of God being, or NOT being, having literally, NO data for a conclusion, you come to a conclusion?
You seem to have lost the plot. This discussion is about YOU - i.e. the "people of faith" - finding data for YOUR conclusion. It's about YOU being offered money to find that data. The question is, Why are you more interested in ranting than in testing YOUR own conclusions?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 103 by tesla, posted 12-12-2012 12:00 AM tesla has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 107 by tesla, posted 12-13-2012 10:21 PM ringo has replied

  
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