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Author Topic:   The evidence for design and a designer - AS OF 10/27, SUMMARY MESSAGES ONLY
Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 267 of 648 (587677)
10-20-2010 5:03 AM
Reply to: Message 262 by dennis780
10-20-2010 3:35 AM


All life have blueprints. All life has function.
No they don't.
A genome is not a blueprint. You seem to have confused an analogy for a 1 to 1 correspondence. As to function you seem to have defined it so broadly that anything which exists and does anything could be said to have a function. After all if you find an arrow with no bow and don't know what either is then what function do you know of for it?
Let me tell you. YOU DON'T. You make a logical assumption based on the physical evidence available.
But that evidence includes a wealth of experience with designed objects. And the fact is natural things don't have these hallmarks of human design with which we are familiar, which is why IDists and creationists have to make up abstruse and fuzzy properties like irreducible complexity and complex specificity to try and shoehorn living things into the set of designed things. To do so they have to make a vast array of assumptions about the designer and the capabilities of evolution, and they tend to do this based on little to no evidence whatsoever.
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 262 by dennis780, posted 10-20-2010 3:35 AM dennis780 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 269 by dennis780, posted 10-20-2010 5:23 AM Wounded King has replied

Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 271 of 648 (587685)
10-20-2010 6:19 AM
Reply to: Message 269 by dennis780
10-20-2010 5:23 AM


So because you don't understand it, it has no function? Or it has a function that is not understood by the individual?
You were the one suggesting that thinking the arrow had a function was part of our process in infering design, and you further emphasised function as one of the physical observations pointing to design. So clearly if we don't understand somethings function how can we infer that it has a function and is therefore designed?
Otherwise we are just making up 'functions' ad hoc the way you do for the amoeba, you describe what it does and then say that is its function. You might as well say that the function of Liberty Island is to hold the Statue of Liberty up, or that the function of the Amazon cardboard box on my desk is to keep my monitor at the right level.
Are there any assumptions in the theory of evolution?
This depends exactly what you mean by 'the theory of evolution'. There are quite a lot of assumptions in our current understanding of the history of life on earth, some with more supporting evidence than others. In terms of common descent of multicellular animal life from some unicellular ancestor there is very compelling evidence requiring no assumptions other than that genetics were not radically different from what we observe today. Further back it looks likely that the genetics were radically different, which is why more assumptions are needed when we start dealing with early cellular and pre-cellular life scenarios like the RNA world hypothesis, the transition from that to a more DNA based genetic system and the establishment of the separate domains of life.
The basic underlying mechanisms of evolution on the other hand, mutation, natural selection, genetic drift, etc ... are so well established empirically that they can hardly be considered assumptions.
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 269 by dennis780, posted 10-20-2010 5:23 AM dennis780 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 304 by dennis780, posted 10-21-2010 12:15 AM Wounded King has replied

Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 335 of 648 (587854)
10-21-2010 3:40 AM
Reply to: Message 304 by dennis780
10-21-2010 12:15 AM


The physical arrow looks designed. If it were natural, it would have distinct disadvantages, being that it doesn't have bark for protection, it is small and leafless, and has no roots. Since you as a person have seen many different kinds of trees, and all (generally) follow the same physical properties (roots, leaves, bark, trunk, etc.), you can assume that this is NOT a natural tree, and that it was made by a designer.
Just one small point, don't you believe that the tree was a product of design?
Isn't that your whole argument? That living things are a product of intelligent design? You seem to me to be telling me how I can know that an arrow is a product of intelligent design and a tree isn't, and I agree with you completely. indeed you are echoing what I said about familiarity with products of human design allowing us to recognise further examples of the same kind.
TTFN,
WK
P.S. I'll try and address more of your post later.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 304 by dennis780, posted 10-21-2010 12:15 AM dennis780 has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 342 by Just being real, posted 10-21-2010 8:01 AM Wounded King has replied

Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 344 of 648 (587882)
10-21-2010 8:22 AM
Reply to: Message 342 by Just being real
10-21-2010 8:01 AM


Given that you couldn't explain your concept of APC coherently on that other thread I'm not sure we need it intruding into this one.
And once again, just repeating something over and over again doesn't make it a better argument. Why don't you try explaining why you believe that DNA is an abstruse particularised communication code from an independent source, i.e. provide some evidence supporting this.
Therefore the parts of the tree are fulfilling highly particularized functions for the life and growth of the tree. But the tree itself may not necessarily display any obvious design features.
And so the intelligent designer of the gaps retreats further. So many creationists are happy to go no further than Paley's watch, indeed Denis just brought it up, which was certainly not an argument formulated on the molecular level. And having failed to make a convincing argument for organismal design they now retreat to the molecular/genetic level to try and spin enough FUD there that they can slip some ID in.
But the genome shows as little evidence of intelligent design as the whole organism does. Instead we see patterns consistent with a wide variety of well established natural mechanisms and with a history of common descent. If you want to keep pushing your intelligent designer down through the gaps until he hits the quantum foam go ahead, you wouldn't be the first.
Once again the ID argument boils down to nothing but a claim that you know intelligent design when you see it, even if you can't coherently describe how it can be reliably identified.
TTFN,
WK
Edited by Wounded King, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 342 by Just being real, posted 10-21-2010 8:01 AM Just being real has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 395 by Just being real, posted 10-22-2010 3:42 AM Wounded King has replied

Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 422 of 648 (588061)
10-22-2010 5:32 AM
Reply to: Message 395 by Just being real
10-22-2010 3:42 AM


You seem to be asking me to prove that the arrangements of nucleotides in a DNA molecule are complex, and also to prove that they are arranged in a specific pattern (like language) to perform a particular function. Is this really what you are asking me to prove?
No it isn't, although your claim that DNA is like language is also tenuous. What I am asking you to provide some evidence for is the claim that it is communicating information from an independent source. All you seem to be doing is reinventing the flat wheel of Gitt information which presuposes that ...
Werner Gitt writes:
*No information can exist without a code.
*No code can exist without a free and deliberate convention.
*No information can exist without the five hierarchical levels: statistics, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and apobetics.
*No information can exist in purely statistical processes.
*No information can exist without a transmitter.
*No information chain can exist without a mental origin.
*No information can exist without an initial mental source; that is, information is, by its nature, a mental and not a material quantity.
*No information can exist without a will.
So you posit this independent original source of the information in the DNA, presumably the intelligent designer, but where is the evidence? There is already a natural feedback loop between mutable genomes and the environment that allows information about the environment to be transferred to the genome via natural selection (Frank, 2009 (PDF)) . Why do we need to add an additional independent intelligent source?
In fact there are no reports of even low grade apc forming by natural processes. (This could be easily falsified if anyone could produce even one example to the contrary).
How can we do this when you don't define apc in any measurable way?
The concept I am applying to detecting intelligence in the design of a DNA molecule, is the exact same concept that the SETI scientists apply to searching for extra terrestrial intelligence.
Rubbish, and one of the most frequently repeated IDist lies. Can you point me to a SETI paper about APC? The SETI side don't seem to agree with this claim (Seth Shostak on Space.com). SETI are looking for the signs of artificiality that we are familiar with from human communication technologies. Can you tell me what elements of human design/artificiality you are looking for in DNA?
Can you tell me what human designed things have been observed with this amount of APC, and how you are measuring it? It seems to me that this question of measurement is still hanging from your very first mentions of APC.
I find this kind of unreasonable bias astonishingly illogical.
Well I find jumping from things we know exist (technological human level intelligence) to things we have no evidence exist (an infinitely superior being to which we are culpable) astonishingly illogical. Organic life and DNA do not look like products of human design, so you seem to be looking for hallmarks of a type of design with which we have no experience and of which we have no knowledge.
But personally I think we have a full plate just sticking with molecular biology.
You barely have a side plate, because you have yet to articulate what the evidence is in DNA, beyond going 'Wow! Thats complicated.' Is your argument simply that a system like DNA couldn't evolve? What is the basis for that argument? And if you want to apply a similar argument to the solar system then you are going to have to really tell us how to measure APC comparably in these 2 vastly different systems.
The real problem is that if you don't think that the solar system is natural how can anyone ever demonstrate even a simple APC system with a natural origin arising? What is to stop you claiming the invisible supernatural intercession of your infinitely superior being?
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 395 by Just being real, posted 10-22-2010 3:42 AM Just being real has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 433 by dennis780, posted 10-22-2010 6:07 AM Wounded King has not replied
 Message 441 by Just being real, posted 10-22-2010 7:55 AM Wounded King has replied

Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 440 of 648 (588089)
10-22-2010 7:14 AM
Reply to: Message 413 by dennis780
10-22-2010 5:08 AM


Dennis780's definition of complexity.
The total amount of nucleotide sequences that produce useful, functional information that better an organisms chances of survival. I would exclude 'junk' DNA.
I have to say that doesn't seem a bad starting point although what you propose looks more like a way to measure the 'functional information' content of the genome rather than its complexity. The one big problem is that it calls for an inordinate amount of work to actually measure such a thing.
I'm making a few assumptions.
Firstly that by nucleotide sequences you actually mean nucleotides since variations at the single nucleotide level can influence fitness. Otherwise you need to specify some sort of sequence length, is a protein's coding sequence 1 unit? an exon? What about upstream regulatory elements? So I think the simplest approach is to look at single nucleotides.
The next issue is how to measure this. In some bacteria, a strain of E. coli which does not contain plasmids for instance, we have a good chance of theroretically being able to change or delete every single nucleotide in the genome and then comparing the fitness of the new mutant strain against an unchanged original. Obviously the problem here is that this is a massive task with even the E. coli genome which is only 4.6 megabases in size. People have used systematic mutagenesis of to knock out specific protein coding genes for about half the E. coli genome, but to systematically modify every nucleotide and screen for fitness effects would be orders of magnitude more difficult.
Excluding 'Junk DNA' is reaonable provided we can reliably identify it (another advantage of doing this in a bacterial system is that they have very little in terms of 'junk DNA'), viable mice have been produced with 3% of their genome deleted from putative 'Junk' regions (Nobrega et al., 2004). We might use cross species conservation as a criteria but Nobrega et al.'s data suggest this might be too conservative, in fact there is evidence that even many 'Ultraconserved' regions may be dispensible (Ahituv et al., 2007). Perhaps the best approach would be to mask out gene deserts and highly repetitive regions, though this could lead us to underestimate our final value.
I think that your proposal for a measure, of functional infromation, is potentially possible but experimentally infeasible at the moment even in a simple system like E. coli.
TTFN,
WK
P.S. Just to clarify, you are agreeing with JBR that your tree and arrow example was about someone mistakenly identifying the tree as a simple natural product compared to the arrow even though both were actually the result of intelligent design?
Edited by Wounded King, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 413 by dennis780, posted 10-22-2010 5:08 AM dennis780 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 486 by dennis780, posted 10-22-2010 11:18 PM Wounded King has replied

Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 449 of 648 (588105)
10-22-2010 9:52 AM
Reply to: Message 441 by Just being real
10-22-2010 7:55 AM


Beneficial mutations do occur in multi-celled organisms.
Because we don't observe random mutations producing organisms with a better overall ability to survive.
That depends what you mean by 'overall ability to survive'.
This sounds like a weasilly caveat to get around the fact that there are many examples of random mutations which produce organisms with a better ability to survive in a particular environment. Without testing an organism in every conceivable environmental situation it is hard to characterise any change as improving its overall ability to survive.
As Dennis pointed out already, we only observe harmful mutations occurring.
You mean as Dennis claimed. There is plenty of direct evidence for de novo beneficial mutations having occurred in experimental lines of multi-celled organisms, such as Drosophila (Azad et al., 2010), C. elegans (Estes and Lynch, 2003) and Arabidopsis (Shaw and Chang, 2006).
If you were prepared to accept population genetic evidence there are plenty of apparently beneficial mutations around in human(Rip et al., 2006; Trecarichi et al. 2006), although I suspect you might ascribe these to already existing created or intelligently designed variants. I say apparently because we haven't had the chance to observe the population genetics of these mutations for long enough in humans to be able to make definitive measurements of fitness.
But that's a clear case of curing the disease while killing the patient.
Clearly it isn't laways since the alleles are still extant. Be that as it may there are other much milder haemoglobin variants that offer protection from malaria such as HbC (Modiano et al., 2001).
Two of the most prominent men in the history of SETI, Frank Drake and Carl Sagan, were convinced that they would be detecting alien intelligence if they were to pick up a radio wave emitting a simple string of prime numbers.
Fine, where is the simple string of prime numbers in DNA?
Again, far from being "rubbish" the concepts are identical.
Except for the ways that the SETI member I linked to says they are different and the lack of prime numbers in DNA.
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 441 by Just being real, posted 10-22-2010 7:55 AM Just being real has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 488 by dennis780, posted 10-22-2010 11:35 PM Wounded King has replied
 Message 510 by Just being real, posted 10-23-2010 4:29 AM Wounded King has replied

Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 547 of 648 (588341)
10-24-2010 9:48 AM
Reply to: Message 486 by dennis780
10-22-2010 11:18 PM


Re: Dennis780's definition of complexity.
I'm simply defining genetic complexity
Not in a coherent or usable way. If I read a paper on shannon information or Kolmogorov complexity in genomic sequences it tell me how it is measured and what calculations are neccessary for that measurement. If I wished I could apply the same analysis to the data myself and, hopefully, get the same results. Your definition of genetic complexity is nothing like this.
You seem to miss my point about sequence length, I'm asking what level you are looking at function for. At the single nucleotide level, the exon level, whole open reading frames, whole gene loci? Because depending on which it is the task of measuring your genetic complexity becomes either much simpler or virtually impossible.
I'm not asking anyone to do that. I'm simply defining genetic complexity, so whoever I was writing to could carry on with the topic
But they can't, your definition is unuseable so you are effectively saying that there is no way to measure genetic complexity, but you are nonetheless sure that it is so great as to be impossible for it to have evolved naturally.
I have no idea who JBR is
JBR is 'Just being real'.
The hypothetical person who we are discussing mistakes the tree for being simple, and assumes natural origin, and the arrow complex, and assumes design. Why?
Because the whole argument from design seems rather undercut by your own example showing how simple it is to misclassify designed and undesigned. It emphasises that the type of intelligent design/divine design IDists and creationists propose is of a completely different nature to the human design we are familiar with.
TTFN,
WK
Edited by Wounded King, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 486 by dennis780, posted 10-22-2010 11:18 PM dennis780 has not replied

Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 548 of 648 (588344)
10-24-2010 10:03 AM
Reply to: Message 488 by dennis780
10-22-2010 11:35 PM


Re: Beneficial mutations do occur in multi-celled organisms.
Fruit fly experiments?
What was the question there? Yes experiments on Drosophila have shown beneficial mutations. Since you don't deny the existence of beneficial mutations what was your point?
I NEVER claimed anything close
Good for you, it's just JBR making that particular unsupported claim then.
Though I am not convinced that random genetic mutation caused all diverse life today.
Very few evolutionary biologists, if any, would ascribe to such a view either. The evidence for key non-genetic changes, such as endosymbiosis, having played a vital part in the modern diversity of life is pretty much universally accepted. Such alliances may have become more entrenched due to subsequent genetic changes, such as the exchange of genetic material between host and symbiont genomes, but their initial acquisition was non-genetic.
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 488 by dennis780, posted 10-22-2010 11:35 PM dennis780 has not replied

Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 550 of 648 (588347)
10-24-2010 10:10 AM
Reply to: Message 510 by Just being real
10-23-2010 4:29 AM


Re: Beneficial mutations do occur in multi-celled organisms.
changed its phenotype and gave it the ability to cope better in an environment than its parent population.
OK, ignoring the rest of your arbitrary restrictions the examples I referenced showed exactly that. My query was because 'overall' suggested that you were wanting something that improved fitness in multiple environments.
Well gee... if a single string of prime numbers equals evidence of "intelligence," then what does a DNA strand that contains enough particularized information to fill literally thousands of books the size of encyclopedias equal?
Well it doesn't look like a simple clear unambiguous signal of artificiality like Drake and Sagan described. And without some usable way to identify particularised information I'm not sure how you measured the amount in amy particular strand of DNA.
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 510 by Just being real, posted 10-23-2010 4:29 AM Just being real has not replied

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