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Author | Topic: Why only one Designer | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Yes, they sometimes use human designs as analogy, but their arguments do not rest on this analogy (contrary to what Ringo claims). Really? What else have you got?
If you would want to show that an IDer would have to logically believe in multiple designers, you would have to show that a designed thing absolutely requires multiple designers. Which would be quite an astonishing feat, considering all the counter-examples of things built by a single designer that I can think of ... It remains a fair question.
But what is really more interesting in this thread is how blatantly illogical the reasoning in the OP is, and yet no atheist/evolutionist here bothered to tell you you were wrong. Everything is fine as long as you can bash ID in the process it seems, and who cares about basic logic! The title of the OP is actually "Why Only One Designer", not "If There Was a Designer There Must Have Been More Than One". It's a fair question. And you have in effect given the answer, which is that creationism is a branch of religious apologetics rather than a sincere attempt to discover the truth. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Dembski's claim that specified complexity is an indication of design has nothing to do with the 'human design things analogy'. He claims that it would be efficient to apply it to microwaves coming from space, for example. I don't see that specified complexity is well-defined. But leaving that aside, what reason other than analogy would we have to suppose that a message from space aliens was a message from space aliens? If one comes we should recognize it as such only because it'll resemble the sort of thing that we'd send to them. And what if, in a fit of egotism, they decided to broadcast a description of their genome? We should be right to identify the signal as having an intelligent origin, but for you to identify the information in the same way would be the usual creationist petitio principii.
But the 'single designer' hypothesis does not come intrisincally from ID, it comes from other areas of the IDers life. Well, quite.
(and stop equivocating creationism and ID, we both know they are not the same thing) And yet it is possible to write a textbook on "Intelligent Design" by going through a textbook on "creation science" and replacing the word "creator" with "designer"; "creationists" with "design proponents"; "creation" with "Intelligent Design" and so forth.
PS Exam tomorrow, then I'll be able to get back to our GD Au revoir.
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Sure, they have similarities, and they have the same sort of connection as a rhombus and a square ... * coughs gently * A square is in fact a rhombus.
... but at the end of the day, this does not justify claiming that they are the same thing, because they clearly aren't. The modern use of the words "intelligent design", as a term intended to describe a field of inquiry, began after the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of Edwards v. Aguillard (1987), ruled that creationism is unconstitutional in public school science curricula. A Discovery Institute report says that Charles Thaxton, editor of Of Pandas and People, had picked the phrase up from a NASA scientist, and thought "That's just what I need, it's a good engineering term". In drafts of the book over one hundred uses of the root word "creation", such as "creationism" and "creation science", were changed, almost without exception, to "intelligent design",[17] while "creationists" was changed to "design proponents" or, in one instance, "cdesign proponentsists". [...] Of Pandas and People was published in 1989, and was the first book to make frequent use of the phrases "intelligent design," "design proponents," and "design theory", thus representing the beginning of the modern "intelligent design" movement. "Intelligent design was the most prominent of around fifteen new terms it introduced as a new lexicon of creationist terminology to oppose evolution without using religious language. It was the first place where the phrase "intelligent design" appeared in its present use, as stated both by its publisher Jon Buell, and by William A. Dembski in his expert witness report. Now I will grant you that it's a subset of creationism --- the fewer claims that are made, the more unfalsifiable the hypothesis becomes, which is probably the best thing creationists can hope for.
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Parsimony has nothing to do with reality. Well, there is no evidence for unparsimonious explanations. Let me give you an example. Suppose I suggested that in the Andromada galaxy there's a race of superintelligent beings resembling beach umbrellas. Now, as I have no evidence for this, you would adopt the negative as the default position. But now I take this proposition about sentient beach umbrellas and combine it (let us say) with the theory of gravity. Now I have an eminently testable hypothesis which is rater well-evidenced. The problem is, of course, that the theory of gravity would explain the observations all by itself. We cannot, therefore, take them as giving any credence to the additional proposition about aliens in Andromeda. So while we can't necessarily expect the universe to be parsimonious, we often find ourselves in a position where we can say that there is no evidence that it isn't. Now we're in a different case if we have two hypotheses where one isn't a subset of the other.
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16113 Joined: |
More utter nonsense ... Oh, well-argued.
No, I'd simply laugh. Would you not also suppose that I was wrong? If not, why the merriment?
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16113 Joined: |
There is no evidence which supports dna appearing in nature through natural processes. That actually happens all the time. How do you think it's produced --- DNA fairies? There is abundant evidence of it being produced by natural processes (which are well understood) and zero evidence of it being produced by magical processes.
The mere intricacy of dna speaks volumes of there probably being a designer. Back in the real world, the extraordinary simplicity of DNA at first had most scientists doubting that it could be the genetic material they were looking for. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16113 Joined:
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It seems you have empirical evidence that shows how dna became the building blocks for life as we know it, through step by step procedures. What in the world gave you that impression?
Explain to me how dna appears in nature through these natural processes ... It's called DNA polymerase. Your turn. How does DNA appear in nature through supernatural processes, and are there any observations of this actually happening?
& how organisms today learnt to code & utilize dna. Overlooking the anthropomorphism implicit in your question, organisms today inherited this facility from earlier organisms by purely natural processes which are well-understood (and which, by the way, include the action of DNA polymerase).
Also, are you implying that the dna molecule is "simple" o_O, please enlighten me with your reasoning as to why it is, "simple"... In the sense that it's simple. I don't see how I can make the word "simple" clearer than it already is. This is why even after the discovery that DNA was in some way connected to inheritance many scientists were looking for the genetic material in the histones associated with DNA. They just couldn't believe that something as simple as DNA could be what they were looking for.
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16113 Joined: |
I'll quote you...--> Specifically, you quoted me saying something completely different. You did not quote me as saying that I "have empirical evidence that shows how dna became the building blocks for life as we know it, through step by step procedures", a sentence which you wrote and I did not; and I am prepared to explain my own statements, but not yours.
Oh I see, dna polymerase is single handedly responsible for building & coding & utilizing dna, lol...I'm not even gonna explain to you why this is a rather silly response. No? Then let me explain why it's a silly response: because it's something you wrote rather than something I wrote.
Contrary to the evolution theory, I am not claiming that dna conveniently appeared in nature, I'm saying that it is a product of design. There are no observations of anyone making dna, however there is evidence which suggests that it was designed. If I've never observed anyone creating a car and later came across one in some other country, does that mean the car was not created by some designer, that it simply arose through super natural means? No. Just like a car exhibits a level of functionality, intricacy / complexity & structural integrity as evidence it was designed, so does dna. This is my evidence. By what exact means it was created, that I do not know. You could have saved yourself a few paragraphs by just writing: "I don't know".
Seems you branched off into an entirely different area. I never asked you how dna is inherited...I asked you to: Explain to me how dna appears in nature through natural processes & how organisms today learnt to code & utilize dna. This is like saying: "I never asked you about four, I asked you what two plus two is." DNA appears in nature through the natural process of DNA synthesis; and organisms today do not "learn" to utilize DNA, they inherit that faculty from their ancestors. This answers your question: if you wanted another answer you should probably have asked a different question.
I also asked you to enlighten me with your \\reasoning// as to why dna is, as you put it..."simple"...and you give me this??? Well, yes. I'm not sure what you want. If you ask me why I say tigers are stripy, then it's hard to give any more elaborate answer than "because tigers are stripy". The reasoning behind my saying that DNA is simple is that it's simple. As I have illustrated by referring to the fact that many scientists thought that it was too simple to be the genetic material. It's really not a very complicated molecule: it's a double chain of purines and pyrimidines, which are themselves simple as organic molecules go.
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Personally I look at the ecosystem as a sign of common thought, which is a typical sign of a common designer. water -> plants -> insects & animalsRemove anyone of these (on a whole) and the entire system falls. Well, a couple of things to think about. First, this reasoning fails if you apply it to things that really were designed. Take away the wings or the engine from a plane and it quite literally "falls". Yet plane designers can and will buy in engines designed by someone else altogether. Second, ecosystems assemble themselves without a designer. We can see this with islands that have been either newly created or swept bare of life by volcanic action. Take Anak Krakatau, for example:
Although Krakatoa submerged after several eruptions, Anak Krakatau resurfaced in 1927. New volcanic activity caused the island to sink again only a few months later. Emerging again in 1930, it has remained above sea level ever since. Despite these incidents, the fertile volcanic ash and soil has resulted in Anak Krakatau being the home to over 500 species of plants and animal life. These animals include butterflies, birds, land mollusks, bats and reptiles. You'd probably know this if you'd ever taken an interest in ecosystems in themselves rather than as props for a bad argument. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Anything which a exhibits some level(s) of functionality(ies), intricacy / complexity & structural integrity both on the physically observable level(s) & sub-system level(s) are all products of design since we can observe that such objects are near impossible to arise through chance. This would be true only if design was the only alternative to chance; and we know that it isn't.
It simply states that these mechanisms are there, so things evolve, or things evolve because these mechanisms are there. To be more precise: Things evolve because of natural selection, natural selection is there so things evolve...Everything else in the theory is due to chance. This is a tautology In the first place, writing the same thing two different ways may be redundant, but it is not tautological. If I write "My kitten's name is Mittens, and Mittens is the name of my kitten", this does not magically make statements about my kitten's name tautological. In the second place, the statement that you have written twice in an attempt to magic it into a tautology is not accurate. Things evolve because of mutation and reproduction. Natural selection is the reason why this evolution has an adaptive tendency. And, on a more general note, if you don't understand natural selection what the heck are you doing trying to discuss evolution? It's a very simple, very basic concept.
The evolution theory never attempts to describe how the mechanisms that natural selection utilizes arose, it simply ignores that factor. From this perspective natural selection is simply a product created by chance that happens by chance. This paragraph is too vague and meaningless to critique except by pointing out that it is in fact vague and meaningless. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16113 Joined: |
On your first point, I'm not certain what you were trying to illustrate ... My point is that the fact that ecosystems seem to fit together nicely does not necessarily imply a common designer of their components even if those components were designed.
If I had said "an ecosystem", it would have made a difference, since I may be referring to a specific island like in your example, so your example does not apply. To be more specific: water -> plants -> insects & animalsIf you remove anyone of these from the planets entire ecological system, life would seize to exist on this planet. Not only is this not true, but also I don't see your point in saying it.
If I had said "an ecosystem", it would have made a difference, since I may be referring to a specific island like in your example, so your example does not apply. It's still suggestive. Every time we see an ecosystem arise, it does so without the intervention of some mysterious "designer".
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16113 Joined: |
I'm more interested in why is this isnt true? Because if you removed all the plants and animals there'd still be bacteria.
You don't see the point because your quote mining. I don't see the point because you haven't said what it is. If you removed all life from the planet, it is true that there'd be no life left. But I don't see why this fact should put us in mind of design in particular.
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Oh? what is the alternative to chance? There are a number of alternatives, of which the most relevant to this thread would be evolution.
Tautologies only apply to reasoning. simply saying your cats name is mittens isn't a problem, saying my cats name is mittens 'because' Mittens is the name of my kitten, is. Then I suggest that you construct a stupid strawman of evolutionary thought that actually is a tautology. Better still, you could discuss the actual theory of evolution, but I guess that would leave you short of worthless arguments.
Things evolve because of mutation. Natural selection is the reason why evolution has an adaptive tendency. Evolution has an adaptive tendency because Natural selection is the reason. Again, writing the same thing twice does not make it into a tautology. Tautologies are not made by writing the same thing twice. A statement can be true and meaningful despite being written twice. In despite of being written twice, truth and meaning can inhere in a statement. These statements do not become less cogent because I wrote them twice. The fact that I wrote them twice does not lessen the cogency of these statements.
The evolution theory never attempts to describe how the mechanisms for natural selection arose, it simply ignores this factor. From this perspective natural selection is simply a product created by chance....and happens by chance. Writing the same thing twice also does not make it more meaningful. That is still just vague gibberish. Could you try to make some more definite mistake? Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16113 Joined: |
you think I'm super human, give me a break, can't respond to all of you, I'm constantly bombarded with responses. It's the norm of this forum to attack anyone who disagree with the evolution theory in numbers. If you would stick to the topic of the thread, instead of using it as a platform to be wrong about the theory of evolution (a subject totally unrelated to the actual topic) you might find yourself with fewer posts to reply to.
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16113 Joined: |
But the analogy with humans renders these arguments doubtful.
1) Although there are 3 or more different types of dna structures, the principle that they follow are all the same; They serve as the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms. It is more likely that if there were many designers they would all think of different mechanisms (other than dna) in several living things. Different authors write in the same alphabet and the same language. The diversity of their productions, however, means that we wouldn't think that they were all the same. Would someone considering the corpus of English literature deduce that Shakespeare and Stephen King were the same person? In the same way we might well ask if the same person was responsible for the lamb and the tiger; the butterfly and the tapeworm; magnolias and gangrene.
2) The point in all living organisms needing water and sunlight here is that they require one common source for sustenance. It is more likely that if there were many designers they would all think of different mechanisms for sustenance in several living things. And yet we have a zillion manufacturers all making products that run off electricity. This common feature shouldn't lead us to deduce a single manufacturer. Rather, again, we might ask if it was even plausible that the same inventor was responsible for (for example) the cathode-ray TV and the flatscreen; or vinyl records and CDs. In the same way, we might wonder whether the same hand dsigned both the wolf and the marsupial wolf; or the hummingbird and the hummingbird moth.
3) You combine the first two points, then you look at this point. This should indicate that organisms share undeniable commonalities indicating a common idea. The complex and intricate interweaving of the ecosystem (i.e. Life sustains life.) serves as a another sign of "common thought" in relation to the first two points. But again reference to human activity renders this point doubtful. If we have an intricate machine the parts of which work well together, it is almost certain that the various components --- the nuts and bolts; the electrical wires; the diodes; the cogwheels ... and so forth ... were produced by different firms and bought in by the design team that actually designed the machine --- and it is completely certain that the original germ of the idea for each of these components came to different people who never collaborated or even met.
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