How We Detect Design

[SkyWriting]

Therefor - gods?

If yes: argument from ignorance
If no: what is your point?

"Once you eliminate the impossible,
(matter naturally existing with no beginning)
whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."

 

[Loudmouth]

"Once you eliminate the impossible,
(matter naturally existing with no beginning)
whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."

Why aren't deities just as impossible?

 

[DogmaHunter]

What you are assuming is if evolution no God and if God no evolution.

No. God isn't even part of this discussion. I'm talking about evolution and your claims of design. Let's say your claimed designers are aliens instead of gods, if that makes it easier for you.

You are not arguing why ID would not produce nest hierarchy but that evolution did.

I'm explaining both at the same time.
Do you even read the posts you reply to?

I explained to you to that there is a clear cost in designing product lines in such a way that all the products of the set fall into a nested hierarchy.

It not efficient.
It's costly.
It leads to bad designs.

Not a single example in the world can be found of a product line that is designed in this way. Why would you expect it?

All labels are arbitrary.

I can only repeat myself: nested hierachies are not a "label" nore are they arbitrary.

Rather, they are objective verifiable fact.

They are labels of actual things but the labels are arbitrary.

Semantics? Really?

Again: nested hierarchies, the tree like pattern of living things, is objective fact.

We could call it by any other name and it would still have the same elements within that name. The same goes for evolution, gene, genome, cell ..etc.

Yes, so... semantics.
Right, we could call the family tree of life "a chair" and it would still have all the properties of a family tree... right.....

For gooness sake...

Now on the premise that they are factual patterns,

That's not a premise. It's rather concluded from various independent studies of genetics, anatomy etc.

new technologies and methods using the entire genome of living things are showing great discordance with the predicted ancestry of many many organisms that should nest with other organisms. Either you are unaware of this or you dismiss it.

Show me an example of inexplicable violation of the nested hierarchies of life on this planet.

FYI: if you have such an example, you can singlehandedly turn biology upside down. Good luck.

Like I said above, you must either be unaware of the discordance of predicted histories or dismissing them. I don't know which.

I'm not talking about histories.
I'm talking about nested hierarchies of extant life.

Except due to LGT, HGT and other factors the facts are not coming up as predicted and the tree itself questioned.

The mechanisms like HGT are known and not a problem.
HGT is not going to transfer the hair of mammals to reptiles.

Find me reptile with hair.
A mammal with feathers.
Any creature other then primates with which humans share more ERV's then with primates.

Go for it.

I don't have the time nor the desire.

Translation: "I can't do it and just made that claim to pretend as if I have a point".

You made a wild claimed, that human made products fall into a nested hierarchy. I assumed you could support that statement.

I guess you can't.

Living things are a different category which has a long history. Transportation a mere couple of hundreds of years.

Which doesn't matter at all. If extant cars show a nested hierarchy, then it should be quite easy to show it.

But Loudmouth has already refuted your nonsense about that.
All it takes is pointing at 2 cars from different lines holding the same mp3-player, while another car which is the same model as one of the previous 2 has a completely different entertainment system.

BOOM, nested hierarchy violated.


I can't be bothered with the rest of your post. I'm short on time and I don't expect it to hold anything that you haven't said before and which wasn't allready addressed multiple times.

I'll read it later on if I get more time, but yea....

Same old, same old...

 

[James Is Back]

Mod Hat On

Thread has undergone a massive cleanup due to flaming/goading so if your post is gone that is the reason or you quoted someone that did. Folks staff gets tired of cleaning up these threads all the time. Stop with the flaming/goading. If you disagree with someone that's fine but address their post not flame/goad them please. Now play nice!

Mod Hat Off​

 

[Oncedeceived]

No. God isn't even part of this discussion. I'm talking about evolution and your claims of design. Let's say your claimed designers are aliens instead of gods, if that makes it easier for you.

Yes, some have felt that since they reject any possibility of God that Aliens could be the designer. However, that doesn't really change the issue, the issue is the design. To identify the Designer other factors must be determined and only become important to those show a desire to know who is behind the design. Regardless, of who the designer is, your claim was that a "designer" whoever that might be would not design in such a way as producing nested hierarchies. Just making the assertion that it is not something ID would do is not really a valid argument.

I'm explaining both at the same time.
Do you even read the posts you reply to?

Yes, I read them they seem to be just arguments begging the question but I am trying to respond to them anyway.

I explained to you to that there is a clear cost in designing product lines in such a way that all the products of the set fall into a nested hierarchy.

It not efficient.
It's costly.
It leads to bad designs.

The problem you are referring to here is a serious problem for evolution alone. If something is too costly the organism will not fare well and lack of efficiency is wasteful and more than likely would have no improvement to function and thus be selected for. Bad design is subjective and in many cases one that is based on ignorance rather than actual bad design. If there is a bad design, it would seem it would be weeded out rather than be selected for. Complexity to arise would mean multiple tries that leave unuseful parts that would be fatal for an organism. Your argument against design really is more potent against evolution.

Not a single example in the world can be found of a product line that is designed in this way. Why would you expect it?

We see exquisite optimum functionality and efficiency in the molecular make up of living things. We don't see non-efficient systems of bad design but the exact opposite. We see molecular motors that run as fast as 100,000 rpm. What we observe in these complex systems is not inefficiency and bad design but optimal design in which have no equal in the human designed systems we can devise.

I can only repeat myself: nested hierachies are not a "label" nore are they arbitrary.
Rather, they are objective verifiable fact.

Organization in this nested hierarchy is based on interpretation, which many times must be revised. It is being difficult with new technologies to provide congruence in nested groups and the tree of life is being considered at this time unrecognizable to what it was once thought. The fact that organisms can be placed in one group and later put into another or those who don't have a specific group it falls into is an objective verifiable fact too.

Semantics? Really?
Again: nested hierarchies, the tree like pattern of living things, is objective fact

An objective verifiable fact that changes and is revised to accommodate problems in where to place organisms is as well.

Yes, so... semantics.
Right, we could call the family tree of life "a chair" and it would still have all the properties of a family tree... right.....

What we are finding are problems with the family trees. They are not falling into predicted groups that they should be when Scientists are using new technologies.

For gooness sake...

Like I said before you are dismissing or ignoring the problems arising in the nested hierarchy organizational system.

That's not a premise. It's rather concluded from various independent studies of genetics, anatomy etc.
Show me an example of inexplicable violation of the nested hierarchies of life on this planet.
FYI: if you have such an example, you can singlehandedly turn biology upside down. Good luck.

You really do seem to be unaware of the problems facing scientists today with new methodologies that are finding more and more widespread discordance in phylogeny. Are you keeping up with new findings?

I'm not talking about histories.
I'm talking about nested hierarchies of extant life.

Histories is the nested hierarchy. What are you talking about?

The mechanisms like HGT are known and not a problem.
HGT is not going to transfer the hair of mammals to reptiles.

Again, you seem to be unaware of problematic discordance, that with convergent evolution, Horizontal transfer and other factors creating havoc on the nested hierarchy.

Find me reptile with hair.
A mammal with feathers.
Any creature other then primates with which humans share more ERV's then with primates.

Go for it.

We don't need reptiles with hair or mammals with feathers or some other organism to share ERV's to provide evidence that these problems of discordance are real and changing the look of the tree of life.

Translation: "I can't do it and just made that claim to pretend as if I have a point".

You made a wild claimed, that human made products fall into a nested hierarchy. I assumed you could support that statement.

I guess you can't.Which doesn't matter at all. If extant cars show a nested hierarchy, then it should be quite easy to show it.

I presented a depiction of such example provided not by a creationist or ID proponent but a very distinguished Professor in Biology to show that he at least felt it was a good representation for the NH. IF you disagree, take it up with him.

But Loudmouth has already refuted your nonsense about that.
All it takes is pointing at 2 cars from different lines holding the same mp3-player, while another car which is the same model as one of the previous 2 has a completely different entertainment system.

Take it up with the professor.

I can't be bothered with the rest of your post. I'm short on time and I don't expect it to hold anything that you haven't said before and which wasn't allready addressed multiple times.

I'll read it later on if I get more time, but yea....

Same old, same old...

Due to the fact that you don't have any evidence now any more than before.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Yes, some have felt that since they reject any possibility of God that Aliens could be the designer. However, that doesn't really change the issue, the issue is the design.

No. The issue is the obvious bias you engage in based on your a priori faith-based beliefs.

To identify the Designer other factors must be determined and only become important to those show a desire to know who is behind the design. Regardless, of who the designer is, your claim was that a "designer" whoever that might be would not design in such a way as producing nested hierarchies.

That's not really a claim. That's an observation.
Nobody designs like that. It has no use and only wastes energy and resources.

This is why we don't expect to see nested hierarchies in designed things.
On the other hand, nested hierarchies are not only what we expect to see in evolved things... they are the inevitable result of a mechanism like biological evolution.

So....
On the one hand we have your bare assertion of design, with as only reason that "it looks that way to you", without any evidence whatsoever that such designers exist and with no good explanation why this designer would produce nested hierarchies....

On the other hand, we have an observable natural process which inevitably leads to such hierarchies.

This shouldn't be a hard choice to make as to which is most likely...

Just making the assertion that it is not something ID would do is not really a valid argument.

I don't do that. That's what you do but then by stating the obvious.
You just assert that there is design, period.
And when asked for evidence, the best you have is "well, it looks that way to me...."

The problem you are referring to here is a serious problem for evolution alone. If something is too costly the organism will not fare well and lack of efficiency is wasteful and more than likely would have no improvement to function and thus be selected for.

No, that's where you are completely wrong. And this is exactly what the problem is with your argument.

This is not a problem for evolution at all. In fact, it is (again) expected in that context.
Organisms that are the product of evolution don't need to be perfect in terms of efficiency etc. Rather, they need to be just "efficient enough" to get to breeding age and reproduce. The hard way is good enough for evolution.

Evolution can't go back to the drawing board. It is stuck with what exists and needs to go forward from that basis.

Our eyes originally evolved backwards, giving us a blind spot. Evolution can't go back and fix that. So today, we all have a blind spot. Our brains "fill in the blanks" and waste energy by doing so. But in return of that waste of energy, we don't notice the blind spot. I call it a waste, because in a neatly designed camera, the wires are not in front of the lens. So to have the "software" fix that blind spot is a 'waste'.

A designer however..... CAN go back to the drawing board. A designer CAN take an innefficient design and make it efficient.
A designer CAN change the design of the camera and remove the wires from the front of the lens.

Bad design is subjective

No, it really really is not.

For example, this is very bad design:

If there is a bad design, it would seem it would be weeded out rather than be selected for.

No.
A bad eye is better then no eye.

Complexity to arise would mean multiple tries that leave unuseful parts that would be fatal for an organism. Your argument against design really is more potent against evolution.

Only to people who are apparantly incredibly ignorant on how evolution works.

Organization in this nested hierarchy is based on interpretation

No, it's not.

It's based on objective patterns in organisms.
It's based on mapping out genetic or anatomic matches.
It's fact. There's no "interpretation" here.

It's just the way it is.

It's "gene Y is present in A and B, but not in C"
and "gene X is present in C, but not in A and B".
and "gene Z is present in A, B and C".

It's effectively just counting matches.

The fact that organisms can be placed in one group and later put into another or those who don't have a specific group it falls into is an objective verifiable fact too.

[

Which organism can't be put in a specific group?

We haven't sequenced the genomes of all species. Obviously I expect new data to change our look on things. Don't you?

 

[The Cadet]

I've been banned for a week and apparently this thread took off in the meanwhile. Would anyone care to point me to any particularly relevant counterarguments I missed over the last 21 pages, either with a post number or a quote?

 

[DogmaHunter]

I've been banned for a week and apparently this thread took off in the meanwhile. Would anyone care to point me to any particularly relevant counterarguments I missed over the last 21 pages, either with a post number or a quote?

I would if there was one.
It's the same old as ever:
"it is designed!"
"why?"
"because I think it looks designed!"
"why?"
"because <insert logical fallacy; ignorance / incredulity / false dichotomy>"

 

[DogmaHunter]

Addressing the rest of this post...

What we are finding are problems with the family trees. They are not falling into predicted groups that they should be when Scientists are using new technologies.

More accurate information will lead to correcting previous mistakes. Why is this a problem?

It would be a problem if this new information exposed an inexplicable violation of the nested nature of living things. But it does not.
If you think there are such examples, please share them.

Like I said before you are dismissing or ignoring the problems arising in the nested hierarchy organizational system.

No, I'm not.
I'm very aware of these "problems".

The only thing being dismissed or ignored here is the fact that biology can account for these.

We know about horizontal gene transfer, so we can account for certain specific "violations".

We also know that HGT is not going to result in reptiles having mammal genes to produce hair.

Histories is the nested hierarchy. What are you talking about?

Not really.

Nested hierarchies merely expose a pattern. In terms of history, it's only about that insofar as it being able to expose to us which species share a more recent common ancestor and which a more distant.

It also allows us to speculate about what kind of creature this ancestor most likely was. In that sense, okay, it's about history.

Again, you seem to be unaware of problematic discordance, that with convergent evolution, Horizontal transfer and other factors creating havoc on the nested hierarchy.

They are not "creating havoc" on the nested hierarchy.
Creating "havoc" would be introducing violations on the scale of mammals with feathers or reptiles with hair.

HGT doesn't just happen between any 2 random species. You know that right?
Mammals don't transfer genes to grow hair, to reptiles for example.

We don't need reptiles with hair or mammals with feathers or some other organism to share ERV's to provide evidence that these problems of discordance are real and changing the look of the tree of life.

But you do need them to expose the kind of nested hierarchy violations that would actually be a problem.

The other things you speak of, like HGT, are not actual problems.
We know about them and we know how they happen. We also know how they do NOT happen.

These things are accounted for withing the framework of evolutionary biology.

You can continue to believe that they aren't accounted for, but then you're simply going to miss the fact that they are. I don't know what else to tell you.

Nothing about evolutionary theory states that HGT can't happen. It is part of the theory.

KNOWN MECHANISMS that have a clear scope do not violate anything and aren't a problem at all.

I presented a depiction of such example provided not by a creationist or ID proponent but a very distinguished Professor in Biology to show that he at least felt it was a good representation for the NH. IF you disagree, take it up with him.
Take it up with the professor.

I have no idea what you are talking about.
You said that human productlines fall into a nested hierarchy.
You were challenged to support your claim.

I have no idea what you are referring to with this "biology professor".

Due to the fact that you don't have any evidence now any more than before.

I don't need to. I had sufficient evidence before.
And you still didn't get any further then "i think it looks designed" to support your bare assertion that "it is designed".

 

[bhsmte]

I've been banned for a week and apparently this thread took off in the meanwhile. Would anyone care to point me to any particularly relevant counterarguments I missed over the last 21 pages, either with a post number or a quote?

None.

Sort of like watching the same episode of Gilligan's Island for the 35th time.