Life Exhibits Intelligent Design at Many Levels

[xianghua]

12 June 2018 xianghua: Irreducible complexity is pseudoscience because it is the basis of ID and ID fits the definition of pseudoscience.

I emphasized the part makes irreducible complexity invalid pseudoscience.

You need to stop listening to ID lies. It is a lie that the few examples given by Beth and others are definitely irreducibly complex: Stated examples
12 June 2018 xianghua: It is a lie that the eye did not evolve: Evolution of the eye.
12 June 2018 xianghua: It is a lie that the flagellum did not evolve: Evolution of the bacterial flagellum.

In case you come across other ID lies about irreducible complexity:
12 June 2018 xianghua: It is a lie that the blood clotting cascade did not evolve.
12 June 2018 xianghua: It is a lie that the mousetrap example is definitely irreducibly complex.

12 June 2018 xianghua: It is a probable lie that cilium motion is definitely irreducibly complex.
Bethe or other IDers have to first show that the "microtubules, connectors, and motors" do not have functional parts and that they could not have had other functions (the basic bit of biology that they were ignorant of).

see my comment about the flagellum. also: as a general note that i say to anyone new: english isnt my native so i dont understand some words here and there in general.

 

[RealityCheck01]

see my comment about the flagellum.

The flagellum is one of several reasons why ID is pseudoscience - the evolution of the flagellum debunks a fundamental part of ID.
12 June 2018 xianghua: Irreducible complexity is pseudoscience because it is the basis of ID and ID fits the definition of pseudoscience.
and listed ID lies:
12 June 2018 xianghua: It is a lie that the eye did not evolve: Evolution of the eye.
12 June 2018 xianghua: It is a lie that the flagellum did not evolve: Evolution of the bacterial flagellum.
12 June 2018 xianghua: It is a lie that the blood clotting cascade did not evolve.
12 June 2018 xianghua: It is a lie that the mousetrap example is definitely irreducibly complex.
12 June 2018 xianghua: It is a probable lie that cilium motion is definitely irreducibly complex.

Your profile does not list a country but if you tell me the language you understand then I can maybe point you to the "evolution of the flagellum" and irreducible complexity" Wikipedia articles in your language that show ID is wrong when ID states the flagellum is irreducibly complex. ID people lie when they say that there is evidence such as the flagellum for irreducible complexity.

The level of details in the scientific the evolution of the flagellum does not matter. The fact that the flagellum is not irreducibly complex as stated by ID makes ID wrong.

 

[tas8831]

Whenever I explain functional coherence, for which a way of measuring it objectively has been demonstrated (https://www.amazon.com/Undeniable-Biology-Confirms-Intuition-Designed/dp/0062349597), nobody wants to go near it.

I will not put a penny in Axe's pocketbook, so how about you explain how to do this and provide an example?

Specified information can be expressed in terms of functional coherence because any expression of information with a purpose displays a level of FC.

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And this 'purpose' - how was it determined that these things were produced for a purpose, as seems to be implied? IOW, explain the question begging.

The principle of SI is expresssed in the fact that because of functional coherence the best explanation for a specific arrangement of letters in your alphabet soup, that display abstract information, is an intelligent cause, and that no other explanatory canditate is even remotely competent to produce the observed effect.

So... If we see English words spelled with my alphabet soup, we can be sure that a human that understands English arranged the noodles in that fashion?

Amazing - now how about instead of the usual analogies (which are not evidence), you present some real-life sub-cellular examples?

It is a funny thing - one of the signs of a crank is the use of idiosyncratic jargon. Dembski, Meyer, Axe, Abel, Remine - such folk are the kings of such jargon.

The principle can be applied to any system where a number of parts act together in a coherent manner to produce a higher level function.

So... more post hoc rationalization masquerading as brilliant insight..

Whenever I explain functional coherence, for which a way of measuring it objectively has been demonstrated, nobody wants to go near it.

Examples please - and NOT analogies.

 

[tas8831]

Instead of writing books targeted to a scientifically illiterate cheering squad filled with wordsmithing and bafflegab, why doesn't Axe and pals just do some darn RESEARCH to SUPPORT their claims? My gosh, the DI has a multi-million dollar budget.

 

[tas8831]

The words used carry the normal English dictionary meaning.

This is the beauty of Axes work: that the words in it are arranged in a manner as to convey the normal dictionary meaning of them, in English, to an English speaker. By doing so he makes his work accesible to the average reader who wishes to discover what he thinks on the topic that he is writing.

Being skeptical of a work you have no intention of ever engaging with (https://www.amazon.com/Undeniable-B...TF8&qid=1528401995&sr=8-1&keywords=undeniable) is disingenuous. Better than the Ad Hominem fallacy I suppose but only just.

Chapters 9 and 10 of Axes book cover the method in depth.

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The hierarchical structure of an invention, showing the functional coherence that characterizes the relationships between parts. In this scheme the parts at intermediate levels (between the elementary constituents and the functional whole) are referred to as components. The number of intermediate levels and components depends both on the invention and, to a degree, on the way we choose to delineate its principal parts. The invariant fact is that the many parts must perform their small functions in a particular hierarchical way in order for the whole invention to perform its large function.

Axe, Douglas. Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed (Kindle Locations 1962-1966). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

So this thread is just an extended sales pitch to get people to buy some pseudoscience book?

Reported.

 

[tas8831]

As I have explained with thanks to Douglas Axe, functional coherence is evident at a high level in all biology and it is fantastically improbable that this arose by any means identified as "evolution".

Assertions are not explanations. And all this Axe worship is getting tiresome.

I recall many years ago that creationist ReMine used multiple screen names to troll listservs and forums hawking his own greatness each time. His ego got the best of him in each case, and he ended up outing himself each time, then denyng that he ever claimed not to be himself. Nobody believed his lies, of course, and everyone involved just came off seeing ReMine as a pathetic egomaniac trying to sell his stupid book.

 

[RealityCheck01]

Assertions are not explanations. And all this Axe worship is getting tiresome.

The "Axe worship" is very blind because it is easy to find credible people reviewing that book.
For example: A Review of Undeniable, by Douglas Axe.

Axe’s book is an egregious example of this. There is nothing remotely new in it. But more than that, it is a real step backward in tone and style for ID. It is the sort of short, large print, truculent book that has more in common with Henry Morris and Duane Gish than with William Dembski or Michael Behe.

For one thing, the book is openly evangelistic. The creator is the Christian God. Period.

Axe abandoned ID for creationism or theistic evolution! Even creationist reviews reveal a few ignorant nuggets that may be from the book. I have seen:
"Counter-arguments to design are addressed, including the multiverse." Cosmology is not biology!
"There is a specific “target area” which must be achieved to get life" Abiogenesis is not evolution.
“Harm comes to science not by people hoping to find a particular result but by people trying to suppress results that go against their hopes” (45). Axe paranoia that ID has been suppressed?
His "oracle soup" ("alphabet soup that is boiled in a pot covered with a lid. When the lid is removed, a message appears at in the soup. That message gives complete instructions for building something new and useful") is idiotically applied to abiogenesis. Abiogenesis is chemistry and physics + initial conditions. This is not a ransom process creating instructions.

His "oracle soup" is a lie about evolution because it does not include Darwin's selection let alone modern evolutionary mechanisms.

 

[tas8831]

The "Axe worship" is very blind because it is easy to find credible people reviewing that book.
For example: A Review of Undeniable, by Douglas Axe.

Axe abandoned ID for creationism or theistic evolution! Even creationist reviews reveal a few ignorant nuggets that may be from the book. I have seen:
"Counter-arguments to design are addressed, including the multiverse." Cosmology is not biology!
"There is a specific “target area” which must be achieved to get life" Abiogenesis is not evolution.
“Harm comes to science not by people hoping to find a particular result but by people trying to suppress results that go against their hopes” (45). Axe paranoia that ID has been suppressed?
His "oracle soup" ("alphabet soup that is boiled in a pot covered with a lid. When the lid is removed, a message appears at in the soup. That message gives complete instructions for building something new and useful") is idiotically applied to abiogenesis. Abiogenesis is chemistry and physics + initial conditions. This is not a ransom process creating instructions.

His "oracle soup" is a lie about evolution because it does not include Darwin's selection let alone modern evolutionary mechanisms.

Of note is the fact that despite being given a lab and lots of research money from the DI, Axe could only muster 2 or 3 inconsequential papers, then dove straight into 'those mean evolutionists'... And their amazing research journal "Biocomplexity" petered out after they had run out of already-published essays to re-print.

Sad.

 

[RealityCheck01]

Of note is the fact that despite being given a lab and lots of research money from the DI, Axe could only muster 2 or 3 inconsequential papers, then dove straight into 'those mean evolutionists'... And their amazing research journal "Biocomplexity" petered out after they had run out of already-published essays to re-print.

BIO-Complexity (RationalWiki link) still limps along unfortunately. Or maybe fortunately because a 2016 "paper" shows that ID is really religion with "We argue that a unique origin model where humanity arose from one single couple with created diversity seems to explain data at least as well, if not better". Starts with a lie that it is population genetics that shows common decent when it is much more. 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent

 

[tas8831]

More plagiarism devoid of commentary. IOW - SPAM. Reported.

https://evolutionnews.org/2018/06/life-exponential-life-exhibits-intelligent-design-at-many-levels/

Localized RNAs in the cortex, glycan patterns on the membrane, and bioelectric fields generated by ion channels in the membrane all carry spatial information. Although individual molecules may be specified by DNA, their three-dimensional patterns are not. Taken together, these patterns constitute a “membrane code” that is independent of DNA sequences.

In 1983, biologist Robert Poyton suggested that biological membranes carry “spatial memory,” the units of which are spatially localized proteins. Poyton wrote: “Realizing that genetic memory is one-dimensional, along a DNA molecule, whereas spatial memory is likely to be two-dimensional, along membrane surfaces, and three-dimensional within the cellular interior, it is probable that spatial memory is more complicated and diverse than genetic memory.”8

In 2004, biologist Thomas Cavalier-Smith wrote that the idea that DNA contains all the information needed to make an organism “is simply false.” According to Cavalier-Smith, membranes provide “chemically specific two-dimensional surfaces with mutually conserved topological relationships in the three spatial dimensions” that play “a key role in the mechanisms that convert the linear information of DNA into the three-dimensional shapes of single cells and multicellular organisms. Animal development creates a complex three-dimensional multicellular organism not by starting from the linear information in DNA… but always starting from an already highly complex three-dimensional unicellular organism, the fertilized egg.”9

So the membrane code carries essential biological information that is independent of DNA sequence information. Yet we often hear that embryo development is directed by a program in DNA. Why?

James Watson and Francis Crick’s Nobel Prize-winning discovery of the molecular structure of DNA in 1953 seemed to provide a molecular basis not only for heredity but also for embryo development. Cells replicate their DNA before they divide and (usually) pass on a complete set of their DNA sequences to each of their descendants. Cells then use DNA sequences as templates for the transcription of RNAs, some of which are then translated into proteins.

In the mid 20th century, biology was dominated by neo-Darwinism, a system of thought that combined evolution and genetics and attributed new variations to genetic mutations. An underlying assumption of neo-Darwinism is that evolution and development are due entirely to unguided material processes. After 1953, this materialistic assumption led to the view that “DNA makes RNA makes protein makes us,” which has been called the Central Dogma of molecular biology.

In 1970, molecular biologist (and materialist) Jacques Monod said that with the Central Dogma, “and the understanding of the random physical basis of mutation that molecular biology has also provided, the mechanism of Darwinism is at last securely founded. And man has to understand that he is a mere accident.”

But the existence of the membrane code shows that the Central Dogma is false. And the materialistic idea that evolution is unguided cannot account for the complex specified information in DNA, much less for the extensive complex specified information in the membrane code. Just as the information in DNA points to design, so does the information beyond DNA.

 

[tas8831]

Well, what is being studied here are biological systems. That we recognise the logic and call it such in itself betrays the presence of information recognisable to the observer.

Clearly upon examining the biological system, information is evident (i.e. An abstract or logic is conveyed or represented by a particular arrangement or sequence of things). Clearly it is complex, clearly it is specified (The abstract has the purpose of instructing a task).

Furthermore what is being observed displays a very high level of functional coherence (the heirarchical arrangement of parts needed for anything to produce a high-level function - each part contributing in a coordinated way to the whole).

Please define "functional coherence" in your own words - no plagiarism or paraphrasing please.

 

[Anguspure]

Please define "functional coherence" in your own words - no plagiarism or paraphrasing please.

The definition is clear and easy. Functional coherence may be observed anywhere where a number of parts function together in a heirarchy to perform a higher function.

 

[tas8831]

The definition is clear and easy. Functional coherence may be observed anywhere where a number of parts function together in a heirarchy to perform a higher function.

So the commentary I have read about Axe is correct - he just took IC and gave it a new name.

By the way - please stop your spam-plagiarizing. I have documented several instances of this and reported it to the admin. It is dishonest and juvenile.

 

[RealityCheck01]

The definition is clear and easy.

Then you can cite the definition as used in science, e.g. from a biology textbook.
Otherwise all we have are ignorant fantasies from a Douglas Axe book, linked to what looks like the debunked ID creationism/pseudoscience concept of specified complexity (information?).