My favorite argument for the existence of God

xianghua said:

but not a robot or a wtach. those cant be the result of a naturall process.

Click to expand...

I don't follow your point - we know robots and watches are artificial (by the criteria I described), so we know they're designed.

and by complexity im not necessarily refer to the multiplicity of parts. even one part object (like a statue) cant evolve naturally.

Click to expand...

So define what you mean by complexity.

Clearly statues can't evolve naturally, in the sense of evolution by natural selection, because they're not living things - but they can occur naturally:


(some images may be photoshopped, but you get the idea)

xianghua said:

so your first step will be an eyespot. first, according to this source an eyespot contain about 200 different proteins:

Click to expand...

So you are opting to just go completely by the discussion I provided. Am I right?

so it's not simple as you may think.

Click to expand...

But at it's base the concept is. Remember we are talking about what the essence of the eyespot is. The core of what makes vision even a "thing" starts at a chemical reaction.

That's the fully reducible complexity.

secondly: one part that is a light sensitive cant used in the organism.

Click to expand...

YOu've already been shown how the eye itself is NOT irreducibly complex and so you are doing the standard Creationist thing and finding a "missing link" on either side of a missing link fossil.

If you claim a structure is "irreducibly complex" and then are shown examples of how it is REDUCIBLE and still has a function, it seems somewhat disingenuous for you to move the goal posts further.

Why not just complain that the concept of photoreactive chemistry is somehow "Irreducibly complex"?

are you sure? actually, one of the first eyes in the fossil record is more complex then several moderns eyes:

Click to expand...

Three-Foot "Shrimp" Had More Than 30,000 Lenses Per Eye?
[/quote]

So you're waiting up until the Ordovician? What about the first eyespots. Well, of course those are going to be harder to find in the fossil record as will even simpler photo-chemical-receptive patches on cell surfaces.

eyes phylogeny doesnt fit well with evolutionery hierarchy. and because this reason scientists believe that eye-like structure evolved at least 50 times convergently.

Click to expand...

And therein lies another problem with your "Intelligent Designer". WHY would there even NEED to be EVOLUTION let alone CONVERGENT evolution on a designed eye? Why would the Designer require 50 "tries" to get to where we are today?

No one is trying to tell you the eye isn't complex. What we are trying to tell you is that when you propose an "Intelligent Designer" you are making the following errors:

1) You are proposing an intelligence before life on earth. Is it supernatural? If so then it makes mistakes. Is it "Natural" (a higher life form?) Well, where did IT come from? And why is there no other EVIDENCE for this higher life form?

2) If you wish to propose DESIGN then you must justify the addition of the extra factor to explain the variability. Otherwise we have a pretty good system to account for WHY there are 50 convergent variants, and WHY sub-structures in your so-called "irreducibly complex" systems can have alternate uses or can be otherwise reduced.

By proposing "Intelligent Design" you are adding complexity to a system that does not require it and in fact opens you up to more criticism.

xianghua said:

so your first step will be an eyespot. first, according to this source an eyespot contain about 200 different proteins:

Eyespot apparatus - Wikipedia

"Besides photoreceptor proteins, eyespots contain a large number of structural, metabolic and signaling proteins. The eyespot proteome of Chlamydomonas cells consists of roughly 200 different proteins.[6]"

so it's not simple as you may think.

secondly: one part that is a light sensitive cant used in the organism. we will need also a signal system and a system that can used the signal to to convert it and process it for the organism. again: you cant do that by just one part. you will need several parts at least. actually even the photoreceptor itself is about 300 amino acid long and have several domains.

Click to expand...

The earliest eyespots would just be very simple pigmented patches that stimulated or inhibited nearby cilia when illuminated. The eyespot proteome of Chlamydomonas cells has been evolving for over 2 billion years.

are you sure? actually, one of the first eyes in the fossil record is more complex then several moderns eyes:

Three-Foot "Shrimp" Had More Than 30,000 Lenses Per Eye?

eyes phylogeny doesnt fit well with evolutionery hierarchy. and because this reason scientists believe that eye-like structure evolved at least 50 times convergently.

Click to expand...

Complexity isn't simply a matter of having many elements. It's relatively easy for identical multiples of structures to evolve - as you can see from the variety of segments in centipedes and millipedes. A few genes establish the protein gradients that trigger each duplicate segment or eye to develop. Making full use of segmented eyes (e.g. to detect movement) takes further evolutionary development, but simply having more resolution (many 'pixels') gives a selective advantage.

xianghua said:

are you sure? opsin for itself cant used as a light detector that can help to the organism. it will need more proteins. so a part that is sensitive to a light will not help.

Click to expand...

The point is that it's an example of a "stepwise" evolution from one thing to another. In this particular case from a non-light sensitive protein to a light sensitive one. It's a demonstration of how evolution can and does take existing components and can repurpose them.

xianghua said:

realy? do you think that this object is the result of design or not?:

robotic hand‏ - חיפוש ב-Google:

im sure that it was easy for you to detect design here. am i right?

Click to expand...

Right. The clues were easy to spot--mostly the obviously fabricated plastic and metal components is what gave it away.

How did you tell they are designed?.

xianghua said:

so we both agree that nature had a beginning. therefore you cant claim that life is eternal.

Click to expand...

Woah, where did I say that nature had a beginning?

In fact, I specifically claimed that the universe did NOT have a beginning, it merely changed from what it was before to what it is now. Perhaps you need to go and read post 132 again, where I clearly said, "nature never BEGAN, it simply changed to what it is now."

Is this some new debate tactic? To claim, "We both agree that X," where X is something that supports your view but the other person never even said?

xianghua said:

from your article:

"What’s more, of these 23 proteins, it turns out that just two are unique to flagella. The others all closely resemble proteins that carry out other functions in the cell. This means that the vast majority of the components needed to make a flagellum might already have been present in bacteria before this structure appeared."-

wrong. as far as i aware a lot of those proteins are from different bacteria species.

Click to expand...

Your awareness is based on what?

xianghua said:

so an artificial penguin is a robot by definition?

Click to expand...

If it's capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically.

anything that cant evolve naturally.

Click to expand...

By that definition of complexity, living things aren't complex and everything else is.

There's little point continuing a discussion with someone so confused.

Clearly statues can't evolve naturally, in the sense of evolution by natural selection, because they're not living things - but they can occur naturally:

Click to expand...

not a statue like this one:

Statue of Liberty - Wikipedia

Click to expand...

Obviously.

I'm not going to waste any more time on this stupidity.

xianghua said:

Clearly statues can't evolve naturally, in the sense of evolution by natural selection, because they're not living things - but they can occur naturally:

not a statue like this one:

Statue of Liberty - Wikipedia

Click to expand...

Why not? How do you know it is designed?

xianghua said:

its not just a chemical reaction but also a signal process and a signal mechanism. so even the first step is irreducibly complex.

Click to expand...

And again, I note that indeed it has already been reduced.

It has been shown how the very complex eye such as we have (essentially a camera oscura with a lens) had various precursor versions that were a camera oscura without a lens, the prior to that a mere divot in the surface of the life form with a photo receptive patch, etc.

That's the point. It is like the Creationist argument of "Show me a transitional fossil!" and when you show them a transitional fossil they suddenly want to see the transitional fossils on either side of it.

The fact that the eye is already reducibly complex means the argument is likely to fail all the way down.

AND why didn't the fully formed current version of the mammalian eye show up at the very beginning of life? Why does it look like it evolved?

ANd remember, just finding an insect like multi-lens eye is not the same thing.

The point is the design you seem to find is either design iterations over billions of years or not design.

they arent "50 tries" but 50 types of eyes that he designed. its fit well with the design model but not at all under the evolutionery one.

Click to expand...

But they don't all show up at the same time in life. They show up in a developmental order (even convergent evolution speaks against design... it indicates that features arise due to various factors that are imposed on them. In "design" there's no real reason for "convergent" features).

1) i dont know. by definition everything in nature is natural. so he may be a natural by definition.

Click to expand...

And that means you have to propose where THAT life form came from... and if it was "designed" where did THAT designer come from. I hope you see the issue you have to deal with here.

2) i dont know where he come from. he could be eternal too. and if he eternal then he dont need a designer.

Click to expand...

Then it must be a "god". At which point you have to wonder why it designed in the manner that it did (development over billions of years with features showing up in an order of increasing complexity but not really all at one time)

3) there are many evidence for the designer. as you can find in this thread.

Click to expand...

Not really. Again, design is difficult to quantify and what has been shown (usually be the debunking of irreducible complexity claims) is that design is not a necessary explanatory factor.

actually the opposite is true. as i explained: the best conclusion for the existance of a robot is the design option.

Click to expand...

We aren't debating whether a feature we all KNOW is designed was designed. That's tautological and carries no valuable information.

Also: remember that humans design based in many cases on how we perceive the natural world to be structured. We design cameras like an eye. That does not mean an eye was designed like a camera. Early attempts to design flying machines invariably attempted to mimic what birds did.

It is pointless to use human design to infer design in nature.

xianghua said:

so you are saying that nature always exist?

Click to expand...

As long as time has existed, the universe (nature) has existed. Therefore the universe (nature) has always existed by definition.

xianghua said:

so the statue of liberty can evolve naturally?

Click to expand...

I sense you are making a logic error here. Just because one thing is "designed" and it is also complex does not mean that all things that are complex are, by necessity designed.

As noted before: if designed then why would they show indications of earlier, simpler forms?