Prove it or remove it challenge

[Paterfamilia]

"cricket cricket cricket"

I guess DogmaHunter wasn't so happy after all.

 

[HitchSlap]

Your statement that ID is about ignorance of the cause of complexity is incorrect sir.

There is no other purpose for ID/IC/creationism, other than to claim; 'ooh, look at all the complicated stuff we don't understand yet - goddidit.' ID/IC really serves no practical purpose in the scientific method, and thus, has no utility, which is why scientific research and our understanding of the natural world continues to grow, all the while blithely unaware of what the "Discovery Institute" claims.

 

[Paterfamilia]

There is no other purpose for ID/IC/creationism, other than to claim; 'ooh, look at all the complicated stuff we don't understand yet - goddidit.' ID/IC really serves no practical purpose in the scientific method, and thus, has no utility, which is why scientific research and our understanding of the natural world continues to grow, all the while blithely unaware of what the "Discovery Institute" claims.

Ouch cad Brutus! Ouch again! Thy stroke, foul stroke...it's getting dark...I can't feel me feet...mommy!

 

[DaisyDay]

I gotta go to bed. Long drive early tomorrow.

Look in the mirror guys. Decide if you're going to be men.

I, for one, am never going to be a man.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Okay. Respect if you do.

There is nothing special about complexity. Lots of things are complex. You can take a hundred dice and dump them one by one out of a bag, and you have 10 very complex strings of numbers. Chances are you could never pull that exact combination again.

But let's say you dump them out, one by one, and it just so happens that each ten number string is the phone number to one of your 10 children. In descending order, oldest to youngest. Wouldn't that be remarkable?

Would you say that there is a difference in the two groups of numbers? One is complex, but random. The other is complex and specified.

Now let's say that you did not pull the numbers out of the bag, but you simply came home from work, and the two groups were on your dining table.

One group is ten sets of ten random numbers.

The other is ten phone numbers. Your 10 kids phone numbers, in descending order.

Which group of numbers communicates information?

Which group of numbers would suggest that an intelligent agent had some input to the arrangement of the numbers?

Would you agree, that according to your uniform and repeated experience, if you saw ten phone numbers of your ten children in descending order that you would come to the conclusion that an intelligent agent had some causal input as to the sequence of the arrangement of the ten strings of numbers?

You are engaging in a fallacious analogy here.
You are trying to pretend that these strings of numbers are analogous to sequences of DNA, right?

1. we don't have "phone numbers" to compare DNA too.
2. A DNA string is not the result of a "random" roll of the dice, it rather is the result of millions of years of incremental small changes.

If we would throw the dice in an actual analogy to DNA, and the phone numbers would represent the "selection pressure", then getting those phone numbers wouldn't require any intelligence whatsoever.

So I'll repectfully ask you to retry explaining it, and this time without squeezing in a fallacious analogy.

Your statement that ID is about ignorance of the cause of complexity is incorrect sir.

No, my objection to ID stands as you did not actually address it.
Silly analogies, that aren't actually analogous, with phone numbers and bags of dice is not going to convince me otherwise.



Having said that, what you "explained" still amounts to nothing else than "ow, look here, this is 'remarkable' and 'it looks like it was on purpose' and 'I don't understand how it could happen' so..... an 'intelligence' did it"

So, argument from ignorance, yes.

You are flat out saying here that we should ASSUME "an intelligence" did it when we don't know how it could happen otherwise.



Argument from ignorance, all the way down.

 

[lasthero]

"cricket cricket cricket"

I guess DogmaHunter wasn't so happy after all.

Or maybe he had something else to do in the hour between this post and your last one.

 

[Paterfamilia]

You are engaging in a fallacious analogy here.
You are trying to pretend that these strings of numbers are analogous to sequences of DNA, right?

1. we don't have "phone numbers" to compare DNA too.
2. A DNA string is not the result of a "random" roll of the dice, it rather is the result of millions of years of incremental small changes.

If we would throw the dice in an actual analogy to DNA, and the phone numbers would represent the "selection pressure", then getting those phone numbers wouldn't require any intelligence whatsoever.

So I'll repectfully ask you to retry explaining it, and this time without squeezing in a fallacious analogy.



No, my objection to ID stands as you did not actually address it.
Silly analogies, that aren't actually analogous, with phone numbers and bags of dice is not going to convince me otherwise.



Having said that, what you "explained" still amounts to nothing else than "ow, look here, this is 'remarkable' and 'it looks like it was on purpose' and 'I don't understand how it could happen' so..... an 'intelligence' did it"

So, argument from ignorance, yes.

You are flat out saying here that we should ASSUME "an intelligence" did it when we don't know how it could happen otherwise.



Argument from ignorance, all the way down.

Your argument has some merit, which I will be happy to address, but we have other business to attend to first.

You're original statement that ID is simply about ignorance about complexity was a false statement. My analogy simply illustrates the difference between complexity and specified complexity that communicates information.

You said you would admit your statement was wrong if I could show that it was wrong. I have done that. If you don't have any integrity with regard to your word, or the truth, then I'm not interested in addressing your new argument.

Your new argument is a good one and well stated (sort of) so I look forward to discussing it.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Your argument has some merit, which I will be happy to address, but we have other business to attend to first.

You're original statement that ID is simply about ignorance about complexity was a false statement. My analogy simply illustrates the difference between complexity and specified complexity that communicates information.

So what? You still have not properly defined what "specified complexity" is. If you claim that it needs an intelligence then DNA is not a case of "specified complexity" until you show that an intelligence is needed. What you are trying to do is simply a circular argument. You claim that SC needs intelligence and then you claim that DNA is SC or you do it the other way around. DNA is SC in the same sense that a snowflake is.

You said you would admit your statement was wrong if I could show that it was wrong. I have done that. If you don't have any integrity with regard to your word, or the truth, then I'm not interested in addressing your new argument.

No, you failed utterly. You are trying to build an idea based upon poorly defined terms. You need to have a better definition of terms. Biologists faced the same problem when they tried to define "species". They found that there was no hard rule so they came up with a reasonable definition of "species". Of course because life evolved the definition does get a bit fuzzy at times. The current definition of species is a species is a group of animals that can breed with each other and have fertile offspring.

Now that changed some "species". For example that means dogs and wolves are the same species by that definition and the biological name of dogs has been changed to represent that fact. Dogs are now Canis lupus familiarus. Where "lupus" is the species name and "familiarus" is the subspecies. What the theory of evolution tells us is that as speciation occurs we will see groups that first start to not breed with other groups naturally. Eastern coyotes and wolves are such a group. They can still breed, but until pushed by the actions of man they did not do so. Today there are a large number of wolf/coyote hybrids. As they continue to separate they will be able to breed but their offspring will have limited fertility. Just past the border of speciation are lions and tigers. They can interbreed but their offspring are of greatly reduced fertility and those offspring that occur are sterile to date. Then we have horse and donkeys which can interbreed but their offspring are almost always sterile, I do believe there have been two fertile mules recorded. After that the difference is so great that no interbreeding can occur. Again, because of evolution the exact borders can be fuzzy. No intelligence necessary to make those changes come about.

 

[Paterfamilia]

So what? You still have not properly defined what "specified complexity" is. If you claim that it needs an intelligence then DNA is not a case of "specified complexity" until you show that an intelligence is needed. What you are trying to do is simply a circular argument. You claim that SC needs intelligence and then you claim that DNA is SC or you do it the other way around. DNA is SC in the same sense that a snowflake is.



No, you failed utterly. You are trying to build an idea based upon poorly defined terms. You need to have a better definition of terms. Biologists faced the same problem when they tried to define "species". They found that there was no hard rule so they came up with a reasonable definition of "species". Of course because life evolved the definition does get a bit fuzzy at times. The current definition of species is a species is a group of animals that can breed with each other and have fertile offspring.

Now that changed some "species". For example that means dogs and wolves are the same species by that definition and the biological name of dogs has been changed to represent that fact. Dogs are now Canis lupus familiarus. Where "lupus" is the species name and "familiarus" is the subspecies. What the theory of evolution tells us is that as speciation occurs we will see groups that first start to not breed with other groups naturally. Eastern coyotes and wolves are such a group. They can still breed, but until pushed by the actions of man they did not do so. Today there are a large number of wolf/coyote hybrids. As they continue to separate they will be able to breed but their offspring will have limited fertility. Just past the border of speciation are lions and tigers. They can interbreed but their offspring are of greatly reduced fertility and those offspring that occur are sterile to date. Then we have horse and donkeys which can interbreed but their offspring are almost always sterile, I do believe there have been two fertile mules recorded. After that the difference is so great that no interbreeding can occur. Again, because of evolution the exact borders can be fuzzy. No intelligence necessary to make those changes come about.

Thanks for your interesting and informative answer SZ. And I totally agree about the fuzzy borders of species ontology. Certainly, on ToE, I think we should expect even a lot more fuzziness.

But getting back to the subject at hand, snowflake complexity is so different from DNA complexity, that it loses all usefulness for your side of the discussion. However, the comparison is very useful for our side.

1. Snowflakes don't contain any coded information. DNA does. In other words, snowflakes don't stand is any causal relationships. They don't determine any outcomes, they don't change anything. DNA determines most of the many features, systems, processes and body plans of organisms.

2. The instantiation of a specific snowflake can be 100% attributed to a confluence of fundamental forces. Snowflakes form by necessity as a result of the interaction of physical materials and conditions that comprise a specific context.

When it's cold enough, rain freezes into snow.

The specific order of the base pairs (which determines that the DNA has specified complexity and coded information) is not affected or determined by fundamental forces, such as electro magnetism, electro-static, chemical valence, gravity, etc. the bases bond laterally by the same chemical bond in each case with no affinity to a specific ordering. They bond horizontally "across the ladder" by way of a weak electro static hydrogen bond but again, without any specific affinity to order.

They can bond in any order with equal likelihood.

3. The degrees of complexity between the two are so different that it's not a valid or productive comparison.

DNA has enough information storage capacity to accommodate all of the written works in history in a single cell. It's six feet long, in every cell.

The amount of information gleaned about any snowflake wouldn't fill a steno page.

So hopefully I have shed some light on your comparison.

I appreciate your attempt to rescue your compadre, but his dilemma hasn't changed as a result of your post.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Thanks for your interesting and informative answer SZ. And I totally agree about the fuzzy borders of species ontology. Certainly, on ToE, I think we should expect even a lot more fuzziness.

But getting back to the subject at hand, snowflake complexity is so different from DNA complexity, that it loses all usefulness for your side of the discussion. However, the comparison is very useful for our side.

1. Snowflakes don't contain any coded information. DNA does. In other words, snowflakes don't stand is any causal relationships. They don't determine any outcomes, they don't change anything. DNA determines most of the many features, systems, processes and body plans of organisms.

What do you mean by "coded information". You are making the error of using loaded terminology and you are trying to sway the argument using that loaded terminology.

2. The instantiation of a specific snowflake can be 100% attributed to a confluence of fundamental forces. Snowflakes form by necessity as a result of the interaction of physical materials and conditions that comprise a specific context.

When it's cold enough, rain freezes into snow.

The specific order of the base pairs (which determines that the DNA has specified complexity and coded information) is not affected or determined by fundamental forces, such as electro magnetism, electro-static, chemical valence, gravity, etc. the bases bond laterally by the same chemical bond in each case with no affinity to a specific ordering. They bond horizontally "across the ladder" by way of a weak electro static hydrogen bond but again, without any specific affinity to order.

They can bond in any order with equal likelihood.

That is correct to an extent. But once DNA began to affect the cell that it was in then natural selection came into play and that is a "force of nature".

3. The degrees of complexity between the two are so different that it's not a valid or productive comparison.

DNA has enough information storage capacity to accommodate all of the written works in history in a single cell. It's six feet long, in every cell.

The amount of information gleaned about any snowflake wouldn't fill a steno page.

So hopefully I have shed some light on your comparison.

Yes, but compare the life of the two. The average snowflake does not reproduce, it only falls down. So what little "information" that it had at the beginning it had at the end. DNA copies itself and is passed on. The DNA in our bodies has ties that go back over 3.5 billion years. In all of that time it was under the influence of natural selection and variation. DNA can gain "information" over time. A snowflake cannot.

 

[Paterfamilia]

Good points and I am glad you mostly agree with me. Your last point about longevity describing a difference between the two was especially helpful, and I'm sorry I missed it.

In cryptographic communication, we use codes to communicate information according to this flow chart:

Generation->Encryption->Transmission->Detection->Reception->Translation->Cognition

The encryption stage above is the stage where the normal sequence of our words is scrambled, and then conversion into electromagnetic pulses (usually binary) for transmission, the next step in the process.

Morse code is a simple example. ... is the code character for S. --- is the code character for O. So if a ship is sinking, they transmit ...---... ...---..., or SOS SOS, in the hopes someone will hear it and come to their rescue.

A transmission of random dits and dashes would not communicate any information and they would sink without help or anyone knowing they were in trouble.

In DNA, the information for red hair is not written out. We can't look in a microscope and see the words "Red hair gene" written on it. The information is coded in a language that the other relevant parts can read, translate, and build the proteins required for red hair.

I hope that explains it.

You do bring us to a new crossroad in the discussion.

You say that DNA goes back 3.5 billion years. The cell fossils we can see from back then look almost unchanged to our cells today.

How did DNA get its start, given everything we know about it? No natural selection forces to explain abiogenesis.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Good points and I am glad you mostly agree with me. Your last point about longevity describing a difference between the two was especially helpful, and I'm sorry I missed it.

In cryptographic communication, we use codes to communicate information according to this flow chart:

Generation->Encryption->Transmission->Detection->Reception->Translation->Cognition

The encryption stage above is the stage where the normal sequence of our words is scrambled, and then conversion into electromagnetic pulses (usually binary) for transmission, the next step in the process.

Morse code is a simple example. ... is the code character for S. --- is the code character for O. So if a ship is sinking, they transmit ...---... ...---..., or SOS SOS, in the hopes someone will hear it and come to their rescue.

A transmission of random dits and dashes would not communicate any information and they would sink without help or anyone knowing they were in trouble.

In DNA, the information for red hair is not written out. We can't look in a microscope and see the words "Red hair gene" written on it. The information is coded in a language that the other relevant parts can read, translate, and build the proteins required for red hair.

I hope that explains it.

You do bring us to a new crossroad in the discussion.

You say that DNA goes back 3.5 billion years. The cell fossils we can see from back then look almost unchanged to our cells today.

How did DNA get its start, given everything we know about it? No natural selection forces to explain abiogenesis.

Evolution and abiogenesis are two completely unrelated topics.
Evolution does not require abiogenesis for it to be fact. Life could have been started by a deity, by an alien race. Heck, even by a giant flying creampuff. Evolution is not about how life started, it's about how life became.

 

[Butterfly99]

The likes of what you describe above, is one of the major reasons, young people are leaving the church.

For real that's v sad. It's frustrating too cause it's really about pride & bad theology. There's no need for it. That's not happening at our church but we don't have any problem w evolution. My mom's the minister. We have a pretty big youth ministry. I've made friends here & they've said they'd also never heard of Christians not accepting evolution b4 coming here. Lol I've found out that there are some ppl who don't believe in things I had no idea you couldn't believe in.

 

[Paterfamilia]

Evolution and abiogenesis are two completely unrelated topics.
Evolution does not require abiogenesis for it to be fact. Life could have been started by a deity, by an alien race. Heck, even by a giant flying creampuff. Evolution is not about how life started, it's about how life became.

Cream puffs primary causal relationship is with obesity. They seem to be pretty single-minded about it.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Cream puffs primary causal relationship is with obesity. They seem to be pretty single-minded about it.

And starting life on desolate planets so that in several billion years the inhabitants can make and eat cream puffs and get fat. It is all part of the circle of life.

 

[Paterfamilia]

And starting life on desolate planets so that in several billion years the inhabitants can make and eat cream puffs and get fat. It is all part of the circle of life.

Ha ha ha I get - Elton John has gotten fat!!! Too many crime puffs! Scar is gonna get you for that!

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Cream puffs primary causal relationship is with obesity. They seem to be pretty single-minded about it.

Regardless. My point still stands: abiogenesis could be proven to be completely wrong tomorrow and it still would have no baring on evolution.

 

[Paterfamilia]

Regardless. My point still stands: abiogenesis could be proven to be completely wrong tomorrow and it still would have no baring on evolution.

Abiogenesis is accepted virtually universally. Unless you're a Creampuffian. And who would want to claim that? Huge thighs and all...

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Abiogenesis is accepted virtually universally. Unless you're a Creampuffian. And who would want to claim that? Huge thighs and all...

It's accepted since it's the only scientific hypothesis that can be connected with the evidence.
And, I will repeat this again, abiogenesis has nothing to do with evolution.

 

[Paterfamilia]

It's accepted since it's the only scientific hypothesis that can be connected with the evidence.
And, I will repeat this again, abiogenesis has nothing to do with evolution.

Right you nailed that. Good job. re: abiogenesis. Somehow or other, we were produced from the dust of the ground.

The rest is a convenient cop out based on ignorance. If you don't care about it that's cool too.