[PERMANENTLY CLOSED] Tactics

[justlookinla]

Oh joy, we get to confront this idea again. A few questions:

1. Is the appearance of design objective?
2. If so, what metric can we use to determine whether something "appears" designed?
3. Does this objective appearance always imply design or can it come about through natural, unintelligent processes?

1. Yes
2. Examine it
3. The claim of appearance indicates design is not being made.

 

[The Cadet]

1. Yes

Prove it.

2. Examine it

That's not an actual metric. Nothing in examining an object inherently allows me to determine whether or not it appears designed to anyone else.

3. The claim of appearance indicates design is not being made.

Oh. Then what's the point? If something appearing designed does not indicate it being designed, then the concept is fairly meaningless.

 

[crjmurray]

2. Examine it

Spit my drink out laughing.

 

[The Cadet]

Spit my drink out laughing.

I'm not sure how that's relevant to the procedure, but okay, we'll file it under "Step 1b)".

 

[justlookinla]

Prove it.

That's not an actual metric. Nothing in examining an object inherently allows me to determine whether or not it appears designed to anyone else.

Oh. Then what's the point? If something appearing designed does not indicate it being designed, then the concept is fairly meaningless.

1) Examine it.

2) Is it complex (several interconnected parts)?

3) Is it functional?

4) Does it have purpose?

5) Objectively conclude it's designed or not designed.

 

[sfs]

there are quite a few on this board that went absolutely ballistic when i posted quotes from koonin.

You haven't answered my question. What evolutionary biologists object to including HGT and punctuation/stasis in evolutionary theory? As for Koonin, as I recall I said that he was proposing fairly minor, easily accommodated changes to that theory, or something like that. The key aspects of evolution will remain essentially unchanged even if Koonin, Gould and Eldredge were correct about everything they wrote. I've yet to see you explain why you keep quoting from and linking to these people. What's the point?

 

[whois]

You haven't answered my question. What evolutionary biologists object to including HGT and punctuation/stasis in evolutionary theory?

none that i'm aware of.

The key aspects of evolution will remain essentially unchanged even if Koonin, Gould and Eldredge were correct about everything they wrote.

yes. i'm sure it will.

I've yet to see you explain why you keep quoting from and linking to these people. What's the point?

because all is not well in fairyland sfs.

"Like Darwin's synthesis, the form of the Modern Synthesis was shaped in part by ignorance of important features of life that were at the time unknown to science.
We are great fans of the achievements of the Modern Synthesis, particularly its clarity, its mathematically explicit foundations, and its capacity to make sense of a broad range of biological phenomena.
There were prominent Western scientists who dissented from this reliance on the Modern Synthesis, like C.H. Waddington. The scientific establishment of the Soviet Union, under the direction Lysenko, also offered substantial dissent from The Modern Synthesis. But for most Western biologists, the Modern Synthesis provided a useful foundation for their research.
However, some of the assumptions at the foundation of The Modern Synthesis started to crumble in the 1970s with the discovery of super-abundant genetic variation that arguably often didn't evolve under the strict aegis of natural selection. Then cells were found to incorporate genes, mobile genetic elements, and organelles of diverse historical origins. Furthermore, it became apparent in the last decades of the 20th Century that DNA sequences often evolved in ways that reduced the fitness of the organisms that bore them. It is now abundantly clear that living things often attain a degree of genomic complexity far beyond simple models like the "gene library" genome of the Modern Synthesis.
We should be equally clear that, in arguing for the necessity of this intellectual transformation, we do not think that those who based their research on the Modern Synthesis were "bad scientists" and those who now abandon it are "good scientists." We are simply offering an overview of how a large number of us have changed our thinking, our biological Weltanschauung.

the article goes on to say:
At least three processes complicate such a view of a tree of life, horizontal transfer, symbiogenesis, and differential lineage sorting of genes. Each of these processes are at odds with fundamental assumptions of the Modern Synthesis

Even systematics has had to abandon many strictures that were part of the Modern Synthesis. If species are the durable unit of biology, and if natural selection quickly molds genes to current utility, then most genes should diverge at the time of speciation events, given views like Mayr's. Here again, analyses of newly abundant sequence data in the late 20th Century showed that rather than a highly congruent coalescence of genes at the times of speciation events, the coalescence times of alleles among species are highly variable. As such, species trees and gene trees often cannot be equated.
-the new biology beyond the modern synthesis.

 

[The Cadet]

1) Examine it.

2) Is it complex (several interconnected parts)?

3) Is it functional?

4) Does it have purpose?

5) Objectively conclude it's designed or not designed.

But that's not how I determine that that is designed. I can tell that that is designed because there is no source in nature that produces metalworking like this. I compare what we know is designed (human designs we see around us) with what we see in nature.

 

[justlookinla]

But that's not how I determine that that is designed. I can tell that that is designed because there is no source in nature that produces metalworking like this. I compare what we know is designed (human designs we see around us) with what we see in nature.

Would those objective criteria that I listed indicate design?

 

[The Cadet]

Would those objective criteria that I listed indicate design?

"Does it have a purpose" begs the question. Embedded within something having a purpose is the implication that it serves a purpose for someone. Either that, or we're conflating purpose in the religious sense with purpose in the sense of "performs some function", in which case the extra point is entirely unnecessary. And of course, genetic algorithms produce complex, functional objects with no design on a regular basis. As does evolution.

 

[justlookinla]

"Does it have a purpose" begs the question. Embedded within something having a purpose is the implication that it serves a purpose for someone. Either that, or we're conflating purpose in the religious sense with purpose in the sense of "performs some function", in which case the extra point is entirely unnecessary. And of course, genetic algorithms produce complex, functional objects with no design on a regular basis. As does evolution.

The object in question having purpose is objectively indicative of a designer.

 

[whois]

I can tell that that is designed because there is no source in nature that produces metalworking like this.

can't we say the same thing about the living cell?
there is nothing in nature that produces such a thing other than life itself.

 

[The Cadet]

The object in question having purpose is objectively indicative of a designer.

Again, we run the risk of conflating two very different statements: "X was built to serve purpose Y" and "X serves purpose Y". The former you're going to have a lot of trouble proving; if you could prove that something was built for a purpose, you wouldn't have to waste time trying to detect design. The latter doesn't help you at all; a waterfall serves the purpose of aerating a river, but nobody would claim that that means the waterfall was necessarily designed into the river.

Would you please define "purpose", and then construct a logical syllogism using that definition of "purpose" that leads from "X has a purpose" to "X is designed"?

can't we say the same thing about the living cell?
there is nothing in nature that produces such a thing other than life itself.

We can say the same thing about the living cell. What we can't say about the living cell is that we have countless examples of it being designed. We can see, constantly and consistently in our day-to-day life, that humans smelt metals and build things (including things with stable right angles) out of metal. It's a matter of contrasting and comparing what we know is designed* with what we have no examples of being designed*. Humans probably did not design the living cell. We have no examples of anything producing a living cell. But to jump from that to "therefore it was probably designed" is nonsensical. Even assuming it's a dichotomy, you cannot simply examine one arm, say, "It seems unlikely", and ignore how unlikely the other arm is.

*(by a certain sort of being. The hallmarks of design for humans are very different from the hallmarks of beaver design, which is part of the reason I think this is going at it completely backwards.)

 

[justlookinla]

Again, we run the risk of conflating two very different statements: "X was built to serve purpose Y" and "X serves purpose Y". The former you're going to have a lot of trouble proving; if you could prove that something was built for a purpose, you wouldn't have to waste time trying to detect design. The latter doesn't help you at all; a waterfall serves the purpose of aerating a river, but nobody would claim that that means the waterfall was necessarily designed into the river.

Would you please define "purpose", and then construct a logical syllogism using that definition of "purpose" that leads from "X has a purpose" to "X is designed"?

Well, now we see the common 'define this', 'define that' action instead of simply taking the object in question, applying the objective criteria that I provided and concluding, or not, that the object is designed. From the objective criteria, the item is determined to be designed.

We can find the same objective design indicators in the mechanisms seen in the human body. You'll probably attempt to change the focus to rocks, rivers, waterfalls and ducks in clouds, but in considering the human body we find design time and time again. Granted some claim, subjectively, that the mechanisms seen in the human body are simply illusions of design, but that's not an objective conclusion.

 

[The Cadet]

Well, now we see the common 'define this', 'define that' action instead of simply taking the object in question, applying the objective criteria that I provided and concluding, or not, that the object is designed.

I cannot apply your criteria because I don't know what you mean by "purpose". Depending on how you define it, it is trivial to find "purpose" in non-designed objects, or it is impossible to find purpose in nature. Oncedeceived conflated it in two wildly different ways, and I'd like to prevent that out of the gate by asking for a definition. Please define what you mean when you say "purpose" in that context.

 

[justlookinla]

I cannot apply your criteria because I don't know what you mean by "purpose". Depending on how you define it, it is trivial to find "purpose" in non-designed objects, or it is impossible to find purpose in nature. Oncedeceived conflated it in two wildly different ways, and I'd like to prevent that out of the gate by asking for a definition. Please define what you mean when you say "purpose" in that context.

No, I'm not going to entertain your attempt at taking the focus from the criteria I provided, objectively applied it to the object in question and concluding that it's designed. The object had a designer, it's complex, functional and has purpose.

Objectively.

 

[The Cadet]

No, I'm not going to entertain your attempt at taking the focus from the criteria I provided, objectively applied it to the object in question and concluding that it's designed. The object had a designer, it's complex, functional and has purpose.

Objectively.

What do you mean by "purpose"? I promise, once you define this term, I'll get right back to you on your criteria. But without that definition, there's just no way forward, as I don't understand what you're saying. Complex and functional alone do not indicate design, as we see complex, functional systems in nature all the time without any design whatsoever. So apparently it comes down to purpose, and in order to clarify whether this solves your problem, I need a definition.

 

[justlookinla]

What do you mean by "purpose"? I promise, once you define this term, I'll get right back to you on your criteria. But without that definition, there's just no way forward, as I don't understand what you're saying.

Sure you do.

I've provided objective criteria for determining design of the object in question.

 

[whois]

We have no examples of anything producing a living cell. But to jump from that to "therefore it was probably designed" is nonsensical.

it isn't nonsensical at all.
it's extremely easy to come to the "it's designed" conclusion.
what's unfathomable is how a god could cause such a thing.

i honestly believe that life will defy all attempts to coherently catalog it.
we can subjectively catalog it into plants, animals, reptiles, and mammals but genetic research will destroy all of that.
IOW, what makes sense in one scheme will not make sense in the other.

was life indeed designed?
it certainly seems like it, and the rough part is, what on earth could this "designer" be.
we could be easily delving into aspects of quantuum physics, the esoteric, and the unfathomable.
it would be grand indeed if the grand unification theory resided in the biological sciences.

in my opinion, to picture life as some kind of "built up robot" is ludicrous.
an alien influence is definitely at work here, and the major problem is finding it.
it's really a shame i lack the brain power to follow this idea through, because we most certainly are dealing with some kind of transdimensional entity.

ridiculous you say?
maybe.
then again, maybe not.

 

[The Cadet]

All right. To come back to your question:

Would those objective criteria that I listed indicate design?

Your criteria are:
- It is complex
- It has functionality
- It has purpose

You posit that if those three are present, it logically follows that it was designed and could not have come about by natural processes. Correct?

Well, of those three, two (complex, purpose) are ill-defined, and the one well-designed criteria (functionality) is present in objects that are the result of random mutations and natural selection as genetic algorithms clearly show. I could say the same about "It is complex", but given how that also is not defined in any meaningful way (is a boxcar2d car "complex"? How about antennae?), I think I'll wait until you make your terms clear.

In science, vague wording is completely unacceptable. If you want to propose a mechanism for explaining something, it is up to you to clearly define your terms to the point where other people can consistently apply them. It is also up to you to provide a null hypothesis (in this case, what we would expect if something weren't designed) and demonstrate that it does not apply here. But in this case, I have no idea how to apply your criteria to anything, because you have not defined "purpose" or "complex".