What's the current state of Intelligent Design?

[pitabread]

But what scientist know about evolution that i am missing in this subject, in the topic we were talking about about building from scratch, so for example the eye, they say it started by 'getting' an light sensitive cell, now how exactly this animals are 'getting' this things, did the animal got light sensitive cell in every part of the body, until someday it settled in the correct place?

Light sensitivity likely began with the evolution of opsins (photoreceptor molecules). You can read about their evolution here: Evolution of opsins and phototransduction

Even this first step in getting a light sensitive cell, is from scratch, you understand? this little step had no earlier step, so it has to be done from scratch....

The evolution of opsins wasn't from scratch. Their evolution appears to have originated from pre-existing proteins.

See: Metazoan opsin evolution reveals a simple route to animal vision

 

[NBB]

Light sensitivity likely began with the evolution of opsins (photoreceptor molecules). You can read about their evolution here: Evolution of opsins and phototransduction



The evolution of opsins wasn't from scratch. Their evolution appears to have originated from pre-existing proteins.

See: Metazoan opsin evolution reveals a simple route to animal vision

You know if a person is given all parts of a car, they wouldn't be able to assemble it right? because they don't are capable until they learn and study and practice a lot, now something a lot more genious and very well engineered and marvelous as our body and mind was built with evolution? without even the parts or intelligence? it had not that luxury you know....

 

[Tom 1]

Other than Stephen Meyer's Dissent From Darwinism and Behe's Darwin Devolves* being published in the past few years, I haven't heard much from the ID camp these days.

What exactly are they up to these days? Any ID breakthroughs to talk about? Any new or exciting things coming out of the ID camp?

Have they figured out how to detect design in biological organisms yet?

(* On a side note, I find it interesting that Darwin is referenced in the titles of their books. I've always found it odd that those in the creationism/ID camps continue to fixate on Darwin.)

I think there’s general agreement that there’s an adjective there, followed by a noun.

 

[Speedwell]

I think there’s general agreement that there’s an adjective there, followed by a noun.

I don't know, it could be a verb.

 

[Tom 1]

I don't know, it could be a verb.

Intelligent designing? I’ll meet you halfway with a gerund. Could become a hit show for bored homeworkers who fancy a bit of DIY.

 

[pitabread]

You know if a person is given all parts of a car, they wouldn't be able to assemble it right?

So? We're talking about living organisms, not cars.

because they don't are capable until they learn and study and practice a lot, now something a lot more genious and very well engineered and marvelous as our body and mind was built with evolution? without even the parts or intelligence? it had not that luxury you know....

Evolution is just a recursive process. And recursive processes can yield incredible and complex results. No intelligence needed.

 

[Shemjaza]

with just a little google search i find:

"This notion can be applied for a search problem. We consider a set of solutions for a problem and select the set of best ones out of them."

so yes there is set solution evolution needs to build from scratch.

Yes, as I said mutation causes slight changes in the makeup of the organism... if these result in a statistical advantage then they will be passed on more frequently.

With the very small scale like single celled organisms the changes are more on the scale of chemistry then the complicated organs we see in multi celled creatures like us.

If a change in development leads to the proteins on the outer layer being reactive to light that might trigger a cascade of changes in chemical reactions which might in turn help or hinder the cell.

There's only a small chemical change in the varieties of human skin colour... but over the long term and without technology it makes a big difference depending on how bright it is at your latitude.

 

[NBB]

Yes, as I said mutation causes slight changes in the makeup of the organism... if these result in a statistical advantage then they will be passed on more frequently.

With the very small scale like single celled organisms the changes are more on the scale of chemistry then the complicated organs we see in multi celled creatures like us.

If a change in development leads to the proteins on the outer layer being reactive to light that might trigger a cascade of changes in chemical reactions which might in turn help or hinder the cell.

There's only a small chemical change in the varieties of human skin colour... but over the long term and without technology it makes a big difference depending on how bright it is at your latitude.

Look evolution is known to exist, i don't deny that, but it can't build brains etc even with millions of years and billions of changes. Humans are not capable of building something remotely close to a thinking AI that can create and think, but they study, put a lot of work, have the accumulated knowledge of thousands of years of research, and they melt their intellect doing it, but change and death can do better? there is no simulation comparable, the simulations that exists give in solutions already defined.

 

[pitabread]

Look evolution is known to exist, i don't deny that, but it can't build brains etc even with millions of years and billions of changes.

The evidence suggests that it did just that, though. So here we are.

Humans are not capable of building something remotely close to a thinking AI that can create and think, but they study, put a lot of work, have the accumulated knowledge of thousands of years of research, and they melt their intellect doing it, but change and death can do better?

Is a human's ability to do something the benchmark for what is possible in nature?

 

[Speedwell]

Look evolution is known to exist, i don't deny that, but it can't build brains etc even with millions of years and billions of changes. Humans are not capable of building something remotely close to a thinking AI that can create and think, but they study, put a lot of work, have the accumulated knowledge of thousands of years of research, and they melt their intellect doing it, but change and death can do better? there is no simulation comparable, the simulations that exists give in solutions already defined.

And the interacting stochastic processes which make up the biosphere have more information-processing capacity than the scientists and have had more time to work. Complex interrelated components are not an issue.

 

[Occams Barber]

Look evolution is known to exist, i don't deny that, but it can't build brains etc even with millions of years and billions of changes.

I don't think you have a sense of the sheer size of the numbers involved.

Right now there are around 8,700,000 species on this earth. Taking into account plants and animals and insects and bacteria and slime molds and algae the number of living individuals, per species, is in the billions. Each of those billion individuals carries several mutations (you have around 60 mutations in your DNA).

Multiplying 8.7 million species by just a billion individuals per species gives you 8.7 million billion individuals. Allow for just 10 mutations per individual and you have a ball park figure of 87 million billion evolutionary experiments going on right now, today, as we speak.

That's today; but life has been around for 3.7 billion years. In that time there have been billions of generations of billions of species and billions of individuals of each species, each with its share of mutations .There aren't enough zeros in my computer to write the number of mutations there have been over the course of life on earth. Each mutation is an opportunity for a change to occur.

Over 3.7 billion years we've had an inordinate variety of events and environments - each set of circumstances favours (or not) any change produced by a small mutation. Many mutations are deleterious, many are neutral but many also confer an advantage, no matter how small, on the owner. Over 3.7 billion years small changes compound, gradually pushing populations through significant change producing species that bear little outward resemblance to their forebears.

Allowing for the gazillions of opportunities for tiny advantageous mutations to happen and then spread through a population it's not surprising that given enough time and species and generations and individuals and mutations, significant change (even the development of brains) is inevitable.

OB

 

[Gene2memE]

If the current state of the Intelligent Design blogosphere is any indication, then ID is in very dire straits indeed.

Uncommon Descent, which used to be the primary hub for the ID community, is a virtual wasteland. It's switched from being mildly thought provoking scientific arguments to a weird mix of Christian apologetics, news & current events from a fairly right-wing perspective, regurgitations of popular science articles and a few 'ID's greatest hits' type posts. The comment section has nearly totally evaporated.

The Skeptical Zone took over from UD, but it's slowly dying on the vine as well. The occasional thread there will pick up a lot of comments (500+), but very few of these are about ID. Instead, these seem to focus on social/cultural/political stuff and Christian apologetics. Also, the quality of the posting seems to have gone WAY down in the last three to four years - whereas it used to be only once in a while that posts dipped their toes into conspiracy theories, apologetics and woo unrelated to biology, these now seem to account for almost half of the content.

In the professional literature, and even the vanity press, ID articles and publications are vanishingly rare. Whereas 10 years ago, there was a spurt of articles, this has slowed to a crawl of maybe three to five per year. Pretty much all of these will be concentrated in BIO-Complexity, the Discovery Institute's in-house journal. Elsewhere, its crickets.

 

[Occams Barber]

It looks like the Discovery Institute ran a seminar from 10 to 18 July at Seattle Pacific University, 'open to college juniors, seniors or those in graduate school'.

This is from the promo blurb:

The CSC Seminar on Intelligent Design in the Natural Sciences will prepare students to make research contributions advancing the growing science of intelligent design (ID). The seminar will explore cutting-edge ID work in fields such as molecular biology, biochemistry, embryology, developmental biology, paleontology, computational biology, ID-theoretic mathematics, cosmology, physics, and the history and philosophy of science. The seminar will include presentations on the application of intelligent design to laboratory research as well as frank treatment of the academic realities that ID researchers confront in graduate school and beyond, and strategies for dealing with them.
"Cutting-edge ID work" sounds fascinating. Can we expect a flurry of papers?

Interestingly their advertised 'next event' was on Dec 10 2019. I wonder if anyone is minding the shop? The 'event' topic is unashamedly Christian:

GOD’S HAND ON AMERICA: DIVINE PROVIDENCE IN THE MODERN ERA - (a book launch)

OB
EDIT: On a separate event page they are showing:

Beauty, Coherence, Semiotics and Coronavirus (July 30)
UK Centre for Intelligent Design Webinars on the Coronavirus Pandemic
&
Why Marriage Matters (online Aug 4)
Family structure matters for the economic, educational and emotional well-being of American children

OB
​