ID/Creationism challenge

[Varanid]

So you agree with creationists that organs have a purpose? '

Something tells me we aren't going to agree on a definition of "purpose". My legs do serve a purpose. This does not mean they were designed.

 

[Varanid]

And more importantly, the number of these rings and other rates of age all add up and correlate to very large and very specific numbers you would have to be willfully ignorant to ignore.

Bingo. That is the kicker.
Multiple lines of evidence that are mutually consistent.

 

[randman]

My own personal theory is that quantum mechanics is an indication and evidence of an ID mechanism; an observation of interaction with that the Logos itself. Specifically talking about the Copenhagen interpretation (survey of physicists a few years ago said it was the most accepted) along the lines of Wheeler and Zeilinger's It by Bit direction. Of course, one could argue the Multiverse instead, which I am trying to get a better handle on but do not see it as solving the problem.

But I don't think we can properly address this idea here. Though breaking the rules, Zeilinger did quote the reference the gospel of John in stating the concept of information being fundamental to existence as a very old idea.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Physics is not positive evidence in your world?

All you've done is make a claim about physics.

Where is the metaphor? Do you see any metaphor in my comments?

Yes. Here is the metaphor: "According to their theory, it is inevitable that we find our universe's "fine-tuned" physical constants, as the current universe "selects" only those past histories that led to the present conditions. "

There is no actual intelligence, nor is there a "choice." In the above statement. You fail to understand that their theory merely describes that the present conditions can only happen if the factors in the history are as is. That if the history was any different, then the present condition would also be different. It's another way to describe cause and effect.

That you read this as a "choice" verges on stupidity.

 

[randman]

Something tells me we aren't going to agree on a definition of "purpose". My legs do serve a purpose. This does not mean they were designed.

If the universe adapted itself to make sure your legs would be there, that'd be an indication of the kind of purpose we are talking of.

 

[randman]

All you've done is make a claim about physics.



Yes. Here is the metaphor: "According to their theory, it is inevitable that we find our universe's "fine-tuned" physical constants, as the current universe "selects" only those past histories that led to the present conditions. "

There is no actual intelligence, nor is there a "choice." In the above statement. You fail to understand that their theory merely describes that the present conditions can only happen if the factors in the history are as is. That if the history was any different, then the present condition would also be different. It's another way to describe cause and effect.

That you read this as a "choice" verges on stupidity.

I see your point (minus the stupidity concept based on you not grasping mine) but you missed the part about selecting "past histories." Why would this history be selected for and not another?

 

[thaiboxerken]

I see your point but you missed the part about selecting "past histories." Why would this history be selected for and not another?

You fail to see that there is no choice or selection. The "past histories" are just possibilities that would result in a different "present situation." No history is being selected.

To sum it up. The entire "theory" being purported here is "the present is here because of it's history, no other history would do."


Now, about that evidence of ID/Creationism.

 

[randman]

You fail to see that there is no choice or selection. The "past histories" are just possibilities that would result in a different "present situation." No history is being selected.

To sum it up. The entire "theory" being purported here is "the present is here because of it's history, no other history would do."


Now, about that evidence of ID/Creationism.

I don't think you get the reference to "past histories."

 

[Wowbagger]

A Greater Challenge?

I think the bigger challenge would be to find some way in which the Intelligent Designer would be reliably applicable to some problem in the field of biology.

Some related challenges would be:

Show where and how it would be important to know when and why the Designer had to intervene with life.

Use The Designer in your theory of Intelligent Design, in some important way.

Develop a strategy by which we can isolate and measure the properties of the Designer, itself - or at least its tools, methods, and/or motives.

What competitive advantages would a scientist have, in using knowledge of the Intelligent Designer in their work?

Without answering any of these types of challenges, Intelligent Design remains embarrasingly devoid of its most important element.

Is the Intelligent Designer something more than a mere superfluous ideology? If you think so: Prove it!

 

[thaiboxerken]

I don't think you get the reference to "past histories."

I believe you're the one mistaken here. Now, about that evidence for ID or Creation. Have any?

 

[randman]

I think the bigger challenge would be to find some way in which the Intelligent Designer would be reliably applicable to some problem in the field of biology.

Some related challenges would be:

Show where and how it would be important to know when and why the Designer had to intervene with life.

Use The Designer in your theory of Intelligent Design, in some important way.

Develop a strategy by which we can isolate and measure the properties of the Designer, itself - or at least its tools, methods, and/or motives.

What competitive advantages would a scientist have, in using knowledge of the Intelligent Designer in their work?

Without answering any of these types of challenges, Intelligent Design remains embarrasingly devoid of its most important element.

Is the Intelligent Designer something more than a mere superfluous ideology? If you think so: Prove it!

Wowbanger, been spending too much time here but you really ought to read up on Id. Visit the Discovery site and look at some of the peer-reviewed papers there because they and others answer a lot of your questions.

Not sure trying to break them all down here for people will be fruitful as there are a lot of posters who seem more intent on trying to argue a straw man than understand and deal with what a non-evolutionist is saying.

 

[randman]

I believe you're the one mistaken here. Now, about that evidence for ID or Creation. Have any?

Already gave you one. The fact particles and information are quantized and coupled with the observations of experiments of quantum mechanics is a direct observation of Intelligent Design in action and the physical world interacting with the Logos, in my opinion.

You are free to disagree but you should explain why.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Already gave you one. The fact particles and information are quantized and coupled with the observations of experiments of quantum mechanics is a direct observation of Intelligent Design in action and the physical world interacting with the Logos, in my opinion.

You are free to disagree but you should explain why.

Your "observation" is merely a jump to a conclusion you've already decided on. This is about as lame as saying "flowers are pretty, they must've been designed."

Now, did you have any scientific evidence of ID or Creationism, or are fallacious arguments all you have?

 

[randman]

Your "observation" is merely a jump to a conclusion you've already decided on. This is about as lame as saying "flowers are pretty, they must've been designed."

Now, did you have any scientific evidence of ID or Creationism, or are fallacious arguments all you have?

You don't consider quantization to be scientific evidence?

Really?

How about the following experiments?

2-slit experiment
delayed-choice experiments
quantum eraser experiments

 

[Varanid]

Randman- do you accept that allele frequency in a given population changes over time?

 

[thaiboxerken]

You don't consider quantization to be scientific evidence?

Really?

How about the following experiments?

2-slit experiment
delayed-choice experiments
quantum eraser experiments

What do these have to do with intelligent design?

 

[Wowbagger]

Wowbanger, been spending too much time here but you really ought to read up on Id. Visit the Discovery site and look at some of the peer-reviewed papers there because they and others answer a lot of your questions.

Not sure trying to break them all down here for people will be fruitful as there are a lot of posters who seem more intent on trying to argue a straw man than understand and deal with what a non-evolutionist is saying.

I looked at a lot of material from the Discovery Institute in my time.

None of them answered my questions, yet. Can you provide some choice examples?

 

[randman]

What do these have to do with intelligent design?

a direct observation of interaction with the Logos, in my opinion

 

[randman]

What competitive advantages would a scientist have, in using knowledge of the Intelligent Designer in their work?

small examples

Lönnig, W.-E. Dynamic genomes, morphological stasis and the origin of irreducible complexity, Dynamical Genetics, Pp. 101-119. (PDF, 2.95MB; HTML)

Biology exhibits numerous invariants -- aspects of the biological world that do not change over time. These include basic genetic processes that have persisted unchanged for more than three-and-a-half billion years and molecular mechanisms of animal ontogenesis that have been constant for more than one billion years. Such invariants, however, are difficult to square with dynamic genomes in light of conventional evolutionary theory. Indeed, Ernst Mayr regarded this as one of the great unsolved problems of biology. In this paper Dr.Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig, Senior Scientist in the Department of Molecular Plant Genetics at the Max-Planck-Institute for Plant Breeding Research, employs the design-theoretic concepts of irreducible complexity (as developed by Michael Behe) and specified complexity (as developed by William Dembski) to elucidate these invariants, accounting for them in terms of an intelligent design (ID) hypothesis. Lönnig also describes a series of scientific questions that the theory of intelligent design could help elucidate, thus showing the fruitfulness of intelligent design as a guide to further scientific research.

Jonathan Wells, "Do Centrioles Generate a Polar Ejection Force?," Rivista di Biologia/Biology Forum 98 (2005): 37-62.

Most animal cells contain a pair of centrioles, tiny turbine-like organelles oriented at right angles to each other that replicate at every cell division. Yet the function and behavior of centrioles remain mysterious. Since all centrioles appear to be equally complex, there are no plausible evolutionary intermediates with which to construct phylogenies; and since centrioles contain no DNA, they have attracted relatively little attention from neo Darwinian biologists who think that DNA is the secret of life. From an intelligent design (ID) perspective, centrioles may have no evolutionary intermediates because they are irreducibly complex. And they may need no DNA because they carry another form of biological information that is independent of the genetic mutations relied upon by neo-Darwinists. In this paper, Wells assumes that centrioles are designed to function as the tiny turbines they appear to be, rather than being accidental by-products of Darwinian evolution. He then formulates a testable hypothesis about centriole function and behavior that, if corroborated by experiment, could have important implications for our understanding of cell division and cancer. Wells thus makes a case for ID by showing its strong heuristic value in biology. That is, he uses the theory of intelligent design to make new discoveries in biology.

A.C. McIntosh, "Information and Entropy -- Top-Down or Bottom-Up Development in Living Systems?," International Journal of Design & Nature and Ecodynamics, Vol. 4(4):351-385 (2009). (PDF)

David L. Abel & Jack T. Trevors, “Self-organization vs. self-ordering events in life-origin models," Physics of Life Reviews, Vol. 3:211–228 (2006).

This article, co-authored by a theoretical biologist and an environmental biologist, explicitly challenges the ability of Darwinian mechanisms or self-organizational models to account for the origin of the language-based chemical code underlying life. They explain that "evolutionary algorithms, neural nets, and cellular automata have not been shown to self-organize spontaneously into nontrivial functions." However, the organization found that life, "typically contains large quantities of prescriptive information." According to the authors, "[p]rescription requires choice contingency rather than chance contingency or necessity," entailing an appeal to an intelligent cause. Throughout the paper, the articles use positive arguments explaining the creative power of "agents" as they cite to the work of Discovery Institute fellows and ID-theorists William Dembski, Charles Thaxton, and Walter Bradley. Critiquing models of self-organization, they conclude that "[t]he only self that can organize its own activities is a living cognitive agent."

Jonathan Wells, "Do Centrioles Generate a Polar Ejection Force?," Rivista di Biologia/Biology Forum 98 (2005): 37-62.

Most animal cells contain a pair of centrioles, tiny turbine-like organelles oriented at right angles to each other that replicate at every cell division. Yet the function and behavior of centrioles remain mysterious. Since all centrioles appear to be equally complex, there are no plausible evolutionary intermediates with which to construct phylogenies; and since centrioles contain no DNA, they have attracted relatively little attention from neo Darwinian biologists who think that DNA is the secret of life. From an intelligent design (ID) perspective, centrioles may have no evolutionary intermediates because they are irreducibly complex. And they may need no DNA because they carry another form of biological information that is independent of the genetic mutations relied upon by neo-Darwinists. In this paper, Wells assumes that centrioles are designed to function as the tiny turbines they appear to be, rather than being accidental by-products of Darwinian evolution. He then formulates a testable hypothesis about centriole function and behavior that, if corroborated by experiment, could have important implications for our understanding of cell division and cancer. Wells thus makes a case for ID by showing its strong heuristic value in biology. That is, he uses the theory of intelligent design to make new discoveries in biology.

D. A. Axe, "Extreme Functional Sensitivity to Conservative Amino Acid Changes on Enzyme Exteriors," Journal of Molecular Biology, Vol. 301 (2000): 585-595.

This study published by molecular biologist Douglas Axe, now at the Biologic Institute, challenges the widespread idea that high species-to-species variation in the amino-acid sequence of an enzyme implies modest functional constraints. Darwinists commonly assume that such variation indicates low selection pressure at the variable amino acid sites, allowing many mutations with little effect. Axe's research shows that even when mutations are restricted to these sites, they are severely disruptive, implying that proteins are highly specified even at variable sites. According to this work, sequences diverge not because substantial regions are free from functional constraints, but because selection filters most mutations, leaving only the harmless minority. By showing functional constraints to be the rule rather than the exception, it raises the question of whether chance can ever produce sequences that meet these constraints in the first place. Axe himself has confirmed that this study adds to the evidence for intelligent design: "I concluded in the 2000 JMB paper that enzymatic catalysis entails 'severe sequence constraints'. The more severe these constraints are, the less likely it is that they can be met by chance. So, yes, that finding is very relevant to the question of the adequacy of chance, which is very relevant to the case for design." See Scientist Says His Peer-Reviewed Research in the Journal of Molecular Biology "Adds to the Case for Intelligent Design".

http://www.discovery.org/a/2640

 

[thaiboxerken]

a direct observation of interaction with the Logos, in my opinion

That is laughable. Really, I smirked because it's such a silly conclusion.