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"Hallmarks of Creation" vs. Actual Signs of Artificial Products

Wowbagger

The Infinitely Prolonged
Wowbagger
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I am about to do a sequel of sorts to one my early SkeptiCamp presentations; going into what an Intelligently Designed life form would actually look like, as opposed to the evolved life forms we are used to seeing. I wanted to cover the difference between what Creationists think artificial objects are like, vs. what they are actually like. I figured I would post this, in case anyone reminds me of something to add.

Here is a short list of "Hallmarks of Intelligent Design" creationists like to claim, along with a brief counterpoint about them:

1. Sheer Complexity, to the point of appearing Irreducible!
Counter-Points: Computer programs can show such features emerging from evolutionary processes. And, the theory ignores the concept of co-option, anyway.

2. Claims of Optimum Design
Counter-Points: Designs really aren't very optimal: our eyesight, for example, is quite weak compared to some other animals, due to its "design" flaws.

3. Information/Language/Code of DNA
Counter-Point: We have well developed ideas for how DNA could emerge naturally (see various abiogenesis-related ideas). And, it is not even a very good language. For one thing, it is very heavily dependent on its medium.

4. Man-Centered Features
Counter-Points: A lot of examples of this are actually from artificially selected life forms. See also Douglas Adams' point about the rain puddle believing it was specifically designed to fit into the hole it found itself in.

5. Extreme Similarity of Features
Contradicts point number 6.

6. Extreme Diversity of Features
Contradicts point number 5.

Here, on the other hand, are examples of Signs of Actual Artificial Creation. Note that we almost never see any of these in life forms on Earth:

1. Easily Replaceable Parts
2. Access and Maintenance Features, such as door hinges
4. Tooling Marks
5. Clearly Printed Maker Labels or Inspection Labels

And most importantly:

6. External Documents: Design diagram drafts, instruction manuals, etc.

Can anyone think of anything I missed?
 
maybe:


7. existence of prototypes
We should be able to see lifeforms like very much humans, but with one or two features not as developed

8. established designs stay the way they are


about features of artificial creations: precise scaling - a miniature steam engine is pretty much exactly like a giant one in all but size. But a the body of an elephant is not like that of a mouse extended.
 
I think your criticisms of the "Hallmarks of Intelligent Design" are generally valid, but your "Signs of Actual Artificial Creation" are all contingent on a particular type of designer. Sure, they make some sense if you have human designer, but why would we expect a divinity to include "access and maintainence features" that it is posited, by its nature, not to need? A similar to objection seems to apply to all of your Signs. If a creator doesn't use tools, why would expect tooling marks? If a creator is omniscient, why would it need labels? etc.

Different types of designer will create different types of design, based in part on their own limitations. Stone Age people will design things that can be built with Stone Age tools manipulated by human bodies. Industrial Age peoples will design very different artifacts, and some of the ways in which Stone Age artifacts differ from natural artifacts will not apply to Industrial Age artifacts.

But are there universals? Are there attributes of designed objects that are not contingent on the particulars of the designer but are rather universally true of all designed objects?

If so, I don't think you've identified any. To be fair to you though, I don't think the Intelligent Design crowd has either.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
about features of artificial creations: precise scaling - a miniature steam engine is pretty much exactly like a giant one in all but size. But a the body of an elephant is not like that of a mouse extended.
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There are major differences in scaling in many designed objects. This is just because some things scale at the same rates and others don't. When surface area and volume both impact your design, it will have to change at different scales. That's not a difference between natural and designed systems. It's just a fact that some systems are sensitive to scale and others aren't.
 
For signs of artificial creation, how about a total absence of earlier types? The creationist claim of irreducible complexity means that everything was created as it is now, without any sign of evolution, prototypes or extinctions.This would also include the absence of evolutionary markers, like that nerve in a giraffe's neck, fused bones, vestigial organs and the like.
Also, thinking about the 'you're walking through a forest and you see a watch' argument: this assumes there is a distinction between natural objects such as trees, and artificial ones, like a watch. Artificially-created objects, therefore, must be different in some way from natural ones. Now, I'm not a creationist, so I don't know what that difference is, and how you would quantify it, but they claim it's there, so presumably there is some way to tell.
 
Roboramma said:
There are major differences in scaling in many designed objects. This is just because some things scale at the same rates and others don't. When surface area and volume both impact your design, it will have to change at different scales. That's not a difference between natural and designed systems. It's just a fact that some systems are sensitive to scale and others aren't.
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Small insects like butterflies and ants have relatively slender legs, while large land mammals like elephants and hippopotami have shorter, stubby legs. Volume (and therefore mass) increases at the cube of the linear dimensions, while the cross-sectional area of legs (and therefore load-bearing ability) increases at the square of linear dimensions.

About 70 years ago there was a fad in science fiction and B grade horror movies to portray giant crabs and spiders. They would not have been able to support their own weight, unless their legs were made of carbon fibre!
 
For the list of signs of actual artificial creation:

Functional specificity of components and subunits. The steel in the frame of the factory building that holds the roof up isn't also used as a store of iron for the factory's operation, even if that operation sometimes requires additional trace amounts of iron. Contrast with calcium compounds in vertebrate skeletons. Airplane seat cushions might be usable as flotation devices in an emergency, but they don't also absorb CO2 from the cabin atmosphere while being edible to provide in-flight snacks and available to be converted into fuel for the jet engines if they run low.
 
Roboramma said:
But are there universals? Are there attributes of designed objects that are not contingent on the particulars of the designer but are rather universally true of all designed objects?

If so, I don't think you've identified any. To be fair to you though, I don't think the Intelligent Design crowd has either.
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My Signs of Actual Artificial Creation were not intended to be universal. But rather very common

The Hallmarks of Intelligent Design were not universal, either. Not all lifeforms have "man-centered features".
 
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The Great Zaganza said:
7. existence of prototypes
We should be able to see lifeforms like very much humans, but with one or two features not as developed

8. established designs stay the way they are


about features of artificial creations: precise scaling - a miniature steam engine is pretty much exactly like a giant one in all but size. But a the body of an elephant is not like that of a mouse extended.
Click to expand...

Maybe.


Myriad said:
For the list of signs of actual artificial creation:

Functional specificity of components and subunits. The steel in the frame of the factory building that holds the roof up isn't also used as a store of iron for the factory's operation, even if that operation sometimes requires additional trace amounts of iron. Contrast with calcium compounds in vertebrate skeletons.
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I like this one, though!
 
Wowbagger said:
My Signs of Actual Artificial Creation were not intended to be universal. But rather very common
Click to expand...
None of them apply to the case that you're trying to refute. I wouldn't expect any of your signs to be present in life that had a divine creator.

The Hallmarks of Intelligent were not universal, either. Not all lifeforms have "man-centered features".
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I meant universal in the sense that anything with these features would be artificially designed, not that anything artificially designed would have those features. I think they do claim the former (though, as you will agree, they are wrong in that claim).
 
Myriad said:
For the list of signs of actual artificial creation:

Functional specificity of components and subunits. The steel in the frame of the factory building that holds the roof up isn't also used as a store of iron for the factory's operation, even if that operation sometimes requires additional trace amounts of iron. Contrast with calcium compounds in vertebrate skeletons. Airplane seat cushions might be usable as flotation devices in an emergency, but they don't also absorb CO2 from the cabin atmosphere while being edible to provide in-flight snacks and available to be converted into fuel for the jet engines if they run low.
Click to expand...

This does seem like a good candidate.
 
Cosmic Yak said:
Also, thinking about the 'you're walking through a forest and you see a watch' argument: this assumes there is a distinction between natural objects such as trees, and artificial ones, like a watch. Artificially-created objects, therefore, must be different in some way from natural ones. Now, I'm not a creationist, so I don't know what that difference is, and how you would quantify it, but they claim it's there, so presumably there is some way to tell.
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The obvious difference is that living things can reproduce themselves, artificial things cannot. But that's exactly why the argument from design fails, because it means that whilst there are only two possible explanations for artificial things - pure chance and deliberate design - for living things there is a third: millions of years of evolution by natural selection.
 
Roboramma said:
None of them apply to the case that you're trying to refute. I wouldn't expect any of your signs to be present in life that had a divine creator.
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I can't say what a divine creator would or wouldn't do. But rather what intelligent designers we are familiar with would do.

Pixel42 said:
The obvious difference is that living things can reproduce themselves, artificial things cannot.
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I intend to cover that in my talk, where I actually "designed" a lifeform, myself... at least in the context of science fiction.

The lifeforms I "designed" are capable of reproducing themselves through something similar to (but not exactly like) Lamarckian evolution. There is no somatic/germ line distinction in their bodily components. Instead, entities are "scanned" on occasion, and merged with others, in different ways, to make duplicates. So changes in physical characteristics have a strong chance to be inherited down the line.

Nanobots within the entities are used to facilitate the scanning and merging, not an external machine.
 
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Wowbagger said:
I can't say what a divine creator would or wouldn't do. But rather what intelligent designers we are familiar with would do.
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One feature of the intelligent designers that we are familiar with is that they are all human. But that doesn't actually tell us anything about non-human intelligent designers. We shouldn't expect non-human IDs to share the feature of being human (that's tautological). Should we expect them to share the feature of being carbon based? Of being within an order of magnitude of 100kg in mass? Of using within an order of magnitude of 100 watts? Should we expect their designed features to be consistent with designers who have the same attributes as humans?

In other words, there are some features of our designed objects that exist because they are designed. There are other features of our designed objects that exist because they were designed by us. The former are relevant but the latter are not.
 
Roboramma said:
One feature of the intelligent designers that we are familiar with is that they are all human. But that doesn't actually tell us anything about non-human intelligent designers.

....

In other words, there are some features of our designed objects that exist because they are designed.
Click to expand...

A lot of it boils down to practicality. Regardless of how an intelligent designer is made, they would want to make life easier for themselves and others. They would want easily accessible and replaceable parts. They would want labeling and documentation, to help others understand what they are looking at.

Maybe a Perfect Intelligent Entity would never have tooling marks in their products, but it is unlikely that most intelligently designed products would require such expertise.
 
Wowbagger said:
I can't say what a divine creator would or wouldn't do. But rather what intelligent designers we are familiar with would do.
Click to expand...

This is my problem with your entire premise right here.

The intelligent designers we are familiar with have no clue how to instantiate quantum mechanics, trigger a big bang, manufacture mass that doesn't interact electromagnetically, or modulate the expansion and contraction of spacetime. It's debatable whether they have any idea where to start, creating a complex self-sustaining ecosystem on a planetary scale. Intelligent designers we are familiar with today should not be the measure of such things.
 
theprestige said:
The intelligent designers we are familiar with have no clue how to instantiate quantum mechanics, trigger a big bang, manufacture mass that doesn't interact electromagnetically, or modulate the expansion and contraction of spacetime. It's debatable whether they have any idea where to start, creating a complex self-sustaining ecosystem on a planetary scale. Intelligent designers we are familiar with today should not be the measure of such things.
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I very much doubt triggering big bangs and manufacturing mass are prerequisites to developing the knowledge and skills to engineer complex, self-sustaining life forms. These are two completely different realms of science.

I know Creationists like to package Big Bang Theory and Evolution together as if they are one big creation story. But, they are entirely different sciences. Discoveries in one rarely (though sometimes it might happen) impact knowledge of the other. I am not asking Intelligent Designers to invent the Universe. I am asking them to invent life within their own, existing one.
 
Wowbagger said:
I very much doubt triggering big bangs and manufacturing mass are prerequisites to developing the knowledge and skills to engineer complex, self-sustaining life forms. These are two completely different realms of science.

I know Creationists like to package Big Bang Theory and Evolution together as if they are one big creation story. But, they are entirely different sciences. Discoveries in one rarely (though sometimes it might happen) impact knowledge of the other. I am not asking Intelligent Designers to invent the Universe. I am asking them to invent life within their own, existing one.
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I don't think that really changes my point. Intelligent designers we're familiar with don't know how to create complex ecosystems on a planetary scale, that are self-sustaining and evolutionarily stable over geological time.

And where exactly would you expect to find tooling marks, in biologically evolved organisms, even if they do trace their lineage back to an artificial ancestor?

I think there are valid arguments against intelligent design, but that anthropocentrism is not one of them.
 
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Modularity is also worth considering. At the level of the individual, modularity is adjacent to repairability and to functional specificity of subunits. But when you're looking at a natural history, modularity also becomes apparent at the population level.

If you have a collection of sewing machines (or remains thereof), sorted by age, you'll see what might look like a lineage by ancestry with variation, that might look consistent with an evolutionary model based on reproduction with variation plus selection. But then you notice specific features such as electric motors, plastic parts, and microcontroller chips, that don't have ancestral antecedents in the sewing machine lineage, but that had appeared previously in other non-sewing-machine items. Or actually, let's be more specific: within the sewing machine lineage they had functional antecedents that were not structural antecedents. Certain metal parts disappear to be replaced with plastic parts of identical function and near-identical shape. Elaborate cam-based automata disappear, to be entirely replaced with microcontrollers that are morphologically completely different but perform the same function (variant stitch patterns).

Such observations don't prove intelligent design, but they do prove that some process outside of reproduction-with-random-genetic-variation and selection has been going on. More importantly, when they're not observed, it's strong evidence against a generally intelligent designer. It's valid to doubt that an intelligent designer would have any reason to refrain from transferring "modules" (such as visual organs, tooth forms, venom defenses, or manipulator appendages) arbitrarily across lineages.
 
Kind of like how there's both insects and mammals with venom, and there's mammals, reptiles and mollusks with similar eyes?

Would we even be able to tell what a module looks like, when considering the possibility of an intelligent designer who kicked off an array of evolutionary paths millions of years ago?
 
theprestige said:
I don't think that really changes my point. Intelligent designers we're familiar with don't know how to create complex ecosystems on a planetary scale, that are self-sustaining and evolutionarily stable over geological time.

I think there are valid arguments against intelligent design, but that anthropocentrism is not one of them.
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Well, the argument is that Creationists are looking for evidence of Intelligent Design the wrong way, picking out very naive methods of thinking about this. Creationists are not brought up to understand the fallacy of Personal Incredulity and the concept of evolutionary co-option, so they would naively assume Irreducible Complexity is a perfectly reasonable line of evidence, for example.

Meanwhile, the actual signs of intelligent design we are able to see around us are very different. And even though they only come from humans (presumably), that can still be very informative. They present features that more effectively indicate they are intelligently designed, deeper than naive conjecture.

There is no goal to argue against the power of divine beings, here. They can do whatever they want.

One possible goal of all this is to demonstrate why it is necessary for them to rethink the lines of evidence they are purporting to be that of intelligent designers.

Though, most of my audience won't be Creationists. The real MAIN purpose of my presentation is to showcase what an Intelligently Designed lifeform would look like, in general. Just for fun and educational purposes.


theprestige said:
And where exactly would you expect to find tooling marks, in biologically evolved organisms, even if they do trace their lineage back to an artificial ancestor?
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It might depend on how the life form reproduces. If there is a germline, such as Darwinian-style evolution, any initial tooling marks probably won't exist in the next generation.

But, if the reproduction was more Lamarckian in style, any such flaws could inadvertently make it into future generations.
 
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From the standpoint of someone who worked in genetics... If life was designed at a genetic level it was designed to look exactly like something undesigned.
 
Lukraak_Sisser said:
From the standpoint of someone who worked in genetics... If life was designed at a genetic level it was designed to look exactly like something undesigned.
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What would genetic design look like to a genetic designer a million years ago, in the opinion of someone who has no clue where to even start designing the genetics of a complex organism? For all you know, the homochirality of sugar is in fact the hallmark of a designer.
 
Wowbagger said:
I am curious what your rebuttal would be, then, to the Creationists' "Hallmarks of Intelligent Design" ideas.
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You know what? I don't think I have a rebuttal. I said earlier that I think there are good arguments against intelligent design, but now that I think about it I'm not sure what they might be.

It's essentially a god of the gaps argument, which is very difficult to rebut. But also is it really necessary to rebut? Is it even worth trying to rebut? You can't reason someone out of a belief they didn't reason themselves into.

And I have never yet met a creationist that was sincerely interested in hearing counter-arguments to their beliefs and changing their mind if they thought the counter-arguments had merit.

More importantly, I don't have to have a solution to the problem you're trying to solve, to point out what I believe to be flaws in the solution you're proposing.

Your experience of what design looks like is far too limited to justify the authority required by your rebuttal.
 
Just out of interest, are many intelligent designers expected at Skepticamp? I am … skeptical. ;)

In which case, is the talk about how to argue and debate with intelligent design proponents? If so, I recommend heading over to “Darwinists are so dumb.com” and asking them what their arguments are so that you can formulate rebuttals.
 
Regarding the eyes...

Worth mentioning the epic design fail that puts the optic nerve in the centre of the retina causing a blind spot right in the centre of our vision. A designer wouldn't have got that wrong.
 
novaphile said:
Regarding the eyes...

Worth mentioning the epic design fail that puts the optic nerve in the centre of the retina causing a blind spot right in the centre of our vision. A designer wouldn't have got that wrong.
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Zookeeper fallacy. Good design of complex systems very often involves informed decisions about priorities and tradeoffs. The blind spot at the optic nerve is suitably compensated for and eliminated elsewhere in the system.

You have nowhere near enough information about how to genetically engineer complex biological organisms, to make an authoritative assessment of whether this was truly a bad design choice. Same for all the other "bad" design choices that atheists like to pretend they're informed enough to pass judgement on. You're not. Let it go.
 
angrysoba said:
Just out of interest, are many intelligent designers expected at Skepticamp? I am … skeptical. ;)

In which case, is the talk about how to argue and debate with intelligent design proponents? If so, I recommend heading over to “Darwinists are so dumb.com” and asking them what their arguments are so that you can formulate rebuttals.
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The talk is about what an intelligently designed entity would probably really look like, if we were to come across one. Just as a fun thought experiment to go through.

My intention is not really to use this as a way to argue with ID proponents. Though, there is no doubt that: A. Some of the Evos in the audience will take it that way, anyway. And, B. If ID proponents get ahold of the presentation, they will likely turn it into a debate point, as well.

So, I am prepared for a bit of that.



But, really, all I want to do at the end of the day is play with these ideas... and LEGO pieces.... Yes, LEGO does become relevant to my talk, as well, towards the end.
 
Wowbagger said:
The talk is about what an intelligently designed entity would probably really look like, if we were to come across one. Just as a fun thought experiment to go through.
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Gotcha. So no need for a rebuttal to the Intelligent Design claim.

My position remains that you do not know enough about what it takes to design a complex organism that's stable over evolutionary time, to meaningfully speculate on the topic. At best you'll be wasting your audience's time. At worst, some of the more naive ones are going to come away with bad arguments that they will try to use the next time they encounter a creationist.
 
Roboramma said:
One feature of the intelligent designers that we are familiar with is that they are all human.
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Not sure if that is quite true. Some animals such as monkeys, chimps and crows appear to have actually made tools have they not? I recall seeing that some of the evidence that pointed to early arrival in the Americas turned out to be flint tools likely created by capuchin monkeys. Also, crows apparently not only use sticks to get insects but actually fashion hooks on the sticks to get the insects.
 
Wowbagger said:
The talk is about what an intelligently designed entity would probably really look like, if we were to come across one. Just as a fun thought experiment to go through.

My intention is not really to use this as a way to argue with ID proponents. Though, there is no doubt that: A. Some of the Evos in the audience will take it that way, anyway. And, B. If ID proponents get ahold of the presentation, they will likely turn it into a debate point, as well.

So, I am prepared for a bit of that.



But, really, all I want to do at the end of the day is play with these ideas... and LEGO pieces.... Yes, LEGO does become relevant to my talk, as well, towards the end.
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Oh… okay… but I don’t know if some of the examples you use work, in that case. One point that you make is about sub-optimality. But that is true of both evolved and artificially designed entities, no?
 
angrysoba said:
Not sure if that is quite true. Some animals such as monkeys, chimps and crows appear to have actually made tools have they not? I recall seeing that some of the evidence that pointed to early arrival in the Americas turned out to be flint tools likely created by capuchin monkeys. Also, crows apparently not only use sticks to get insects but actually fashion hooks on the sticks to get the insects.
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When the space aliens arrive to make first contact, they'll be so confused. On the one hand, this species has skyscrapers, jet airplanes, nuclear reactors, and an Internet. On the other hand, that species has... sticks... for... pulling bugs of burrows... Maybe the aliens should hedge their bets, and contact both just in case.
 
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