A funny way to look at ID

[McHrozni]

So, basically, you're not really talking about ID.

If you're going to claim intelligent design is not based on intelligent design, then yes.
Are you?

McHrozni

 

[McHrozni]

That depends on how we would *make* this creature. Do we just keep on breeding and possibly changing the genetic makeup of existing creatures by combining their genes with other known genes (such as has been done with phosphorous animals) - or do we produce a genetic sequence from scratch and implant that into the egg of a common housefly or cow?

I said we'd make it from scratch. That means we'd start with a load of nucleozides, sugars, amino acids and lipids and work from there up.

McHrozni

 

[McHrozni]

It does because evolution is often thought to produce the best results possible, this is blatantly untrue. The whole survival of the fittest plays into that fallacious view of evolution.

Well, I don't know. I certainly disagree that there is a difference between "the least unfit" and "the fittest", but that probably is an arguable position. There might be some difference in implication, but not elsewhere. I do believe it is completely irrelevant in the debate whether or not deliberately changing an animal in an intelligent way and by design is intelligent design or not.

McHrozni

 

[sphenisc]

It was, apparently
Can you link the entire thing?

McHrozni

The link leads to a single post - if you click on the thread title at the top of the post you can see the whole thread.

 

[McHrozni]

The link leads to a single post - if you click on the thread title at the top of the post you can see the whole thread.

Aha, cool, thanks

McHrozni

 

[Beerina]

There's a vast, vast difference between what we, as humans, can "design" and what a purported intelligent designer could design.

For a start, selective breeding is not at all intelligent design, but rather intelligent selection. We don't design the animals, we just interbreed the ones that have the best examples of the traits we want, in the hope that the offspring will also have that trait, but better developed. And it can take a long time.

I suggest that's a matter of semantics. We're still designing the outcome and working towards it, e'en it be clumsy as with one assembling a ship in a bottle using tongs.

Secondly, we have a full working set of blueprints, so that even if we did "build life from scratch" it wouldn't be an original work, but an adaptation of the existing blueprints. Rather like taking the best aspects from various buildings and incorporating them into a new piece of architecture.

So, ummm, no, it isn't anything like ID.

Once we have a full computer model of how DNA works, it will become trivial to fully "design from scratch", and, ultimately, do so using chemicals and methods that have no relation to proteins, DNA, and so on whatsoever.



However, having said that, once we can do such things, it will be the final nail in the coffin for the ID movement rather than its savior, because then junk DNA and taxonomic lineages will be demonstrable without doubt to everyone, not just those "of a scientific mind".

 

[McHrozni]

However, having said that, once we can do such things, it will be the final nail in the coffin for the ID movement rather than its savior, because then junk DNA and taxonomic lineages will be demonstrable without doubt to everyone, not just those "of a scientific mind".

Please don't call noncoding DNA junk DNA, some of us depend on it for our daily bread

McHrozni

 

[sphenisc]

Hello all
...
IThe real question should be not wheater or not intelligent design exists or it could work. Both are demonstratedly true.

How do you demonstrate it to the satisfaction of sceptics?
Is there anything to be learned from this demonstration that could be generalised to help identify design in non-anthropogenic cases?

The real question is wheater or not there is non-anthropogenic intelligent design in existence,

I would suggest that a number of other species show evidence of being intelligent designers including chimps and New Caledonian crows, would you agree?

Either way, does this help improve our ability to define what we mean by "designed objects" and to recognise them ?

 

[McHrozni]

How do you demonstrate it to the satisfaction of sceptics?

Actual sceptics as I described above. If they don't believe that without some severe reasoning, they are pseudosceptics.

Is there anything to be learned from this demonstration that could be generalised to help identify design in non-anthropogenic cases?

Suppose an organism obtains a trait that is harmful to it, and helps another organism. The first organism lived alongside the second before aquiring the said trait.
This is not yet proof it was artificialy induced, but it would be indicative of that.

I would suggest that a number of other species show evidence of being intelligent designers including chimps and New Caledonian crows, would you agree?

In modifying genetic traits of other organisms for their own gain? No, I wouldn't.

Either way, does this help improve our ability to define what we mean by "designed objects" and to recognise them ?

See above for one option.

McHrozni

 

[Mojo]

If you're going to claim intelligent design is not based on intelligent design, then yes.
Are you?

I'm going to claim that ID is based on "irreducible complexity" and "specified complexity" (or the "law" of conservation of information). Is that what you're talking about?

 

[McHrozni]

I'm going to claim that ID is based on "irreducible complexity" and "specified complexity" (or the "law" of conservation of information). Is that what you're talking about?

You'll have to support that in some way. Both principles have been used to support the case for intelligent design, but only as evidence for it's existence and to show evolution as inadequte.
I don't see how either of the two arguments could be particularly relevant to our discussion.

McHrozni

 

[ponderingturtle]

Suppose an organism obtains a trait that is harmful to it, and helps another organism. The first organism lived alongside the second before aquiring the said trait.
This is not yet proof it was artificialy induced, but it would be indicative of that.

The thing is that it would have to be actively harmful and not part of a symbotic relationship. See the most famous example of Comet Orchid that has a very very long channel needed to get to its nectar. So Darwin predicted a moth with a 12" tounge, and it was later found to exist.

So is the fact that maze can not spread its seeds with out the aid of man an example of design or a symbotic relationship? Plants didn't used to need pollenators so the bees must have designed plants to need them right?

 

[Careyp74]

The least unfit would also be the fittest, I would say. It's certainly a more space-efficient way to write it that way
I don't see how this brings anything meaningful to the debate.

McHrozni

This is a clue to how the rest of the debate is going to go. McHrozni is not going to understand any of what is being said, and will not sway from his stance.

 

[sphenisc]

Actual sceptics as I described above. If they don't believe that without some severe reasoning, they are pseudosceptics.

Why? Is the default state for sceptics a position of lacking belief. It's up to you to provide the evidence, the demonstration, which you claim is possible. How are you going to demonstrate that selective breeding has occurred and is the result of intelligence? I couldn't see anything above which addressed this.

Suppose an organism obtains a trait that is harmful to it, and helps another organism. The first organism lived alongside the second before aquiring the said trait.
This is not yet proof it was artificialy induced, but it would be indicative of that.

That could apply to any case of parasitism and many kinds of predation. Did you mean genetic trait? Then viral infections would count. This needs criterion needs tightened up.

In modifying genetic traits of other organisms for their own gain? No, I wouldn't.

You definition of ID is specifically about the modification of genetic traits in other organisms then? You don't accept the definition which includes "certain features of the universe"?

 

[Mojo]

You'll have to support that in some way. Both principles have been used to support the case for intelligent design, but only as evidence for it's existence and to show evolution as inadequte.

[my emphasis]

That's all ID does - it claims that life must have been designed because the structures could not have evolved via natural selection. It's therefore kind of hard to see how your invocation of artificial selection in the OP supports ID.

 

[sphenisc]

This is a clue to how the rest of the debate is going to go. McHrozni is not going to understand any of what is being said, and will not sway from his stance.

Nothing in McHrozni's statement indicates a lack of understanding. If you feel it does bring something useful to the debate then explain why.
I agree (s)he's unlikely to be swayed from his/her stance, largely because most people have agreed it is essentially true. Whether it fits the definition of Intelligent Design or not is a semantic argument, and since no-one has bothered to provide a definition, never mind cite a source, it's hardly surprising if he/she isn't swayed.

 

[sphenisc]

[my emphasis]

That's all ID does - it claims that life must have been designed because the structures could not have evolved via natural selection.

No, ID claims that certain features of life are designed. It isn't central to ID that those features couldn't have evolved. If, however, features can be identified which could be the result of ID, but couldn't have evolved then they would be useful for providing diagnostic evidence in favour of ID.

It's therefore kind of hard to see how your invocation of artificial selection in the OP supports ID.

Because artificial selection is a form of ID.

 

[Mojo]

No, ID claims that certain features of life are designed. It isn't central to ID that those features couldn't have evolved. If, however, features can be identified which could be the result of ID, but couldn't have evolved then they would be useful for providing diagnostic evidence in favour of ID.

ID certainly claims that certain features of life are designed, but it presents no evidence to support this other than its claims that they couldn't have evolved, either because they are "irreducibly complex", or because complexity itself can't arise sponthaneously. See the link to the Behe interview I posted above (#35).

Because artificial selection is a form of ID.

Artificial selection is not a form of ID as ID is defined by its own proponents. You couldn't produce an "irreducibly complex" structure by artificial selection, as such a structure could not arise through genetic variation. The mere fact that intelligence is involved does not make it ID.

 

[sphenisc]

Artificial selection is not a form of ID as ID is defined by its own proponents. You couldn't produce an "irreducibly complex" structure by artificial selection, as such a structure could not arise through genetic variation. The mere fact that intelligence is involved does not make it ID.

Then all you need to do is provide evidence of this to show why the OP is wrong in regarding it as ID.

 

[McHrozni]

The thing is that it would have to be actively harmful and not part of a symbotic relationship. See the most famous example of Comet Orchid that has a very very long channel needed to get to its nectar. So Darwin predicted a moth with a 12" tounge, and it was later found to exist.

So is the fact that maze can not spread its seeds with out the aid of man an example of design or a symbotic relationship? Plants didn't used to need pollenators so the bees must have designed plants to need them right?

I'll copy-paste what you quoted, and empathise the part that you missed or ignored:

Suppose an organism obtains a trait that is harmful to it, and helps another organism. The first organism lived alongside the second before aquiring the said trait.
This is not yet proof it was artificialy induced, but it would be indicative of that.

McHrozni