A funny way to look at ID

[Mojo]

I find the entire thing quite ironic and mildly amusing. Your thoughts?

The real irony here is that one of the main planks on which Darwin based his agument for evolution by natural selection was the undoubted existence and success of artificial selection. See On the Origin of Species chapter 1.

 

[McHrozni]

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.

I'm male, thanks

McHrozni

 

[ponderingturtle]

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

The thing is that ID's strongest proponents do not actualy provide good consistent definitions of what ID is.

This is what the discovery institute defines ID as

What is intelligent design?
Intelligent design refers to a scientific research program as well as a community of scientists, philosophers and other scholars who seek evidence of design in nature. The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. Through the study and analysis of a system's components, a design theorist is able to determine whether various natural structures are the product of chance, natural law, intelligent design, or some combination thereof. Such research is conducted by observing the types of information produced when intelligent agents act. Scientists then seek to find objects which have those same types of informational properties which we commonly know come from intelligence. Intelligent design has applied these scientific methods to detect design in irreducibly complex biological structures, the complex and specified information content in DNA, the life-sustaining physical architecture of the universe, and the geologically rapid origin of biological diversity in the fossil record during the Cambrian explosion approximately 530 million years ago.

Link

Still this does not fit with the idea that selective breeding is intelligent design.

I do like that this suggests that plants are intelligent for designing their pollinators so effectively though.

 

[ponderingturtle]

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

No the point is that such a trait is not harmful to it. Flowers are not harmful to plants, but beneficial, as long as there are pollinators for them. You are using a poor definition of beneficial vs harmful. Any trait that makes something better adapted for one enviroment might well make is poorly addapted for others.

I remember hearing the theory that in America a certain species of tree had seed pods that just fall to the ground, this is not an effective method of seed dispersal. But when the mamoths still lived they would eat them, and this would be a highly effective method of seed dispersal. So is this seed pod a harmful or beneficial adaptation? Well now it is a harmful, but it was orrigionaly a beneficial adaptation.

You are applying constrains to the enviroment, if you view people as just another part of the enviroment there is nothing arficial about the selection in selective breeding.

 

[McHrozni]

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.

If I have to prove that selective breeding exists I might as well prove animals exist in the first place. We need to draw a line between which parts of the topic are even remotely open to debate, and this is one of them.

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.

Could you find me an example of parasitism and an example of predation that would count? Inheritable genetic trait, that harms the organism that carries it, with no apparent benefit to it, in favor of another organism that parasites or prays upon it. Both organisms need to predate the trait close to current form.
Since the traits need to be inheritable, most viral infections don't count. Another excluding factor is that both organisms must exist close to their present form, which excludes all viruses anyway.

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"?

I think that genetic traits are "certain features of the universe". I limit myself to organisms, since this is the only known system to actively adapt to it's surroundings and other environmental factors in order to maintain it's existence.

McHrozni

 

[McHrozni]

No the point is that such a trait is not harmful to it. Flowers are not harmful to plants, but beneficial, as long as there are pollinators for them. You are using a poor definition of beneficial vs harmful. Any trait that makes something better adapted for one enviroment might well make is poorly addapted for others.

I remember hearing the theory that in America a certain species of tree had seed pods that just fall to the ground, this is not an effective method of seed dispersal. But when the mamoths still lived they would eat them, and this would be a highly effective method of seed dispersal. So is this seed pod a harmful or beneficial adaptation? Well now it is a harmful, but it was orrigionaly a beneficial adaptation.

I'll copy-paste again and empathize on the other parts you apparently missed.

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

(spelling was fixed this time around)

McHrozni

 

[sphenisc]

The thing is that ID's strongest proponents do not actualy provide good consistent definitions of what ID is.

This is what the discovery institute defines ID as



Link

Still this does not fit with the idea that selective breeding is intelligent design.

I do like that this suggests that plants are intelligent for designing their pollinators so effectively though.

You don't specify why it's not good, where it's not consistent or how it doesn't fit with selective breeding.

 

[ponderingturtle]

You don't specify why it's not good, where it's not consistent or how it doesn't fit with selective breeding.

It is not good because it is in now way descriptive. One of the reasons ID fails is that it makes no predictions. Take a look at the Dover case, it found that ID is religion. So clearly the way McHrozni is using ID is different from what the ID proponents use it, unless he really does mean that flowers are god.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I'll copy-paste again and empathize on the other parts you apparently missed.

Define harm in the context that you used it.

 

[wollery]

I limit myself to organisms, since this is the only known system to actively adapt to it's surroundings and other environmental factors in order to maintain it's existence.

Careful, that's almost Lamarckian.

 

[McHrozni]

Define harm in the context that you used it.

The new trait makes the organism less likely to thrive and produce viable offsping. The benefit is obviously the other way around, the new trait in an organism in the enviroment makes the other organism, that benefited from the new trait in an organism it lives alongside with, more likely to thrive and produce viable offspring.

McHrozni

 

[McHrozni]

Careful, that's almost Lamarckian.

Lamarckian theory isn't all bull, it applies quite well to single cell organisms in many cases (though not all, obviously). Higher organisms also adapt to their enviroment, but do so in a non-inheritable way (barring transfer of knowledge, of course), which eliminates this part from the debate.

Having said that, I didn't mean anything of the sort to begin with. What I was trying to say is that if there is any chance of showing intelligence in the design of universe, living organisms are the most likely place to find it.

McHrozni

 

[ponderingturtle]

The new trait makes the organism less likely to thrive and produce viable offsping. The benefit is obviously the other way around, the new trait in an organism in the enviroment makes the other organism, that benefited from the new trait in an organism it lives alongside with, more likely to thrive and produce viable offspring.

McHrozni

So then there are no examples of harmful traits that come to mind then. The common Bannana might not be able to reproduce sexually but it is very successful at the moment, as it is well addapted to its enviroment.

 

[McHrozni]

So then there are no examples of harmful traits that come to mind then.

Not quite. Virtually all domesticated animals show st least some mutations that make them dependent on their human handlers. This reduces their chances of having a successful offspring, and puts their fates in the hands of another species. In most examples their numbers are kept at a steady level.
They do survive to see another day, and to live another generation, but that's it.

I probably can't find such arrangement without human interference, but if we would find something like that, it would certainly be indicative of intelligent design.

McHrozni

 

[Mojo]

Not quite. Virtually all domesticated animals show st least some mutations that make them dependent on their human handlers. This reduces their chances of having a successful offspring, and puts their fates in the hands of another species.

If it's a trait selected for by the human handlers, it increases their chances of having successful offspring. The human handlers are just as much part of the environment as any other species.

 

[sphenisc]

If it's a trait selected for by the human handlers, it increases their chances of having successful offspring. The human handlers are just as much part of the environment as any other species.

Their chances of survival and reproduction would be reduced if it weren't for the intervention of their human handlers. They have traits which are detrimental to themselves but benefit humans, in comparison to related "wild" species. The fact that humans are part of the environment is irrelevant to the point being made.

 

[sphenisc]

Not quite. Virtually all domesticated animals show st least some mutations that make them dependent on their human handlers. This reduces their chances of having a successful offspring, and puts their fates in the hands of another species. In most examples their numbers are kept at a steady level.
They do survive to see another day, and to live another generation, but that's it.

I probably can't find such arrangement without human interference, but if we would find something like that, it would certainly be indicative of intelligent design.

McHrozni

"...What aphids have to gain from the relationship is apparently protection from their natural enemies. Like our own dairy cattle they lead a sheltered life, and aphid species that are much cultivated by ants have lost their normal defensive mechanisms."

The Selfish Gene

 

[McHrozni]

If it's a trait selected for by the human handlers, it increases their chances of having successful offspring.

Compared to the original? Not necessarily at all.

McHrozni

 

[McHrozni]

"...What aphids have to gain from the relationship is apparently protection from their natural enemies. Like our own dairy cattle they lead a sheltered life, and aphid species that are much cultivated by ants have lost their normal defensive mechanisms."

The Selfish Gene

This would be therefore indicative of intelligent design. Note that I did explicitly say it is not yet evidence, just a possibility.

McHrozni

 

[sphenisc]

This would be therefore indicative of intelligent design. Note that I did explicitly say it is not yet evidence, just a possibility.

McHrozni

So are there further attributes of the ant/aphid system we can look at to help determine if this is a case of intelligent design?