ID off-topic comments (split from ID game by Lothar)

[Phoenix Red]

I don't think this topic is fair.

Drakona, unless I'm mistaken, you're attempting to say you can conclude design is involved when, given context, the probability of what has occurred happening randomly is insignificant compared to the probability of what has occurred happening intentionally (what a mouthful).

The implication here is that you assume the probability of humanity occurring given context is higher by design than through chance (assuming an agnostic position in regards to the existance of something capable of pulling off such a stunt).

While I agree that the probability of humanity occurring on any given planet is lower than kicking a drunk man in the balls, that's taking only 1 planet into account. The context, in this case, includes the ENTIRE UNIVERSE. That's a LOT of planets. We can't even guess how many planets there are, nor approximate the average likelyhood of humanity occuring on any given planet, so I don't think you can honestly claim to compare anything to a number (the probability of humanity occuring somewhere in the universe) that is solved for with an equation that includes two variables we can't even estimate.

In other words, you are taking it on faith that humanity is less likely to occur randomly than intentionally when you have no clue what either of those probabilities is. There's nothing wrong with pure faith, but it's still not a scientific process.

[Lothar]

unless I'm mistaken, you're attempting to say you can conclude design is involved when, given context, the probability of what has occurred happening randomly is insignificant compared to the probability of what has occurred happening intentionally (what a mouthful).

No, she's not. She hasn't told anyone *how* to make their inferences, she's only asked that they do and that they give their reasoning.

What she's attempting to do is learn how other people make design inferences, and to engage people on the subject.

The implication here is that you assume the probability of humanity occurring...

There is NOTHING in this thread about "humanity occurring". Nobody in this thread has asked any question about design inferences in that context.

I've only said maybe THIRTY TIMES over these 4 threads that ID is NOT about human origins, and that while some people try to apply it that way, my interest in it is in no way related to any of the "ID = anti-evolution" stuff you may have heard. What I'm interested in is the general problem of recognizing intelligence, not the specific problem of recognizing design in biology.

As I said to DCrazy and fliptw in the other thread... the rest of your post is focused on origins/evolution, and is therefore completely irrelevant. Nobody here is asking about the specific problem of design applied to biology or human origins! What has been asked are specific problems of design relating to number sequences, chairs, and patterns of dots. I repeat, NOTHING in this thread is about human origins. (I suppose someone could ask the biological question, following the rules set out in the original post, but they're likely to get the response "there is not enough information to draw any sort of conclusion.")

And, in case you're wondering... no, we're not trying to lull people in to a false sense of security so we can drop some bombshell about human origins. We're not trying to sucker anyone into accepting ID so that they'll accept the conclusions some people try to make about origins (mis)using ID. We just want to explore and develop ID as a general pursuit, and to correct people's misconceptions of what ID is.

Unfortunately, people aren't listening. It doesn't matter how many times I say "this is not about origins", people still come in every 2 or 3 posts and respond to everything that's been said as if it was said in the context of origins. That's sad, because every one of you is capable of better, if you'll only take the time to drop your preconceptions and listen to what's ACTUALLY being said instead of inserting your own WRONG preconceptions about "ID = origins" as a subtext to the discussion.

[Duper]

Phoenix Red, a well known scientist/statition (i forget his name) once figured out what the the statistical probablity of life occuring through the method set forth by Darwin and found that it was twice past what is considered statistically impossible which is something like 1 x 10 to the 220,000th.

I know that is not what this thread is about. But pointing to the number of planets as rational isn't a good platform...eventhough I once used it myself.

I'll see if I can locate that info source.

[Vander]

a well known scientist/statition (i forget his name) once figured out what the the statistical probablity of life occuring through the method set forth by Darwin and found that it was twice past what is considered statistically impossible

If we look back at history and calculate the statistical probability of history turning out exactly how it did, it could be considered statistically impossible. Billions of people making conscious and unconscious decisions have produced today's reality. What are the odds of all those billions of people making those same choices twice? Statistically impossible? But all those people did make all those choices, giving use today's reality. It could have been a very different reality, but they had to do something.

[WarAdvocat]

"Only in special cases"

[woodchip]

Lets look at some real life experiences:
One of our space probes takes close up images of the planet Mars. In one photo is what looks like a face.
Based on the one photo are we to conclude it was intelligently designed as some sort of signal/monument or are we to assume it was a oddity of nature? What are the odds off such a monument naturally occuring as opposed to it being created?
The real question is "How do we indentify naturally occuring from intelligently created...especially when the intelligence is so alien from us as to be well,alien. Setting game parameters around basically human constructs is fine but how will we know real intelligence when we see it? What kind of fundemental rules do we establish? A very far advance culture might look at the chair and text examples as something so primitive that they would not even accept us as intelligent anymore than we accept baboon society and culture as intelligent.

[Shoku]

Some people identify intelligent design when they observe repetitive patterns that could not possibly occur by chance.

Example: Spill marbles from a bag onto a smooth surface and many of them will roll quite far, but based on the angle and direction with which they hit the floor. However, it is unlikely they would arange themselves in any specific pattern by chance. Any "arrangement" would need to have at least one of two causes:

1. manipulation by an intelligent agent.
2. pre-existing patterns in the surface (like deep groves in a tiled floor).

If pre-existing patterns exist in the floor, then the investigation would need to focus on what caused those patterns.

Snowflakes are an excellent example of highly orangized patterns that occur naturally. If observed without a context, these patterns may, at first, be catagorized as being intellignetly designed, and yet snowflakes occur randomly by chance. How do we explain randomly occuring patterns like these? Like the marble example, the investigation needs to focus on the cause of the patterns, which would lead us into the laws of physics, which, by their very existence, imply intelligent design underlying everything in the physical universe. Law cannot exist without a designer. Chaos is the absense of law. Repetitive patterns cannot be produced from chaos, they are always a result of law.

[WarAdvocat]

Law cannot exist without a designer. Chaos is the absense of law. Repetitive patterns cannot be produced from chaos, they are always a result of law.

Law cannot exist without a designer huh? Great job. You missed the point!

[Bet51987]

It is not hard to understand that the deeper meaning of this thread is to give support for intellegent design. This would then imply a creator, but I loved Shoku's snowflake analogy and at least to me, proved that you can get intricate patterns to appear without being guided. For example, Lets assume a tiny alien walks around between these snowflakes. He would immediately assume that these beautiful creations were designed by some intellegence...but it was not.

The marble analogy works too. Lets say I had a bag containing millions of marbles. Some of the marbles have a magnetic core, and some do not. Some repel, some attract, some are larger and some are different colors. Now I drop the bag (big bang) onto an infinite size table that is vibrating (spacetime). Eventually multiple patterns will form and to that little alien looking up at those marbles may think that some intellegent designer was at work....but it was not.

Sorry for getting off topic, but intelligent design is not responsible for the origin of the universe, or life in all of its diversity, nor is it empirically detectable in nature or in living systems. I am happy that I have only 6 more months of having ID forced on me in the classroom. Forcing ID onto most kids actually drives them farther away.

Bettina

[Sting_Ray]

Ok bettina, give me a logical reason why that "table" would be vibrating? And how the "marbles" got in to that bag? Marbles can't put themselves in to a bag without a push in the right direction.

Just my 50th of a dollar.

[Bet51987]

Ok bettina, give me a logical reason why that "table" would be vibrating? And how the "marbles" got in to that bag? Marbles can't put themselves in to a bag without a push in the right direction.

Just my 50th of a dollar.

To answer your question, The marbles in the bag "got there" a billionth of a second after the big bang where pure energy began converting to matter anti-matter particles (E=mc2). These particles became the matter we see today as planets (marbles)...all this in less than one second....and without a creator.

The vibrating table I used to represent the continuing expansion of spacetime. The marble analogy would stop due to friction instead of continuing as it does in frictionless space.

Since we do not know (yet) what caused this singuality to rapidly expand, the ID people may have found a home for now.

FYI....Someone said "ID is creationism in a bad tuxedo". The bottom line for me is that ID implies a designer, which implies a creator, which implies a god. I have nothing against religious people...its just they have not one shred of evidence that there is a god, but are intent on convincing us there is...and FORCING it on us in school.

Bettina

[woodchip]

Shoku's snowflake example is a fine construct of a chemical reaction. Another example would be a bee's hexagonal honeycomb. Without knowing anything about bee's one might conclude that the honeycomb was intelligently designed. a hexagonal is a perfect shape structurally to interconnect to form larger shapes. So the tiny alien might conclude that the hive and the honeycomb were indications that the bee's were intelligent entities. Point here is make sure you have a full grasp of everything before you start thinking ID.

[WarAdvocat]

Maybe I read Shoku's post wrong, because the way I read it, he was supporting ID...the whole kit and kaboodle, not finding examples of apparent order which resulted from random chance.

[Bet51987]

I like the snowflake analogy best of all because it was made without any living intellegence. It fits with the opening post where thousands of tiny aliens could witness intricate designs and --falsely assume-- it was the work of a creator.

There are other examples...a pebble dropped into a pond producing perfect rings...

When I look at the night sky, I am in awe of what I see....just like the hypothetical little aliens, and this kind of thinking is what ID is based on....That the complex things we see could not possibly happen by chance and requires a creator.

I'm sorry, but the ID game is just that...a game. One more thing...The ID people are taking away the admiration that people...and me...have for the guy that died on that cross. It cheapens him.

Bettina

[Top Gun]

Bettina, I think you're missing the point, and you're also missing what Lothar/Drakona have been yelling at people over the past few days (:P). The concept of intelligent design, on its own, has absolutely nothing to do with the origins of life/the universe/everything. What it has to do with is answering the question of whether or not, in certain/all circumstances, the presence of a thought process behind that particuar circumstance can be confirmed. Forget the whole "ID in schools" controversy for a moment. That's not what this thread is supposed to be about. Lothar and Drakona have said that they don't have ulterior motives in presenting this question, and they've earned my trust, at least. The example of Stonehenge presented earlier is a good example; if you plant someone there who's never heard of it, how would they proceed in determining its origin? I'd also like to see someone take a stab at Tetrad's situation; to me, it requires a hell of a lot of careful thinking and consideration, and I'm not sure that there's a single correct answer.

[Mobius]

Phoenix Red, a well known scientist/statition (i forget his name) once figured out what the the statistical probablity of life occuring through the method set forth by Darwin and found that it was twice past what is considered statistically impossible which is something like 1 x 10 to the 220,000th.

I refute that. The evidence before your eyes means the likelyhood of humanity developing is a 100% chance. This is the Anthropic Principle, which basically states the following:

"If something must be true for us, as humans, to exist; then it is true simply because we exist."

For example, water must expand as it freezes in order for humans to evolve. If ice contracted, it would sink to the bottom of the oceans, and they would become solid ice very rapidly. This would preclude the evolution of humans.

Some IDers say things along the lines of "Well, isn't it convenient ice is less dense than water. God must have done it!". No. Because we exist, we live in a Universe where ice IS less dense than water. There may be countless Universes where ice is more dense than water, but there are no humans in those universes. Nor could there be.

The vast majority of things which IDers cling to, to try and explain their flawed reasoning, are things which fall directly into the realm of the Anthropic Principle.

Look, even the Catholic Church has come out in favour of evolution. And if that particular bunch of people can find a way to admit evolution is a fact, then surely, the rest of us should also.

ID is a crackpot idea - it's not even a theory, because theories are falsifiable, and there's no way to falsify this concept.

This is not to say that ID is not true. It *COULD* be true. However, if it IS true, then we can safely say that whoever (or whatever) designed the universe, the earth, humans and all that exists, is more than capable of hiding the evidence. It such a being exists, they aren't going to leave clues lying around the place, because this would damage the "control" nature of the concept: the people being experimented on, can not know they are the subject of an experiment. As soon as we discovered proof (if such exists) then we ruin the experiment. I wonder what would happen to the petrie dish which gets contaminated in "The Lab"?

Because we can assume it is impossible to discover incontrovertible evidence of ID, then we must consign the concept to the dustbin of history, and carry on our lives as we always have.

In 100 years from now, people will look back at this issue and laugh mightily. Just as we look back and laugh at the people who thought the Earth was flat - and those who thought the Earth was the center of the Universe.

It's always worth reminding yourself of two central tennets in human thinking: Occam's Razor, and the burden of proof.

Occam's Razor says that no explanation should be more complex than it needs to be to explain the observable facts.

The burden of proof in science says that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

We can see (or at least I can) that resorting to some higher power to explain our existence is a cop out, and does not fit Occam's Razor, and that the burden of proof lies with those who assert they are correct. We are safe from these people, because we know there can be no proof.

[Bet51987]

Occam's Razor says that no explanation should be more complex than it needs to be to explain the observable facts.

Exactly....which is why religion fails for me because of its countless biblical interpretations and complexity.

The burden of proof in science says that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Another good quote that speaks for itself.

Top Gun...I understand where your coming from but I don't believe I've missed the point that is trying to be made. Though I have a great amount of admiration for Lothar and Drakona, I see two religious people who are asking a clever question. However, the title of the thread, though presented as a game, is "Intelligent Design" and those two words, no matter how you play with them, have absolutely everything to do with the origins of life and the universe.

When the alien sees one snowflake, he has a choice to make. Either what he sees is just a random occurance or someone had a hand in creating it. How can he confirm what the correct theory is? He can't by himself. However, thru books, evidence, and experiments he learns that freezing water can create a crystalline structure,....
If there is a preacher around, he will tell the alien that its too complex and could have been caused by something intelligent and altough he has not one shred of proof, he voraciously sticks to his guns...and speaking of guns....I'm going to the mines.

Bettina

[Lothar]

Top Gun...I understand where your coming from but I don't believe I've missed the point that is trying to be made. Though I have a great amount of admiration for Lothar and Drakona, I see two religious people who are asking a clever question. However, the title of the thread, though presented as a game, is "Intelligent Design" and those two words, no matter how you play with them, have absolutely everything to do with the origins of life and the universe.

NO THEY DON'T.

The only reason people THINK they do is because they refuse to drop their preconceptions.

[Lothar]

Natural Selection IS Intelligent Design! Jeez, I don't get why it's so hard to understand.

I don't get what's so hard to understand about "we're not talking about evolution or origins or selection or the stuff you THINK intelligent design means, we're talking about the abstract principles of detecting intelligence in general."

[Vindicator]

After reading the threads in here I realized I didnt have quite the grasp on ID that I should, so I googled it and found this. This helps to explain what Lothar and Drakona are getting at. They dont focus on ID as an alternate means to explain life on earth; its much broader than that.

The theory of intelligent design (ID) holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection. ID is thus a scientific disagreement with the core claim of evolutionary theory that the apparent design of living systems is an illusion.

In a broader sense, Intelligent Design is simply the science of design detection -- how to recognize patterns arranged by an intelligent cause for a purpose. Design detection is used in a number of scientific fields, including anthropology, forensic sciences that seek to explain the cause of events such as a death or fire, cryptanalysis and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). An inference that certain biological information may be the product of an intelligent cause can be tested or evaluated in the same manner as scientists daily test for design in other sciences.

ID is controversial because of the implications of its evidence, rather than the significant weight of its evidence. ID proponents believe science should be conducted objectively, without regard to the implications of its findings. This is particularly necessary in origins science because of its historical (and thus very subjective) nature, and because it is a science that unavoidably impacts religion.

Positive evidence of design in living systems consists of the semantic, meaningful or functional nature of biological information, the lack of any known law that can explain the sequence of symbols that carry the "messages," and statistical and experimental evidence that tends to rule out chance as a plausible explanation. Other evidence challenges the adequacy of natural or material causes to explain both the origin and diversity of life.

Intelligent Design is an intellectual movement that includes a scientific research program for investigating intelligent causes and that challenges naturalistic explanations of origins which currently drive science education and research.

[Sarge]

Natural Selection IS Intelligent Design! Jeez, I don't get why it's so hard to understand.

I don't get what's so hard to understand about "we're not talking about evolution or origins or selection or the stuff you THINK intelligent design means, we're talking about the abstract principles of detecting intelligence in general."

I've just broken it down to it's essential bits. Over-analyzing becomes like trying to catch smoke in your hand.

I know, I'd been much happier as a Buddhist!

[Shoku]

ID implies order, a systematic process guided by established rules.

Unintelligent Design is the result of chance, which is guided by nothing. To be truly unintelligent, resulting from chaos, the rules that exist for ID cannot exist for UD, because it takes an intlligence to establish the rules, and bring order to chaos.

[Bet51987]

Top Gun...I understand where your coming from but I don't believe I've missed the point that is trying to be made. Though I have a great amount of admiration for Lothar and Drakona, I see two religious people who are asking a clever question. However, the title of the thread, though presented as a game, is "Intelligent Design" and those two words, no matter how you play with them, have absolutely everything to do with the origins of life and the universe.

NO THEY DON'T.

The only reason people THINK they do is because they refuse to drop their preconceptions.

Sorry Lothar, no disrespect, but your wrong. I can back it up with all the data you want, just tell me what scientific organization you would accept.

ID is a trojan horse.....that implys a creator. Nothing more.

Edit....and I thought I explained my view on detection and understanding.
Bettina

[Lothar]

Top Gun...I understand where your coming from but I don't believe I've missed the point that is trying to be made. Though I have a great amount of admiration for Lothar and Drakona, I see two religious people who are asking a clever question. However, the title of the thread, though presented as a game, is "Intelligent Design" and those two words, no matter how you play with them, have absolutely everything to do with the origins of life and the universe.

NO THEY DON'T.

The only reason people THINK they do is because they refuse to drop their preconceptions.

Sorry Lothar, no disrespect, but your wrong.

You're telling me this because you, personally, have read Dembski's books? No? Well, then, sorry to say it, but you have no grounds on which to tell me what ID is about.

What you know is what the public debate has been about. You don't know what ID itself is.

I do, and Drakona does, and we're telling you what it is. Stop ignoring us in favor of your own preconceptions.

ID is a trojan horse.....that implys a creator.

So you're saying that, for example, detecting intelligence behind the number sequences in Drakona's second post in this thread somehow implies a creator?

Well, yes, in the sense that it implies some intelligence created the number sequences. But ID doesn't imply a "universal creator" (which is what you no doubt mean to suggest) unless you're studying a problem of sufficient magnitude. In this thread, we're not.

For example... the number sequences might imply a creator in the form of an author. Chair arrangements might imply a creator (or set of creators) in the form of humans arranging chairs. Dot patterns might imply a creator in the form of a chef (raisins on a salad) or a farmer (cows in a field.) Nowhere is a "universal creator" implied, except, perhaps, if the pattern of stars in the night sky happens to be impressive enough (which I don't think it is.)

[Jeff250]

There's an important disanalogy with stonehenge. We can easily suspect design because it has some similarities with what we already have observed of other human design. We can observe humans designing things, so we know what to test, what to look for in design.

On the other hand, we've never really seen the grand designer, if it exists, designing anything (that we can know of). Maybe its idea of design is the concept of a triangle. Therefore, to it, the epitome of good design might be the great pyramids, whereas earth itself is lacking good design. Isn't this possible?

My question then is are there any true qualities of design that can be tested for without borrowing from human's idea of design or making some sort of presumption about the designer?

[Bet51987]

Top Gun...I understand where your coming from but I don't believe I've missed the point that is trying to be made. Though I have a great amount of admiration for Lothar and Drakona, I see two religious people who are asking a clever question. However, the title of the thread, though presented as a game, is "Intelligent Design" and those two words, no matter how you play with them, have absolutely everything to do with the origins of life and the universe.

NO THEY DON'T.

The only reason people THINK they do is because they refuse to drop their preconceptions.

Sorry Lothar, no disrespect, but your wrong.

You're telling me this because you, personally, have read Dembski's books? No? Well, then, sorry to say it, but you have no grounds on which to tell me what ID is about.

What you know is what the public debate has been about. You don't know what ID itself is.

I do, and Drakona does, and we're telling you what it is. Stop ignoring us in favor of your own preconceptions.

ID is a trojan horse.....that implys a creator.

So you're saying that, for example, detecting intelligence behind the number sequences in Drakona's second post in this thread somehow implies a creator?

Well, yes, in the sense that it implies some intelligence created the number sequences. But ID doesn't imply a "universal creator" (which is what you no doubt mean to suggest) unless you're studying a problem of sufficient magnitude. In this thread, we're not.

For example... the number sequences might imply a creator in the form of an author. Chair arrangements might imply a creator (or set of creators) in the form of humans arranging chairs. Dot patterns might imply a creator in the form of a chef (raisins on a salad) or a farmer (cows in a field.) Nowhere is a "universal creator" implied, except, perhaps, if the pattern of stars in the night sky happens to be impressive enough (which I don't think it is.)

No...I haven't read Dembski's work, but a quick Wiki got me this.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dembski
He is a creationist whose work is not accepted by the scientific community. I will research him a little more though, but to be honest, I don't see anything that is going to convince me what the real intention, interpretation, or game that ID really is...

Bettina

[Lothar]

I haven't read Dembski's work, but a quick Wiki got me this.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dembski
He is a creationist whose work is not accepted by the scientific community.

Which part of his work is "not accepted"? It's doubtful any of the people involved in writing the Wiki page even UNDERSTAND his work -- it's highly technical.

His PhD thesis, "The Design Inference", was published by Cambridge University Press. It may not be widely accepted, but Cambridge doesn't publish crap.

So, what do you think his thesis is about? Is it about evolution? A grand designer? Or is it about detecting design in general? You might want to ask someone who's read it, hint, hint...

[CDN_Merlin]

I thought this was only a game?

[Sting_Ray]

I love how you use the E = mc^2 formula, Bettina. Isn't another fundamental law of physics 'Energy can neither be created nor destroyed'? If you factor in both fundamentals, up to the exact moment of the 'big bang' you get the equation of E=0, thus, the moment AFTER the big bang would mean that Mass = E/c^2 = 0/~180,000^2 = 0. The 'Big Bang' out of chaos is just mathematically and physically impossible. (This does not factor in a universe devoid of 'physics' before the 'big bang')

I just think that alleged "pure energy" that existed before the 'Big Bang' had to come from somewhere. Down to it's rudimentary level, energy is too perfect to have developed out of chaos, out of chance. I think it could only have been formed by an intelligent design.

[iten]

"pure energy"

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't energy an attribute attached to matter? I didn't think energy can exist without matter. So I too think the "pure energy" hypothesis is flawed, unless of course you accept the idea of a pre-Big Bang universe as one that does not have the normal laws of physics.

Bettina, your acceptance of the snowflake analogy is interesting. But when you get down to the molecular level, you could arguably see intelligent design if you wanted to--it seems that you don't. But assuming that the laws of physics were created through intelligent design (may or may not be true, frankly I couldn't care less), what level of intelligent design would you argue was in the larger structure of the snowflake?

I don't have an answer. Anyone with more philosophical experience want to take a stab at it?

P.S. ROFL at people getting this thread confused with creationism.

[Kilarin]

Lets assume a tiny alien walks around between these snowflakes. He would immediately assume that these beautiful creations were designed by some intellegence...but it was not.

Actually, your snowflake IS a good example, but of how objects with little information do not imply design.

How much INFORMATION is in a snowflake? Not much actually. The patterns are repetitive. My wife does crochet, and it amazes me what huge complicated creations come out of a very small list of cryptic instructions.

"Pretty Patterns" do not necessarily imply design. Design is implied by complexity and information that can NOT be explained by natural processes.

Anthropologists find lots of rocks. Lots of them are pretty, some have patterns. But very few have information. A Geode is pretty, but not designed. An arrowhead implies design.

Lets look at a cryptographic example. You will find lots of people who believe in the "Bible Code", or that you can find codes in shakespeare that prove it was all really written by Bacon. The problem is, these so called "codes", don't actually have any information in them. Multiple decryptions are possible and the user chooses what particular "rule" to use at each step in order to pull out a decryption that is interesting and significant. But all of the information is in the decryption process, not in the message. Snowflakes only imply design in the same way that the "Bible Code" implies design. It's a false trail and all in the eye of the beholder.

BUT, look at the Beal cipher (the first one). At first a seemingly random series of numbers. BUT, when using the Declaration of Independance as a key, suddenly a coherent message appears. No rational persion questions that the message was designed. It contains too much information.

In nature, we find MANY systems that fit the evolutionary model. They could have evolved by random mutations, with each mutation having an advantage over the previous ones. But we ALSO know enough now to understand that there are system that simply can not fit within this model. Not "We don't understand enough to fit them into that model", but "We understand enough to know they can NOT fit".

Newtonian Physics is true. But when we ran into things that did not work according to Newtonian physics, a new theory was required to explain them. This IS science. It's the way science works.

[Palzon]

just because humans create complex things does not mean that everything complex must have a creator. in fact, even thinking along these lines could be used to argue the inverse of ID; that god is manmade. we seek to explain the unexplained and we do so by anthropomorphising.

the complexity of the universe says nothing whatsoever pointing to a creator. but our capacity to see design in the complexity says something about how our minds work. we naturally seek out regularities and try to account for them.

One irony of Drakona's position is that theists often seek to refute arguments against god by pointing out that man cannot comprehend god's rationale. yet her excercise suggests that the ability to discover intelligent human blueprints is analogous to the ability to discover design blueprints. as previously stated, no such analagous relationship exists in the first place.

being able to distinguish between something natural and something manmade could NEVER establish that complex things are intelligently designed by a supernatural force. there is no analogous situation here whatsoever, despite what drakona implies. it's totally invalid.

If you look around the universe you will see that there are as many examples of poor design as there are good ones. the only possible way to see scientific evidence for a creator is to be dishonest or willfully ignorant.

Drakona's entire position falls apart because it's talking about detecting human intelligence, which isn't the question at all. the question is detecting a designer of the cosmos, not word puzzles. Drakona's bold claim that ID is "absolutely science" is absolutely "bunk".

the excercises Drakona proposes are irrelevant since they are not a true test of ID. they are nothing more than a red herring.

i am in no way saying that ID is a philosophy that should not be explored. what i'm saying is that it is not science, not in the least. ID does not belong in the science classroom.

[Tetrad]

I would be complaining that nobody has touched my question at all, except that Vander sort of hit on what I was trying to get at.

Edit: Namely does "design" imply "intelligence".

[WarAdvocat]

Bettina, Stingray, Palzon etc.. etc... You're missing the point here!

The whole purpose of this thread is to discuss the validity of Intelligent Design... OUTSIDE of the theist position. The agenda of this intellectual circus is simple: Establish some small corner of legitimacy for what is mostly PSEUDO-SCIENCE, and then use said legitimacy as a shoehorn to rehabilitate the position of "Creationism as Science".

All you're doing with your insistence on hammering the ID theory of "Creation" ("origins") is focusing attention on what they don't want you to think about until they can further obfuscate the situation.



On the other hand, I do think it would be interesting if you could devise a rigorous methodology that would allow for determination of Intelligent Design in all situations. My gut says that it's not possible, but I'm open to evidence that says otherwise.

[Sting_Ray]

All Im really saying is that random "Order out of chaos" is statistically improbable in our universe. A snowflake has an ordered shape to it because that is the shape that water is supposed to take when it freezes. That is the design of the water crystal. Each has it's own unique properties. A spider's web is a design imprinted in the mind of the spider. It knows what it's web is supposed to look like.

[Shoku]

ID does not belong in the science classroom.

Actually it does. That is, if science is to be true to itself. The true scientist examines EVERY possibility before arrive at any conclusion.

It seems my earlier post was ignored due to an ongoing argument. But what I stated has a great impact on the way we look at things.

ID implies order, a systematic process guided by established rules.

Unintelligent Design is the result of chance, which is guided by nothing. To be truly unintelligent, resulting from chaos, the rules that exist for ID cannot exist for UD, because it takes an intlligence to establish the rules, and bring order to chaos.

If rules exist they must have come from an intelligence.

If all things existing truly came from chaos (no intelligent desinger), then we have the same difficulty that Darwin had. His one great problem was trying to explain the development of the eyeball by means of unintelligent design.

[Shoku]

ID does not belong in the science classroom.

Actually it does. That is, if science is to be true to itself. The true scientist examines EVERY possibility before arriving at any conclusion.

It seems my earlier post was ignored due to an ongoing argument. But what I stated has a great impact on the way we look at things.

ID implies order, a systematic process guided by established rules.

Unintelligent Design is the result of chance, which is guided by nothing. To be truly unintelligent, resulting from chaos, the rules that exist for ID cannot exist for UD, because it takes an intlligence to establish the rules, and bring order to chaos.

If rules exist they must have come from an intelligence.

If all things existing truly came from chaos (no intelligent desinger), then we have the same difficulty that Darwin had. His one great problem was trying to explain the development of the eyeball by means of unintelligent design.

[Shoku]

ID does not belong in the science classroom.

Actually it does. That is, if science is to be true to itself. The true scientist examines EVERY possibility before arriving at any conclusion.

It seems my earlier post was ignored due to an ongoing argument. But what I stated has a great impact on the way we look at things.

ID implies order, a systematic process guided by established rules.

Unintelligent Design is the result of chance, which is guided by nothing. To be truly unintelligent, resulting from chaos, the rules that exist for ID cannot exist for UD, because it takes an intlligence to establish the rules, and bring order to chaos.

If rules exist they must have come from an intelligence.

If all things existing truly came from chaos (no intelligent desinger), then we have the same difficulty that Darwin had. His one great problem was trying to explain the development of the eyeball by means of unintelligent design.

[Palzon]

ID does not belong in the science classroom.

Actually it does. That is, if science is to be true to itself. The true scientist examines EVERY possibility before arriving at any conclusion.

I could concede that it could have a place in the science class under special circumstances. first, it can serve as a lesson in what is NOT science. second, it can serve as a criticism of evolutionary biology that is NOT READY to bare fruit (since it is untestable). Third, you should recognize that in the above two capacities ID is a footnote, NOT a scientific theory that should be taught alongside real science. Here's why:

A theory that would be a competitor to evolution is of course possible. However, to be legitimate the theory would have to meet the crucial criteria. Most importantly, ascientific theory is testable. ID is not at all testable. Further, a legitimate competitor would need to explain everything its predecessor explains AND be able to explain things that its predecessor cannot. At this stage of the game, ID does not satisfy either of these requirements.

ID implies order, a systematic process guided by established rules.

Unintelligent Design is the result of chance, which is guided by nothing. To be truly unintelligent, resulting from chaos, the rules that exist for ID cannot exist for UD, because it takes an intlligence to establish the rules, and bring order to chaos.

If rules exist they must have come from an intelligence.

You're anthropomorphising. It is conceivable that space, time, and matter are inherently imbued with self-organizing (and disorganizing) properties. Before we could consider ID to be science we would need a testable hypothesis. Then we would need to subject the hypothesis to tests. Then it would need to survive those tests. Just because ID sounds like a pleasant theory that supports our quaint worldly traditions does not mean that it is science.

Further, you completely ignore my point that there IS as much poor design as good design in the universe. You've put the cart before the horse. It is not that the order of the universe means there is necessarily an intelligence behind that order. It is only because of your intelligence that you are able to perceive order at all. YOU have made the order, not some otherworldly architect.

If all things existing truly came from chaos (no intelligent desinger), then we have the same difficulty that Darwin had. His one great problem was trying to explain the development of the eyeball by means of unintelligent design.

This is all the more reason why evolution is legitimate science and ID is not. Because evolution survived critical scrutiny despite the fact that it is not intuitive. This is similar to the conception of the heliocentric system. It was conceived despite the fact that it runs contrary to intuitive perception. By all accounts, the sun appears to revolve around the earth. Testing showed this was not so long before it was possible to observe this. The theory was tested and it survived. Thus is became part of the corpus of science.

Edit: this last point should show that just because something is intuitively pleasing has no bearing on its truth, or its merit as a theoretical pursuit. sciene is refutable.

[Lothar]

I do think it would be interesting if you could devise a rigorous methodology that would allow for determination of Intelligent Design in all situations.

So you think the abstract problem is interesting, but you don't think Drakona and I could honestly be interested in it? You think that's a neat problem, but think Drakona and I are only pretending to focus on that problem so we can somehow sneakily convert people even though we've said we won't?

Remember, we're mathematicians. We're hopelessly fascinated with the abstract, especially with questions about the nature of knowledge. I'm the sort of person who will spend 2 weeks thinking and writing about the role of evidence in postmodern thought, for example. She's spent months analyzing the key books and ideas in ID (and, if you'd read woodchip's old ID thread, you'd know much of that analysis has been focused on why Dembski's rigorous formulation isn't rigorous enough and on exactly how it fails.)

The idea of identifying the involvement of intelligences in various situations is absolutely fascinating to me. It's something I have a bit of an intuitive grasp on, and I'd like to develop a more solid understanding of. Honestly, my main use for the ideas is in textual interpretation -- in trying to understand the ideas that led to a particular set of words being written, and in particular, trying to understand which parts of the text point to actual underlying ideas vs. which parts of the text are incidental. Some of the ideas from ID (specifically, some of the pattern matching, and the idea of eliminating "chance" and "law" hypotheses) have been immensely useful there.

there is no analogous situation here whatsoever, despite what drakona implies.

I'm not sure where you're seeing Drakona implying anything beyond what she's said explicitly. But that's probably because, despite being corrected numerous times, you still hold to the WRONG idea that we're somehow talking about origins (as evidenced by your statement that "Drakona's entire position falls apart because it's talking about detecting human intelligence, which isn't the question at all. the question is detecting a designer of the cosmos, not word puzzles.")

It might be interesting to apply ID to origins. It would be pretty cool if we could use ID to detect a designer of the cosmos, and some people have tried. But that's not the problem we're talking about.

If rules exist they must have come from an intelligence.

There's a rule that says rules have to come from intelligences? What intelligence made up that rule? Or is that rule the exception?

ID does not belong in the science classroom.

Actually it does. That is, if science is to be true to itself. The true scientist examines EVERY possibility before arriving at any conclusion.

Scientists examine every (credible) possibility before arriving at a conclusion... and they continue to examine other possibilities as new evidence arises. But we don't review every possibility in the science classroom. We either hold a lab wherein students guess at possibilities and evaluate them, or we tell them the particular conclusion other scientists have come to. Aside from historical notes about Copernicus and Galileo, I've never been in a science class that spent time talking about the rejected or not-yet-analyzed possibilities.

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As for the question of whether ID belongs in the science classroom: Not in the form I'm talking about (the abstract.) It's not developed well enough to be taught to anyone yet -- it's still a work in progress. I honestly don't know enough about the ID-origins position to be able to say whether or not there's enough valid information there for it to be brought into the public school curriculum, but I certainly won't be pushing for it.