Re: Speculative Design Hypothesis (with predictions) 2nd draft

In message <DdJeg.6210$As2.4863@trnddc02>, Wall Of Sleep <Sabotage@xxxxxxxx> writes
Iain wrote:

Wall Of Sleep wrote:

Ben Standeven wrote:


Wall Of Sleep wrote:


Ben Standeven wrote:



Wall Of Sleep wrote:



Ben Standeven wrote:




Wall Of Sleep wrote:




Ben Standeven wrote:



[...]


===========

Predictions:

1. Genetic mapping of DNA will confirm this. The tracing of modern
lifeforms' genetic codes back in time will lead to dead ends. These dead
ends represent the introduction of that particular genetic code into the
environment.


Not testable without a definite timetable for the creation events.


I gave one.


Sorry, I missed that. This prediction would seem to be falsified, since
most human genes can be traced back to a time before the first
appearance of humans in the fossil record.



Well there's been no falsifiable, testable "pathway" put forth for the
evolution of the human genome. It's just conjecture based on similarities.



So how _would_ you test this claim? How would you tell if a gene is
related to another gene, or just similar?


Well you'd have to reverse engineer the genes back to a common ancestral
gene, and show that both genes have believable, possible, *selectable*
pathways from the common ancestral gene. Of course one gene won't do,
we're talking about entire genomes to show common descent. But a gene
is a good start.


[I thought "genetic code" was supposed to refer to individual genes;
sorry.]
OK; that might show that they _are_ related. (Although it doesn't
actually
refute the claim that the two genomes were independently designed.) But
how
would you show that two genomes are _not_ related?


I guess the best way would be to show that there are "gaps" between them
that no known natural mechanism can bridge.



[...]


===========

2. The fossil record will confirm this. All fossilized lifeforms will
show abrupt appearance.


Not testable; there is no way to tell if a fossil is the product of
"abrupt appearance"
or "non-abrupt appearance".


There is though. If there was ever discovered a pre-flight bat fossil -
with all the features of a bat, sans wing or half-wing. Then you could
show that the bat did not appear abruptly (in the modern form), but
developed over time.


I don't see how that follows. How would you show that it was related
to modern bats?


Apparently the same way they determined that a bat came from another
non-flying mammal?



I was asking you; to orthodox biologists, the fact that bats evolved

from non-flying animals is already proven, so this fossil would add

nothing. (I might add that if I understand your description correctly,
they would almost certainly consider the fossil to be a secondarily
flightless bat, descended from winged ancestors, just as ostriches
and the like are considered are considered secondarily flightless
birds.)


If I understand you correctly, *evidence* is unimportant for the
conclusion (or "fact" as you call it) that evolution produced the bat

from some wingless creature?


No; rather, biologists already have what in their view is compelling
evidence that bats evolved from non-flying animals, and thus will
not receive any further persuasion from the discovery of a
transitional fossil. (It might lead them to revise their theories,
though.)
And my real point is that, since I presume you don't accept the
transitional fossils that have already been found as evidence of
common descent, I doubt you would be persuaded
by this hypothetical bat transitional either.


I don't accept random mutation + natural selection as a mechanism for
the evolution of the complex machinery of life - whether it's the flight
system of bats, or any other complex system. If these things *did*
evolve from common ancestors, the evolution was directed or programmed
into the common ancestor - IOW intelligently designed.
That indeed seems to be your position, but you've made a pig's ear of
arguing it thus far.

RM is incapable
of producing complex systems - no matter how much selective pressure exists.
Sure it can. What are you basing that on? That's your own wild guess.
Your problem is that you should have stated that in the form of a
question, rather than an assertation. Now, people are going to
criticise you for making assertations about stuff you know nothing
about.
Firstly, it is not mutation that is directly selected. Variation is
selected, and mutation just happens to be the root cause of that. I say
this to fix in your mind the kind of thing that is being selected.
What about a system of camouflage? That can increase complexity by most
people's definition of the word. Take an imaginary species of winged
insect. Our species of insect is threatened by ground dwelling animals.
This means (as the generations fly by) that the average wing size is
maintained at a steady length, because those with wings near to the
threshhold of usefulness get pruned away from the gene pool.
Alright, so you're already comfortable with that idea.
NOW imagine a filter on top of that : Predators from the air. As the
number of predators increase, they prune away the insect that look
least like the leaves they dwell on.
So with these two overlapping filters in place, what happens to the
average physical form of the species?
Answer: With all other factors out of the equation, you'll find that
the average wing will gravitate toward a shape that maintains both
camouflage and flight. So where does complexity come in? It may arise
because the simplest solution may be unreachable without crossing a
point where the wing wouldn't achieve either. The gene pool might
gravitate toward the solution, but it is also meandering, just as water
meanders around the obstacles between its starting point and the source
of gravity. This inability of evolution to leap to the simplest
solution represents lack of intelligence, not intelligence.
You see, the environment(sieve) is complex, and natural selection is
ordered. There you have a meeting point between order and complexity.
In fact, order and complexity, like roundness or the appearence of a
leaf, are beneficial in many cases and therefore are bred into
populations under most normal circumstances.


The problem with your scenario is that you are trimming insects out of an existing pool. No *new* features are being *developed*. Those features which result in death are eliminated, sure, but (in order to get from soup to man) evolution *must* produce new features. How does *that* happen?



3. If life was designed, certain predictions could be made

limited scope of evolution as well.
Essentially *all* evolution can be categorized into two categories:

A. Random corruption of existing data (or undesigned evolution).

and

B. Built in adaptive (or designed) evolution.


No; there is also the possibility of non-random "corruption"
deliberately introduced by the designers.


That's what I meant by "built in".



OK, but it isn't "built in" if it has to be added manually.


Umm... I think that would kinda be the definition of "built in" wouldn't it?



So my car has "built in" power windows, because I can take out the
windows it has and replace them with powered ones? Or are you
saying that it would have built-in power windows after I perform this task?


I guess, I'm not following you here. Are you proposing that biological
designers *added* features over time?



That's right. More precisely, that they could have added features over
time.


It's possible. That idea would be consistent with known design practices.



[...]


Sounds like standard Darwinism, then. The old target area
was vulnerable to antibiotics, so it was replaced by one that
isn't. I don't see any "limitation" here.


You say that as if there's some cognitive thought behind Darwinism.



No, I'm only implying active power, not any kind of thought.


That's funny, because it sounded a lot like thought to me - as in "See a
need, fill a need".



No more so than when a rock moves downward because it "sees" that it
is no longer supported by the ground.


A rock falling down and a complex feature being built up are two
entirely different things.
You could build a house by sieving a rain of bricks.


My word...

A "house" is more than bricks. Which process builds better houses - intelligent agency or "brick sieves"? And, without intelligent agency, your "brick sieve method" won't work either.

This gets to the crux of the matter: A complex biological system is more that any random process can account for, so all these convoluted scenarios are devised in the minds of men who's greatest fear seems to be the very idea of a creative god. I don't get it.



[...]


Yes, a typo *can* create new meaning, but can it produce new sentences,
paragraphs, and stories? Can mutation produce new genomes with new
features added? That's the real question here. And just as typos
usually only produce gibberish, so I'd argue, do mutations.



That may be true, but natural selection will rapidly weed out any
mutations
that produce gibberish. Mutations that produce workable proteins will
likely stick around for a while, possibly become dominant when the
environment changes to make the altered protein beneficial.

As for the analogy, evolution of new sentences would require some
sort of copying and selection mechanism so that "workable" typos
can accumulate while useless ones can be eliminated. This doesn't
seem to happen in practice.


Not only would they have to be workable, but they'd have to provide a
selectable advantage. I don't think most evolutionists realize how big
a job this is for a *random* process.
Evolution is non-random.


So it's guided?

The paths of the planets, at least in broad outline, are non-random (they're determined by gravitation interactions). Would you describe them as guided?

The reaction of oxygen and hydrogen to produce water is non-random, at least in the end result. Would you describe this as guided?

If not, then you have no justification for concluding, from evolution being non-random, that evolution is guided. If yes, you have widened the concept of guidedness to the point where it is irrelevant to the issue of the factuality of common descent with modification through the agency of natural selection and other processes.
--
alias Ernest Major


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