Re: Results of the Great Evolutionist/ID Debate Thread

ave1 wrote:
hersheyhv wrote:
ave1 wrote:
hersheyhv wrote:
ave1 wrote:
hersheyhv wrote:

snip]

The *fact* that retinoids have uses other than vision and the *fact*
that the primary (essentially universal) function of these molecules is
in membrane support was used to support the claim that it is, in fact,
possible (even likely, given the primary function of retinoids) for the
visual function to be an exadaption of a pre-existing compound rather
than requiring a process that involves poofing such a compound into
existence by magic.

I'm not proposing magic.

Of course you are. You are claiming that disembodied "intelligence"
did something by some mechanism that is massively vague and totally
unsupported by any evidence whatsoever.

SETI scientists are seeking signs of disembodied intelligence doing
something vague to send signals into space, while there's no support of
any such thing happening. Do you deny that SETI is science?

SETI is not seeking signs of disembodied intelligence. They are
seeking material (and simple, not complex) radio signals that *could*
have been manufactured by human-like intelligent agents but not (AFAWK)
by any known natural mechanism. IOW, far from looking for signs of
"intelligence", they are looking, specifically, for human-like
intelligence that has generated material signals. They are
*specifically* making assumptions about the capacities, modalities, and
intentions of the intelligent agents they are looking for signals from.
ID *specifically* claims to be able to detect signals in the absence
of any assumptions about the capacities, modalities, or intentions of
their disembodied intelligences. IOW, they claim to be able to detect
intelligence without knowing anything about the way the intelligence
works.

You say that this disembodied
"intelligence" "conceived of blueprints", yet you present no evidence
of any blueprints.

The blueprints are known as the DNA code.

Or RNA in the case of some viruses? DNA is not a code. It is a
macromolecule that has a sequence, some parts of which have meaning to
the cell that has the macromolecule. DNA, whether it has meaning to
the cell or not, is not, AFAWK, *manufactured* by an outside agent. It
*reproduces* by a template-copy mechanism. The necessarily imperfect
mechanism by which DNA *reproduces* ensures that the information will
vary in populations and that some of this variance will have phenotypic
consequences. That is, the nature of DNA ensures that, even if
evolution had never occurred in the past, it would in the future. All
the requirements of evolution are present: variation generation and
selection (or chance alone in the case of selectively neutral changes).

What are these 'blueprints' of which you speak?
The entirely modifiable and enevitably modified DNA sequences of a
genome?

The prototype creatures certainly had some plasticity in their genomes
(Creatures we generally know as "cats" being one example).

Are you aware of how similar, in terms of genes that have coding
meaning, cats and humans are? There are about the same number of
coding sequences in all mammals (not to mention flies and worms) and
the vast majority of these can be identified as serving similar
functions in both organisms.

What evidence do you have that your hypothetical (and it is
hypothetical) disembodied intelligence did *anything* to DNA?

We never see DNA getting put together through blind processes.

I can replicate DNA (RNA is even easier) in a test tube by simply
adding the same chemicals and enzymes that cells use. DNA replication
is as blind as any chemical reaction, whether in nature or in a test
tube. I don't see any intelligent fairies moving the chemicals around.
Nor do I see any *intelligent agent* involved in bacterial or viral
genome replication.

It
requires purposeful information of large amounts to arrange those
molecules. Intelligence is a reasonable implication for the source of
such purposeful information.

So is self-preservation. Any variant unable to reproduce its genome
reasonably (but not too) accurately and reasonably frequently would
have long ago ceased to exist. Again, disembodied intelligence can do
nothing. You need evidence for an intelligent *agent* doing something
in the material world.

What material evidence do you have that there even a disembodied
intelligence that *could* do anything to this hypothetical blueprint?

Human intelligence has been shown to be capable of piecing together a
molecule known as the polio virus using large amounts of purposeful
information. Why could not intelligence that preceded mankind be
viewed as having originated lifeforms?

Do you have any positive evidence for an "intelligence that preceded
mankind" that had the ability to copy nature like the humans who
*manufactured* the polio virus? Again, I don't have to posit the
existence of those humans, like you have to posit the existence of your
fairy. The humans actually wrote a scientific article describing how
they did it and indicated how others could do it.

In the Big Bang theory, we know that "a singularity" had to be present
at the start. Why does this singularity have to be something that
lacks sentience? To me, it makes more sense to see genesis than it does
to accept abiogenesis.

So the entire *universe* (everything derived from the singularity) is
sentient? A pantheist at heart. Couldn't a pantheistic "intelligent"
universe create life by an evolutionary mechanism indistinguishable
from what we call a 'natural' mechanism?

What evidence do you have that this hypothetical 'intelligence'
(intelligence, by itself, does nothing -- I can have the most brilliant
idea of all time, but unless I act to produce or manufacture something
visible to show, the idea will die with me) is capable of arranging
"matter and energy"?

We know what intelligence is capable of doing, because we are prime
examples of that. To view the designer of life as both intelligent and
able to act on it is not unreasonable.

You still have presented no material evidence that there *is* a
designer of life that worked by any mechanism different from evolution.
And human intelligence *is* constrained to working entirely within the
rules of nature. Is *that* an assumption you are willing to make for
your "designer of life"? That abiogenesis was entirely natural with no
supernatural events occurring, only some supernatural lab scientist
arranging the natural conditions that led to life in some stellar test
tube? What exactly did this supernatural lab scientist do after the
formation of life? Did that life have the capacity to reproduce, vary,
and undergo selection (or chance change) like present life? Or did the
supernatural lab scientist have to pop in every so often and rearrange
the DNA blueprint to produce something "different"?

I am proposing the application of
intelligence, which conceived of blueprints and then arranged matter
and energy so that living organisms (things with both extremely high
complexity and extremely high levels of order) of varying types could
thrive on our planet. This may involve some serious technology which
we may not have a mental grasp on, but to say that it HAS TO HAVE BEEN
magic is a non-sequitur.

Until you present (some, any) evidence, all you are saying is that you
are positing that some undetectable, invisible something acting by an
undetectable mechanism at some unspecified time and unspecified place
somehow managed to poof into existence whatever you want poofed into
existence.

Anyone who points to abiogenesis as the reason DNA and cells came about
is saying that some undetectable process that's sofar invisible managed
to build molecules and arrange high levels of purposeful information
into the first lifeforms. It takes more faith to think that blind
processes could explain life's origin than it takes to think that
nonblind processes could account for it.

The first step to curing ignorance is recognizing that you have it.
Scientists have no problem saying "I don't know how this happened in
full details." They do not propose any invisible process to explain
how the molecules required for life could arise from simpler molecules.
They propose chemistry under particular conditions. Life, at its
simplest, requires a genetic system with the capacity to use energy and
materials from its environment to imperfectly replicate that genetic
system. The genetic system is required to transmit information to the
future. The imperfection is needed to produce the variation needed for
adaptability and ability to exploit new niches (to evolve the *current*
crop of living organisms). The capacity to use energy and materials
from *its* environment is required for the perpetuation of the chemical
reactions involved in life. Life actually is a peculiar kind of
chemical reaction with some similarity to crystal formation.

Which of these processes necessarily *require* an intelligent agent to
manufacture it? All can be observed to occur in the absence of an
intelligent agent. Why isn't such an agent needed now?

*That* is the essence of positing that something exists by
"magic".

If that's how you define magic, then you are invoking magic when you
see abiogenesis as being acceptable as an explanation of life's origin
because it's an undetectable process-- pretty much invisible.

Abiogenesis happened. We are arguing about how it happened (by the
action of some hypothetical supernatural fairy or by natural chemical
processes), not whether it happened. I can simply say "I don't know."
rather than make the unsupported assertion that "A hypothetical
supernatural fairy did something that somehow poofed life into
existence." and pretend that that means I have an answer. Just because
I say "I don't know exactly how it happened." does not mean that your
unsupported assertion that a magical fairy did it by magic is correct.
For your magical fairy hypothesis to be useful, you actually have to be
able to present material evidence for the magical fairy's existence.

1. If A then B (e.g. If intelligent design occured to make things long
ago, one way this might have taken place is via magic).
2. Not B (e.g. magic doesn't exist)
3. Therefore, Not A (e.g. Intelligent design couldn't have occured.)

Want to make a revision to your arguments?

No, since the above is not my argument.

Actually it is your argument. You are saying "magic" is the only way a
pre-human intelligence could get matter arranged to form things like
DNA and cells. The truth of the matter, though, is that magic is not
the only "mechanism" which might explain it.

I am saying that you repeatedly fail to present any *specific* and
*supported* mechanism by which your magical fairy is supposed to have
worked. Until you do, you are proposing magic. If I say that amino
acids can be formed by the action of energy and certain precursors in a
particular environment, that is not proposing magic. If you propose
hypothetical intelligent human-like entities manufacturing agents
working by the methods and tools of human molecular biochemistry, then
you have the same obligation that I do to show that the environment we
are concerned about (the pre-biotic earth) has the requisite
conditions. In my case, I would need to show that there early earth
has the chemical environment in which the proposed chemical reactions
occur. In yours, you would need to show that the pre-biotic earth was
populated by your intelligent fairies and their invisible molecular
biology labs.

If one has actual evidence
supporting a real intelligent designer and real methodology (as is done
in archeology) explicitly using knowledge of the capabilities, motives,
and skills of these real intelligent designers to determine whether an
object is more likely to have been manufactured by these agents or more
likely to be a natural artifact (there are things which are difficult
to classify), that would not be magic. If one is positing an
invisible, undetectable, disembodied intelligence of limitless powers
that works by unknown and unknowable mechanisms to produce whatever the
positer wants, that is "magical" thinking.

Again, if one thinks that abiogenesis made the original cells (and the
included DNA within), one is positiing an invisible, undetectable
something of limitless powers that worked by an unknown route to
produce whatever the abiogenesis positer wants, that is "magical"
thinking.

Chemistry is positing an invisible, undetectable, something of
limitless powers? Again, I have no problem saying "I don't know." for
certain steps in the processes undoubtedly involved in abiogenesis.
You are the one who is positing that you *know* about the existence of
an invisible, undetectable something of limitless powers working in an
invisible, undetectable molecular biology lab at a time when there is
no evidence of intelligent (or any) life on the earth and that this
fairy produced what you (an abiogenesis poster) wants. And that this
fairy somehow poofs whatever complex *modern* lifeform you want it to
into existence.

You're point of view is no more scientific than mine.

Yes it is. I know when I am ignorant and do not posit magical fairies
to cover up my ignorance with a pretense of explanation. You posit
magical fairies to explain anything you don't want to admit can occur
by natural processes, be that abiogenesis or evolution.

The last is what the creationist argument
requires:

. . . Or technology which far exceeds what we can comprehend in our
puny human minds.

Then, in science, the phrase we use is "We don't know how it was
created.", not "A disembodied intelligence did it."

The reason you "don't know" is that you are unwilling to recognize the
beauty of intelligence and what it's capable of for some reason.

I recognize that intelligence of a human level exists now (and that
intelligence of *lower*, not *higher* levels of magnitude, existed in
organisms both present and past). I have absolutely no evidence that
*higher* levels of intelligence existed when you claim it did. All the
intelligence I can *scientifically* know of arises from material beings
(with brains), not magical fairies or as disembodied ether. You are
positing disembodied non-material higher levels of intelligence from
posited magical fairies to cover up your ignorance with the pretense of
"knowing".

that there be some system that *requires*, as a matter of
necessity, the entire system to be produced by magic in one swell foop.

When intelligence was applied to follow a recipe to make a polio virus
from scratch (piecing it together with the proper components), this
very complex and highly specified compound was arranged in a
methodical process, not "one swell foop". It took hours upon hours of
"synthesizing" work-- not to mention some serious blueprint scheming
beforehand.

Is that the method you are proposing? On what basis? Are you saying
that "god" or your "disembodied intelligence" used a DNA synthesis
machine somewhere and has a P3 lab.

Could it be a possibility? Yes, but I might think it happened to be a
little more complicated than this.

Any evidence?

Any evidence to support your wild
speculation that God did things the way that a human genetic engineer would?

Do you have any evidence to support your wild speculation that
intelligence can't organize things to have high levels of information?

Intelligent agents, like humans, *can* organize things to produce
higher levels of infomation than previously existed. They can also
destroy information. They can also organize things so as to
disseminate anti-information. But you are not positing such *material*
intelligent agents for which you have evidence. You are positing a
disembodied, non-material, intelligence that magically produces
whatever you want produced. You are positing magic.

If you allow the *process* to take geological time-frames, how
would you distinguish it from evolution, where genomes are modified
over time and selection is used to choose the "winners"?

I'd say they are all winners-- except for the fact that bad
environmental circumstances can cause extinction.

Such as? Can you give me a time line on this? When and what were the
environmental circumstances that killed all the trilobites? The
ichthyosaurs? The pterodactyls? The bilaterally symmetrical
echinoderms? Why are there no mammal fossils in the Devonian? Hell,
why are there no modern telosts there? The pattern of the fossil
record is not one that shouts that all organisms were made at one
single time point.

The variety we see
and the similarity in homology that we see is an indication of a
message sent to us by our Creator.

Funny code he used. Send us the one pattern that clearly indicates
largely vertical descent with modification over time and then be
shocked, shocked, that we take it literally and reject the idea that
all organisms were created simultaneously by a supernatural fairy.

There is a connectedness of all the
varied lifeforms (genetically and morphologically speaking) which is an
indication that they all came from ONE designer, not many.

One with many literally competing designs that just happen to be
lineage specific. And one with many analogous re-inventions (bacterial
flagella, fins, wings) that also are lineage specific. Was this single
designer too stupid to borrow liberally across lineages?

After all,
even human genetic engineers often use selection (always preferred over
screens because it is faster) as a way to find the "winners". That is
how they found the antibody that had beta-galactosidase activity.

I see this "evolving" as only a conceptual process. I call it
"conceptual advancing".

Call it what you want. It is still preferential reproduction (and
reproduction is not an intelligent process, even, often, in humans ;-)
) because of environmental pressures.

To be continued. . .

Steve
---
Did mind come before matter in the universe or matter come before mind?
Chapters 1 and 2 have your answer:
http://www.bottomlayer.com/bottom/reality/Intro.html

.

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