Re: topmind: ID is potentially testable

The reasons why this analogy is particularly weak have been addressed
by others in this thread. Basically, you can't name a single machine
that has all of the characteristics you list and your list does not
include the one characteristic shared by all life, namely reproduction.

So if robots can be taught to make robots, suddenly the scales tip?

Even if some specialized machines could be built to mimic
characteristics of living things, the vast majority of machines do not
share many, if any, of those characteristics. _All_ life shares that
characteristic. What are you trying to show with such a poor analogy?

Trying to squirm out of the reproduction pit you dug yourself. I have
just exposed you as full-of-crap here. I caught you, dude. I hold the
above up as representative of the lame logic you use.

You claim X is the key, I pop X, and they you claim Y is key. I pop Y
and then you claim Z and keep circling around and around.

EXPPOOOOOOSSSSSEEEEEED!


B. We can put messages in DNA and distribute them across the galaxy,
so too may aliens. (Note that B does not necessarily rely on A).

That is not possible at our current level of technology. Can we
protect DNA from radiation and other hazards during the journey to
other planets?

I already described how such is possible. Researches have concluded
that it may be possible for bacterial spores of certain species to
survive space radiation if covered with a few centimeters of rock IIRC.
If this is pivotable, I'll try to dig up the article.

What is pivotal is that your claim of "We can put messages in DNA and
distribute them across the galaxy" is simply wrong. At our current
level of technology, we cannot. It may turn out to be an intractable
or prohibitively expensive concept.

Hogwash! Each Voyager craft weighs about a ton. Just toss the
scientific instruments and replace them with the spore pods.


B is very similar to SETI: "We leak radio into space, and thus so
may aliens." (There is the small diff between "did" and "could", but
nobody has proposed this as the final separator yet.)

This is nothing like SETI's observations that no known natural sources
of narrow band radio emissions in a particular part of the
electromagnetic spectrum. There are known natural sources of DNA.

Not of images or long Pi or Primes.

You have yet to explain what your hypothesis is, why it predicts
images, pi, or sequences of prime numbers, how it predicts those
patterns will be encoded, or where they should be found. Until that
information is forthcoming, there is no way to tell if they are likely
or not in any particular DNA sequence. If your hypothesis predicts
that your intelligent designer used a one time pad, for example, the
whole bonobo genome could constitute a high resolution image of the
letter Pi surrounded by primes.

That is just details. Nobody here has ventured that SETI would stop
being based on a scientific idea of they had to turn to content
analysis of a signal to test it further. Thus, turning to content
analysis instead of just spectrum spread is not a separator.

Whether the signal is in the sky or in DNA, the issue is nearly
identical. One is up, and one is on the ground.


What is your hypothesis?

That intelligent beings may have created or manipulated DNA, leaving
signals/messages that we may be able to detect.

This is not falsifiable. Monkeys _may_ fly out your ***, but
speculating on the likelihood of that is not science.

Either is SETI.

The scientific hypothesis being tested by SETI has been explained to
you repeatedly.

You make crap up repeatedly. It was crap the first time you said it,
and it is still crap. Duplicating crap only results in more crap.

-T-

.