Re: Poisson Distribution

On Mar 25, 10:04 am, wf3h <w...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Mar 25, 12:41 pm, Seanpit <seanpitnos...@naturalselection.

0catch.com> wrote:
On Mar 22, 11:38 am, wf3h <w...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

we know how musicians compose. it happens every day. the rules of
music are pretty well known

Not outside of ID.  Musicians compose with the use of ID - as do
artists of all kinds.

and yet they still use musical instruments...material objects, which
use natural laws. no sign of what YOU mean by 'intelligent design' at
all...that is, something so advanced our laws can't understand it.

I've never made such a claim. Quite the contrary. Even our limited
understanding of genetics as it currently stands can understand enough
about it to know how to produce fairly complicated novel genetic
information ourselves.

there are, according to you, NO rules about how to create species.

There are no rules about how to create "music" either.

really? musicians use telepathy? they compose music that is in the
audio range of 1 GHz?!!

  There are

rules about how to create certain types of music, but what defines
"music" to one person may not qualify as music to another - yet ID can
still be detected in both. The same thing is true of the radiosignals
SETI scientists are looking for.

you might as well stop using the SETI analog. no SETI scientist agrees
with you.  and it's your contention that our laws about nature are
inadequate to describe nature (e. g. evolution), BUT are adequate to
describe intelligence. that's simply nonsense.

What is nonsense is your claim that nothing in nature requires ID.
Your argument removes the basis of SETI and of detection of design in
human creations.

it's a key point of your argument, in fact. the rules are so UNKNOWN
that to us the formation of species appears magical

Not at all.  We humans are starting to create genetic information and
even novel life forms ourselves.

based on the laws of chemistry. no scientist uses non material methods
to create novel life forms. the laws of nature are ALWAYS involved.
and the scientists themselves are material beings. they are not
abstract intelligences.

I never suggested otherwise. It is you who are suggesting that the
designer of life be requried to use some sort of mysterious
"miraculous" method of creation - not I. I've always said that
whatever method was used it was most likely perfectly "natural" - -
from the designer's perspective.

so what is there about these rules that enables us to say intelligence
was involved? the conclusion you've reached is contradicted by your
own methodology.

What enables us to say that intelligence was involved is the fact that
no non-intelligent process comes remotely close to producing the level
of emergent functional/informational complexity that is found in all
living things.

process of elimination? this is not a proof. its the absence of a
proof, actually. even if evolution is wrong, this statement of yours
simply says we have no explanation for how things got here.

This is the very same argument SETI scientsts use.

if our laws of nature are inadequate to describe nature, and
intelligence is part of nature, then our laws are inadequate to
describe intelligence.

By themselves they are. The origin of intelligence cannot be
explained without pre-existing intelligence. The same thing is true
of the universe itself. The ultimate origin of matter and of time
itself cannot be explained. I mean really, can you explain the big
bang?

it's equally your assertion that our understanding of natural laws is
so advanced we can say an intelligence was involved.

Can't you tell that an intelligent was involved in the writing of the
sentence you just wrote?

trying to prove a negative? you're the one who says our science is too
primitive to know how species were formed, and that it appears
magical...THEN you say our science is so advanced that we CAN say
intelligence was involved.

which is it?

I never used the word "magical". That's your favorite word - not mine.

uh...no. it's your contention that the 'intelligence' involved is so
advanced that it 'appears' magical.

Nope. I've never made that claim either.

obviously there's a contradiction here. of course, creationism/ID by
its very nature handwaves away contradictions, and cherry picks its
observations...but it's a contradiction nonetheless.

There is no contradiction. It's science - limited, but not completely
limited.

more handwaving. if we can't say anything about methodology...if we've
never seen the type of intelligence of which you speak...if we can say
nothing about its methods

then we can't say an intelligence was involved at all.

We can say something about the methodology that could have been used.

which you've never done.

Sure I have. The technology used could have been similar to what we
humans are using right now.


We are in fact using it ourselves right now.  The same thing is true
about SETI.  

which you're wrong about

It's a fact. Look it up.


We can say what methodology could be used to produce the
types of signals SETI scientists are looking for.

which are ALWAYS based on natural forces.

Nope. It is based on certain types of natural forces, - one of which
must include ID.

apparently we can describe
the way advanced intelligences work...but not the intelligence you
believe in.

Why not? I've never said anything about the intelligence I believe in
aside from the fact that it is intelligent.


another contradiction
you've hung yourself on a contradicton:
our laws are inadequate to describe nature (you say).

I've never said that . . .

BUT...intelligence is natural...as you admit

Certainly . . .

and you claim our laws CAN describe what intelligence does.

Not outside of intelligence already being there - i.e., original
intelligence.

but if
intelligence is part of nature, then it seems you believe our laws
both CAN and CAN'T describe it.
contradiction

Non-intelligent natural processes cannot describe the origin of
intelligence. This is the basis of a concept related to information
theory - i.e., informational entropy. Systems with lower-level
meaningful or functional information cannot given rise to higher-
levels of meaningful/functional or "emergent" information.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

.

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