Re: Vitalism vs. Mechanism

On Jun 19, 1:27 pm, John Harshman <jharshman.diespam...@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

< snip >

Reuse of code isn't just laziness, it is good design. It makes for
greater compressibility and less energy to produce and maintain the
overall program or "genome".

What, in terms of cellular metabolism or DNA function, does
"compressibility" mean? Genomes are certainly never compressed. And here
we aren't even talking about genomes, but about collections of genomes,
which are not even biological entities. What does "less energy to
produce or maintain" mean? It certainly has nothing to do with
organismal metabolism. It seems to be referring to the effort on the
part of the designer, if it refers to anything. But does your designer
act to minimize his own effort? What makes you think so? And if he does,
wouldn't the least effort be to create a single cell capable of evolving?

The smallest most compact genome wouldn't use completely different
programs for all of this various functions. It would overlap its
programs so that various portions of it would be useful in multiple
systems. This smaller more efficient genome has the effect of saving
energy for the organism. Of course, just a bit of redundancy adds to
the flexibility of an organism as it interacts with different
environments making it more adaptable.

So is it your contention that we can't even ask what the designer would
or would not do? That no evidence of pattern is capable of investigating
design?

Is the question truly meaningless? Previously you have said the god
likes variety. Is this not true, or is it unknowable whether it's true?
If either, why have you said this previously?

You often misquote me. Variety or lack thereof is not for or against
ID. SETI scientists are not looking for variety to detect ET. They
are looking for a signal that goes significantly beyond what known
natural processes are capable of producing while being within the
known ranges of at least human-level intelligent production. That's
it. That is why your pattern analysis for similarities really says
nothing about the likelihood of your proposed naturalistic mechanism
to have done or not to have done the job.

Again, you confuse the mechanism of variation with the mechanism of
descent with branching. But you seem to be saying here that no pattern
at all can be considered evidence for or against common descent. Is that
the case?

How did you get this from what I said? Certain patterns are
consistent with common descent, while others are not. However, having
a pattern that is consistent with common descent is not enough to
adequately support the hypothesis of common descent. You also have to
have a mechanism that is capable of producing not only the pattern,
but the functional aspects of the system in question.

Of course, we've been over all of this before. I really don't care to
get into this topic with you to rehash the very same arguments over
and over again. I'll put up with it for now, but not much longer
unless you start coming up with something better than you presented
before . . .

Perhaps you're right here. However, it seems to me like RNA
polymerase could be set up to produce a different mRNA sequence given
a particular DNA sequence. Enzymatic activities like this can be
altered to change specificities regardless of the template key.

I agree that some kind of enzymatic apparatus could be set up to produce
a different RNA from the same DNA template. It would however have to be
a greatly more complicated apparatus than the one we see, and one that
didn't rely on base complementarity. And it wouldn't at all resemble RNA
polymerase as we know it. It would have to recognize particular bases,
which RNA polymerase does not do, and build a chain by some other
mechanism than complementarity.

That's true.

Do you have a point?

That is my point. It didn't have to be set up like it is set up in
order to work. It might not work as well, but it would work.

Which again makes one wonder why everyone uses the same code. Whatever
could be the explanation for that?
Common design works just as well as common descent here.
Only because common design is compatible with anything at all, right?

That's right. ID explains everything. So does Naturalism.

Here we go again with the false equivalences. The entire ID program
appears to eschew the very possibility of explanation of pattern,
because its central postulate is compatible with any result at all, and
you specifically disclaim any ability to discriminate among
possibilities. Mainstream science, on the other hand, is capable of
discriminating among explanations. Different data, different explanations.

Not when it comes to ultimate answers for data. Different data,
regardless, ultimately has the same answer in mainstream science -
Naturedidit . . . somehow. You may not know exactly how. You may
present different ways that nature could have done the job. But,
ultimately, you always propose a mindless non-directed natural process
behind all phenomena (to include the activities of intelligent agents
- ultimately).

You can explain commonality by common design, and you can explain
variety by common design. You can explain anything, and so you explain
nothing.

Careful now . . . you're shooting yourself in the foot here.
Remember, according to you, Nature explains everything too – and
therefore nothing? Don't understand something? Well, we don't know
why or how, but we are sure Nature did it somehow . . .

What's the difference?

The difference is that we can indeed discriminate among explanations in
science. If there were radically different genetic codes, we would have
to accept that there were multiple origins of life.

Yes, all of them the result of mindless Natural processes.

The single code
argues for a single origin of life, with inheritance of that code from
the common ancestor. Given a common ancestor, we do not expect radically
different codes.

The same is true for a common designer with at least human-level
intelligence and motivation. It makes perfect sense either way.
Deciding between these two equally logical options requires additional
information.

Goddidit arguments vs. Naturedidit arguments?

Ultimately, something must explain everything that we see – even the
stuff we don't understand must have an ultimate explanation.

This is silly philosophizing that misses the point. A theory, in order
to be useful, must be able to explain some possible observations but be
incapable of explaining others. We prefer theories that explain what we
actually do observe. But if they explained everything we don't observe
equally well, they would be useless. As is your particular version of ID.

Not true at all. You do in fact believe that mindless natural
processes explain absolutely everything that you understand and even
those things you do not yet understand. It is the Naturalistic
philosophy of mainstream science.

I hear this all the time – ID explains everything and therefore
nothing. That's not quite true. Sure, ID does explain everything,
but that's not the same thing as explaining nothing. It is actually
useful to have a solution that potentially explains everything. This
is in fact the basis of SETI. If you know a particular process is
limited, and you know that a given observation goes beyond this
limitation, it is helpful to have a different explanation that known
to be able to go beyond this limitation as well. ID does this.
Particular types of radiosignals are known to go well beyond natural
production, but are known to be within the range of intelligent
production because ID has a much wider range of what it can explain
for certain types of radiosignals vs. any known natural process.

You have a basic misunderestanding of science. If you have a theory with
which no conceivable observation would be incompatible, there is no way
to test that theory. You appear to have admitted that ID is compatible
with all conceivable observations. Is that true?

So is Naturalism. Naturalism is the default hypothesis for all new
observations - no matter how bizarre and mysterious - like quantum
physics. No one suggests that because quantum physics seems to defy
human logic that it is somehow beyond the realm of a naturalistic
explanation. Even if it cannot be understood completely or even to
any significant degree, it is still assumed, by mainstream scientists,
that it has a natural mindless non-directed cause. That's a fact of
modern mainstream science. There really is no argument here.

Ultimately then, both sides of this issue come to a wall where their
ultimate explanation for everything (mindless Nature vs. God) cannot
itself be explained. We both have the same ultimate problem. I
cannot explain God and you cannot explain Nature - - as far as far as
a source of ultimate explanations are concerned. Our respective
positions are ultimately equally beyond explanation. Yet, one of them
is likely correct. Which one?

Yes, it is. DNA does not "operate" by itself. The setup of the
decoding apparatus is arbitrary. There is no chemical necessity for a
particular codon to code for a particular amino acid. It could be set
up so that a particular amino acid is coded for by a different codon
or even a different number of bases besides the usual three per codon.
There is, by the way, a single 4-base codon in the mitochondrial genomes
of certain birds and turtles. You would think it would cause a frame
shift, but it doesn't. I don't know why.
Cool . . .
Very. Why, one wonders, would god put this 4-base codon into a random
selection of species?

Why would Nature do it?

Because nature does random weird things for no particular reason.

Not true . . . at least not for very long in living things. That's
the whole point of natural selection.

Now
there are in fact particular explanations for natural events, and we can
investigate those events to find out the explanations. I just happen not
to know the explanation, nor do I know if anyone else knows it. How
could we find the particular explanation of this feature from an ID
perspective?

It is only reasonable that ID would produce a system to work inside
the overall system of the universe to survive in it most effectively
give its universal set of physical laws.

Must be a good reason either way.
Environmental factors? Stray mutation that hasn't been fixed yet?
Who knows? Except that for now it seems to be working. That's pretty
cool.

It would seem to be a stray mutation that has been fixed other than by
eliminating the mutation; instead it's been accomodated somehow.

Not necessarily true. It is likely that this feature is somehow
beneficial at this point, which means that it could have evolved to
this beneficial state or have been originally designed in this
beneficial state given the particular situation of the organisms in
question.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: The ID-only hypothesis - - yet again
    ... This is just more evidence that your design hypothesis is incapable of explaining anything, because you are unsurprised by anthing you see. ... This new explanation is, as far as I can see, completely unrelated to the previous explanation. ... consistent with common descent, while others are not. ... Naturalism is merely the assumption that data have the ability to choose among theories. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • The ID-only hypothesis - - yet again
    ... part of the designer, ... ultimately has the same answer in mainstream science - ... compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, ... "Naturalism" isn't a scientific theory. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Why should -1 multiplied by -1 be plus 1 and not -1
    ... >> are from an abstraction. ... >> Frege provided an explanation of what natural numbers are. ... by an abstraction principle. ... That thing they have in common is Beauty. ...
    (sci.logic)
  • Re: Real scientist (Einstein) versus fake scientists (neo-Darwinists)
    ... A falsified scientific theory is still science. ... only the explanation of the natural. ... those who follow a philosophical naturalism ... was the explanation for that gap, we damage the message of God. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Common Descent non-Falsifiable?
    ... in the absence of any other credible explanation. ... Branching descent produces a pattern that cannot be sensibly exlained ... common descent would have to be at work. ... descent to be the best explanation for the nested hierarchy of life. ...
    (talk.origins)