Intelligent Design.

[Furrowed Brow]

Ok, some have tried to prove God's existence others have tried to prove the opposite. IDers argue that life needs a designer. They usually deny they are sneaking God into science, but you can make your own mind up. The ID type arguments also struggle to gain acceptance as science within the larger scientific community. Questions of predictions and falsifiability arise. There are also points about ID being a lazy answer, and closing down enquiry. But these ID guys and girls don't like to give up easy.

So is it possible to prove that science does not need Intelligent Design argument to explain nature?

[NB I am not asking whether it is possible to prove nature does not need a designer/God. I am really thinking about our methods of enquiry and explanation.]

[Confused]

Ok, some have tried to prove God's existence others have tried to prove the opposite. IDers argue that life needs a designer. They usually deny they are sneaking God into science, but you can make your own mind up. The ID type arguments also struggle to gain acceptance as science within the larger scientific community. Questions of predictions and falsifiability arise. There are also points about ID being a lazy answer, and closing down enquiry. But these ID guys and girls don't like to give up easy.

So is it possible to prove that science does not need Intelligent Design argument to explain nature?

[NB I am not asking whether it is possible to prove nature does not need a designer/God. I am really thinking about our methods of enquiry and explanation.]

I guess I have to wonder how intelligent the designer is if he created life so fragile. I mean, look at mankind. We are easily picked off by organisms so tiny we can scarcely see them with electron microscopes (viruses). We are constantly bombarded with illness, disease, age, mutations, birth defects, radiation, poisoning (CO, O2, heavy metals). In reality, we are frail creations. How intelligent is a creator to make such a flawed creation. Not in regards to sinners etc... But physically flawed. Rather than looking at this ID in regards to how we needed Him to be created, I wonder how He holds up to the standards of how well He created us? Organs fail, sometimes in childhood, bodies require constant nourishment, constant upkeep, etc.... How intelligent was this creator when we look at the attributes of His creation?

[QED]

I guess I have to wonder how intelligent the designer is if he created life so fragile. I mean, look at mankind. We are easily picked off by organisms so tiny we can scarcely see them with electron microscopes (viruses). We are constantly bombarded with illness, disease, age, mutations, birth defects, radiation, poisoning (CO, O2, heavy metals). In reality, we are frail creations. How intelligent is a creator to make such a flawed creation. Not in regards to sinners etc... But physically flawed. Rather than looking at this ID in regards to how we needed Him to be created, I wonder how He holds up to the standards of how well He created us? Organs fail, sometimes in childhood, bodies require constant nourishment, constant upkeep, etc.... How intelligent was this creator when we look at the attributes of His creation?

You remind me of an unexpectedly powerful feeling I got after watching the movie version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It stuck me how much more involved a conscious entity could become with all the interesting stuff going on in the galaxy, but our frailties very much rule us out. If it was all intelligently designed I can't see how anyone could imagine it was in any way for us.

[Confused]

I guess I have to wonder how intelligent the designer is if he created life so fragile. I mean, look at mankind. We are easily picked off by organisms so tiny we can scarcely see them with electron microscopes (viruses). We are constantly bombarded with illness, disease, age, mutations, birth defects, radiation, poisoning (CO, O2, heavy metals). In reality, we are frail creations. How intelligent is a creator to make such a flawed creation. Not in regards to sinners etc... But physically flawed. Rather than looking at this ID in regards to how we needed Him to be created, I wonder how He holds up to the standards of how well He created us? Organs fail, sometimes in childhood, bodies require constant nourishment, constant upkeep, etc.... How intelligent was this creator when we look at the attributes of His creation?

You remind me of an unexpectedly powerful feeling I got after watching the movie version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It stuck me how much more involved a conscious entity could become with all the interesting stuff going on in the galaxy, but our frailties very much rule us out. If it was all intelligently designed I can't see how anyone could imagine it was in any way for us.

I question the IQ of the designer. I constantly hear about how everything had to be just right in order for life to occur on this planet in this universe. Now, this planet has been hit by at least one major asteroid. When will the next one be? But our planet is in the "perfect location" for life. We are under constant reminders about volcanos, earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, global warming, etc... All these naturally occurring events on our own "perfectly designed" planet. We have strict constants that must be maintained exactly for our atmosphere to support life, yet it is "perfectly designed" to require those exact numbers with no wiggle room for variances, or life couldn't be here. The body systems for any living creature must work together in harmony with every organ in every system for the body to function without disease or death (ie: heart must maintain perfusion to deliver O2, nutrients, etc. which must work with lungs to maintain O2/CO2 exchange to ensure blood ph and organ perfusions, which must work with kidneys to excrete toxic wastes, which must work with liver to metabolize and excrete toxic waste which must work with stomach and intestines, and the brain must function to not only direct all these functions (except heart which has own internal pacer that sometimes fails) but maintain consciousness and memory etc... ). Yet somehow this universe is a perfect creation, the earth is a perfect creation, the atmosphere is a perfect creation, the human body is a perfect creation. Perhaps this intelligent designer didn't really understand biology and chemistry. Always reminds me of the movie with Tom Cruise "War of the Worlds" were simple viruses wiped out the perfect invaders, just as they wipe us out.

[jcrawford]

1) I never asked for a definition of a human. Only ID.

Since we are human we should have no trouble recognizing and identifying an intelligent design before and without defining the term.

However, I would hope that a definition for human wouldn't be based on the example of you and I alone since you obviously think I am subhuman because I am atheist and I obviously think you are subhuman because you display yourself as stupid (note: not ignorant because this would imply that you just don't know any better, you in fact do know better, you still choose to act stupid).

I would never call any human being subhuman and only use the term to identify and describe the Australopithicine apes which atheists like Dawkins and other evolutionists like to think your human ancestors in Africa evolved from.

2) I have witnessed many intelligent minds create many intelligent objects, yes. I have watched many intelligent minds also create some of the worst objects as well. Just as one can create a beautiful song, one can also create the atom bomb. Is there a point to this?

When intelligent minds create and design things, those things may be referred to as their creations or designs. Hence something created may be regarded as being intelligently designed.

3) My IQ? Obviously it is somewhere along the lines of subhuman in your eyes.

Impossible, since humans are much more intelligent than any subhuman African ape.

My 18 year old daughter graduates from high school this year, then enters college wanting to do something in linguistics, my 17 year old daughter is in the top 10% of the state of Florida for her grades and qualifies for the academics scholarships and wants to go into the field of biology. My 8 year old daughter maintains all A's despite her relapses of leukemia, and my 7 year old son can do calculus despite his autism.

Congratulations on all of the above - especially the intelligence of your son.

Tell me now of your accomplishments. I am so eager to hear of the accomplisments of one at the human level such as yourself.

I'm just another intelligently designed human being like you and your children.

[jcrawford]

So numbers can only be conceived mentally? That suggests that computers have a degree pf mentality too. I wouldn't be at all surprised.

Computers are intelligently designed and programmed to process data coded in the form of binary switches.

They have no minds and possess no more itelligence than an ordinary light bulb or curcuit switch despite science fiction fantasies to the contrary.

[micatala]

When intelligent minds create and design things, those things may be referred to as their creations or designs. Hence something created may be regarded as being intelligently designed.

jcrawford commits the converse error. He is essentially making the following argument, restated here for clarity and precision.

"If an intelligent being A intentionally creates B, then we say B exists as A's creation."

He then asserts that this implies the following:

"If B exists, B is the intentional produce of an intelligent being A."


Alternatively, we might word the implied argument as follows:

"If B is produced by an intelligent being A, B is created."
"Everything that exists is created."
"THerefore everything that exists is intelligently designed."

Since we are human we should have no trouble recognizing and identifying an intelligent design before and without defining the term.

As with other ID proponents, jcrawford seems unable or unwilling to offer any criteria for discerning what is and what is not actually the product of an intelligence other than 'I know it when I see it.'

Here is a large white (or maybe blue when it comes up on the screen) space:





















































How could one tell if this large space was intelligently designed or not without the words that come before and after?

[jcrawford]

How could one tell if this large space was intelligently designed or not without the words that come before and after?

No definition of ID is necessary to recognize and identify the blank space which we fill with our replies to each other's posts as having been intelligently designed by the intelligent programmers who created this webite.

The whole screen you are looking at has been intelligently designed whether you care to recognize and acknowledge the fact or not, and may be regarded as a visual example of a specific case of intelligent design.

[QED]

Computers are intelligently designed and programmed to process data coded in the form of binary switches.

They have no minds and possess no more itelligence than an ordinary light bulb or curcuit switch despite science fiction fantasies to the contrary.

So you say. But let's look at science fact again: what about the "knowledge" that can be acquired in the process of running a program? We can see the acquisition of unique knowledge in Genetic Algorithms, knowledge that such algorithms can and do apply in their autonomous design decisions. I think your mental picture of this is severely flawed because you regard knowledge as something exclusively supernatural.

Setting aside the assumption that any given autonomous design process has itself been intelligently created, we can see that it has the potential to merit its own class of independent intelligence (as proven by the novel, patentable designs emerging from the algorithms I referenced earlier for example). This independence means that we can no longer safely assume that any "design" we come across must be the direct product of our kind of intelligence. We can apply the same doubt to our own form of independent intelligence.

When, in the course of running a Genetic Algorithm, the algorithm discovers for itself some facet of nature potentially unknown to its human designers I think you, jcrawford, ought to pause for a moment and consider the real implications for your understanding of the nature and principles of intelligence. In case it's not clear enough for you yet, I would argue that the Algorithm could be said to have a mind of is own at this point. We might find ourselves marvelling at the design products of such an algorithm without the faintest idea of how they were achieved.

[QED]

No definition of ID is necessary to recognize and identify the blank space which we fill with our replies to each other's posts as having been intelligently designed by the intelligent programmers who created this webite.

How do you know that the website code wasn't created by a Genetic Programming tool?

[jcrawford]

Computers are intelligently designed and programmed to process data coded in the form of binary switches.

They have no minds and possess no more itelligence than an ordinary light bulb or curcuit switch despite science fiction fantasies to the contrary.

So you say. But let's look at science fact again: what about the "knowledge" that can be acquired in the process of running a program? We can see the acquisition of unique knowledge in Genetic Algorithms, knowledge that such algorithms can and do apply in their autonomous design decisions.

If you want to make the case for machine "knowledge" and the generation of autonomous design decisions, I have no problem with that as long as electronic computers can and do generate intelligently designed algorithmic systems.

I think your mental picture of this is severely flawed because you regard knowledge as something exclusively supernatural.

I would distinguish between machine "knowledge" and supernatural human knowledge about the machine.

Setting aside the assumption that any given autonomous design process has itself been intelligently created, we can see that it has the potential to merit its own class of independent intelligence (as proven by the novel, patentable designs emerging from the algorithms I referenced earlier for example). This independence means that we can no longer safely assume that any "design" we come across must be the direct product of our kind of intelligence.

At least we can safely assume that any intelligent designs we perceive may be the product of either human or machine intelligence. Besides human and machine intelligence though, there may be some other forms of life (insects) which are capable of intelligently designing their own habitats for living.

We can apply the same doubt to our own form of independent intelligence.

You can doubt our human intelligence if you care to but where does that leave us other than with some intelligent machines which may or may not be capable of perceiving the intelligent designs of some insects? If we cannot detect ID in nature beyond ourselves, I seriously doubt that a machine could.

When, in the course of running a Genetic Algorithm, the algorithm discovers for itself some facet of nature potentially unknown to its human designers I think you, jcrawford, ought to pause for a moment and consider the real implications for your understanding of the nature and principles of intelligence.

Since you previously cast doubt on human intelligence I am beginning to wonder if it is not true in some cases.

In case it's not clear enough for you yet, I would argue that the Algorithm could be said to have a mind of is own at this point. We might find ourselves marvelling at the design products of such an algorithm without the faintest idea of how they were achieved.

Personally I am far more interested in the intelligent design of human brains than in mathematical, mechanical or metaphysical algorithms.