BS: Intelpidity Design

Subject: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Aug 05 - 01:54 PM

based on a question posed by a science teacher to the Southern Babtist president today on the DR show.

http://www.angelfire.com/md2/customviolins/intelpidity.jpg

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 04 Aug 05 - 03:56 PM

Donuel -

Although sometimes used as an intentional slur, "Babtist" is not the conventional spelling. It raises the question of whether the artist is more or less literate than they are - (less intelligent than they may be an extremely remote possibility, but they wouldn't know that.)

Intentional?

John

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Aug 05 - 04:07 PM

John, I changed the whole thing right before your post.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Aug 05 - 04:34 PM

Don, I heard that program. The Southern Leadership Convention guy wasn't listening to the AAAS scientist when he said "this isn't science and we don't do religion." He just kept pushing his web site. The trick of zealots is to try to sound reasonable and disguise their true purpose.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Aug 05 - 04:42 PM

Asimov once said, "If technology is sufficiently advanced, it is indistinguishable from the supernatural".


imho there is no supernatural. Lets hope that all science and technology will be replaced with supernatural explanations.

.........

Customer: My toilet is overflowing !

plumber: Let us pray.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Amos
Date: 04 Aug 05 - 05:01 PM

That wasn't Asimov, it was Clarke -- any technology sufficiently advanced will be indistinguishable from magic.

A great cartoon that epitomizes the incompatability of evolutionary study and faith-based assertions. The entire principle of science is to consult experience to determine theorems. That's why it supplanted faith back in Galileo's day.

If someone wants to seriously suggest intelligence as a factor, and not just individual organism intelligence leading to selective survival advantages, then they have to offer a hypothesis as to how this works and a method to consult experience, known as experimental design.

It is possible that there is such a thing as non-local intelligence, but where it is centered or how to describe it is anybody's guess. My best, wild-ass guess is that it is a composite matrix of individual viewpoints creating a shared "knowledge space", but that is not a scientific theorem. It works as well as the Old Testament, though!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Aug 05 - 07:40 PM

Maybe there is a holographic dimension of awareness
but it certainly should not be compared to or supplant the theory of evolution.

The religionists keep saying that Darwin proposed the evolution of the first viral/bacterial/single celled life form out of nothingness.
But he did not.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 04 Aug 05 - 08:51 PM

Sorry, Donuel, "the theory of evolution" has not been investigated by experiment. (reason for the quotes, later)

The meaning of the word "theory" is an attempt at a systematic, rational basis for understanding some phenomenon. Note the word "attempt". Thus, "the theory of mathematics", "the theory of tort law", "the theory of gravity", and so on. Along with the rest of science, such theories are always looked at as works in progress.

Evolution is an observed fact. Various species can, in retrospect, be observed to have changed over long periods of time. Equally, new species have emerged over time. The theory of it is an attempt at having a systematic understanding of what has been observed, and the process behind it. The particulars of evolution can only be observed in hindsight, and cannot be subjected to experimental test, despite what I suppose are millions of generations of fruitflies and flatworms and other such extremely short-lived species studied in the laboratory. As to origin of species, despite a lot of studies, a lot of inbreeding and cross-breeding and exposure to mutagens of various animals, large and small, science has never been able to create a new species (so far, at least). Strange variations, yes, but species, no. So the word "experiment" is a misnomer in this connection.

Now (as promised) the reason I put quotes around "the theory of evolution": There are many theories of evolution, the best known and to most minds the most convincing of which is that of Darwin. I suppose it would be possible to concoct some sort of intelligent design theory of evolution, too, but of course those who use those words usually aren't into rational explanation. Certainly I have never heard of any theoretical system of evolution by intelligent design being put forward. "Intelligent design" in relation to evolution, or cosmology, or whatever else, is (in my experience, at least) an exercise in obscurantism.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 08:42 AM

I would agree, however the numerous "hindsight" experiments including the evolution of moths in the UK throughout the industrial age to the present demonstrates an attempt of experimentaion.

Exactly what kind of experiment, hindsight or otherwise, can one conduct to prove intelligent design? Prayer? Concentrated opinion?

I think it was designed to be guaranteed unprovable.
Indeed some people have claimed the same for string theory.

http://www.angelfire.com/md2/customviolins/intelpidity.jpg

Creationists might seek to outnumber evolutionists on the school board but that does not make them correct.

Science is not a democracy of rule by majority.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Paul Burke
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 09:04 AM

Uncle Dave said:

"science has never been able to create a new species "

That's because, quite simply, there's no such thing as a species in that sense. They are only observable by differences, and to call one thing a dog, say, and another a wolf, is simply a matter of convention. We are used to dogs and wolves being different species. Of course, an amoeba is different from an elephant, and scientists have not observed them interbreeding, but at the level of the dynamic process, you can't draw a line to say that variation has produced a new species.

In evolutionary terms, species are simply a snapshot of where we've got to as of now.

Some scientists claim the variation observed has been sufficient to warrant the name of new species:
One claim

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Pied Piper
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 09:20 AM

Found this a couple of days ago, it's fascinating, relevant and right up your street Amos.

Enjoy

PP

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 09:40 AM

Pied Piper, THe author concentrates primarily on electrical dendrite and neuron communication/consciousness of cells.

That is like focusing only on our vision sense for communication.
Cells depend upon chemical communication to a great degree.
In a way one can say, cells smell as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: John Hardly
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 09:50 AM

"If someone wants to seriously suggest intelligence as a factor, and not just individual organism intelligence leading to selective survival advantages, then they have to offer a hypothesis as to how this works and a method to consult experience, known as experimental design."

Hey, I'm all for "burden of proof" and stuff, but what you are suggesting here is an unfair disadvantage to "ID". After all, science doesn't claim to know the means by which each jump is made in evolutionary progression, nor the impetus that caused each jump, yet it accepts as "fact" those jumps. There is just as strongly argued a case for "monsters" as there is for progressive adaptation -- maybe more. And that's not the only ambiguity even if you accept evolution as truth.

It's a goose and gander thingy. What's fair for one, y'know...

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: John Hardly
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 10:20 AM

"That's because, quite simply, there's no such thing as a species in that sense. They are only observable by differences, and to call one thing a dog, say, and another a wolf, is simply a matter of convention."

"I would agree, however the numerous "hindsight" experiments including the evolution of moths in the UK throughout the industrial age to the present demonstrates an attempt of experimentaion."

While many things might point to the jumps required for evolution, I don't believe that the two instances above do. In both cases above, all that is illustrated by observation is that the animals in question contained much more genetic material -- much more genetic possibility -- than was manifest at any one time. These merely point to the subtractive abilty of a species to adapt -- the changes illustrated by the moths, or by the differences in dogs, are all merely physical manifestations of genetic material already within the possiblity of the single species. No new genetic material was necessary for the change in manifestation -- both the moths and the dogs are fully capable of mixing back to a more "original" appearance by interbreeding. They are also capable of new, never-before-seen manifestations still "latent" within the same genetic material.

There is no evidence that the physical differences that we refer to in man as "race" are adaptations that will(would) lead to an evolutionary change. We are exactly the same species -- in fact, we are exactly the same race.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Amos
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 10:25 AM

Analysis of DNA supports the theory of evolution. The other point is that good science cleaves to the explanation with the least complexity that also covers the obsevred data. All the research of the last ten years on how complex systems evolve seem to support the notion that they are arrived at when a simple set of elements and a small set of rules arrives at a critically large number of transactions.

The explanations which includes all known physical phenomena and from those elements can provide a complete explanation of the phenomena is more elegant and therefore preferable, as science, than that explanation which requires the introduction of additional elements, especially elements which cannot be tested.

Intelligent design as a general concept is interesting and has been argued since the 1800s -- it is not a new concept. But because it is often associated with monotheism -- NOT a necessary concomitant of the ingredient of intelligence and design -- it probably gets shorter shrift than it could. But the biggest problem with it -- as evidenced in Dawkins' popular books -- is that it ain't needed.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: John Hardly
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 10:43 AM

Even if (though?) I agree with the point you are making, Amos, there is still a certain arrogance of dismissal that science should not be making to questions that it claims to be answering empirically but is not.

Questions are not invalid just because:

1. They call into question a seemingly workable hypothesis

2. They are asked without an answer in mind (I mean, isn't that truer to "science" than to accept that only the right people have the right to ask the questions -- and that they must be asked with a pre-concieved acceptable answer?)

3. They cannot be answered. It is possible to ask a question that one does not know the answer to, but that still shows a fallacy in a currently held view. If you maintained that the reason the lights came on when you flipped a switch was because you prayed that they would come on, I would not be wrong in my questioning you -- even if I could not, properly, or in completeness, explain the principles of electricity. But that kind of dismissal of questioning is what the scientific community's response has, to date, been of "questions" such as the recently published papers on "Irreducible Complexity" -- a paper that concludes more about the accepted standards of current science than it concludes alternative possibility(s).

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Paul Burke
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 11:07 AM

"No new genetic material was necessary for the change in manifestation -- both the moths and the dogs are fully capable of mixing back to a more "original" appearance by interbreeding"

That's the point I was making. Speciation isn't a 'thing'- you can't draw a line and say 'now it's a new species'. It's a continuum. It's only when varieties have drifted apart so far that the differences are obvious that we call them different species. This usually happens because a population gets split, perhaps (a hypothetical example) by a climatic change that puts a desert between two groups of deer. They can't interbreed simply because they never meet: and as the ecosystems gradually diverge, adaptive variation accumulates, and different species result.

There's very little 'new' genetic material involved; I'm sure you know the cliche about humans sharing 99% or whatever the figure is of our DNA with chimps, and 83% with fruit flies, and about 60% with bacteria, even significant amounts with plants. You wouldn't claim that we were 'merely' variations of lugworms on that basis?

As for humans, yes, we are all one species. One race, the human race. It's quite possible that speciation would have occurred eventually had we remained in separate groups (say Eurasia, the Americas, Australia) for a few tens or hundreds of thousands of years more, but the variation that did occur in the 40000 years ors so since the human diaspora was fairly minor. Not really surprising; some species remain stable for millions of years. Homo sapiens(ish) seems to be adapted for many different habitats- perhaps because our main adaptation is to change the habitat to suit ourselves.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: John Hardly
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 11:30 AM

"but the variation that did occur in the 40000 years ors so since the human diaspora was fairly minor."

I'm not trying to be argumentative, really I'm not, but "fairly minor" is, from my understanding, a "fairly major" overstatement.

There has been no variation.

I can say this with a certainly borne of having been shouted down in derision by a scientist friend (prof at Notre Dame) for having made the same statement about "fairly minor" changes as manifested by what we call "races". According to him, there are NO differences in races. This assertion (no races) is further backed up by the somewhat recent spate of articles in National Geographic and USA Today and parallel stories carried on "NOVA" and covered in depth on NPR. I could probably link to the stories if backed against the wall, but, given my lazy nature, I'd rather not have to. *BG*

And, again, relative to my point - even if the races, or the dogs, or the moths represented adaptation -- it is clearly NOT the kind of adaptation necessary for evolution to occur. For one thing, again, the "adaptation" illustrated by those examples is merely a choice, forced on the species by environment, and chosen by survival, of manifestaions of genetic possibilities already possible for that species. The species, in those cases, did not develop new genetic material in order to deal with an environmental change. Only those of the species who manifested the necessary manifestations survived, and because they did, their progeny, more probable to carry the same manifestations, began to appear as the survivor -- BUT -- even so, the manifestations did not "erase" the genetic material that would cause the manifestation(s) that was(were) not necessary for survival. Each of those species is still only one generation away from manifesting the old appearance.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Amos
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 11:51 AM

PP:

Many thanks for that fascinating link. I am particularly bemused by the authors arguments on behalf of "distributed" cellular consciousness which he calls democratic polyzoism. I think, in biological terms, there is a lot of merit in it. But I think it is an incomplete model.

It could appear that your cell phone was supporting a similar polyzooic ability to originate stories and explanations. This would be better than trying to pin down "a single 'me' cell" component which was driving all the others. But there is an error -- almost the inverse of the Watchful Watchmaker error -- in mis-identifying the scope of the system such that significant components and interactions are left out of the explanation.

John: I think any question should be askable, even the unanswerable ones; but obviously those more based on the cumulative wisdom of a specialized field will be of interest to those in that field. Senior physicists are more interested in questions raised by their peers than by, say, freshmen who haven't done the legwork necessary to know what to question. Questions have to also be meaningful in the context they are asked. Posing the question "How do you KNOW the whole of existence was not brought about in seven earthly days" is not a meaningful question in this sense of the word. Too many extraneous premsies embedded into it.

The problem of intentionality in form is, I think, a real problem. The individual organism does intend to survive, and the toolmaker must intend the tool before he can bring it out of the stone or wood. These may be different kinds of intention or different orders of qualia. But one of the reasons the ID crowd has difficulty is that they couple their proposition of theproblem of intentionality in forms with their prefabricated answer of some sort of deus in machina, which obliviates the rationale pretended by the question.

I think the kinds of questions posed by the link PP pointed to -- about how consciousness works and where -- are part of this complex of things we do not understand fully. For example, most studies in consciousness focus on perception, rather than the projected consciosuenss that describes intent. But it is obvious that life above a minimal level is not wholly passive, nor wholly reactive, nor wholly intentional but a combination of all these in degrees.
It perceives, it reacts, and it intends. And, occasionally, it reasons! Tadaaa!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 11:54 AM

Paul Burke told us:

Some scientists claim the variation observed has been sufficient to warrant the name of new species,

and provided a link in "proof". But the article reached by the link says:

the insects are in the early stages of diverging into separate species.

That's not a new species, nor does it make a claim that there is one. It's merely a guess that a new species may develop.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: MMario
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 11:59 AM

But speciation is a continuim as mentioned. Few people would argue that lions and tigers are NOT seperate species. And normally the definition of species is that they will not breed with each other - or if they breed the offspring are infertile.

However, lines and tigers not only will breed together (even under "wild" conditions this has been known to occur) and the offspring are fertile. Both recipricol crosses.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 12:18 PM

Donuel said, in part:

however the numerous "hindsight" experiments including the evolution of moths in the UK throughout the industrial age to the present demonstrates an attempt of experimentaion.

and also:

Exactly what kind of experiment, hindsight or otherwise, can one conduct to prove intelligent design?

Both of these statements display a misunderstanding of what the word "experiment" means. You are talking about retrospective studies, which are fine as far as they go, but not experiments.

Of course I agree that if the second statement is modified to say:

Exactly what kind of study or experiment can one conduct to prove intelligent design?

The answer is "none".

And I certainly agree that "intelligent design" is "intelligently designed" to be unprovable. That's why I used the word "obscurantism" in one of my earlier posts.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: MudGuard
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 12:32 PM

Sorry to interrupt - but my bad English needs some improvement.

I can't find the word "intelpidity" in any dictionary - could someone please explain to a non-native-English-speaker, please?

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: John Hardly
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 12:40 PM

But, Amos, here's what I hear you saying...

On the one hand, you argue from the extreme (the freshman question) when that doesn't characterize all who are asking the questions. And by your defense of such "science" (that which is allowed to exclude and disqualify questions by caprice) sounds too much like the kind of christianity (or religion) that neither you nor I would accept as "scientific" -- that being the kind of religion soley supported by "circular reasoning (logic)". Incidentally, circular logic is a warning sign of possible faulty thinking, but does not dismiss reality - reality is self-supporting in the long run. But I digress...

On the other hand, in your second paragraph (addressed to me) you seem to imply that ID's answer to what you call "the problem of intentionality" is a religious one. That's demonstrably not true.

Yet, you simultaneously seem to imply that science has no problem "getting around" the necessity for "the problem of intentionality". That's demonstrably untrue as well. No matter how much drift we may be able to deduce from apparently close but changed species, we have not, as yet, empirically nailed down the cause or mechanism for the assumed change.

You leave the impression that is the ID crowd that has a problem with "intentionality", when it is quite the reverse.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: MMario
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 12:40 PM

I *think* it's a made-up term combining "intellectual" with "stupidity"

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 12:40 PM

I'm feel sure it's a coinage from "intelligence" and "intrepidity", although it might be making a bow to "serendipity".

In any case, it's not clear enough nor enlightening enough (as the best new coinages can be), in my opinion, to catch on and become a part of the language.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Amos
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 02:21 PM

John:

1. My point about the quality of questions is just that those who have 'done the math' are more interested in talking to those who have also. I did not mean to imply that all questions are so disqualified or even that they should be. Nor did I mean that such disqualification was capricious. Just based on the context of the dialogue.

2. " ID's answer to what you call "the problem of intentionality" is a religious one. That's demonstrably not true".

Some proponents of Intelligent Design argue that there must therefore be a single-source Intentional Designer, or Watching Watchmaker, to play on Dawkins' title. This gets very close to religous assertion, in my view. The fact that consciousness -- and therefore intelligence -- is not understood fully means that neither grand scheme -- the one asserting no design exists, the other asserting it must exist and is intelligent -- can really be argued conclusively. The main point I was making about consciousness discussions is that too much emphasis is placed on perception and too little on intentionality, which to my mind is the more interesting flip side of consciousness.

3. "You simultaneously seem to imply that science has no problem "getting around" the necessity for "the problem of intentionality". "

Well, as far as I know, the Blind Watchmaker (no design) school leaves intentionality out of the picture, aside from the individual organism's intention to achieve survival. That is their view of the minimal inclusion necessary to explain the larger copmplexity, and it is quite elegant. I think it leaves gaps in understanding that are important, but I am a neophyte in the subject. I haven't even read Darwin in the original. I am studying two of Dawkins' books right now, enjoying them greatly. There is a lot of careful thought and well-arrayed factual discussion in them which is giving me much to chew over.

I think there is a great deal more to consciousness than even complex neuronic wave equations can reveal, but so far that is just a semi-eddicated opinion.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: MudGuard
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 03:08 PM

Thanks Dave and Mario.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Amos
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 03:37 PM

Well, I am sure it is coined from the collusion of "Intelligent" (as in ID) and "Stupidity".


A

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: John Hardly
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 03:52 PM

"stupigent" would sound too much like "stupid gent", whereas, "intelpidity" sounds like a poorly designed computer processor.

"Intelpidity Inside"

"Intelpidity" led to the Iraq war.

"Intepidity" lacks the knowledge to become either hot or cold.

"Intarpidity" is when you set up your tent wrong and it leaks.

"Intarpitity" refers to the extinction of dinosaurs.

"Intelpudditity" is artificial intelligence available in vanilla, chocolate, butterscotch, or tapioca. Nobody chooses the tapioca -- that's intelligence.

"Intorpitdity" is being both dumb and slow.

"IntelPDiddy" displays, to impress you, his hands -- the backs of them facing you with the fingers pointing down and splayed and waving up and down.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Amos
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 04:20 PM

"Republican Sen. Rick Santorum, a possible 2008 presidential contender who faces a tough re-election fight next year in Pennsylvania, said intelligent design, which is backed by many religious conservatives, lacked scientific credibility and should not be taught in science classes.

Bush told reporters from Texas on Monday that "both sides" in the debate over intelligent design and evolution should be taught in schools "so people can understand what the debate is about."

"I think I would probably tailor that a little more than what the president has suggested," Santorum, the third-ranking Republican member of the U.S. Senate, told National Public Radio. "I'm not comfortable with intelligent design being taught in the science classroom."

Evangelical Christians have launched campaigns in at least 18 states to make public schools teach intelligent design alongside Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

Proponents of intelligent design argue that nature is so complex that it could not have occurred by random natural selection, as held by Darwin's 1859 theory of evolution, and so must be the work of an unnamed "intelligent cause.""

---

The Blind Watchmaker, Dawkin's first big-seller, addresses this issue carefully and well, and I recommend it to anyone trying to comprehend this issue and why it was put to bed over 100 years ago, let alone at the Scopes Trial.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: MMario
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 04:31 PM

Proponents of intelligent design argue that nature is so complex that it could not have occurred by random natural selection, as held by Darwin's 1859 theory of evolution, and so must be the work of an unnamed "intelligent cause.""

I submit that the above paragraph is sufficient unto itself as "teaching intelligent design" - and that if such a paragraph were included in the curriculum it would satisfy any legal requirement to "teach intelligent design"

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: John Hardly
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 05:17 PM

Gee, MMario, I'm sure the that the proponents of ID wouldn't mind your dismissing of any explanations as to what the nature of the complexity is, and the problems that Darwinian evolution does not adequately answer. Great solution on your part!

It is not science to say "I don't know, but I still conclude "this", even though "that" is both unanswerable and casts doubt on the ultimate conclusion that I desire". That's as religious as any religion.

I see many pitfalls with attempting to teach something as "intelligent design" -- something that, by its very nature is not a free-standing systematized theory, but is rather, by its very nature merely asking that science be forced to answer some good questions that it would rather ignore. But they are good questions. And I bristle at least equally at the patronizing, dismissive, insular way that "science" is avoiding rather than facing the questions, as I bristle at the notion of religion in the public classroom.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Amos
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 06:34 PM

John:

I don't think any scientist has the right to be condescending, or even dismissive. But those who want to cut a new path in the history of scientific modeling are reiterating material that was thoroughly hashed in Darwin's time, and has been re-hashed repeatedly, and they repeating this history because they haven't studied thematerial of its past incarnations.

The argument that intelligent design is obvious in the intricacy and genius of life-forms and is a necessary part of any explanation of such harmonious complexity, was raised in Darwin's era by Paley and was the subject of multiple books. It has been thrashed out. It is also one of the topics of The Blind Watchmaker as discussed above. Here's an excerpt from a review which says it better than I can:

"One of the most famous arguments of the creationist theory of the universe is that of the eighteenth-century theologian William Paley: Just as a watch is too complicated and too functional to have sprung into existence by accident, so too must all living things, with their far greater complexity, be purposefully designed. But as Richard Dawkins demonstrates in this brilliant and eloquent riposte to the Argument from Design, the analogy is false. Natural selection—the unconscious, automatic, blind yet essentially nonrandom process that Darwin discovered—has no purpose in mind. If it can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature at all, it is the blind watchmaker.

Patiently and lucidly, Dawkins identifies those aspects of the theory of evolution that people find hard to believe and removes the barriers to credibility one by one...."

A

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 07:10 PM

Amos and Dave:

Thank you for being around to correct Donuel's well intentioned but woefully inadequate addressing of this important topic.

Evolution is an observed fact. It's the 'theory' behind it that is being mercilessly attacked by folk who know less than nothing. The fact that Donuel is attacking the unknowledgeable on the 'fundy' side does not detract from his ignorance on the Darwinian side and he weakens that case when he posts with his poor quotes and ill conceived 'pinions.

In another thread I'll go Darwinian on his a$$.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Amos
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 08:28 PM

I think, Guest, that it is unfair of you to attack any individual by name while refusing top have one of your own. I also think that Donuel's cartoon is excellent in SPITE of whatever formal information it may lack about Darwinian theory. I have no idea why you choose top target someone who is participating in a civil conversation with uncivil and threatening remarks, but kindly get back to the discourse at hand which is not about how right you are, or how wrong anyone else is, but an exchange of ideas.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 08:36 PM

You have all mostly sidestepped the concept of 'Emergent Behaviour' - the intellectual counter to the 'Watchmaker' theory.

Read "Escher, Godel & Bach - an Eternal Golden Braid"

by Douglas Hoffstedder - Pulitzer Prize winning book

for an explanation (among many other things) about emergent behaviour.

Briefly, when chatting to his Computing Geek friends complaining about certain Computer multitasking Timesharing OSes only being able to accept a certain number of users before bogging down and becoming too slow to use...

"The critical number of users is 5"

"So why don't you go inside the OS and edit the number?"

"Ha! Ha! Emergent Behaviour!"

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: John Hardly
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 09:08 PM

Obviously the watchmaker analogy falls short. It is, after all, an analogy.

To dismiss the questions raised by ID on the basis that a hundred-year-old analogy fails to adequately explain the questions, is no more sound logic than is the dependence upon an analogy as the only basis for belief.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 09:26 PM

Science has definitively nailed down the answer as 'Emergent Behaviour'.

Of course, you can only understand the Emergent Behaviour in a particular system by learning more about the internals of the particular system involved. For instance, in the computer one, it's the startup, shutdown, and run time overheads, as well as the I/O throughput, memory and CPU speed and access times interacting...

Just running around with like a chook with your head cut off chanting 'Emergent Behaviour' without doing the scientific research into the system itself is not a Scientific approach, it's just another Religious Belief...

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 10:15 PM

It is true I understand the politics of this subject better than the academic foundation of species differenciation, genetics, micro biology and more. I am in the debt of people like John and Dave and Amos and others for patiely
explaining important concepts.

As for GUEST he is perfectly consistent. Since 2000 his personal opinion of my contributions has been one of disdain. Thats fine by me. His opinions about the course of action after 9-11 has been as disasterous as I predicted. But it was the course that was taken and not my judicial approach so he got it right although it was wrong.
But he is OK in my book for being steadfast even if we agree on nothing else.

Stupidigent Design may have been a better title.
LMAO on the variations of the term intellpidity.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Amos
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 10:20 PM

John H:

The problem I was responding to was the resurrection of that old analogy. Unless I just imagined it!

The notion of emergent behaviour if I understand it aright, Robin, is comparable to the emergence of complex systems which I described above. I think it is facetious to tell anyone to read Godel, Escher, Bach -- Hofsteder is NOT readily readable.

From Answers.com:

"Emergence is the process of complex pattern formation from simpler rules. This can be a dynamic process (occurring over time), such as the evolution of the human brain over thousands of successive generations; or emergence can happen over disparate size scales, such as the interactions between a macroscopic number of neurons producing a human brain capable of thought (even though the constituent neurons are not themselves conscious). For a phenomenon to be termed emergent it should generally be unexpected and unpredictable from a lower level description. Usually the phenomenon does not exist at all or only in trace amounts at the very lowest level. Thus, a straightforward phenomenon such as the probability of finding a raisin in a slice of cake growing with the portion-size does not generally require a theory of emergence to explain. It may however be profitable to consider the emergence of the texture of the cake as a relatively complex result of the baking process and the mixture of ingredients.

There is no consensus amongst scientists as to how much emergence should be relied upon as an explanation. It does not appear possible to unambiguously decide whether a phenomenon should be classified as emergent, and even in the cases where classification is agreed upon it rarely helps to explain the phenomena in any deep way. In fact, calling a phenomenon emergent is sometimes used in lieu of any better explanation.



The Principle of Emergence

Emergent properties

An emergent behaviour or emergent property can appear when a number of simple entities (agents) operate in an environment, forming more complex behaviours as a collective. The property itself is often unpredictable and unprecedented, and represents a new level of the system's evolution. The complex behaviour or properties are not a property of any single such entity, nor can they easily be predicted or deduced from behaviour in the lower-level entities. The shape and behaviour of a flock of birds or school of fish are good examples.

One reason why emergent behaviour occurs is that the number of interactions between components of a system increases combinatorially with the number of components, thus potentially allowing for many new and subtle types of behaviour to emerge. For example, the possible interactions between groups of molecules grows enormously with the number of molecules such that it is impossible for a computer to even count the number of arrangements for a system as small as 20 molecules."

Just so we all are using the same vocabulary here!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Amos
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 11:50 PM

Getting back to the critical question of a good scientific explanation: necessary and sufficient -- the big question is whether the notion of Intelligent Design in any cosmic sense is necessary to account for observed phenomena. I thin the general thrust of ID is to call for it as a competing theory to Darwinian natural selection.

The argument against that is that it is wholly unnecessary if you take into account the constraints of evolution.

First, it is not random change that brings about evolution. The same sort of "ordering" from basic physical process, for example, that sometimes makes big rocks on a beach all gather in one band and tiny ones in another -- a non-random result -- is present in thousands of ways in life's interactions.

Secondly this sort of crude sieving of factors is not simplistic, in that an ordinary organism in its search to survive is involved in thousands of such forces every day.

Thirdly, the results of these many influences of ordering are not single-step. They are cumulative. The difference inherent in this one point is one of orders of magnitude--if changes are preserved on some sort of merit, or some sort of ideal to be approached (this is where ID gets its kicks just like the old Social Darwinists did) then the rate of change in that direction is millions of time more advanced than if every change is a single step with no additional force selecting some as preferable to others and passing those selections down the line to the next iteration. Evolutionary modifications are TINY but they are CUMULATIVE.

Finally there is no need, given these factors, for any more "guidance". "ideal", "goal", or "design" than just that reproductive success and success in surviving be slightly better. That's all that is needed to account for the complexity, harmony and adaptation of all our millions of life forms. There is no reason either to assume that evolution is progressive, culminating in proud fat white people, NOR that it is prescriptive (steered to a longer term goal by external direction).

I think this is the basic perspective a biologist would present, and it seems to me that it does indeed obviate the need for intercession or design of any kind, other than the intelligence of the individual organism in seeking to survive better. Maybe even not that.

Arguably more intelligence would accelerate the emergence of more survival behaviors, but they in turn might well be dependent on the number of perceptics a given organism can manage biologically.

This leaves out spiritual questions almost completely. Possibly not a good idea in the long run, but acceptable for a discussion about science 21st century style.



A





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Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Amos
Date: 06 Aug 05 - 01:39 AM

An entertaining bit from an e-list:

On Tue, Aug 02, 2005 at 06:00:07PM -0600, David Farber wrote:

> But advocates of intelligent design also claim support from
> scientists.
> The Discovery Institute, a conservative think tank in Seattle that is
> the leading proponent for intelligent design, said it had compiled a
> list of more than 400 scientists, including 70 biologists, who are
> skeptical about evolution.
>
> "The fact is that a significant number of scientists are extremely
> skeptical that Darwinian evolution can explain the origins of life,"
> John West, associate director of the organization's Center for Science
> and Culture, said in a prepared statement.
>

What puts the lie to this number is that Discovery Institute still can't
catch up with Project Steve, where scientists named Steve (estimated to
be around 1% of the population) have signed a statement in defense of
evolution and opposition to creationism in science classes. Checking the
Steve-o-Meter (see link in FAQ), Project Steve has 580 scientists to its
name.

The introduction to Project Steve is here:
http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/3541_project_steve_2_16_2003.asp

The directory of links about the project is here:
http://www.ncseweb.org/article.asp?category=18


This argument by numbers demonstrates that what the creationists are
doing is not science despite their protestations. Real science is about
testing facts, not signing loyalty oaths. No matter how many theocrats
want material on creationism, the flat earth, or the heavenly spheres
tought in science classes, it's still not science.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Amos
Date: 06 Aug 05 - 01:41 AM

Followed by:

"More importantly, where have we failed as educators? It is all too easy
to blame all of this on the Christian Right or fundamentalists. But if
the surveys are right and around 50% of Americans do not accept
evolution, then 50% of Americans do not accept geology, physics,
archeology and a host of other sciences. Most of these people are high
school graduates and a good number have college degrees. What kind of
science education did they have? Evolution is somewhat abstract in the
sense that you can not see or feel it; rocks, however, are not. Strata
are visible to all.

Most of these people have had science in high school or college.
However, if someone tells them that it is all nonsense and the world was
created 5000 years ago, they believe it. One has to wonder about the
quality of science education in this country.

Given Bush's latest statement one also has to wonder about the quality
of science education at Andover and Yale."

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 06 Aug 05 - 07:31 AM

"America is a brainwashed country - by Religion and Consumerism, also a Religion."

Amos

I had tried to read EGB for ages, but kept on having difficulty getting my head around it. One day my doctor sent me home with a mixture of good stuff including noradrenalin for my inner ear infection. One drop on a sugar cube was anormal dose... I then had no trouble reading it... I even spent 3 hours chatting to an ant colony on the back wall of the house until my Mum insisted that I go and lie down again... Oh, I understand it clearly now!

I'm NOT making this up!

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: John Hardly
Date: 06 Aug 05 - 09:34 AM

My friend, the professor, tells me that he takes no greater joy in teaching than disabusing young fundamentalists of their creationist notions. But even he laughingly tells me that, though it is vigorously hypothesized as such, there is no evidence that an organism's wanting or needing to change genetic material actually causes the necessary change for survival or evolution.

Besides, the problem is deeper than just whether order ever comes out of seeming random. That is not arguable. The problem is that many orders have to be in place for the survival of other randoms, were they to come into order.

It's not just whether rocks can show a pattern when strewn on a beach -- heck, ever look at mackerel clouds? (though, even IF I grant you that order can be found in seeming random -- if you were to take that grouping of rocks that seems to be in order/pattern on the beach, and actually measure the pattern you would disqualify ALMOST every one of the patterns as actually being random when compared to the kind of tolerances necessary for a pattern to be an actual pattern -- a pattern that would actually be analogous to the kinds of order necessary for the kinds of complexity found in life) The question is in how many randoms have to be in order in order for the kind of complexity that we're obviously observing in life to have occurred.

Couple that with the inability to demonstrate how an organism can "choose" to change its genetic makeup -- chose to "become" more complex -- in order to survive environmental change and now you're getting closer to the complexity of the issue.

You are offering a watchmaker's tale of your own. The solution suggested cannot be demonstrated unless within a closed, controlled system (just as the failings of the watchmaker analogy)

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Aug 05 - 10:00 AM

A scientist may have an opinion such as ID but an opinion is not science.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Amos
Date: 06 Aug 05 - 11:32 AM

I don't think there's any choice in these things, John -- that's a straw man. I think the organism's choices have a lot to do with his success in surviving and his success in reproducing.   Not in changing his organic structure. Certainly not by intellectual choice. There me be a level of raw intent which can do so, but I am not involving that issue with this thread.

The point is that an organism is in a matrix of forces (including those of his own reactions to those forces) and small changes in the organism come about as a result. Dawkins mentions, for example, species of moths which have changed color and become deeper brown since the advent of the industrial age, as a trivial example.

The occasional order of clouds is a good example of non-cumulative (even though cumulus) change. The critical ingredient of cumulative change, that is brought forward in the next generation, is missing.

The difference between "merely random" and adaptive change relevant to survival coupled with the difference between single-step change and cumulative change makes the difference between a complex change taking tens or hundreds of generations versus the same change taking millions of millions of generations.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: John Hardly
Date: 06 Aug 05 - 11:48 AM

...and they are not empirically provable (at least at this point), and they are necessary advancements in complexity that are demanded before necessary advancements in complexity before necessary advancements in complexity -- all taking place in an interdependant chain of events wherein one cannot happen before another without lacking the environment being in place to sustain the changes.

And again, the moth thingy doesn't work -- it did not alter genetically. The latter moths were exactly the same moths genetically as the former moths -- all that change was the manifestation of color -- a manifestation that was present in ALL the moths, dark and light. When the lighter ones died off because the were no longer camoflauged against the now darkening buildings, only the darker moths survived (were not eaten) so darker moths bred with darker moths, making darker progeny -- but the progeny was still genetically identical -- it was not a new species. The survival did not require the moth to "adjust" genetically to the changing environment. If it had needed to adjust genetically in order to survive, it would not have survived. It only survived because it already had the possiblity to be either dark or light. That's no different than the fact that we can be blonde, brunette, redhead. If we needed to change to survive, we could either die our hair or breed accordingly.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 06 Aug 05 - 11:51 AM

I believe it was Lamarck who posited a "theory of evolution" whereby he explained (as an example) the giraffe's long neck, by saying that the species saw tender leaves higher than the animals could reach, and that will made the succeeding generations have longer necks.

This is one of the other theories of evolution I mentioned in a post early on in this thread.

Incidentally, George Bernard Shaw was a believer in Lamarckian evolution, and used it as a premise for his play (fascinating reading, by the way) Back to Methuselah.

Dave Oesterreich