********ID

ID: What is Intelligent Design (Part 2)

The fundamental claim of intelligent design is straight forward and easily intelligible: namely, there are natural systems that cannot be adequately explained in terms of undirected natural forces and that exhibit features which in any other circumstances we would attribute to intelligence.

ID: in what manner is ID a limited concept.

Moreover, leading ID theorist and biochemist, Michael Behe, explains that ID differs from Paley's argument in crucial respects which make ID scientific, in contrast to Paley's arguments which explicitly attempted to address theological questions:

The most important difference [between modern ID and Paley's arguments] is that [ID] is limited to design itself; I strongly emphasize that it is not an argument for the existence of a benevolent God, as Paley's was. I hasten to add that I myself do believe in a benevolent God, and I recognize that philosophy and theology may be able to extend the argument. But a scientific argument for design in biology does not reach that far. ... [A]s regards the identity of the designer, modern ID theory happily echoes Isaac Newton's phrase hypothesis non fingo.[10]  http://www.discovery.org/a/3739

Truth Sheet # 09-05 Does intelligent design postulate a “supernatural creator?”

Overview: No. The ACLU, and many of its expert witnesses, have alleged that teaching the scientific theory of intelligent design (ID) is unconstitutional in all circumstances because it posits a “supernatural creator.” Yet actual statements from intelligent design theorists have made it clear that the scientific theory of intelligent design does not address metaphysical and religious questions such as the nature or identity of the designer.

Firstly, the textbook being used in Dover, Of Pandas and People (Pandas), makes it clear that design theory does not address religious or metaphysical questions, such as the nature or identity of the designer. Consider these two clear disclaimers from Pandas:

"[T]he intelligent design explanation has unanswered questions of its own. But unanswered questions, which exist on both sides, are an essential part of healthy science; they define the areas of needed research. Questions often expose hidden errors that have impeded the progress of science. For example, the place of intelligent design in science has been troubling for more than a century. That is because on the whole, scientists from within Western culture failed to distinguish between intelligence, which can be recognized by uniform sensory experience, and the supernatural, which cannot. Today we recognize that appeals to intelligent design may be considered in science, as illustrated by current NASA search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Archaeology has pioneered the development of methods for distinguishing the effects of natural and intelligent causes. We should recognize, however, that if we go further, and conclude that the intelligence responsible for biological origins is out.






Limited Scientifically

"The design inference does not need to know why."   (Neal Tedford:)

Then it is scientifically useless, if you think that science is a search for causes.


(from a blog exchange, about 100 comments deep...

Limited Theologically

ID: What is "Intelligent Evolution"

"The only reason evolution happens at all is that the genome is literally intelligent; that intelligence in some form is essential to the viability of life."  http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/blog/testable-hypothesis-id-3/

What is Darwinism? (or why Do ID proponents use this term)

Perry Marshall and "Language theory"

The Perry Marsahall variation on the Argument from Specified Compexity

ID: Origin of Species - Options

ID Options (Cornelius Hunter)


((Special Creation))

Ex nihilo and de novo creation meant the creator formed the species out of nothing, or out nonliving matters respectively. The species were not formed as derivatives from preexisting species. This is the most interventions of all approaches, and there has been substantial religious ((metaphysical)) feeling against it for this reasons. Many feel that God would not be so involved with the details of creation. The fact that the world in not always harmonious has served to increase the opposition. Despite its metaphysical opposition, I believe this approach continues to provide the best empirically based and parsimonious explanation for the origin of species.

((Descent with design))

And approach that requires slightly less intervention might be called descent with design. Here the evolutionary process is modified or guided along the with exterior inputs. Design is injected into the process. This idea is motivated, at least in part, by the paradigm of perfection. What we believe are suboptimal designs are viewed as designs that not been updated or replaced. For example, similarities in different species that do not seen optimal are viewed as unmodified by the design process.

((Kirk Note: At least one prospect of living in a fallen universe is the idea of biological degradation, or simple information loss leading to either variation of subsequent speciation.))

Front Load

An approach with even less intervention is the front-loaded creation idea. Here all the design in injected into the first living cell (or cells), and the evolutionary process takes over from there. The potential of all the species in implicit in the first organism, and it is realized by the action of natural law.

((Kirk Note – This sounds kind of like a variation on the stem cell….but with exponential potential. Only problem, it seems that we have never seen such a cell))



Secondary Causes:

Finally, there is design via secondary causes. Here there is no detectable injection of design. Design in not imputed at all at the beginning or the da discrete points along the way. Instead, the design is in the initial arrangement of matter and the action of natural laws. And we should not under-estimate the power of those natural laws, given quantum mechanics, chaos theory, and who knows what else that will be discovered in the future. Those laws may be able to control and manipulate creation in far more subtle ways that we have imaged. Indeed, some may argue the design via secondary causes in an interventionist approach every bit as much as ex nihilo creation is. … Natural laws and the systems they operate on are so complex that it could be that God can actively control the world without violating what we perceive to be the action of natural laws.

These are but a sampling of the metaphysical ideas that lie behind ID. Each idea can be said to be consistent with biblical creation, although different levels of symbolism may be required…



Kirk Addendum

Though inferred, ID does not operate with an either/or mentality. In addition to the scenarios described here, ID/Creationists are open to “melds.” For example, a genetically rich created “kind” might serve as a “fountainhead” for subsequent species, which in turn are the product of descent with modification. But unlike “mere” naturalistic evolution, mechanisms might include information loss, natural selection, directed selection, programmed mutation, or even secondary acts of special creation.


In God (A suprising way of thinking though implamentation)


Gpuccio (blog comment #14)

Indeed, while human beings certainly interact with the external world through their physical bodies, their personal consciousness certainly interacts with their body (and in particualr with their brain) in some other way. I beleieve that the best model for the direct interaction between consciousness and brain in human beings is based on QM principles, in the line of Eccles.


So, if consciousness can directly interact with matter in humans, there is no reason why another consciousness (let’s call it an immanent non physycal consciuosness of some other kind of conscious intelligent being) cannot do the same with biological matter. This is my favourite explanatory scenario.

The possible answers to 2) are many. I can just tell you my personal favourite. My personal favourite is that the design implementation is continuous in time, but with rather sudden “acute” implementations in special occasions (OOL, Cambrian explosion, and similar). That’s the scenario which better explains observed facts. And I do believe that the design implementation is nprobably realized starting form what has already been implemented (common descent).

But, certainly, there are important discontinuities both in time and space in the general implementation plan.
So, I am rather for a “Gould like” view of design implementation.

And I believe that no basic physical law needs to be violated for design implementation to occur.

What is Intelligent Evolution?:
http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/blog/testable-hypothesis-id-1/

How does ID differ from Creationism

Creationism

Begins with Special Revelation



ID Begins with either General Revelation

(or some personal blend) Note: A commitment to Special Revelation likely drives many ID-advocates interest in the Origins debate, but it is not the starting point of the ID argument.



Creationism:

Employs Specific Biblical Text, with strong commitment to a particular school of interpretation.



ID:

Avoids referencing Biblical Text

Individual ID advocates show strong tendency to literary over literal interpretations of the opening chapters of Genesis.



Creationism:

Assumes Design, Argues FROM Design.


ID

Argues “to” Design.

Is intelligent design the same as creationism?No. The theory of intelligent design is simply an effort to empirically detect whether the "apparent design" in nature acknowledged by virtually all biologists is genuine design (the product of an intelligent cause) or is simply the product of an undirected process such as natural selection acting on random variations. Creationism typically starts with a religious text and tries to see how the findings of science can be reconciled to it. Intelligent design starts with the empirical evidence of nature and seeks to ascertain what inferences can be drawn from that evidence. Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design does not claim that modern biology can identify whether the intelligent cause detected through science is supernatural.


Honest critics of intelligent design acknowledge the difference between intelligent design and creationism. University of Wisconsin historian of science Ronald Numbers is critical of intelligent design, yet according to the Associated Press, he "agrees the creationist label is inaccurate when it comes to the ID [intelligent design] movement." Why, then, do some Darwinists keep trying to conflate intelligent design with creationism? According to Dr. Numbers, it is because they think such claims are "the easiest way to discredit intelligent design." In other words, the charge that intelligent design is "creationism" is a rhetorical strategy on the part of Darwinists who wish to delegitimize design theory without actually addressing the merits of its case.

Notes from Perry Marshall

http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/




http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/ifyoucanreadthis.htm

This guy is brite... and scattered.  One could wish Perry might present his ideas with a little less ramble, but you have an idea his brain is working with more than can easily fit out of his mouth.

ID: What is the Law of the Conservation of Information?

Natural causes can only transmit CSI (Complex Specified Information) but never originate it.

ID: Is it science? (Critical voices)

The scientific community views intelligent design as unscientific, as pseudoscience or as junk science. Wikipedia, entry on Phillip Johnson.

ID: Testimonials ;)

They say, you know, about evolution, it surely happened because their fossil record shows that. Look, my body and your body are miracles of design. Scientists are pretending they have the answer as how we got this way when natural selection couldn't possibly have produced such machines.  (Novelist Kurt Vonnegut, in an interview on NPR)

ID: What is Information?

The appearance of life constitutes a revolution in the history of matter. A vast gulf separates the organic from the inorganic world, and that gulf is properly characterized in terms of information. The matter in the directly under your feet and the matter that makes up you body is the same. Nevertheless, the arrangement of that matter- the information-vastly differs in these two cases. Biology’s information problem is therefore to determine whether (and if so, how) purely natural forces are able to bridge the gulf between the organic and the inorganic worlds as well as the gulf between different levels of complexity within the organic world.

ID: What is Specified Complexity?

Or... What is Complex Specified Information ....or who is William Dembski?

"Living organisms are mysterious not for their complexity per se, but for their tightly specified complexity."  (Paul Davies)

ID: What is Irreducible Complexity?

Behe DBB, p 39)

By irreducibly complex I mean a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning.     (

What is Irreudicble Complexity (or who is Michael Behe?)


Irreducible complexity (IC) is an argument by proponents of intelligent design that certain biological systems are too complex to have evolved from simpler, or "less complete" predecessors, through natural selection acting upon a series of advantageous naturally occurring chance mutations. It is one of two main arguments intended to support intelligent design, the other being specified complexity.[1] It is rejected by the scientific community,[2] which overwhelmingly regards intelligent design as pseudoscience.[3]


(Wikipedia: Irreducible complexity *IMHO Wikipedia showcases a consistent and visible hostility to ID and any form of Creationism)

ID: Complex Specified Information (CSI): Notes

Chaos theory: no help for evolution


Occasionally it is claimed that the discovery of patterns of order in seeming chaos is a bright star of hope for evolutionists. They feel it holds promise for their struggle to explain how disordered chemicals could have assembled themselves into the first self-reproducing machine, in opposition to the relentless tendency to universal disorder.

However, present indications point to this being an illusory hope. One of the classic examples of such ‘order out of chaos’ is the appearance of hexagonal patterns on the surface of certain oils as they are being heated. The minute the heating stops, this pattern vanishes once again into a sea of molecular disorder.

These patterns, like the swirls of a hurricane, are not only fleetingly short-lived, but are simple, repetitive structures which require negligible information to describe them. The information they do contain is intrinsic to the physics and chemistry of the matter involved, not requiring any extra ‘programming.’

Living things, on the other hand, are characterized by truly complex, information-bearing structures, whose properties are not intrinsic to the physics and chemistry of the substances of which they are constructed; they require the pre-programmed machinery of the cell.

This programming has been passed on from the parent organisms, but had to arise from an intelligent mind originally, since natural processes do not write programs.

Any suggestion that the two issues are truly analogous denies reality.

(Marths Blakefield: Order or Chaos)   http://creation.com/order-or-chaos

ID: Design Notes

The argument of Bad design.

Responses:

by Brad Sargent, PhD  (Excerpt)  Reasons to Believe 7/9/10

The panda’s thumb and the human eye are prime examples of misunderstood designs. The more we study them, the more they exhibit good design. For example, the panda’s thumb doesn’t have the versatility and capability of the human thumb, but it works well for the repetitive motion of stripping bamboo leaves. The human thumb couldn’t take that kind of constant stress.3


As another example, the high density of rods and cones in the human eye requires an increased blood flow to the retina. This requirement means the neural connections must face outward, toward incoming light.4 We now know that the human eye elegantly compensates for the inverted retina with special cells that channel light past the neurons and down to the rods and cones.5 Some researchers theorize that the inverted retina provides better blood flow to the rods and cones and allows for better neural processing.6

Both of these examples should serve as a warning to avoid being hasty in declaring a design “bad” simply because it wasn’t engineered the way we think it should have been.  http://www.reasons.org/design-purpose

Specified Complexity (notes)

A Review Of The Case Against A Darwinian Origin Of Protein Folds By Douglas Axe, Bio-Complexity, Issue 1, pp. 1-12

By Robert Deyes  ARN Correspondent


In his latest critique Biologic Institute molecular biologist Douglas Axe has raised the ever-pertinent question of whether Darwinian evolution can adequately explain the origins of protein structure folds given the vast search space of possible protein sequence combinations that exist for moderately large proteins, say 300 amino acids in length. To begin Axe introduces his readers to the sampling problem. That is, given the postulated maximum number of distinct physical events that could have occurred since the universe began (10exp150) we cannot surmise that evolution has had enough time to find the 10exp390 possible amino-acid combinations of a 300 amino acid long protein.


The battle cry often heard in response to this apparently insurmountable barricade is that even though probabilistic resources would not allow a blind search to stumble upon any given protein sequence, the chances of finding a particular protein function might be considerably better. Countering such a facile dismissal of reality, we find that proteins must meet very stringent sequence requirements if a given function is to be attained. And size is important. We find that enzymes, for example, are large in comparison to their substrates. Protein structuralists have demonstrably asserted that size is crucial for assuring the stability of protein architecture.

The Case Against a Darwinian Origin of Protein Folds

Douglas Axe

Abstract

Four decades ago, several scientists suggested that the impossibility of any evolutionary process sampling anything but a miniscule fraction of the possible protein sequences posed a problem for the evolution of new proteins. This potential problem-the sampling problem-was largely ignored, in part because those who raised it had to rely on guesswork to fill some key gaps in their understanding of proteins. The huge advances since that time call for a careful reassessment of the issue they raised. Focusing specifically on the origin of new protein folds, I argue here that the sampling problem remains. The difficulty stems from the fact that new protein functions, when analyzed at the level of new beneficial phenotypes, typically require multiple new protein folds, which in turn require long stretches of new protein sequence. Two conceivable ways for this not to pose an insurmountable barrier to Darwinian searches exist. One is that protein function might generally be largely indifferent to protein sequence. The other is that relatively simple manipulations of existing genes, such as shuffling of genetic modules, might be able to produce the necessary new folds. I argue that these ideas now stand at odds both with known principles of protein structure and with direct experimental evidence. If this is correct, the sampling problem is here to stay, and we should be looking well outside the Darwinian framework for an adequate explanation of fold origins.

http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2010.1