Is Human Design Truly Intelligent?

[wave]

Thanks for the informative response, Les.

Let’s drop abiogenesis for now since it seems to be getting mixed up with our talk about evolution.

OK, good idea.

To understand my objection, you have to see the significance of the fact that the most important part of empiricism’s epistemology is based on sense experience.

I concur.

Something that seems without controversy is that the senses only transmit physical information, and therefore sense experience strictly gives us awareness of the physical world.

There are those who claim to see or hear deities and spirits. I don't know whether those claims are valid, so I'll go along with your premise.

I accept it as an ironclad principle that (tautologies aside) to know reality we must experience it. But rather than empiricism, I have referred to my own personal epistemology as “experientialism”

I am not familiar with that idea, so please excuse my ignorance. I want to understand your views and evaluate it against my own (questions to follow).

might another kind of experience produce knowledge of something other than physicalness?

I haven't ruled out that possibility.

You respond by saying, “scientists would consider non-physical mechanisms seriously, as long as you provide scientific evidence to support your claims.” Hmmmmm. See the problem? How is science going to evaluate non-physical evidence?

I understand your dilemma. However, to play the scientists' game you have to abide by their framework. You don't have to agree with it, and you are free to quit the game and go do your own thing.

But I don’t get off that easy because if I am an experientialist, what experience can offer evidence of the universal consciousness hypothesis? In this case, the experience required to reveal the evidence seems to be through a method that is exactly opposite of the scientific method. For science, one peers through the senses “outward” at the external world. But the most consistent reports of experience of universal consciousness have come from people who learned withdraw from the senses to feel “inward.”

How is that achieved exactly? Through meditation? How does the evidence "reveal" itself? Does the knowledge suddenly become available to you? This is the part that I am very interested in. Please feel free to add anything that might help explain your position, especially from a epistemological standpoint.

So we have scientists studying the evolution of life. What do they find? They find only physical factors. What do they conclude? That only physical factors are responsible.

Perhaps by those with a bias. Mainstream science would say "only physical factors are responsible as far as we can tell thus far".

Yet there are problems with the theory, like the fact that evolution operated at one time in such a way that it developed new organs, then it stopped.

That is simply false. I gave examples where entirely new classes of organisms appear post Cambrian. Why did you ignore it and continue to make this false claim?

The only thing that scientists can find now that produces changes to an organism is natural selection and genetic variation, but the only thing we can observe it doing is making bigger bird beaks, or altering the color of moths, etc.

That is misleading. Evolution operate at long timescale. What we've been able to directly observe in the last 70 years is not representative of the whole story. We have to look into the past by relying on fossils, comparative anatomy, etc. to find more dramatic evolutionary changes.

I offered the Pakicetus/Cetaceans example in my previous post. That's a transition from a weasel/wolf-like animal to modern-day whales. It's anything but "superficial". Once again, the transition began 450 million years after Cambrian.

Why no midstage stuff?

Evidence from transitional fossils not good enough?

Why no new organs-in-progress?

Vestigial organs not good enough? Human babies with tails not good enough?

But do you hear many scientism devotees admitting that, based on what we can observe, genetic variation is far too unvaried and natural selection is ridiculously too ordinary to create such a thing as an organ? No

What exactly do you mean by "genetic variation is far too unvaried" and "natural selection is ridiculously too ordinary"? Furthermore, I don't understand your objections since you accept speciation via Evolution.

they cling to it as the most likely creator of the different life forms, and only allow that if some other mechanism is involved, it must be physical factors we’ve yet to discover.

You are being unfair. Even you admitted that non-physical evidence cannot be supported scientifically. So it's unreasonable to expect a scientific explanation for non-physical factors if none exist. The onus is on "experientialists" to convince scientists that they are indeed missing something.

 

[moving finger]

jimmysnyder was only interested in knowing how natural selection can be falsified.

With respect, jimmysnyder asked :

Are intelligent design and natural selection falsifiable and if so, what experiment would falsify them?

(post #14 in thus thread, my emphasis)

I rest my case.

MF

 

[DaveC426913]

DaveC426913, you have yet to make a valid criticism and this is my last answer to your invalid ones.

My criticism is that your entire argument is based upon the assumption that you understand the motives and goals an Intelligent Designer. You don't. It is not up to me to prove your statements false; it is up to you to back them with valid arguments. You haven't.

I should have known better than to respond to someone that suggests I should submit my idea to scientific review before posting it here :zzz:

2] Uh, we dealt with this one - see post #85. "I don't literally mean it must pass muster [i.e. actually be subjected for formal review], I mean your argument is so weak that your own "teammates" (in the ID vs/ evolution debate) might as well set you right, let alone anyone who actually disagrees with you."


So, staying on topic: what makes you think you know the motives and goals of an Intelligent Designer such that you can tell whether their creations are successes or not?

This is the core fault of your argument; let's both not get distracted with details.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Sure. If you find the conserved portion of the human genome is encoding the message, "Patent Pending: God". That would do it (falsify natural selection) I suppose.

No, it would not. What it would do is raise ID to the status of a postulate. Natural selection is something different.

 

[loseyourname]

No, it would not. What it would do is raise ID to the status of a postulate. Natural selection is something different.

If, in the course of observing the biological world, we suddenly realized we were wrong, and populations did not show any collective allele rate changes due to differential reproductive success, this would falsify natural selection.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Part One

Well, I got carried away with this post, so I’d had to split into two.

I accept it as an ironclad principle that (tautologies aside) to know reality we must experience it. But rather than empiricism, I have referred to my own personal epistemology as “experientialism”

I am not familiar with that idea, so please excuse my ignorance. I want to understand your views and evaluate it against my own (questions to follow).

It is simple really. “Empirical,” if we are being dictionary-precise, can mean experience of any sort. But the term “empiricism” has come to stand for the scientific method where the only human experience epistemologically-allowed is sense experience.

The major reason for the successes of empiricism, in my opinion, is its inseparable bond to experience. That tells me that if I want to know, experience is the most powerful avenue.

But why assume sense experience is the only human experience that brings knowledge? In fact, I can’t assume it because there is an experience I value more in that respect. I can’t categorize it under empiricism without confusion, so I just use what seems like a more general term, experientialism, to describe giving the highest priority to human experience in one’s search for knowledge.

You respond by saying, “scientists would consider non-physical mechanisms seriously, as long as you provide scientific evidence to support your claims.” Hmmmmm. See the problem? How is science going to evaluate non-physical evidence?

I understand your dilemma. However, to play the scientists' game you have to abide by their framework. You don't have to agree with it, and you are free to quit the game and go do your own thing.

I am not sure you do quite understand since it isn’t exactly my dilemma. If someone works in a rock quarry all the time pounding rocks with a sledge hammer, he knows that works well for breaking rocks. But what if he becomes so enamored and conditioned by rock smashing, he goes around treating everything like a rock? So when he wants to open a door, he takes a sledge to it; when it’s time to redecorate the house, the sledge hammer is the perfect tool; or if his kid needs disciplining . . .

My point was, when it comes to defining the human being, consciousness, and the origin of life and all else, there is a strong effort amongst many scientists to proclaim to the world it is all physical. But they are only looking at and working with the physical! It’s their sledge hammer. And if you try to get them to look at anything else, it can’t pass the physicalistic filter and therefore is “dismissed” as irrelevant.

But there is a bigger question of if scientists are justified in demanding everyone play the scientific game. Only if one assumes that through science alone is knowledge acquired will one demand that. You might say we don’t have to play the science game, but that isn’t true since science seems to have assigned to themselves the role of almighty judge in terms of what’s acceptable or not when it comes to incredibly important issues. The origin of life, the evolution of life, the emergence of conscious . . . these issues belong to all of humanity, not just the scientists. So it can be a bit irritating to hear scientists dismiss everything but an empirical fact. Who made them the keepers of humanity’s epistemological keys?

For science, one peers through the senses “outward” at the external world. But the most consistent reports of experience of universal consciousness have come from people who learned withdraw from the senses to feel “inward.”

How is that achieved exactly? Through meditation? How does the evidence "reveal" itself? Does the knowledge suddenly become available to you? This is the part that I am very interested in. Please feel free to add anything that might help explain your position, especially from a epistemological standpoint.

Yes, through a very specific type of meditation known as samadhi where one learns to experience and “merge” with the foundational basis of one’s own consciousness. It is very ancient, descending from the Buddha, but practiced in elsewhere as well including in early Christian monasteries where it was called union. I’ve written extensively here at PF about it, so I hesitate to go into it again. I’m not sure if PF’s search feature will allow you to search my posts for “union” and “samadhi.” If you can’t find anything, and are still interested, I’ll look myself when I have more time.

I might just say now that in the West we’ve become objective geniuses, but we are rather backward when it comes to the advanced subjective expertise that can be realized.

Perhaps by those with a bias. Mainstream science would say "only physical factors are responsible as far as we can tell thus far".

I know what they say when pressed by people like me, but it contrasts sharply with what you find in science writings and media specials. I rarely find anyone who isn’t biased and usually being clever about hiding it.

Yet there are problems with the theory, like the fact that evolution operated at one time in such a way that it developed new organs, then it stopped.

That is simply false. I gave examples where entirely new classes of organisms appear post Cambrian. Why did you ignore it and continue to make this false claim?

All sorts of things I’ve said have gotten jumbled together. This is my fault for not distinguishing more clearly. I will explain better (hopefully) over the next few posts. But regarding the above, I meant, organ development has NOW stopped (as far as we have observed).

The only thing that scientists can find now that produces changes to an organism is natural selection and genetic variation, but the only thing we can observe it doing is making bigger bird beaks, or altering the color of moths, etc.

That is misleading. Evolution operate at long timescale. What we've been able to directly observe in the last 70 years is not representative of the whole story. We have to look into the past by relying on fossils, comparative anatomy, etc. to find more dramatic evolutionary changes.

All it meant was, as far as anyone can observe, natural selection/genetic variation can only produce superficial changes. Those are the facts. The rest is grand evolutionary theory which Darwinists have managed to force into textbooks as the “most likely” source of all organ development.

I offered the Pakicetus/Cetaceans example in my previous post. That's a transition from a weasel/wolf-like animal to modern-day whales. It's anything but "superficial". Once again, the transition began 450 million years after Cambrian.

I am not saying that whales didn’t evolve from a weasel/wolf-like animal, I am saying that you don’t know that natural selection and accidental genetic variation alone did that, and you have no evidence today that demonstrates natural selection/genetic variation producing that level of change. Again, I will take the blame for not being more clear. I will lay out my objections more carefully below.

(continued in next post)

 

[Les Sleeth]

Part Two

(continued from last post)

Why no midstage stuff? Why no new organs-in-progress?

Evidence from transitional fossils not good enough? Vestigial organs not good enough? Human babies with tails not good enough?

Same issue. I meant midstage stuff in progress NOW, which relates to no new organ development being observed via natural selection/genetic variation alone. Transitional fossils only tell us that animals transitioned, they don’t tell us what caused the genetic variation that allowed that transition.

I am sure you know the babies-with-tails claim (caudal appendages) is highly controversial. All true tails have bones in them that are posterior extensions of the spinal column, and have muscles coupled with their vertebrae which allow tail movement. There has never been a single documented case of a human caudal appendage having any of these features.

The same is true of the vestigial organs. In the 1800's, Darwinists listed over 100 vestigial organs in the human body. The functions for virtually all have now been found. If you didn’t mean that sort of vestigial organ, but rather the homologous organ (such as the whale pelvis), then it is irrelevant to my point since I don’t deny that all life evolved through genetic variation.

But do you hear many scientism devotees admitting that, based on what we can observe, genetic variation is far too unvaried and natural selection is ridiculously too ordinary to create such a thing as an organ?

What exactly do you mean by "genetic variation is far too unvaried" and "natural selection is ridiculously too ordinary"? Furthermore, I don't understand your objections since you accept speciation via Evolution.

First, I accept speciation because it is observed. But the speciation that’s been observed doesn’t show the production of new organs! Every speciation observation example I can find in my dozen or so books on evolution, and online, talks about superficial changes that result when a species population is subject to different conditions.

But the new species is just bigger, or a different color, or longer-legged, or have a different diet, etc. It doesn’t take much genetic variation for that type of speciation to happen. An example I’ve used before is the minute difference between the house and purple finches found around here. The main way I tell them apart is by their song because they look so similar, yet they don’t normally interbreed.

In terms of what I mean by "genetic variation is far too unvaried," I am not claiming new organs didn’t develop by way of genetic variation. I am claiming that we can’t see the class of accidental genetic variation now that would give us cause to believe it can create complex organs.

. . . they cling to it as the most likely creator of the different life forms, and only allow that if some other mechanism is involved, it must be physical factors we’ve yet to discover.

You are being unfair. Even you admitted that non-physical evidence cannot be supported scientifically. So it's unreasonable to expect a scientific explanation for non-physical factors if none exist. The onus is on "experientialists" to convince scientists that they are indeed missing something.

How is anyone going to convince physicalist scientists of anything nonphysical? It is hopeless. From things you said it doesn’t seem like you understand what I doubt, and why I cited, for example, the Cambrian explosion, so let me lay this out carefully.

1. I don’t doubt all life evolved, likely from a single cell transformed in Earth’s oceans long ago. I think if every bit of the fossil record had been preserved we would see all the transitional stages.

2. I don’t think if there is any type of “creationary consciousness” it is supernatural since all in the universe we find is natural (“natural” in the sense of coming about by way of universal and existential laws).

3. I don’t doubt that genetic variation produced all significant physical changes.

4. Because it has been observed, I don’t doubt that natural selection and accidental genetic variation together can produce “adaptive” speciation. Adaptive speciation is that which comes about through simple changes in existing biological structures.

5. Because it has not been observed, I do doubt that natural selection and accidental genetic variation alone can produce complex and functional organ systems. If so, this leaves a serious evidence/logic gap in the current evolution theory.

6. What is a serious gap? I pretty much see just one. There is huge gap between the observed mechanistic capability to organize resources into high-functioning systems and what Darwinist theory (and abiogenesis theory) claim mechanistic processes have done.

7. Because of the rather mundane way natural selection and accidental genetic variation, I do not believe they were responsible for the Cambrian explosion. I said accidental “genetic variation is far too unvaried” to have produced all those organs and organisms in ten million years. I say that based simply on how accidental genetic variation is observed now. So I am not saying that the Cambrian explosion was it, I am saying that natural selection and accidental genetic variation we can observe today doesn’t explain what happened then.

8. I don’t accept the theory of punctuated equilibrium as “just how evolution works.” That is merely a convenient way to get rid of any anomaly one finds in one’s pet theory. There are other reasonable explanations.

9. For example, it is possible that the Cambrian explosion was creation’s associated consciousness acting purposefully on genetics, initiating a great variety of forms to experiment with (obviously this consciousness is not omniscient), and that new organs developed where that creationary force was still experimenting or developing.

As it chose preferred evolutive pathways, those life forms not still in the evolutive thrust were left to the devices of simple natural selection and accidental genetic variation to survive. But those paths still under development and/or consideration continued to manifest exceptional new biological structure.

It is also possible that this creationary force, since it is consciousness, wanted to manifest new individual consciousnesses. That isn’t unreasonable given the proposed creationary nature, and given that humans are new individual consciousness. What’s the point of all the physicalness then? To more fully separate from the source so that complete individuation can take place.

10. Do I “believe” any of the creationary theory I just offered? No. But I have sensed and felt “something more,” and I don’t see how physicalness alone can achieve all physicalists want us all to believe it can.

11. What’s the problem with science devotees? I don’t have a problem with science only accepting physical factors into their models since that’s all they are able to study. What are problems are, 1) the ontological claim or insinuation that all is physical because physicalness is all they can find, 2) glossing over serious gaps in theory so they can maintain physicalist beliefs, and 3) dismissing out of hand anything which isn’t physical. You (wave) may not do this, but I see it all the time by the majority of science believers I read or encounter.

So I say, because there are other claims on ontology, and because physicalist ontology is far from proven, the proper attitude would be to drop all ontological claims and simply show how physicalness is involved in existence.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

If, ... populations did not show any collective allele rate changes due to differential reproductive success, this would falsify natural selection.

I'm no biologist. Can this be restated in a way that I could understand what it means?

 

[Les Sleeth]

I don't take life too seriously, so I apologize if I offended you, and I am sorry that I sound arrogant.

I'll have to answer you more thoroughly when I have more time. But thanks for the olive branch. I think most of the anger people have over these types of issues comes from feeling a disrespectful attitude from someone (I know it's true for me), and also from unfair debating tactics.

I might offer now however, that being scientific in no way excludes developing one's ability to feel. By "feel" I don't mean emotions, I mean being more sensitive to everything. When the mind is quiet you'd be surprised what it can pick up on; it can get extremely sensitive to subtleties one can never feel when the mind is going nonstop.

To be able to quiet the mind doesn't mean one can't think when one wants to, and if thinking is for science, then all the better. What I learn through my feeling nature doesn't interfere with me studying that which can be studied scientifically. If one learns to feel so deeply one feels God (or whatever you want to call it), then I don't see what that has to do with the ability to think.

 

[wave]

Are intelligent design and natural selection falsifiable and if so, what experiment would falsify them?

(post #14 in thus thread, my emphasis)

I rest my case.

MF

That's the only part of the question that I chose to answer. If you still want to nitpick, then you have my permission to design an experiment based on my idea.

 

[loseyourname]

I'm no biologist. Can this be restated in a way that I could understand what it means?

Sure. Natural selection is a mechanism by which evolution occurs. Evolution is defined as a shift in allele frequencies from generation to generation in any given population. "Allele" is simply a name for the different brands of genes that one can inherit - for instance, green eyes and blue eyes are expressions of different alleles for the same gene. If one generation of the city of Toledo, Ohio has a higher frequency of green eyes than the generation prior to it (and this is not due to migration), then the population has evolved in the direction of more green eyes. This may or may not have anything to do with natural selection. More likely it is just genetic drift, or the tendency for certain allele frequencies to randomly shift due to nothing more than chance.

However, let us consider an example where it is more obvious how natural selection could play a factor. North Africans, as a population, are far more likely to have sickle-cell anemia than humans anywhere else in the world. A certain percentage of sickle-cell alleles exist in any human population. What happened in North Africa was that having sickle-cell anemia became advantageous, because, even though it shortens one's life, it makes it impossible to become infected with malaria. Malaria is more of a threat to young people in that part of the world, and so those North Africans who had sickle-cell anemia were more likely to live long enough to reproduce; thus, the allele for sickle-cell anemia became more likely to get passed on.

To get back to what I was saying earlier, if events like this did not occur, then the hypothesis that natural selection is a strong factor in the evolution of populations would be falsified.

 

[wave]

How is that achieved exactly? Through meditation? How does the evidence "reveal" itself? Does the knowledge suddenly become available to you?

Yes, through a very specific type of meditation known as samadhi where one learns to experience and “merge” with the foundational basis of one’s own consciousness.

Suppose you used samadhi and some evidence revealed itself to you.

1) How do you verify to yourself that your evidence is valid?

2) How do you convince someone else that your evidence is valid?

3) Suppose a condescending physicalist claims that samadhi revealed gene fairy as a mechanism for evolution. How do you prove them wrong?

4) Suppose someone genuinely used samadhi and revealed contradicting evidence. How do you tell who is right or wrong?

5) Can anything useful (for the physical world) result from evidence of the nonphysical? Better medicine, faster computers, etc. would certainly qualify as useful.I hope you agree those are valid questions, and not just skepticism typical of "them". I will reply to your other points once I understand you views better.

 

[Psi 5]

...
Let's try a "yes" or "no" to avoid more circuitous reasoning. A perfect designer does not have the ability to create something flawed?

Of course he does, I said he had no need to. Would you put scaffolding around a building to facilitate repairs if you could do the repairs without them? Would you stitch a severe cut if you could heal it instantly without them? Would you stick the sword in the flame to temper it if you could snap your fingers and make it tempered? Do you see the analogy yet? According to christian religion we are the untempered sword and Earth is the flame, an omnipotent being could have created us already tempered if he was indeed pefect and omnipotent. If you argue against that you are merely contradicting the assumption that, by definition, a god IS perfect and omnipotent. Whatever we become to make us worthy of heaven, god could have made us exactly that way from the start.

 

[Conehead]

Of course he does, I said he had no need to. Would you put scaffolding around a building to facilitate repairs if you could do the repairs without them? Would you stitch a severe cut if you could heal it instantly without them? Would you stick the sword in the flame to temper it if you could snap your fingers and make it tempered? Do you see the analogy yet? According to christian religion we are the untempered sword and Earth is the flame, an omnipotent being could have created us already tempered if he was indeed pefect and omnipotent. If you argue against that you are merely contradicting the assumption that, by definition, a god IS perfect and omnipotent. Whatever we become to make us worthy of heaven, god could have made us exactly that way from the start.

Your natural bias is crystal now. Just as a side note, you clearly don't understand the concepts behind Judeo-Christian believe structures. You don't have the ability to assess what a designer's needs are. You can't reason out what his motives might have been no matter how hard you try. And your insertion of them into your arguments has poisoned your reasoning. Do you sense that your logic isn’t allowing you to delve into the heart of this debate?

Beyond what I have already said and others better still, well, let's just say we've reached an impasse.

 

[Evo]

Your natural bias is crystal now. Just as a side note, you clearly don't understand the concepts behind Judeo-Christian believe structures. You don't have the ability to assess what a designer's needs are.

Ok, we need to stop here because #1 There is no evidence of a "designer". That is merely something that has been thrown out to be considered, without anything to substantiate it, I might add.

You can't reason out what his motives might have been no matter how hard you try.

Please tell me how someone is supposed to reason out the motives of something that no one knows exists?

ID is nothing more than handwaving. At least evolution has evidence to support it. ID has none.

ID is fine as a religion, an idea based on faith, but it has no merit as science. That is the problem with ID. You want to teach it as a belief in a god or alien beings, something without any tangible proof, fine. You want to teach it as science, then come up with scientific evidence which can be studied. Otherwise, it's not science.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

One problems is that many people don't understand what constitutes scientific evidence. IMO, this issues reflects the failure of science promoters and educators to teach the public how science works. Many people that I encounter truly don't understand the difference between not only hand waving and evidence, but also between a hand waving idea, a philosophy, and a scientific theory.

 

[moving finger]

That's the only part of the question that I chose to answer.

Oh wave. If it is simply "intellectual point scoring" that you are interested in then please refer back to post #92, where I quote you as stating :

jimmysnyder was only interested in knowing how natural selection can be falsified.

What “you chose to answer” is not the issue. All I was trying to do in post #92 was to point out that your statement “jimmysnyder was only interested in how natural selection can be falsified” was false. If you wish to contiunue arguing that point then be my guest, but I’m done here.

MF

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

if events like this did not occur, then the hypothesis that natural selection is a strong factor in the evolution of populations would be falsified.

Your post contains a lot of really good ideas, but no test for falsifying natural selection. Indeed, unless I misread it, you seem to be saying that since events like this have already occured, this is a dead end in the search for a falsifying test.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

All I was trying to do in post #92 was to point out that your statement “jimmysnyder was only interested in how natural selection can be falsified” was false.

jimmysnyder is interested in everything. However, for the time being, I would settle for a test that would falsify natural selection, and/or a test that would falsify intelligent design.

Also, getting back to the original post that started this thread, I want to know how natural selection explains imperfection better than ID does. It seems to me that intelligent design provides a mechanism for imperfection, the intelligent designer. I don't see what mechanism natural selection provides. It seems that imperfection can only get selected out, not in.

 

[DaveC426913]

Also, getting back to the original post that started this thread, I want to know how natural selection explains imperfection better than ID does.

The question of ID vs. natural selection is dependent upon the definition of "perfection" inasmuch as it applies to living critters - a definition we have yet to quantify. In fact, to attempt to define perfection requires success criteria - something only the existence of an ID can provide.

Thus, anyone who attempts to rate living critters as perfect or not perfect, is nurturing a hidden bias towards ID, despite their claims to the contrary. Those in the natural selection camp know that life and its evolution has no hidden meaning, thus perfection in critters is meaningless.

 

[vanesch]

Your post contains a lot of really good ideas, but no test for falsifying natural selection. Indeed, unless I misread it, you seem to be saying that since events like this have already occured, this is a dead end in the search for a falsifying test.

You can do experiments with bacteria, because they reproduce quickly. You can take bacteria, expose them to some "poisons" (like antibiotics), and (unless you wipe out the entire population) see how they "grow resistance" to your poisons. This has been done (and is in fact one of the major health care problems). You can think of your own variations of these experiments. I'm pretty sure that many of them have been done.

Many other aspects of natural selection cannot be performed in the lab, because they occur on too long time scales, so it is "historical science". Nevertheless, the fossile record (and some nice specific examples) strongly point towards natural selection. In fact, now that we know the MECHANISM, (namely genetic transfer of properties, coupled with a certain ratio of mutations), there cannot be much doubt that the mechanism MUST exist. It was much more "mysterious" before the discovery of DNA, because an unknown mechanism had to be *postulated*.
But nevertheless, the main "argument" is historical: the fossil record.
It is difficult to "falsify" historically based theories in the lab in the same way you falsify "laws of physics". How do you falsify the "theory" of the second world war ? You can only look at historical material and you cannot propose experiments in the lab that could "falsify the theory of WWII".

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

You can take bacteria, expose them to some "poisons" (like antibiotics), and (unless you wipe out the entire population) see how they "grow resistance" to your poisons.

Are you saying that if I do this and the bacteria don't grow resistance then natural selection will have been falsified?

This has been done.

Then it would seem that either it falsified NS, or it is not a falsifying test. Which is it?

Many other aspects of natural selection cannot be performed in the lab, because they occur on too long time scales, so it is "historical science".

You could watch a population of animals of one species and see if they evolve into a different species. If they do, then ID is false. This cannot be performed in the lab, because it occurs on too long a time scale. Does this experiment make ID falsifiable? Does it make it "historical science"?

you cannot propose experiments in the lab that could "falsify the theory of WWII".

I was working under the following definitions:
Fact - something that has been observed.
Theory - an explanation of how it happens that a fact was observed.
WWII is a fact, not a theory and does not need to be falsifiable. Natural selection is a theory and could use some falsifiability. I say this especially because one of the harshest arguments against ID is that it is not falsifiable. This charge can't sway or even make sense to the lay public if you can't show that NS is falsifiable. It needs to be done in a way that T. C. Pits can understand.

 

[Conehead]

Ok, we need to stop here because #1 There is no evidence of a "designer". That is merely something that has been thrown out to be considered, without anything to substantiate it, I might add.
Please tell me how someone is supposed to reason out the motives of something that no one knows exists?
ID is nothing more than handwaving. At least evolution has evidence to support it. ID has none.
ID is fine as a religion, an idea based on faith, but it has no merit as science. That is the problem with ID. You want to teach it as a belief in a god or alien beings, something without any tangible proof, fine. You want to teach it as science, then come up with scientific evidence which can be studied. Otherwise, it's not science.

Thanks, we were stopping right there. I don't think either Psi or myself believe in ID. We are discussing the possibility of a designer. We estabilished the grounds for a discussion without physical evidence in prior posts (you will notice your post is remarkably similar to 15 others who are just methodically dogmatic as yourself). If you'd like to catch up please read the thread. But thanks for your thoughts though.

 

[Evo]

I have been following the thread and your post was not going to be the end of the back and forth argument of "what is god thinking". Your last post to Psi 5 was a bit inflammatory and I seriously doubt he would not feel obligated to respond in kind.

 

[Conehead]

Ok, we need to stop here because #1 There is no evidence of a "designer". That is merely something that has been thrown out to be considered, without anything to substantiate it, I might add.
Please tell me how someone is supposed to reason out the motives of something that no one knows exists?
ID is nothing more than handwaving. At least evolution has evidence to support it. ID has none.
ID is fine as a religion, an idea based on faith, but it has no merit as science. That is the problem with ID. You want to teach it as a belief in a god or alien beings, something without any tangible proof, fine. You want to teach it as science, then come up with scientific evidence which can be studied. Otherwise, it's not science.

The funny thing is I don't dispute any of that. I don't think you are a very careful reader. "Please tell me how someone is supposed to reason out the motives of something that no one ones exists?" This is dumbed down version of the same question I've been asking Psi for several posts.

Funny, I suspect we are in agreement on a lot of this issue. Please, play attention before you lecture the forum.

 

[loseyourname]

Your post contains a lot of really good ideas, but no test for falsifying natural selection. Indeed, unless I misread it, you seem to be saying that since events like this have already occured, this is a dead end in the search for a falsifying test.

I'm also responding partly to what you said to vanesch. The thing about natural selection is that it is a fact. We know that it occurs because it is very easy to see it occurring. Again, simply look at the definition - a change in allele frequency in a given population due to differential reproductive success. I can give you a hundred more examples of this taking place, but what is the point? Asking us to falsify this occurence is like asking a baseball player to falsify the hypothesis that swinging a bat and hitting a ball will result in the ball deflecting off of the bat.

The problem seems to be that natural selection is not a theory; it is a mechanism. Part of the theory of the origin of species, however, says that they evolved from other species at least partially by means of natural selection (there are other mechanisms involved as well). That seems to be what you want to falsify. Am I correct here? Do you want some experiment that might be able to prove that natural selection was not involved in the evolution of species?

Edit: Well, actually we know that it has been involved to at least some extent - the extent to which we have observed it occurring. The inference made by evolutionary biologists is that evolution has always worked in the same way. What we see happening today to the gene pools of species is likely to be what happened yesterday and what happened several trillion yesterdays ago. This inference is based off of what is called the Principle of the Uniformity of Nature, which is a presupposition on which all induction is based (whether or not it has anything to do with science).

The principle difference between proposing natural selection as one of the mechanisms of evolution and proposing intelligent design as one of the mechanisms depends on the variety of intelligent design we are talking about.

1) Based off of the work of Michael Behe and his claims of "irreducible complexity," I would call the first type of intelligent design claim the creator-driven biogenesis claim. This is simply the claim that certain subcellular systems are so complex that they will not serve any function in any reduced form, and so must have been created in their present form. This is basically just saying that God created organelles, and from there, evolution proceeded as the biologists say it did. This claim actually can be falsified and has been falsified. There are plenty examples of reduced forms of the subcellular systems that Behe claims are "irreducible" and so, frankly, all I can guess is that he is either ignorant of their existence (he is a biochemist, not a molecular or cellular biologist, after all) or he is lying. I'd like to believe that he is simply ignorant.

2) The second type of claim is that random mutations are simply not enough. This is probably the more popular, and less scientific, type of intelligent design claim. Adherents of this brand of ID will say that God intervenes every now and then to push mutations in a certain direction. For example, human intelligence is not simply the result of random brain mutations being selected for naturally, but rather mutations that God caused being selected for naturally (with perhaps some help from God in shaping the environment so as to aid the selection process as well).

Notably, neither type of ID claim makes any attempt to say that natural selection doesn't occur or that it had nothing to do with the evolution of species. The first type of claim I will go ahead and dismiss for now, because as I have said, Behe's claims have already been falsified. The second type of claim, on the other hand, should be critically examined. We can see immediately the problem it runs into - it is a 'God of the gaps' argument, an informal logical fallacy rather than a scientific hypothesis. It also runs into a parsimony problem. We cannot observe every mutation that ever takes place, but the mutations we have observed are adequately explained by coding errors, and their random nature is explained either by quantum effects or at least causation so complex as to not be amenable to calculation. What reason is there to postulate the intervention of an intelligent force to explain why some mutations are G->A and others G->C?

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

The thing about natural selection is that it is a fact.

And the thing about ID is that it is not a fact? This isn't science, it's religion.

 

[Evo]

The funny thing is I don't dispute any of that. I don't think you are a very careful reader. "Please tell me how someone is supposed to reason out the motives of something that no one knows exists?" This is dumbed down version of the same question I've been asking Psi for several posts.

Funny, I suspect we are in agreement on a lot of this issue. Please, play attention before you lecture the forum.

I see you can't deal with criticism. If you have a problem, pm me, otherwise, don't derail the thread.

 

[loseyourname]

And the thing about ID is that it is not a fact? This isn't science, it's religion.

Did you read the rest of my post? I have to admit I feel a little slighted by your very short and shallow response to a well thought-out explanation of what I think is wrong with ID claims.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Did you read the rest of my post?

Perhaps you forgot that you edited the post. I responded to what I read. If you feel slighted, I suggest it is a self-inflicted wound.