Have you ever tried writing palindromes? How about writing phrases that can be read the same way in either direction? Here are some examples:
A man, a plan, a canal: Panama
Live not on evil
Was it a car or a cat I saw
These sentences were no doubt designed…
Can you imagine writing a book that can be read forwards and backwards containing 2 different stories that made sense? Not an easy task…
Watch the video and pay special attention to the following examples:
- Alternative splicing of RNA that produces multiple proteins from one gene
- Duons – Overlapping sequences that code for both protein expression and transcription factor binding sites simultaneously
- Dual coding genes in which one sequence is read in multiple frames to produce completely different protein
The magnitude of the dual coding problem in DNA would be the equivalent of writing a novel that could be read in either forward over reverse directions making two different stories both of which made sense…
And don’t forget that according to Darwinists the dual coding in DNA simply evolved, right?
That’s not even a link to the paper, and the paper is at any rate paywalled, and there isn’t even an abstract. Did you actually read that paper or just see the title? If you want to argue that non-experimental science is invalid, please do so.
John Harshman,
The paper is a pdf. Google: Inference to the best explanation Van Fraassen.
The current scientific explanation does explain our observations to the satisfaction of scientists who actually study evolutionary biology.
Behe and Meyer are Creationists. They claim all sorts of stupid unsupported horse poo to prop up their Creationist beliefs.
You mean you can’t make sense of the actual science because of your personal religious biases.
colewd,
Given your penchant for rewriting history, I’d be interested in hearing how you reconcile this…
…with your previous arguments against common descent and for common design, including your frantic attempts to deny Behe’s acceptance of common descent.
Entertain us, please.
keiths, to colewd:
OMagain:
And hilarious how Bill tries to spin it:
What Behe, Theobald, Harshman and I are doing, Bill, is explaining what ‘common descent’ actually means.
You don’t get it, and so it’s up to us — your opponents — to explain it to you, even quoting Behe’s own words to you.
Do you finally get it?
I was able to find it, small thanks to you. But did you read it at all? It’s a defense of inference against Van Fraassen, not an attack. Here.
John Harshman,
I agree. The paper identifies this argument as the one Darwin used for his theory of natural selection. I also agree that using an inference argument is fine if repeatable experimentation is not possible. The only problem is when someone claims that the science is validated by experiment when it is not.
Inference to the best explanation is the standard used by Stephen Meyer in his argument that intelligent design is the best explanation for the origin of functional genetic information. He has spent lots of effort validating this type of argument and part of that validation is that it is the method of argument that Darwin used.
John:
colewd:
Then why did you characterize it as a critique?
Damn, Bill. The simplest intellectual tasks overwhelm you.
That’s a direct reversal of your original claim!
You know nothing of how sciene works. Repeatable experimentation relies on inference arguments as much as does any other way of accumulating data. Now who is it that’s claiming the science (which science?) is validated by experiment when it is not?
No, it isn’t. Your misunderstanding of science extends in many directions. It’s downright painful to try to talk to you.
No, because just making up a cause isn’t a way of inferring the best explanation. Of course a God who makes life appear evolved would be a fantastic explanation for life, you’d just have to show that such a bizarre being exists. You and Meyer have done nothing of the sort.
He has spent a great deal of effort to sell this schlock to the rubes. Meanwhile, he has, of course, ignored the telling arguments against intelligence operating throughout evolution, such as the lack of any sort of foresight, which leads to the descent of the testes in mammals (vs. the high-temp testes of bird reproduction) and the making of rigid wing structures out of the several bones that became articulated in ancestral dinosaurs. Issues such as these indicate that intelligence is not at all a good explanation for life, while blind-to-the-future processes like evolutionary mechanisms are much better explanations.
You who swallow the transparently one-sided nonsense of Stephen Meyer aren’t interested in the best explanation, only in trying to ram your a priori beliefs into science and education using force, rather than achieving scientific status by merit.
Glen Davidson
Glen:
And Bill is nothing if not an easy mark. He may have even given money to Salvador, of all people. Sal writes:
Bill, please tell me you haven’t given money to that fraud.
You see that big bullseye painted on your chest? No? Well, we do, and guys like Meyer and Sal certainly can.
Let’s not forget about Sal’s other tender prey: J-Mac
“carne de cañon” we call them here
Astonishingly, Sal also takes cues from the vapid J-Mac:
Yes, someone with a Chopra-like belief in QM has helped to persuade Sal that consciousness is quantum (of course it is, since that’s just physics, but they mean some kind of quantum nonsense), along with some meaningless claims from others that QM is not material (whatever “material” is supposed to mean).
Why not? Evidence has never exactly guided Sal’s beliefs. You’d still think he might keep J-Mac at arm’s length, considering his output, and yet, no.
Glen Davidson
John Harshman,
It is amazing to me that you have been arguing about design for as long as I have and you have no idea what you are arguing against.
Inference to the best explanation is different then a tested hypothesis where the repeatable data is confirmation. Einstein did not have to argue against a competing hypothesis once the eclipse data was confirmed. The data spoke for itself.
Just as the huge quantity and quality of positive evidence for evolution over deep time speaks for itself. Just as the complete lack of positive evidence for ID-Creationism speaks for itself.
It is amazing to everyone else you have been arguing about evolution for as long as we have and you have no idea what you are arguing against.
Has anybody tried writing some new palindromes yet? How about few sentences that can be read forwards and backwards with two different meanings? Nobody?
Well, it’s no easy but when someone does it, let me know… We can update the OP with newly created palindromes and attribute them to random processes, natural selection, random genetics drift, selective pressure and any other non-intelligent processes or simply sheer dumb luck…
She is the best… as are her followers… Both deserving each other equally… 😉
Well, this turned out to be an accurate prediction.
J-mac? WIll you be at any time soon engaging with any of the arguments? This one, or this one or this one or this one or perhaps this one or this one or this one?
Hello?
Hello!? Can you see us?
I don’t believe there are ANY palindromic genes in the human genome (or indeed in existence anywhere) that correspond to the examples in the OP. I defy you to produce a single example of a gene whose complete ORF is also read from the opposite strand to produce a functional protein.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Morton%27s_demon
It’s strong with this one.
Whereas you simply don’t matter at all. The reality based community will trundle on, being productive, whilst you carry on doing whatever it is that you are pretending to do thinking that somehow you are making a difference.
Just another creo thinking they are destroying Darwinism one error at a time. All you are doing in fact is beating on a strawman of your own devising for my entertainment.
J-Mac,
From Wiki
Bill,
You can cut and you can paste, but you can’t read and you can’t understand. This makes it hard to discuss anything with you. Still there’s been some progress. I remember back when you wouldn’t admit to being a creationist and presented yourself as a neutral observer. You are at least more honest now.
It’s amazing to me that you think a title is necessarily an accurate description of content.
John Harshman,
I was a neutral observer until I realized that evolutionist could not support the criticisms brought forward. I still think design is a limited argument but it is currently the best description of what we are observing.
There are as many versions of “design” as there are Intelligent Design proponents out there. So what is true is that it is difficult to argue against “design” as there are so many versions of it.
I’ve been asking for literally years that the likes of Mung, J-Mac and phoodoo simply answer some basic questions:
Does the designer intervene all the time? Or just once at the beginning of time?
What % of changes in DNA are the responsibility of the designer?
Is the designer the same as your god?
Does the designer ensure that antibiotic resistance is maintained or does evolution do that?
Did the designer design parasites or did they evolve?
You, colewd, claim that atoms are designed. But that does not answer any question above.
So why don’t you IDists all get together first, decide what “design” actually means and then we can have a real debate about it?
John Harshman,
You could read it and find out. I think you will find that Meyer created the inference to the best explanation argument by studying Darwin’s arguments at Cambridge.
How could you make the statement,
When it is clear you have not studied the subject at all.
OMagain,
It is now becoming clear that you like John don’t have a clue what the design argument is. If you have to commit logical fallacies to support your position don’t you think it is time to rethink your arguments.
OMagain,
Why don’t you go argue your straw man position with yourself.
Asking what does design explain is a straw man because design doesn’t explain anything and doesn’t try to. Very neat. Oh, and despite all that it’s still the best “explanation”
ROTFLMFAO!
How odd, as intelligent design (ID) offers a promising scientific alternative to materialistic theories of biological and cosmological evolution — an alternative that is finding increasing theoretical and empirical support.
At least according to UD: https://uncommondescent.com/about-2/
So we have a clear disagreement between the founder of modern ID, Dr Dembksi and colewd.
So again it’s difficult to determine what “design” is. Does it explain, as Dr Dembski’s site proclaims, or does it not, which colewd seems clear on.
Who is right colewd? You or Dr Dr Dembski?
OMagain,
Can you clearly articulate Dembski’s position and how it is the same as the straw man you created?
Bill,
I don’t think you ever read Okasha’s article. I don’t think you ever read Meyer’s article. I think you just google key words, and ineptly cut and paste little bits and/or links. Am I incorrect on this?
Why would the science side support the idiocy brought forward? We refuted them, and if you understood at all, you simply denied the truth. Meanwhile, you have yet to provide the first bit of good evidence for design.
Well, it’s certainly not a theory, or science, or a model. Or something with good evidence.
That’s why life has the derivation patterns lacking in manufactured items, and the blindness to the future that results in the coccyx and the descent of the testes in mammals, rather than the “smarter “high-temp testes of birds.
You’ve explained nothing. Not the clear evolutionary patterns, not the strangely derived aspects like single wing bones fused from many bones (that used to become articulated in bird ancestors), not even anything straightforward like the aerodynamics of birds.
That’s how it’s so obvious that you are not now and never have been a neutral observer at all. All of the evidence has come from the other side, your side is utterly bereft of scientific evidence and of decent arguments. No facts have any effect on your opposition to the evidence-based model, nor on your worthless, evidenceless model.
Glen Davidson
I don’t know. What about not missing the point: So, if we can do that with a branch of wolves, by selecting and selecting and selecting. I don’t see why new species with new information could not arise in nature.
Do you understand why that’s convincing to us, even if it’s not convincing to you (because of your prior commitments)?
No it doesn’t. We don’t need to argue against it. You need to understand your problem: your proposal doesn’t make any sense.
More than a counterargument is an attempt at helping you notice one of the most fundamental problems with your “idea” of atoms being designed: you think that repeatability and specificity need to be designed into things. The point I’m making is that you cannot design such things into anything. You can only put together things that already have specificity and repeatability. If you start with a mess, you get a mess.
You have more problems. The only designers you can point to are ourselves, and we’re made of atoms. So, you’re claiming that designers are needed to make designers. But then, what are those prior designers made of? Are they made of unspecificity-unrepeatability elements? How could that even work? How could that make designers? No? Then you’re saying that at some point, the repeatability and specificity is fundamental, only you want it to be fundamental to some magical “designers.” Why? Why not stop within reality? Why go all the way to magical beings? I know why. because that’s what you want. It’s not about making sense, it’s about concluding that there’s a magical being.
Oh shit. I never said that matter is “uncaused.” I avoid cause/effect parlance (outdated and unhelpful). Then, I never said that matter itself was fundamental, I said that the predictability and specificity have to be fundamental. Whether that stops at atoms, energy, field/particle physics. I don’t care.
John Harshman,
Yes, I had read the first article previously. I have not read the specific Meyer article but am very familiar with the argument he developed on inference to the best explanation. You are wrong in your assessment. I will only cut and paste once I am familiar with the subject.
What appears to me is you occasionally make statements when you don’t understand the subject. This was very clear when you inaccurately refuted my claim on Meyer’s methods for his design arguments.
Its also clear to me you don’t understand the difference between an experimentally tested hypothesis and inference to the best explanation.
Entropy,
Sure, and it was convincing to me up until 3 years ago. I think when you want something to be true as we all have cognitive bias we can miss seeing problems with our hypothesis.
In general I agree that genetic variation is generated in the reproductive process but the evidence is that there is a limitation. The DNA variation between all dogs is less than .5% according to the data I have seen.
Vestigial legs, at best.
There doesn’t need to be a counter, because you’ve not come up with the first argument in favor of it. You’re just taking a discovery and claiming that it has to have been designed.
The telling fact is that once upon a time atoms were not demonstrated to exist, and theists did not at all predict that there must be atoms if the universe were designed. Indeed it is the Epicurean school of philosophy that was atomist, and anti-science people like Dembski like to condemn them, and pretend that modern science is just Epicureanism (hardly, even if some aspects of modern science can be traced to it).
Who ever claimed that matter is without cause? Matter apparently comes from energy, and if the imbalance of matter vs. antimatter may not be solved (I don’t think it is), people do search for the cause. You know, unlike what IDists do, which is to claim that god did it.
The anti-design Epicureans were the ones who pushed atomism. Bill could try to explain that, but then we know he doesn’t do explanations, merely proclamations.
Glen Davidson
Then come up with something that does explain it.
Oh, and blithering theists aren’t any sort of evidence that sense can’t be made of the evolutionary model. Indeed, the evidence makes sense of the evolutionary model, and merely not knowing everything about it isn’t evidence of anything except the extremely long, deep, and evidence-destroying nature of evolutionary time and processes.
Not only haven’t you explained anything that evolution does, you haven’t explained anything it doesn’t.
Glen Davidson
Entropy,
I can’t point to atoms either but I hypothesize their existence through inductive reasoning.
The success of science is pretty strong evidence that we are in a cause and effect universe. If you modify your claim to “atoms are caused” then we may be closer to agreement then I previously thought. 🙂
It (evolutionary theory) isn’t the competing explanation, it’s the only explanation, as it’s the only model of life’s origins actually based on evidence.
Your central fallacy is typical ID nonsense, you simply assume that ID is an explanation without scientific evidence.
This is why you never could be a neutral observer, you have never once began with the evidence, you assume that your evidenceless belief and the evidence-based theory are equal opponents. Your belief can’t even begin to compete, as it’s not even wrong.
Glen Davidson
Entropy,
These are all interesting questions but are not part of the design inference.
Of course you don’t predict them from ID principles.
Because ID has no principles, nor is it based on what actual designers do.
Anti-design philosophers pushed the idea of atoms before they were demonstrated by the evidence (not saying design theists couldn’t as well, just that design theists generally didn’t, and non-design schools found atoms conducive to their beliefs).
Glen Davidson
Then why did you initially claim it was an attack on inference rather than a defense?
By the evidence, and by your own admission, that isn’t true.
Inaccurately? You made a claim, then defended it on the basis of some words in the title of a paper you had not read.
It’s clear to me that you don’t understand what “experimentally tested” actually means, and have a magical view of science.
colewd,
Out of interest, what is the ‘best explanation’ being referenced?
In what way is an unknown better then an known explanation?
There’s no difference between these two statements:
The intelligent designer created the horse.
The number 4 created the horse.
They are both as useful as each other. They both tell us the same amount. They both rely on the same amount of experimental evidence as each other. So how can the “best” explanation be empty when there is an alternative that has a demonstrable mechanism we can point to, i.e. it is not empty.
Why is “empty” best? Is the alternative simply that unbearable?
After all this time Billy still doesn’t understand what a scientific explanation means, why it needs entailments to have supporting evidence and be considered an explanation at all.
Arguing with him is like trying to teach quantum physics to a toddler
John Harshman,
My previous comment.
This is mentioned early in the paper. You read this but did not understand the meaning. You just assumed I was claiming that the criticism was coming from the author.
Your claim was completely false. The title was all I needed to refute your claim. If you think the paper contradicts the title then make the argument.
Are you claiming that inference to the best explanation is the same as an experimentally tested hypothesis?
If you think that a “magical” view of science is trusting hypothesis that have been experimentally validated then I guess my view is “magical”.
OMagain,
They are both straw man arguments.
dazz,
Provide a scientific explanation for cause of the origin and diversity of life. Don’t leave out all the entailments. 🙂