A Scientific Hypothesis Of Design – finally.

Upright Biped has announced the launch of his site via this UD post: Writing Biosemiosis-org

All of the unique physical conditions of dimensional semiosis have already been observed and documented in the scientific literature. It is an intractable fact that a dimensional semiotic system is used to encode organic polymers inside the cell. The conclusion of intelligent action is therefore fully supported by the physical evidence, and is subject to falsification only by showing an unguided source capable of creating such a system.

http://biosemiosis.org/index.php/a-scientific-hypothesis-of-design

Discuss!

828 thoughts on “A Scientific Hypothesis Of Design – finally.

  1. petrushka still doesn’t know what the genetic code is.

    I see more copy and past on the horizon! (I wish that’s all it were.)

  2. BruceS: Not that that has much to do with this thread, unless you interpret it as aligned with Petrushka’s ideas that biological design requires experimentation through evolution.

    Which would require symbols and codes and representations and language and all that stuff that anti-ID folks love to hate.

    And that really should be on-topic for this thread, since the site referenced in the OP seems to be concerned with the conditions required for open-ended biological evolution to occur.

    Which no one wants to discuss. Odd that.

  3. Mung: Which would require symbols and codes and representations and language and all that stuff that anti-ID folks love to hate.

    That does not follow.

    And that really should be on-topic for this thread, since the site referenced in the OP seems to be concerned with the conditions required for open-ended biological evolution to occur.

    AKA the origin of life.

    Mung: Which no one wants to discuss. Odd that.

    Why don’t you start us off then….

  4. OMagain: If the genome is designed, then it’s designed by someone who has ignored every single design principle humanity has come up with.

    Could you explain what you mean?
    I mean, the genetic code does not appear to ignore every single design principle with respect to codes and coding.

  5. petrushka: There is nothing equivalent in the genetic code.

    Yes, the genetic code is not like construction codes or electrical codes. Who ever thought it was?

  6. Mung: Which would require symbols and codes and representations and language and all that stuff that anti-ID folks love to hate.

    Sorry, but symbols and codes are metaphors. Metaphors are not required.

  7. OMagain: Why don’t you start us off then….

    It’s your OP. Discuss. Make an argument. Copy and paste something if that’s what it takes. 🙂

  8. Mung: Yes, the genetic code is not like construction codes or electrical codes. Who ever thought it was?

    Are you at all interested in how the genetic code functions, evolved and came about rather than what we call it?

  9. Mung: well newton, you have a point. I’ve been asking myself why I don’t speak up over at UD when I see the insults. I could look at all the abuse heaped on anyone who is a theist here at TSZ, and especially those who are Christians. I could say that my general silence here and my general practice of just skipping over the posts of habitual offenders here carries over and gives a pass to me when I do the same over at UD. I could point to the reduction of my own practice of slinging insults over there.

    But yeah, I think I should do more. I should speak up more often.

    Thank you.

    Ahem.

    Sorry mung 🙂

  10. Mung: Yes, the genetic code is not like construction codes or electrical codes. Who ever thought it was?

    Try reading for comprehension. If I suggested any equivalency, it was genetic codes and construction drawings or blueprints. That has been a fairly common metaphor, even though it has problems.

    But make my day Mung. Trot out your game changer. You are in contention with BornAgain and Mapou for the honor of most clueless Einstein wannabe. The title is yours if you actually trot out semiotic biology.

  11. Mung: It’s your OP. Discuss. Make an argument.

    The irony.

    Mung: Copy and paste something if that’s what it takes.

    There have been many lines of argumentation made over the past several years that are far more solid and erudite then anything I can muster. But none have mattered.

    Hence my quote and “discuss” imprecation was really, in my mind, for us to discuss what it takes to be this impervious to what I suppose amounts to “peer review”. Not to discuss Upright Bipeds actual idea. I don’t see that there’s anything new to say. He’s certainly not interested in taking on other people’s criticism.

    If you like I could copy and paste some of RB’s previous attempts (for I do so love his style) and we could talk about those? But I don’t think that’s what you mean, do you?

    My choice of quote reflected this intent I believe.

    It is a fact that…. The conclusion is fully supported.

    And you can’t argue with facts can you?

    As such, I look forwards to the (presumably forthcoming) publication of Upright Biped’s paper where he attempts to make the wider scientific community aware of his masterwork and the facts about the origin of life etc.

  12. OMagain: Mung: Copy and paste something if that’s what it takes.

    Who is he talking about? He mentioned copy and paste in a post to me also.

    I would love to see him try to document any tendency of mine to copy and paste.

    I’m simply too lazy to look up references, and I don’t think my “design is impossible” argument is used by anyone of note.

  13. petrushka: I would love to see him try to document any tendency of mine to copy and paste.

    I don’t think he was suggesting you do a lot of that.

  14. Rumraket,

    That’s a fun graph. I’d like to see a bigger sample (Maybe even right here!) Also numbers as well as percentages would be helpful for drawing reasonable conclusions.

    Now that I think about it, I think it might be better to leave out all the stuff about relevancy and just stick to tone and insult. Easier to be objective about that, I think.

  15. walto: Mung on November 3, 2015 at 5:19 pm said:
    petrushka still doesn’t know what the genetic code is.

    I see more copy and past on the horizon! (I wish that’s all it were.)

    I don’t think he was suggesting you do a lot of that.

    Maybe I’m just susceptible to the proximity fallacy.

    Mung on November 3, 2015 at 5:19 pm said:
    petrushka still doesn’t know what the genetic code is.

    I see more copy and past on the horizon! (I wish that’s all it were.)

  16. Yes, I would be the one engaging in the copy and paste. Though it’s much more likely it will require me to type it up, as most of my reference material is in books not in electronic format.

  17. Perhaps that’s why I haven’t learned what a code is.

    I tend to skip over copy and paste stuff. I’m trying to engage in a dialog.

    that means I would like for you to pay attention to what you write and try to adjust your arguments accordingly.

    Since I am arguing something that isn’t commonly found in books and blogs, you aren’t likely to find anything relevant to copy and paste.

  18. CODE:
    n. a system of words, letters, figures, or other symbols substituted for other words, letters, etc., especially for the purposes of secrecy.

    a system used for brevity or secrecy of communication, in which arbitrarily chosen words, letters, or symbols are assigned definite meanings.

    v. convert (the words of a message) into a particular code in order to convey a secret meaning.

    For examples, see the Noah’s Flood story.

    Stop me before I C&P again.

  19. OMagain: Large sections of reused maternal that have been copy pasted from one place to another.

    No that is what you would expect to see when dealing with a code.

    We have already established that just because the genome is a code does not make it necessary that it was designed.

    I know of no codes that were not designed but there is always the possibility that the genome is the first one that meets that criteria.

    Don’t worry there will always be an escape hatch for you to be able to deny design. In the end It will boil down to the problem of other minds.

    Atheism of the gaps
    peace

  20. BruceS: Instead we continually interact with the medium, and based on that, we revise our design/vision, which we then realize in the medium, and so on.

    Correct the design process is always an interplay between the pattern in our minds and the medium in which it is actualized

    none of that conflicts with my description.

    peace

  21. Gregory: I’ve met many actual ‘design theorists,’ as have likely others here. They are quite frankly nothing like the (DeSiGn reVoLuTioN baby!!) culture warriors at the DI. Sorry, Mung, but you’ve bought and sold in with the wrong crowd, under management that intentionally distorts reality in their quest to ‘renew America’ religiously. Protestant proactive PR-heavy IDism in church channels isn’t exactly a sign of virtue or a symbol of good science, philosophy or theology/worldview!

    Any links to the design theorists?

  22. fifthmonarchyman

    I know of no codes that were not designed but there is always the possibility that the genome is the first one that meets that criteria.

    Starlight encode lots of information about the star in the transmitted light spectrum.

    NASA: Extracting information from starlight

    “The light of stars is produced by atoms and molecules that encode, in the starlight itself, key science information about their chemical composition, temperature, pressure, and velocity. o receive and extract this information, astronomers will use the James Webb Space Telescope and a first-of-its kind science instrument whose prototype has just arrived at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. from its manufacturer in Germany.”

    The code is simply the processes which follow the laws of chemistry and physics to produce this information rich starlight.

    Now you do know of another natural code.

  23. petrushka: The thing I’m getting at is that new functions, including new regulatory functions cannot be designed. There is no ideal for a new function. There are new functions occasionally arising by chance and occasionally being fixed in the population’s genome.

    Are you kidding me, That is the equivalent to saying that there is no ideal for a new song. There are new songs occasionally arising by chance and occasionally being fixed in the population’s cultural inheritance .

    You will always have an escape hatch. Like I said it’s the problem of other minds.

    peace

  24. fifthmonarchyman

    You will always have an escape hatch.

    It’s nothing compared to the “GODDIDIT but I can’t say how, when, or why” escape hatch that the anti-science crowd continually offers up.

  25. The The hydrologic cycle is an example of energy being transferred from one medium to another in a feedback loop.

    Gravity is defied.Work gets done. I’m curious how the thermodynamics is conceptually different from a living system.

  26. Adapa: Maybe Brave Sir Mung will let us know if this qualifies as a “real code”.

    Perhaps the lines don’t get translated by a “natural” system.

    But I think the evaporation–>condensation–>rainfall–>evaporation cycle constitutes a translation system that does work and superficially defies the Second Law (in almost exactly the same way growth, development and evolution appear to).

  27. petrushka: Perhaps the lines don’t get translated by a “natural” system.

    We’ve always got tree ring widths that naturally encode historic information about rainfall/drought conditions.

  28. Adapa: We’ve always got tree ring widths that naturally encode historic information about rainfall/drought conditions.

    Yes, but I’m willing to bend a bit and accept that the genetic code actually causes stuff to happen.

    I’m curious where Mung is going with his non-mechanistic semiosis. it looks mechanistic to everyone else.

    With the rain cycle, information gets translated into different physical media. I’m going with that, for the moment.

  29. fifthmonarchyman: Don’t worry there will always be an escape hatch for you to be able to deny design. In the end It will boil down to the problem of other minds.

    How patronising. Yet you don’t seem to comprehend the question I’m asking you.
    I’ll try again.

    If the genome was

    A) designed
    B) undesigned

    what distinguishing characteristics would you expect to see in each case?

    I’m saying that if the genome evolved (i.e. B!) then I would expect to see the “multiple layers of interconnected functionality” that BA77 at UD also uses as “evidence” for design.

    So I’m asking you what you would expect to see in each case.

    You talk about “denying design” yet you can’t even talk about what design entails. Does it entail design like humans practice or something else? If ‘like humans’, then you cannot use the genome as evidence for design! Justify that claim of design, rather than just stating it.

  30. OMagain: You talk about “denying design” yet you can’t even talk about what design entails.

    What?? Design entails the working of a mind it’s the inverse of cognition. I thought we covered that already,

    The controversy rests on the fact that you will always be able to deny that cognition has taken place. There is absolutely nothing compelling you to accept that other minds exist at all.

    From your perspective It’s possible that everyone else in the universe are nothing but complex animatrons and you are the only conscious being in existence. You will always be able to brush off the acts of conscious agents as nothing but the combination of law and chance. You can relax.

    On the other hand for those of us that are not so “skeptical” look for commonalities between the behavior of the agents we know and entities that we are not sure about. When we find enough of said commonalities we tentatively assume that the entity in question is conscious. We don’t have incontrovertible proof of other minds. We don’t need it

    peace

  31. OMagain: Why?

    Because every other code I know of works like that whether it’s Morse code the English language or Java script.

    peace

  32. fifthmonarchyman: Because every other code I know of works like that whether it’s Morse code the English language or Java script.

    Your ignorance of the scientific evidence doesn’t constitute much of an argument.

  33. OMagain: f ‘like humans’, then you cannot use the genome as evidence for design!

    Please clarify. If you mean the “genome itself” then you are missing the entire point.

    I’m not saying that the genome is evidence for design any more than the English language is evidence for design. As Ive said before I not saying that the presence of a code proves that there was design.

    Humans do develop and use codes though. In fact the use of code (language) is a defining characteristic of homo sapiens

    peace

  34. walto: Rumraket,

    That’s a fun graph. I’d like to see a bigger sample (Maybe even right here!) Also numbers as well as percentages would be helpful for drawing reasonable conclusions.

    Now that I think about it, I think it might be better to leave out all the stuff about relevancy and just stick to tone and insult. Easier to be objective about that, I think.

    Notice the sublime irony of Joe G being the only ID person to respond. With an insult.

    They leave me without words every time.

  35. fifthmonarchyman: What?? Design entails the working of a mind it’s the inverse of cognition. I thought we covered that already,

    The controversy rests on the fact that you will always be able to deny that cognition has taken place. There is absolutely nothing compelling you to accept that other minds exist at all.

    From your perspective It’s possible that everyone else in the universe are nothing but complex animatrons and you are the only conscious being in existence. You will always be able to brush off the acts of conscious agents as nothing but the combination of law and chance. You can relax.

    On the other hand for those of us that are not so “skeptical” look for commonalities between the behavior of the agents we know and entities that we are not sure about. When we find enough of said commonalities we tentatively assume that the entity in question is conscious. We don’t have incontrovertible proof of other minds. We don’t need it

    peace

    Yeah, except that it’s not an awful lot like other minds at all.

  36. walto: Yeah, except that it’s not an awful lot like other minds at all.

    I disagree. To me using codes to represent immaterial form/patterns in physical medium is what other minds do. It must be just me

    To each his own

    peace

  37. I can think of another candidate fo a natural code, and that would be the seed that originates a snowflake. As the crystal grows, each arm generates the same pattern independently, based on the configuration of the coding seed.

  38. fifthmonarchyman: I disagree. To me using codes to represent immaterial form/patterns in physical medium is what other minds do. It must be just me

    To each his own

    Haha no. What’s “just you” is claiming that nature is “using codes to represent immaterial form/patterns in physical media.” Sure, that’s what we believe other minds do, but it’s what only a very few people (those with a particular result they’d enjoy in mind at the time) believe that nature does.

    As I said, it’s an extremely bad analogy and will be attacked from all sides because of that. But as you’re not interested in convincing anybody–what the heck, go for it!

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