Failure to Respond: open thread!

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As Tom English’s post critiquing Dembski, Ewert, Marks, (eg Ewert) is being swamped with OT stuff, I offer this as a place to discuss the lack of substantive responses to Tom English and Joe Felsenstein so that any substantive response to Tom’s points will be more visible.

163 thoughts on “Failure to Respond: open thread!”

  1. OMagain: What are you talking about? I thought you were quite sure the bacterial flagellum was designed? Are you now saying you have doubts?

    It was designed- there aren’t any doubts. And you have no idea how to test the claim that natural selection, drift and neutral changes can produce one. And that means the design inference for all bacterial flagella is very, very safe.

  2. Frankie: Yes, design is a mechanism by definition. And yes when the claim was made the claim also said design is not a specific mechanism but it entails specific design mechanisms.

    What specific design mechanisms does the ID of biological life entail?

  3. Frankie: A theory of ID would include all of the questions that come later, after design has been detected.

    5 minutes later:

    Frankie: It was designed- there aren’t any doubts.

    If it was designed then design has been detected. Time for that theory of ID I think.

  4. Frankie: It was designed- there aren’t any doubts.

    According to you

    “A theory of ID [if there were such a theory] would include all of the questions that come later, after design has been detected.”

    What are the questions since you have no doubt design has already been detected? How do you investigate those questions?

  5. Adapa: What specific design mechanisms does the ID of biological life entail?

    We don’t need to know that before we determine design exists. Archaeology proves that comes only after studying the design and all relevant evidence. And even in the case of artifacts we just don’t know all of the time how they were constructed. But we do know that they are artifacts

  6. Frankie: Both IC and CSI are examples of work and counterflow. Neither can exist without the intervention of an intelligent agency.

    Then design has been detected, because biology is just chock full of CSI according to KarosFocus over at UD!

    So, time for that theory of ID!

  7. OMagain: 5 minutes later:

    If it was designed then design has been detected. Time for that theory of ID I think.

    So much flailing away at ID just because you cannot reference a theory of evolution.

    So much for posting in good faith

  9. Patrick: I’ve seen that claim a few times over the past few years. It seems to be rising to the top of the fetid contents of the cauldron of what passes for creationist thought. If you have the time, it would be great to have an OP containing what you wrote, and comments by other scientists, to point to the next time that nonsense is spouted.

    It would certainly be great to have a PRATT archive for easy reference. Though Darwin did a pretty good preliminary job with On the Origin of Species. 🙂 I wonder if it’s time for another blood-letting on ideas for how the site could be improved.

  10. Frankie: So much flailing away at ID just because you cannot reference a theory of evolution.

    So much for posting in good faith

    Why do you keep evading the topic Joe? You claim ID has already been detected so what are the questions and tests that ID “theory” says should come next?

    Why hasn’t any work in that area been done since according to the IDiots “design” was detected a decade ago?

  11. Frankie: We don’t need to know that before we determine design exists.

    You just claimed to already know “design” in biological life exists. What’s next for the IDiots? Maybe Bio-Complexity will have more than one issue next year?

  13. Alan Fox: It would certainly be great to have a PRATT archive for easy reference. Though Darwin did a pretty good preliminary job with On the Origin of Species. I wonder if it’s time for another blood-letting on ideas for how the site could be improved.

    Darwin’s wasn’t a theory, Alan. Darwin had whales evolving from bears. How did that work out?

  15. Adapa: You just claimed to already know “design” in biological life exists.What’s next for the IDiots?Maybe Bio-Complexity will have more than one issue next year?

    Next is to study it so we can understand it.

  16. Frankie: Darwin’s wasn’t a theory, Alan. Darwin had whales evolving from bears. How did that work out?

    Darwin proposed a theory of natural selection by differential reproduction of individuals in a population, Joe. That he was wrong on some points, that he didn’t know about genetics, in no way negates the fact that Darwin proposed a theory whose tenets have stood the test of time and been confirmed by multiple lines of evidence.

  17. Frankie: Next is to study it so we can understand it.

    What’s stopping the IDiots? They’ve had over a decade now. What things will you investigate, what hypotheses will you be testing?

    Don’t whine about how the evil science conspiracy is denying research money to the IDiots. Just give us a list of what is proposed.

  18. Alan Fox,

    Whatever is good enough to survive and reproduce isn’t a theory, Alan. And that is all natural selection is about. What is the quantification? Just seeing who reproduces more doesn’t say anything about universal common descent.

    How can we test Darwin’s bald assertion that natural selection is a mechanism of design without a designer? Darwin’s was a working hypothesis at best. But one without a positive way of validating its points.

    So what are these alleged tenets that have stood the test of time and have been confirmed? Please, do tell.

  21. Frankie:
    Adapa,

    Well in over 150 years and all of the resources, yours still has nothing.

    LOL! Classic Joe G. Can’t defend ID, can’t show any way forward for it at all. The only thing he can do is attack his cartoon version of evolution to distract from his epic failures.

  22. Richardthughes:
    Knocking evolution rather than promoting design….

    ID is not anti-evolution and earlier I posted exactly why ID has to “attack evolutionism”- science 101. Please try to keep up. The post also contained the positive case for ID. It was earlier today and is on older comments

  23. Adapa: LOL!Classic Joe G. Can’t defend ID, can’t show any way forward for itat all.The only thing he can do is attack his cartoon version of evolution to distract from his epic failures.

    Please provide evidence for this alleged cartoon version of evolution I am attacking. My views on evolution come from Darwin, Mayr, Dawkins, Huxley, Gould, et al. Your false claim is dishonest at best.

    Also I posted the testable entailments of ID. It is much more than you can do for evolutionism

  24. Frankie:
    Alan Fox,

    How can we test Darwin’s bald assertion that natural selection is a mechanism of design without a designer? Darwin’s was a working hypothesis at best. But one without a positive way of validating its points.

    1. We can empirically observe the process happening in real world populations like cichlid fishes.

    2. We can empirically observed the process in lab experiments like Lenski’s LTEE.

    3. We can verify the process is capable of creating novelties by running genetic algorithms on computers and observing the results.

    Three strikes and you’re out Joe. 🙂

  25. “evolutionism”. If only we had an ID leader to tell us what that is, it certainly isn’t mainstream science.

  26. Alan Fox,

    I’ve seen that claim a few times over the past few years. It seems to be rising to the top of the fetid contents of the cauldron of what passes for creationist thought. If you have the time, it would be great to have an OP containing what you wrote, and comments by other scientists, to point to the next time that nonsense is spouted.

    It would certainly be great to have a PRATT archive for easy reference. Though Darwin did a pretty good preliminary job with On the Origin of Species. 🙂 I wonder if it’s time for another blood-letting on ideas for how the site could be improved.

    I’m thinking of something like additions to The Index of Creationist Claims. That work has been done for decades, only a few articles are necessary to address the intelligent design variant of creationism.

  29. Adapa: 1. We can empirically observe the process happening in real world populations like cichlid fishes.

    2. We can empirically observed the process in lab experiments like Lenski’s LTEE.

    3. We can verify the process is capable of creating novelties by running genetic algorithms on computers and observing the results.

    Three strikes and you’re out Joe.

    1- we don’t know what processes produce those fish

    2- We don’t know what mechanisms are responsible for Lenski’s E coli

    3- Genetic algorithms exemplify DIRECTED evolution

    you lose, loser

  30. Richardthughes:
    “evolutionism”. If only we had an ID leader to tell us what that is, it certainly isn’t mainstream science.

    Evolutionism is described by Mayr in “What Evolution Is”

  31. Patrick:
    Alan Fox,

    It would certainly be great to have a PRATT archive for easy reference. Though Darwin did a pretty good preliminary job with On the Origin of Species. I wonder if it’s time for another blood-letting on ideas for how the site could be improved.

    I’m thinking of something like additions to The Index of Creationist Claims.That work has been done for decades, only a few articles are necessary to address the intelligent design variant of creationism.

    Still no theory of evolution, Patty.

  32. OMagain: I guess you won’t be getting your biology GCSE then.

    I guess you don’t know what a theory is, either. No surprise there

  33. OK so no evidence that I am creating a cartoon version of evolution. And this place claims to frown on such activities. Talk about hypocrisy.

  34. Natural selection requires specified complexity to exist- it needs that imperfect replicator capable of Darwinian evolution:

    “Complicated things have some quality, specifiable in advance, that is highly unlikely to have been acquired by random chance alone. In the case of living things, the quality is specified in advance is…the ability to propagate genes in reproduction.”- Richard Dawkins “The Blind Watchmaker”

  36. Richardthughes,

    Of course it does. It blows the whole OP out of the water. If you need specified complexity to get started then obviously your model is not explaining the origin of SC.

  37. No, it’s about “The Law of Conservation of Information” and how that is now not a law nor ever was.

    Here is the “law” described by the author for laymen like yourself: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/08/conservation_of063671.html

    Specified complexity is not invoked, mentioned nor alluded to and the author’s arguments are not contingent on it. Similarly in this thread the only mention is by you. LCI is not contingent on SC.

    Go and ask an ID leader.

  40. Richardthughes:
    No, it’s about “The Law of Conservation of Information” and how that is now not a law nor ever was.

    Here is the “law” described by the author for laymen like yourself: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/08/conservation_of063671.html

    Specified complexity is not invoked, mentioned nor alluded to and the author’s arguments are not contingent on it. Similarly in this thread the only mention is by you. LCI is not contingent on SC.

    Go and ask an ID leader.

    The OP discusses Darwinian evolution and information arising via evolutionary processes. However the model starts with the very thing that needs explaining.

  41. All genetic algorithms model directed evolution. They are all goal-oriented targeted searches. Natural selection is neither goal oriented nor is it a search. The information that drives GAs are the specifications for the problems they are trying to solve. Those specifications can be in the form of the signal an antenna needs to receive or transmit or a sentence you want to match. (Dawkins “weasel” program would never find that sentence had it not been part of the selection process)

  42. This post is about neither of those things. Admin, can we get a clean up of mine and Frankie’s comments, and keep it technical / relevant?

    Thanks

  43. Frankie ought to talk to a guy named JoeG. JoeG used to make exactly that argument about evolutionary algoirthms and frontloading. Furthermore he was very sure of himself, even though not one other “ID proponent” ever agreed with him about that. JoeG will probably be happy to hear that now there are two people in his camp. Two, because there are now two names associated with that view, and as we know, 2 \neq 1. So support for this unusual view has now doubled, and with a modest number of further doublings, should become the majority view.

  44. Richardthughes:
    This post is about neither of those things. Admin, can we get a clean up of mine and Frankie’s comments, and keep it technical / relevant?

    Thanks

    It’s all in the OP, cupcake. Read it again, for the first time

  45. Joe Felsenstein:
    Frankie ought to talk to a guy named JoeG.JoeG used to make exactly that argument about evolutionary algoirthms and frontloading.Furthermore he was very sure of himself, even though not one other “ID proponent” ever agreed with him about that.JoeG will probably be happy to hear that now there are two people in his camp.Two, because there are now two names associated with that view, and as we know, .So support for this unusual view has now doubled, and with a modest number of further doublings, should become the majority view.

    The number of people who can refute what I posted about GAs = 0

  46. Frankie: The number of people who can refute what I posted about GAs = 0

    And yet even despite that you are getting nowhere.

  48. Joe Felsenstein:
    Frankie ought to talk to a guy named JoeG.JoeG used to make exactly that argument about evolutionary algoirthms and frontloading.Furthermore he was very sure of himself, even though not one other “ID proponent” ever agreed with him about that.JoeG will probably be happy to hear that now there are two people in his camp.Two, because there are now two names associated with that view, and as we know, .So support for this unusual view has now doubled, and with a modest number of further doublings, should become the majority view.

    And BTW, there are many IDists over on UD who agree with Joe G’s PoV on GAs. Show us a GA that isn’t a goal-oriented targeted search and we will show you a program that isn’t a GA. Show us a GA that could produce a specific antenna without having any programming that deals with antennas and waves. Show us a GA that can produce “Methinks…” without having that programmed in.

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