Since scientists have not been able to prove or even logically explain the origins of life (abiogenesis) by natural, unguided, gradual processes often referred to as the bottom-up approach, it is conceivable to imply that the process of life origins on Earth could be scientifically explained by the design and creation process often referred to as the top-down approach.The top-down approach is sometimes used by scientists in attempts of recreation of small life forms, like a eukaryotic cell.
I will however apply the top-down approach to the process of the designing and creating of human life Intelligent Designer or God (ID/God) could have used.
In other words, the top-down approach is the only conceivable way of the designing and creating life as even in case of the simplest of cells all organelles and functional structures of a cell have to be present, and at the same time, as they are mutually interdependent, including the cell membrane, for it to function or be alive or stay alive. Without the cell membrane or one of the structures or organelles, the cell stops functioning and eventually dies.
In an attempt to explain how the process of the designing and creating of life could have been achieved by ID/God, I will use the illustration some naturalistic, evolutionary scientists often use to try to explain the process of evolution of life often called descent with modifications, where they refer to an “evolution” or change of one model of the car over the many years.
Since this process itself doesn’t explain how the original car appeared in the first place by slow, unguided processes, (bottom-up) I will use it as an example of what kind of planning, engineering, integration and manufacturing would be necessary for a car to “appear” in the first place, before it could go through the further gradual processes of “descent with modification” or changes over time.
Then I will apply the same methods and principles to the process of the designing and creating of life.
The designer comes up with a general idea and structure for a car and its function
- The designer decides what functional systems would be necessary for the car to work according to the design
- Then the designer decides how the individual parts need to work and be integrated into functional systems and functional systems into functional car
- The designer decides what materials need to be manufactured, such as steel, aluminum, copper, plastic, electrical wires, fabrics etc. for the individual parts to be manufactured he is going to use in order for the functional systems to be assembled, such as an engine, transmission, chassis the body/frame, source of energy and so on
- Once the design has been experimented with the integration of all the individual parts into systems and systems into the functional car, the final blueprint of the car is ready. The final manufacturing process of all the parts can begin
Then, all the parts can be assembled into functional systems and the functional systems into a functional car - The car has been assembled and is ready to function according to the design
Then the designer turns on the ignition, puts into the first gear, then he puts his foot on the accelerator and the car moves - The idea for a car has become reality. It functions according to the initial idea and the design
Let’s look closer at the materials, such as steel, copper, fabrics, wires etc. They are made of smaller elements; really tiny pieces of stuff. Actually, on subatomic level, they are made up of 3 ingredients: protons, neutrons and electrons.
As a matter fact, as far as we know, the whole matter in the universe is made of protons, neutrons and electrons.
The same applies to life, including human body. Life and human body on subatomic level is made of 3 ingredients: protons, neutrons and electrons.
And this is very important information because on this very fact my whole theory as to How ID/God created life is based.
Just like the car, human body is made of or built of many functional systems, like circulatory system, nervous system, lymphatic system, bones, veins, and so on.
Human body systems are made of integrated organs.
Those organs are made of different types of tissues.
Tissues are made of different types of cells (about 200 types of cells).
Cells are made of different organelles – organized or specialized structures within the living cell. Most types of cells share the same organelles or specialized structures within a living cells but other cells do not. Some of the organelles carry DNA, which is necessary for the process of reproduction of the living organism that non-living things, like a cars, don’t obviously have.
Organelles are made of macromolecules, like carbohydrates, lipids, amino acids, proteins and so on.
Macromolecules are made of chemical elements, like carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and so on.
Chemical elements are made of atoms.
Atoms are made of subatomic elements like protons, neutrons and electrons.
And, as I mentioned earlier, just like the car, on subatomic level is made of protons, neutrons and electrons, so is human body and all life on the Earth.
(Quarks are, as far as we know, the smallest pieces of stuff. There are 6 different types of quarks, and different combinations produce different types of subatomic particles like protons. For simplicity and clarity, I’ll focus on the 3 ingredients or building blocks of all matter: protons, neutrons and electrons as it is just easier to follow what I’m trying to convey.)
If I missed a step or more in the structure of what the human body and life is made of, feel free to correct it but this is not really that important now…
Life and human body on subatomic level are built of only 3 ingredients: protons, neutrons and electrons. While this might be mind-boggling if you think about how complex human body is, especially human brain, this is actually true as far as science has revealed it so far.
While the composition of life and human body is based on the 3 subatomic elements protons, neutrons and electrons, how life and human body function is based on how the three elemental building blocks of life (protons, neutrons and electrons) interact with each other or what their quantum state is; what their interactions or relations are.
Quantum state is simply something that encodes or translates the state of a system; how protons, neutrons and electrons interact with each other to form a state of a system. Behind each quantum state is the information that expresses the quantum state of the subatomic particles.
Here is the most interesting part about quantum state and quantum mechanics (science that is a part of physics) that deals with the mathematical description of the motion and interaction of subatomic particles.
According to quantum mechanics any quantum state of protons, neutrons and electrons that form a system or systems can be transferred or teleported due to quantum entanglement (predicament of subatomic particles) from one place to another, without traveling through any physical medium.
Scientists have already successfully teleported photons, which are particles of light as well as small pieces of matter across a short distance.
And this is the most essential part of my theory.
Since scientists have successfully teleported particles and small pieces of matter, who says that humans could not be teleported in the future? While human teleportation is still in theory today, it may very well become reality in the future. It has not been proven wrong at least mathematically.
Let’s just focus on the possibilities of human teleportation.
Since a picture is worth a thousand words here are some videos that explain how quantum teleportation of humans could work:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQHBAdShgYI
I personally like this video at 40 minute mark:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z8Ma2YT8vY
So, human teleportation in theory seems possible. Whether it will be possible in the future it remains to be seen.
NEXT
So you may wonder; how does human teleportation, whether possible or not in the future, relate to the theme of my post: How did the ID/God create life?
Well, I think it does.
As you may recall on the outset of my post, just like any car is built in the top-down process starting with an idea/design, blueprint etc. all the way down to the elements that are made of subatomic particles, so could human body starting with its blueprint all the way down to the elements that are made subatomic particles; protons, neurons and electrons.
How that could have been done in reality by ID/God, the possibility of human quantum teleportation sheds some light on that.
For human body to be teleported–transferred from one place to another, without actually traveling through any physical medium–the quantum state of each of the subatomic particles that make up the human body to be teleported would have to be extracted (scanned or analyzed) and then teleported or sent exactly to the designated location where the human body is supposed to “arrive” and to be reassembled.
In quantum teleportation, the subatomic particles that make up the original human body are NOT literary sent. No. It’s the information about their quantum state that is sent thanks to the laws of quantum mechanics called quantum entanglement.
Wikipedia–Quantum entanglement is a physical phenomenon that occurs when pairs or groups of particles are generated or interact in ways such that the quantum state of each particle cannot be described independently of the others, even when the particles are separated by a large distance—instead, a quantum state must be described.
QE video link???
For human quantum teleportation to happen, 2 entangled chambers containing subatomic particles, protons, neutrons and electrons are needed. The first chamber will act as a “sending chamber” and the second as a” receiving or reassembling chamber”.
Then, a third chamber will be needed that will act as a body scanner or fax machine that will be interacting with the “sending chamber”, while compering the quantum states of each particle that the human body to be teleported is made of.
The process of quantum teleportation involves the scanning or extracting the quantum state of each of the subatomic particles (protons, neurons and electrons) that the body to be teleported is made of and sending it to the receiving chamber that is entangled with the sending chamber.
Because the particles in the “sending chamber” are entangled with the particles in the “receiving chamber”, the “receiving chamber” reads the quantum state of each particles that was extracted from the human body in the scanning chamber and reassembles it into the exact quantum state or the exact human body composition that it was before being teleported.
In quantum teleportation, the subatomic particles that make up the original human body are not sent. It’s the information about their quantum state that is sent thanks to the laws of quantum mechanics called quantum entanglement.
Since according to quantum mechanics, life on the subatomic level equals the quantum state of each the subatomic particles that make up the life form, there should be no difference between the human body that was alive in the scanning chamber and the reassembled human body that is now alive in the receiving chamber.
Since according to quantum mechanics you can’t create 2 exactly the same quantum states of an object, in quantum teleportation you can’t teleport an object without destroying in the process.
Actually, you can’t extract the quantum state of the object to be teleported without destroying it in the process of scanning it.
While there may be some philosophical implications (depending on one’s beliefs on soul and consciousness) that would have to be answered about the process of human quantum teleportation (I can try to answer them later) let’s just focus on the implications that the possibility of human quantum teleportation presents us with when it comes to the process of creation of human life.
While still in theory, human quantum teleportation seems possible, could the human quantum teleportation be done by the ID/God who created the universe and physical laws that govern quantum mechanics and make human quantum teleportation seem possible?
Let’s just ponder this for a moment: Scientist have already teleported small pieces of matter. Could the creator of matter and the physical laws that make quantum teleportation possible teleport bigger pieces of matter?
How about quantum teleportation of a piece of matter that is alive? Is it possible? Would it be feasible for ID/God who knows every detail about quantum mechanics and quantum entanglement that make quantum teleportation possible, including human teleportation?
And if ID/God is able to teleport matter that is alive, like human body, could he have used the same method, the laws that govern quantum mechanics that he created, like quantum entanglement to create life in the top-down approach rather than bottom-up, like abiogenesis or evolution?
Without answering this question now, let’s assume that ID/God could use the physical laws of quantum mechanics, like quantum entanglement and quantum teleportation to create life on Earth, including humans.
Let’s see how that could have been accomplished considering what we have discussed so far about quantum mechanics, quantum entanglement and quantum teleportation.
As I said before, according to quantum mechanics, life on subatomic level equals the many quantum states of subatomic particles-protons, neurons and electrons.
In other words, the composition of life is dependent on the information about the many different quantum states of the particles that form the life form, including human life.
As I mentioned earlier, for human quantum teleportation to happen, 2 chambers with entangled particles protons, neutrons and electrons are needed, as well as a scanning device or chamber that compares the quantum state of particles making up the human body to be teleported with the particles found in one of the entangled chambers that will act as the sending chamber.
The sending chamber containing with subatomic particles protons, neutrons and electrons entangled with the particles in the receiving chamber
The receiving chamber with subatomic particles – protons, neurons and electrons that are entangled with the sending chamber
The scanning device or chamber that acts like a scanner or a fax machine that interacts with the sending chamber and extracts the quantum state of the particles making up the human body to be teleported.
Let’s now apply what has been mentioned so far about the possibilities that quantum mechanics, quantum entanglement and quantum teleportation present us with to the process of creating life.
Could the laws of physics, like quantum mechanics, that govern the universe have been use by ID/ God to create life on earth including humans?
As I mentioned on the outset, the process of the designing and manufacturing the car involves the top-down approach. First an idea for a car, the blueprint, the design of different systems that would make up the car, the parts that would make up the functioning systems, the materials that would be used to manufacture the parts, the elements that the materials would be manufactured from and at the end of top-down method are the subatomic particles that make up the elements that the whole car is made of or built with.
In reality however the whole structure of the car and its function is dependent on the quantum state of the 3 subatomic particles protons, neutrons and electrons. And while in theory today, because of laws of quantum mechanics, the whole car could also be teleported using quantum teleportation method of the 3 chambers mentioned earlier. Scientists have already teleported small pieces of matter. Is it just a matter of time before they teleport bigger, larger ones?
A car to be teleported would have to be scanned in the scanning chamber for the quantum state or the many arrangements of the 3 particles it is made of and reconstructed exactly at the receiving chamber that is entengled with the sending chamber that interacts with the scanning chamber.
???video car teleportation???
Let’s focus now on the creation process of life and humans.
Similarly to the process of the designing and manufacturing the car, the ID/ God comes up with an idea for human life (having already experimented with simpler life forms that had been created before human life); human body and its function.
Starting with a blueprint, first he decides what the human body is going to look like and function, what functional systems are going to be the part of the functioning human, like circulatory system, nervous system, lymphatic system, bones, veins etc. and obviously the reproductive system.
Then he decides what organs are going to be integrated into body systems.
Then he decides on the many different types of tissues that those different organs are going to be made of to perform their many functions.
Then he decides on the many different types of cells (about 200 types of cells) that those tissues are going to be made of.
Then he decides on the many different types of spricialised structures like organelles – organized or specialized structures within the living cell – that the many different types of cells are going to be made of
Then he decides what macromolecules, like carbohydrates, lipids, proteins etc. are going to be used to make up those specialized structures (organelles).
Microelements are made of chemical elements, like carbon, hydrogen, oxygen etc.
The elements, like carbon, hydrogen and oxygen and so on are made of atoms.
Atoms are made of subatomic elements or particles, like protons, neutrons and electrons.
And, as I mentioned earlier, just like a car on subatomic level is made of protons, neutrons and electrons, so is human body and all life on Earth.
Those 3 subatomic particles form all matter in the universe including all known life, like human life.
However, what makes the existence of matter and life possible are the many different quantum states (arrangements) of those 3 subatomic particles or how they interact with each other.
Now, the ID/God has the final blueprint and the design of human body ready.
Now using the same laws of physics that make quantum teleportation possible he encodes (using a big, big efficient quantum computer?) the exact information about the many different quantum states of each of the 3 subatomic particles to form the fundamental elements of the human body like carbon, hydrogen, hydrogen etc. He arranges the many different quantum states of those 3 particles to form a functional human body according to the original blueprint and design.
The process of encoding the information about the many different quantum states into the 3 subatomic particles of life involves foreknowledge and foresight as to how the human body is going to function in the end.
This knowledge requires that the final integration of all systems be encoded in the top-down approach that fully functional human body that is alive is dependent on all functional systems and subsystems that are all present or it can’t function or be alive just like a cell mention earlier.
In other words, the ID/God knows exactly what the entire final quantum state (information) the human body would have to be in for it to function or be alive. So, he encodes this information exactly for the many different quantum states that protons, neurons and electrons would have to be in order to interact with each other to form the many of their quantum states for the elements to form, macromolecules and so on…then the fully functional systems and then he integrates systems to form life and the human body that is alive.
Once all the information about the quantum state of each individual part of the human body is encoded, the process of human creation can begin using the same method that applies to quantum teleportation with one exception of the scanning device or chamber, since no physical human body exists yet to be scanned. It needs to be assembled or materialized first based on the information that has been encoded by ID/God.
In order to create (assemble) the exact human body based on the final quantum state it needs to be in, all the ID/ God needs to do is encode the sending chamber or send the information directly about the quantum state of each of the many particles that the human body is going to be made of.
Just like in quantum teleportation,
the sending chamber (interacts) is encoded with information from the scanning device or chamber about the quantum state of each of the particles the human body to be teleported and reassembled in the receiving chamber,
in human body creation, the sending chamber is encoded directly by ID/God with information about the quantum state of each of the many particles of the human body to be created in the receiving chamber.
The rest of the process of the creation of the human body remains the same as in the quantum teleportation process mentioned earlier.
Based on the information about the quantum state the human body needs to be in to be created, thanks to quantum entanglement, the receiving chamber reconstructs the quantum state of each of the particles based on the information the sending chamber was encoded with or received directly by ID/God.
The human body creation has been accomplished thanks to the possibilities of quantum mechanics, quantum entanglement and quantum teleportation.
So, the process of creation of life, including human life, would involve the already known process that quantum mechanics allows in the quantum teleportation due to quantum entanglement of particles, which is dependent on the information about their many, many quantum states those particles can be arranged into.
(Another possibility would be for ID/God to encode or send the information about the quantum state of each of the particls to form the humand body directly to the receiving/assembling chamber but because scientist can’t do that yet, the more reasonable approach is the use of quantum entagled chambers.)
Use 1 only
Is there evidence or a clue that the process of creation of life (by top-down approach) on Earth including human life that quantum mechanics allows could have been used by ID/God?
Are there any clues that ID/God used the top-down method in the creation of life on Earth, like human life using already existing laws of physics like quantum mechanics?
Let’s see.
The biblical account of creation in the book of genesis tells us that God created life including human life out of the dust of the ground. The Hebrew word for “dust” in Genesis 2:7 is aphar can be translated as clay, earth, mud, ashes, earth, ground, mortar, powder.
How would you describe the process of creation of human life to men few thousand years ago involving quantum mechanics or the many quantum states of subatomic particles forming human body? Would you describe it in the terms physicists use today to explain quantum mechanics? I doubt that.
So, to describe the process of creation that would involve the many quantum states of subatomic particles forming human body to simple man few thousand years ago or even few hundred, the word dust or clay could be appropriately used since all the elements necessary to form human body are available in the ground of the earth. It seem that only 11 major elements are necessary for life.
Wikipedia “Almost 99% of the mass of the human body is made up of six elements: oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus. Only about 0.85% is composed of another five elements: potassium, sulfur, sodium, chlorine, and magnesium. All 11 are necessary for life. The remaining elements are trace elements, of which more than a dozen are thought on the basis of good evidence to be necessary for life. All of the mass of the trace elements put together (less than 10 grams for a human body) do not add up to the body mass of magnesium, the least common of the 11 non-trace elements.”
All these elements are found in the Earth’s crust.
Now, once all the necessary elements were “formed” (the many quantum states of the subatomic particles have been encoded) into the human body, something would have to be needed to make those elements form a living thing or living human body. The account from genesis definitely implies that.
Other translations ??G, of enesis 2:7
“God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being”.
So, just like the designer of the car tuned on the ignition and applied the source of energy for all the systems to start to function, like to start the engine for the car to function, so did the ID/God to make the human body become alive applied the energy sustained by breathing for human body to function.
Watch this video of a puffer fish and tell us that there is no design in nature.
Here is a still from the video:
Challenge accepted: there is no (intelligent) design in nature
Remarkably evolutionary appearance.
Glen Davidson
I would argue that it takes intelligence to make the design shown in the video.
I’m not even sure I would call that “design”. It’s a nice recognizible, symmetrical pattern to be sure, and the puffer fish made it. That’s not to say similar patterns can’t form by unintelligent mechanical processes of physics and chemistry. Given this, you can’t simply look at a pattern like that and infer “intelligent design”.
Besides, that’s clearly not what Bill Cole was talking about. He’s calling organisms themselves, and their organs and molecular constituents “designs”.
Obviously some organisms design things (intelligently and perhaps otherwise), we need no other example of this than ourselves. But we, nor the puffer fish, designed life.
Agreed. But you would have a hard job demonstrating that blind evolution was responsible.
Maybe it does. But then the fish is the intelligent designer. There’s nothing about the fish itself that implies it is the product of intelligent design.
But maybe it doesn’t. Are snow flakes intelligently designed? They’re just as beautiful and intricate. It seems to me they’re the product of emergence from simple laws and the tetrahedral electron structure of individual water molecules.
Gee, I’d like you to come up with any credible evidence that points to intelligence being responsible for it.
We have the patterns expected from “blind evolution.” You have a lot of wishful thinking.
Glen Davidson
Thinking it is anything more than that is entirely unnecessary.
In other words it is the simplest explanation for the phenomenon. Saying a designer was around to intend and guide it forth constitutes an unnecessary and ad-hoc multiplication of entities invoked to explain the pattern.
It is something you read into the data and believe for some reason entirely unconnected from the data itself. You can believe it if it makes you happy, but from the perspective of the philosophy of science, you’ve added something totally unparsimonious to the picture.
When an observed mechanism can account for the data, why invoke an extra intending agency, entirely unobserved and hidden, to be involved?
>>”The idea for a car has become reality. It functions according to the initial idea and the design”
That’s not how cars are designed at all. First you need roads and places people want to go, then you need an economically available source of fuel, the infrastructure to distribute it, and potential customers that might want it. THEN you can begin to design a vehicle which might function adequately in this ENVIRONMENT. It might take a lot of trial and error to get it right.
Wait a minute… is that thing the pufferfish does… a teleportation ring?!?!?!? Why are scientists hiding that crucial piece of information from us?
FUCK.
I, for one ,welcome our new pufferfish overlords.
It’s a really cool “design,” but one should note that the middle patterns are a bit ad hoc, a bit on the random side. It’s remarkable, but not quite as accomplished as something a good human artist might do.
Reasonably consistent with evolutionary development, one might suppose, although for good evidence of evolution you need the fish itself in comparison with other life.
Glen Davidson
Wasn’t the pufferfish the one with no junk DNA? no jDNA, teleportation rings… cannot be a coincidence.
I would not say “blind evolution was responsible.” And that’s because evolution is not blind. It cannot forsee the future, but it is adaptive to the present.
Yes, the “blindness” of evolution is sometimes misunderstood.
To paraphrase from Eliot Sober (a philosopher of science who specializes in philosophy of biology and evolutionary theory), the ‘blindness’ of evolution means only that there is no empirically detectable mechanism that first sees which traits will be adaptive in the future and then causes those traits to emerge.
To overextend the metaphor, blind people cannot see the room, but they can feel it and remember where stuff is.
That’s really what differential reproductive success is. Memory.
Make the environment sufficiently dangerous, and death or extinction happens before adaptation.
The problem with the metaphor is that blind people are just as capable as sighted people at using background knowledge about the world to make educated guesses about should be experienced and revise those guesses based on sensory information. They just don’t use visual information. In humans, due to how our brains evolved, a loss of visual information makes it much harder to navigate the world. A blind bloodhound would not be as badly off.
Evolutionary processes are not blind, and they aren’t unguided. To say that they are unguided is to invoke the wrong metaphor as well. (As if evolutionary processes were a dog that slipped a leash.) All that needs to be said here is that there’s no mechanism that first sees what traits will be adaptive in the future and then causes those traits to emerge in the population.
Well, it’s actually a more convincing case then your proposed alternative. Otherwise, by definition, people would be using your alternative. The simple fact is we have a causal chain, however tenuous. Fish evolved. You have the same, but insert magic at some point and expect a round of applause.
In one sense, of course there is “design in nature” — after all, aren’t bird nests, spider webs, and termite mounds parts of nature? And in one sense, they are designed.
But in another sense, they aren’t.
One of the big problems with Intelligent Design is that its proponents have never made a serious empirical study of how people actually go about making things, nor compared that with how beavers or spiders go about making things. There are lots of intuitions about the role of “intelligence” in producing “design,” but these terms aren’t defined (except in terms of each other) and there’s no psychology of production or manufacturing here.
Another big problem, which has gotten some attention but not enough, is that things will look designed to us only if one has the concept of ‘design’.. If one has the concept of design — to put it in Dennett’s terms, if one is capable of taking the design stance — then sure, life might look designed — to you.
But that’s a result of the conceptual framework that structures one’s perceptual engagements with the world. The world doesn’t come with little labels attached to it saying “I’m designed!” and “I’m not designed!”. It’s our conceptual activity that structures how we experience the world. (This was a revolutionary idea when Kant said this in the 1780s. I assume we all take some version of it for granted now.)
This means, in turn, that it’s extremely hard to disentangle which regularities in one’s experience are a result of one’s perceptual and conceptual abilities and which regularities are independent, objective, or true. There’s good grounds for skepticism as to whether we can ever know how the world really is, wholly independent of our cognitive biases and perspectives. But what science, at its best, does is allows us to mitigate those biased perspectives and grasp objective reality slightly better than before.
Kantian Naturalist,
This is a good point. J-Mac takes a stab at this with his car example and then tries to show how a remote design could end up on earth. I am very interested in this idea of teleportation and how quantum physics allows for this.
If the universe is designed then at some level everything will appear designed, from humans, to inert stones on the ground. Rumraket’s snow flake looks designed because it maybe the product of designed sub atomic particles.
Is this similar to Aquinas fifth way argument?
This is exactly right, however if we could see the world at the sub atomic level our perception would be quite different.
The evidence is overwhelming that the scientific method works. The evidence from televisions to cars to airplanes etc. Do you think this method was derived from Aristotle?
OMagain,
I am saying we are limited in explaining the real world by science alone. We can observe the electron and try to understand its properties but its origin will most likely remain a mystery. J-Mac is trying to come up with an explanation of how so many life forms with unique DNA sequences might be the product of remote design.
Rumraket’s snow flake looks designed because it maybe the product of designed sub atomic particles.
That’s a fallacy. Just because a part is designed doesn’t mean a whole is designed. Consider a pile of bricks or a bag full of trash, for example. Anyway, how would you distinguish a designed subatomic particle from an undesigned one? And would anyone seriously argue that electrons and protons were designed so as to have the property of producing snowflakes?
Why?
If we’re to consider it, there should be an actual reason to think it at least a bit likely, one that actually comes from reasonable consideration of the data, that is.
Glen Davidson
The only ones bumping their heads are the intelligent design creationists who lack any scientific theory for their religious musings.
But . . . but . . . but . . . CSI!
I am mildly optimistic that the deterioration you note is due to even those most likely to buy the intelligent design creationism snake oil beginning to recognize its lack of substance. The UD regulars are true believers who are unlikely to ever give it up, but even Dembski has moved on to greener pastures. Creationists are dying off (fundamentalism is correlated with older demographics) and religion as a whole is becoming less popular (35% of millennials are Nones). It will still take another generation or two for it not to be dangerous, but at least it isn’t growing.
Today is an glass half full day.
John Harshman,
You changed the argument by saying “is designed” vs “appears designed”. Since sub atomic particles obey design rules do to the strong force, weak force, charge etc then these rules would account for the properties of the snowflake.
If electrons and protons were designed then snowflakes were part of the end game as were humans and the computers we designed.
There are trillions of examples of designed objects having functional complexity. Trillions. Trillions and trillions.
Ignore the trillions of other complex functional entities that differ substantially in material, form, and lack of evident purpose, that happen to multiply in a vastly different way than through manufacture, rather via reproduction. Because, trillions of the other.[/KF]
Then return to accusing materialists of being duplicitous by accepting the known designs as designs and not accepting that life is. That one bad analogy is the main pillar of ID.
Glen Davidson
Neither of these claims follows from its premise. Substituting “appears designed” for “is designed” in my comment changes nothing important about the point, which is that one can’t infer design or appearance of design of a whole based on design or appearance of design of the parts. The claim that subatomic particles obey design rules, whatever you may mean by that, is an unsupported assertion. It isn’t at all clear what you might mean by either “these rules would account for properties” or “snowflakes were part of the end game”. I’m not sure you are capable of clearly stating any point.
colewd,
That’s not necessarily so. All the properties of matter are accounted for by a tiny number of quantum parameters. If the ‘endgame’ were to ensure that mercury was liquid at 20 degrees, iron conductive, sulphur yellow and chlorine had valency 1, there would also be snowflakes as an unavoidable consequence. Unless, that is, every single consequence were itself worked out to fit, in which case there’d be no need for fine tuning. Even so, there must be some unintended consequences, if I know anything about design …
John Harshman,
This is an unsupported assertion.
Do you know what design rules are?
Allan Miller,
You may be right here but then how do you account for the interdependence of what we observe. We breath what plants exhaust. We derive energy from plants. Plants derive energy form the sun. Snow flakes help store water. Bacteria enable our digestion.
Allan Miller,
Unless it was a finely tuned top down design. Look how repeatably atoms behave. This allows my words to transfer to you in a matter of mili seconds from California to England.
Puddles are perfectly shaped to fit in the hole the find themselves in. Legs are precisely the right length to reach the ground.
Because photosynthetic reactions–producing energy potential by splitting water– are reversible,
Plants, similar to other life, are made up of reduced carbon and hydrogen (& other things, like nitrogen, of course)–fuels.
Light can drive electrons to higher energy levels.
Snowflakes are water.
Bacteria find usable energy-producing molecules in our guts, and many are capable of reactions that eukaryotes cannot carry out.
Funny how there are reasons for these matters.
Glen Davidson
colewd,
A ladder of non sequiturs. What’s a ‘top down fine tuned design’ anyway? If every consequence could be varied ad lib, it is hardly fine tuned.
On the face of it, the quantum parameters that allow intercontinental communication unavoidably make water wet. Which was the objective?
colewd,
Sure – we find outrselves in a oxygen rich atmosphere on a planet with a ready source of complex carbohydrate. Unsurprising that organisms should arise to use these in tandem to respire. This is hardly a strike against evolution of heterotrophy sans design.
They evolved on a planet orbiting a star.
Help?
There are many examples of symbiosis. None of them is in any way better explained by design than evolution. I mean, why not make humans that could digest cellulose? Then we could eat grass instead of cows. Much more efficient.
Sucks at barbecues.
Glen Davidson
Not infrequently, symbiosis is inferior to other ways of causing function. For instance, there are fish that are bioluminescent via bacteria. But how does the fish “go dark,” quit producing light where it’s not appropriate? Simply by closing a lid over the bioluminescent mass of bacteria. So the energy use remains when it’s “off” because the fish has no way of turning off those organisms.
Organisms with inherent bioluminescent capabilities can almost always (or always?) turn off the reaction. But evolution is merely opportunistic, so a less efficient symbiosis often is what occurs. To be sure, mutualistic relationships can evolve to the point at which the host can and does control energy use and output.
Glen Davidson
Evolution at work.
If you were really trying, you would at least try to give your God credit for inventing evolution.
GlenDavidson,
But edible hayrides?
Neil Rickert,
Yes, that would be an impressive design 🙂 The problem is cells appear designed to remain the same and vary in only a limited window. Thats why I think J-Mac may be on the right track.
Allan Miller,
In sunny California we get our spring water supply primary from the snow melting in the Sierra Mountains. Water freezing at cold conditions, melting, and flowing down hill is a really cool feature 🙂
Is it time to quote Douglas Adams again? “This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, ‘This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!”
colewd,
I find this whole line of reasoning odd.
You and J-Mac seem to think that it’s somehow more plausible for God to poof an information stream into existence and send it into a quantum teleportation device than it is for him to magically move atoms around and implement his designs that way.
Why? It’s pure made-up magic either way.
colewd,
What features of cell design convince you of this “limited window”? And how is evolution an impressive design, since there is no way it could be avoided, given inheritance?
I certainly don’t know what you meant by the term. That’s why I asked. Could you at least give real explanations when I tell you I don’t know what you mean, rather than asking me what I know?
If you look at the part you didn’t quote, you will see that I supported it with examples, to whit a pile of bricks and a bag of trash.
keiths,
Yep, From inside the Well it sure looks like it.