Following up on my last post I’d like to suggest another video from Leah Libresco that perhaps should be required viewing here.
Not only is it relevant to every conversation we have here but it is related to Turing Tests something that I find fascinating and important for “my Game” if I ever get around to it.
Here is a link for the corresponding Ideological Turing Test
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unequallyyoked/ideological-turing-test-contest
What do you think? Should we come up with some questions surrounding Intelligent Design?
peace
cdesign proponentsists. You lose the argument.
I think this sums it up better than my attempt. This gets to the heart of the issue.
If you already inferred that parts are purposely arranged, what do you need ID for? But of course, without ID, there’s no such thing as purposely arranged parts in the first place.
And around and around and around the argument goes.
LOL!
You should have just put *MIC DROP* after the link. 🙂
Robin,
Ba-dum-bump! Chssssh!
always gotta give a nod to the percussion section!
sean s.
sean samis,
I can know if they are arranged purposefully if they can do repeatable useful work and most the parts involved are converting energy to work or supporting that function. If your argument has merit why do start with an attempt to disqualify the inference up front? You are creating circular reasoning.
Robin,
Yes circular reasoning is fun 🙂
Sure, but it’s completely fallacious and thus not credible or reasonable.
Here’s the underlying issue I think you’re missing here: there’s no reasonable way to define purposeful with regard to an arrangement of non-man-made components that isn’t question begging to begin with.
Is the “purposeful” arrangement of the parts of a bird’s wing determined by the use of said wing for flight? If so, what then can be inferred from birds with wings that don’t fly?
What does the purposeful arrangement of this guy’s wings say about the presumed design?
I’d say that Kantian Naturalist already answered this. Doing something useful (like a pancreas) is different from being purposefully created to that something.
The significant verb in your sentence is not “doing repeatable useful work”; the significant verb is ARRANGED. That verb implies that something put that functional part there for the purpose of doing some specific work. But the mere presence of a part providing a useful function does not prove prior design and intentional arrangement. Determining whether the part was arranged or not is the goal of the analysis; that goal is spoiled if we begin with the assumption of design.
I disqualify the inference of design “up front” because the purpose of the effort is to determine if the object is designed. If we begin with that inference, the reasoning becomes circular. If we begin with the presumption that we don’t know, then we can avoid circularity, but at the risk of deciding the thing is not designed.
sean s.
Just noticed Barry Arrington’s challenge to “evilutionists”
Here
Of course, I’m not surprised to see that Barry has missed the point of the exercise, which is to test if he or anyone can tell the difference between ID proponents and ID critics in judging anonymous submissions. I’m wondering if we could set up a real challenge for him. Maybe folks could submit their efforts via PM and we could put them into an OP for him to try his hand at spotting real from fake.
sean samis,
Great. Can you create an argument that the bacterial flagellum is not designed?
sean samis,
The object is not proof. Can you prove Universal Common Descent? The question is there a reasonable argument for design.
Can you create an argument that the bacterial flagellum did not emerge following the principles of Dazz’s Grand Theory of Bacterial Emergence?
Is there?
Burden of proof fallacy. There is no burden on anyone argue that the flagellum is not designed since as of now, no one has provided a valid argument (e.g., one that is not begging the question) for inferring design for anything in biology in the first place, let alone for the bacteria flagellum.
Such a designer would be unlike anything that we have observed so far. The surprise factor would be high. Why don’t you list the attributes that such a designer would have to have and then we can check them off against observed facts?
On the other hand we can actually observe a process of iterative change, with precursors* still extant that have plausible pathways to the structure in question, precursors that are constructed of components that can be changed by that iterative process. *No directionality implied.
But what’s the point of making such an argument. The onus is on you.
Thanks folks. I think I’ll wait for the dust to settle before commenting further.
sean s.
The argument removes any reasonable argument for design as it demonstrates unequivocally that inferring design relies upon circular logic. It’s simply untenable.
The evidence is strong. Did I pass the Turing test with my Michael Behe impersonation?
Was that Behe? I had five dollars on Pee-wee Herman. X>{
Hope you have patience and a really long lifespan.
I have some of the former, and hope for a lot of the latter!
sean s.
I would say yes. That it because I think everything is designed based on my presuppositions. It would be designed even if we could never be able to
Is there any way to determine that the pattern is designed with out presuming it a priori? I don’t know but I think it’s a very interesting question.
My presupposition means that I don’t have a theological dog in the hunt by the way I just find it interesting.
peace
So is a Turing test
I always find it amusing how two people can view the same argument so differently.
check it out
https://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/Hume.htm
peace
Is that true of any design or just design in nature?
peace
There’s no evidence that it is, there’s no evidence that it needs to be; there’s no evidence of a potential designer.
dazz, Robin, and OMagain all answered this well.
Well, since I can’t find where I asked for proof, and since you say “the object is not proof”, I guess I can ignore this question. Seems rhetorical.
I am not aware of any, but then I am not a proponent of design. Seems like an argument you need to find. But no one is obligated to accept your argument without their own analysis. Good luck with that.
sean s.
I will admit that atheists don’t have a lock on stupid, ignorant, fallacious “arguments.”
True. Pretty much everybody can make those.
As Jonathan Swift wrote, “every man would have long life, but no man would be old.” He hammered this point home with the Struldbrugs in Gulliver.
But some constellations of delusion guarantee them, militantly.
It applies to any claim of non-human design. Simply put, any argument for non-human design relies upon the premise of non-human design from the get-go, as Erik (among others)is so fond of repeatedly demonstrating.
So? Atheists appear to have no issue whatsoever with non-human design, as long as it’s godless.
Unmistakable evidence for Intelligent Design unveiled: Badgers being poofed into existence caught on tape! Must see! (extra points for spotting the fulfilled bible prophecy)
Reasonable,then what is pseudo design?
Sure, design the object yourself
newton,
Could also just ask a suspected designer if s/he did it–or look in their diaries or check around for tools or other evidence if the suspected designer is not around or you think they might be lying.
We have no issue with the idea that there might be non-humans out there designing things. But we’ve not tried to build an entire religion or god-of-the-gaps argument around such.
sean samis writes:
But that’s not the argument made by ID proponents, and it never has been. If you doubt me, go back to William Paley, who wrote that “the contrivances of nature surpass the contrivances of art, in the complexity, subtility, and curiosity of the mechanism; and still more, if possible, do they go beyond them in number and variety; yet, in a multitude of cases, are not less evidently mechanical, not less evidently contrivances, not less evidently accommodated to their end, or suited to their office, than are the most perfect productions of human ingenuity.”
That’s not a circular inference, whatever else you think of it. Paley’s inference could also be used to argue for the design of the bacterial flagellum, which has been described by Harvard biophysicist, Howard Berg as “the most efficient machine in the universe.”
Or suggest we teach it in science class
Of possible interest to some:
Paley’s argument from design: Did Hume refute it, and is it an argument from analogy?
Pseudo design is when you ascribe the design to the wrong designer.
some examples
1) When a you think that an AI passes a Turing test but in fact it’s just a trick played by the programmer
2) When you think that the guy in front of you on the highway cut you off on purpose but really he is just not paying attention.
3) One of Bob Ross’s “happy accidents” in his paintings.
does that make sense?
Doesn’t any inference of design at all rely on the presumption that other minds exist?
That goes for AI or aliens or God or even other humans
The assumption that other minds exist is just that an assumption we have no way of knowing that there are any minds at all except our own.
peace
OK that is at least an area of agreement. I don’t do those things either
So how would you go about learning if an object you came across was designed if it couldn’t have been designed by a human?
peace
No. The entire world could be a total illusion to some given viewer and any inference to human design would still be logically consistent within the illusion. Deities and space aliens? Not so much…
Nope. Once again, you are confusing the map for the territory. No assumption of other minds, multiverses, or Morton’s demons need be made for inferences to human design to be valid. But there’s nothing that allows inferences to any other design (at least at this time) get around the question begging, particularly (I might add) if other minds don’t actually exist.
Totally agree. Makes no difference to the validity of logic within the viewer’s framework since the consistency of inferring human design is tested solely by the view and not in confirmation with other minds. That falls apart the moment one tries to introduce some dubious “deity” or alien Tim Taylor however.
Naw, you just assume everything is designed, which is actually worse (logically speaking). Such completely removes any validity in inferring anything about the world around you. Forensics, paleontology, archaeology, history, philology, astronomy…none of them can be valid in your world because none of the causal mechanisms or logical chain of events can be independent of external design. It’s a wonder you can money out of an ATM. Oh…no it’s not…because your concepts about external design are erroneous.
If I came across an object that was clearly not man-made, I can think of a lot of other areas of study and details about it I’d be curious about long before I ever began to care whether the object was designed. Design as a concept tells me very little about the vast majority of objects out there in the universe. I just don’t find it to be a useful concept at all.
ETA: I’ll try to explain this another way:
I enjoy birdwatching and wildlife photography. Turns out that over the past three weeks we’ve had a bird in our backyard that is outside it’s normal range for this time of year. What would an inference to that bird being designed add to an understanding or recognition of that phenomenon? What would an inference to design add? How would an inference to design help make predictions to such phenomenon occurring again?
I happen to know a great deal about this species of bird. To me, knowing that it was a product of evolutionary processes helps me to understand why it might be out of its range (there are parallels between its behavior and behavior of similar species). Design doesn’t appear to offer anything however.
Why do you use Paley, though? Paley really was looking for indications of design such as humans produce, although clearly he was willing to settle for rather loose analogies rather than demanding, say, the equivalent of watch mechanics. Paley claimed to be looking for what an artificer or architect would produce.
IDists today do not make an actual case for design, they claim that “natural processes” can’t account for this or that (bacterial flagellum) functional complexity, therefore it must have been designed. That’s why today’s ID is a crock in a way that Paley’s was not, however loosely Paley actually applied his supposed evidence for design.
You can’t hearken back to a more honest time in design, when creationists really did think that they might have evidence for design in order to suggest that today’s IDists/creationists approach the matter so ingenuously.
Glen Davidson
Look for rational solutions, and an ability to break away from the limitations that unthinking evolution places upon organisms.
You know, what we don’t see in life.
Glen Davidson
Now you see how undesigned things can look designed.
I’m at a loss on this rebuttal. When I read Paley’s words, it seems to me he’s saying exactly what Sean and all of us are noting is question begging. Paley is quite specifically saying, “hey…things in nature are far more complex, subtle, and purposefully arranged than anything man does! They must have been designed by a far more intelligent mechanic!” That latter leap is nothing more than question begging; knowing that humans design things, and more importantly HOW humans design things tells us NOTHING about how any other intelligent entity might design something. So looking at a complex object and inferring that it must be designed simply because humans make complex things is simply fallacious logic.
You quote Stephen Meyer as an authority? He says:
“Specified complexity” isn’t even close to being an “identical effect.” At best it’s a kind of category under which disparate effects can be catalogued. It’s an egregious misunderstanding.
And you write:
Of course he’s not perfectly correct, he’s merely using very loose logic to pretend that his preconceptions are science. Paley at least was trying (if rather ineptly) for something better than analogy, Meyer is claiming that poor analogies indicate exactly the same thing, because he doesn’t differentiate (at least there) between loose categories and actual identity. His thinking is appalling.
Glen Davidson
On this I would disagree strongly. I can think of no consistent world illusion or otherwise that includes me that does not also include God and God can design by definition.
Perhaps you can imagine a consistent world where God does not exist but you have yet to demonstrate that is the case
peace