Let me clarify that by saying that I mean a theory that purports to be a scientific theory, that makes testable predictions (“if ID was correct we should observe…, if ID were not correct, we should not observe…”) and is an alternative explanation for the diversity and extent of the pattern of life we see on Earth.
This is far from the first time I’ve asked this question. A quick search finds a couple of threads at Uncommon descent but I’ve had no satisfactory replies beyond the usual default that says something like:
The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. Through the study and analysis of a system’s components, a design theorist is able to determine whether various natural structures are the product of chance, natural law, intelligent design, or some combination thereof. Such research is conducted by observing the types of information produced when intelligent agents act. Scientists then seek to find objects which have those same types of informational properties which we commonly know come from intelligence. Intelligent design has applied these scientific methods to detect design in irreducibly complex biological structures, the complex and specified information content in DNA, the life-sustaining physical architecture of the universe, and the geologically rapid origin of biological diversity in the fossil record during the Cambrian explosion approximately 530 million years ago.
I wonder if any of our contributors can finally enlighten me as to what the scientific, biological theory of “Intelligent Design” actually entails.
Adapa,
Can you support the claim that my criticism is ignorant. Show me evidence that RMNS can produce a eukaryotic cell from a prokaryotic one. How would you propose RMNS produced a spliceosome.
How many dozen times have you been corrected on your ignorant claim evolution has to search the entire possible sequence space to form a protein?
Adapa,
As I said before I have never made the above claim.
There are estimates of how much functional space there is in the search space and you can do the math. The spliceosome is made up of around 200 proteins with 300 AA per. Make an assumption of how much functional space is available in individual spliceosome sequential space and see if you can disprove my claim.
Once you prove this then you can move to the nuclear pore complex.
Next you can explain how prokaryotic DNA without introns became DNA with introns and how RMNS was able to make this transition.
Then you can explain how chromosome structures were formed by RMNS.
also, if you’ve ever worked with proteins, you’ll know that for any sizeable protein, it’s trivially easy to figure out hundreds of amino-acid substitutions which’ll have little-to-no effect on the protein’s function. This whole notion that there are tiny islands of function is something you can only believe if you just don’t know much biology.
There you go again, either amnesia or flat out lying. Should we take a poll of folks here to see if they think you ever made the argument evolution had to search the whole sequence space?
Ahem.
Amnesia or lying. Which is it?
Have you ever considered what goes into producing those stones?
It does look simple if one ignores the scale but we are only seeing what remains of the design.
if nature can manipulate objects at both the atomic and the galactic level, yes molecules seem doable. But if we are talking about credentials, what is the designer’s resume? Why should we think he can pull it off?
Well I guess the fact that the bluestones are not part of the geological strata at the site .Some have been chemically linked to an outcropping several kilometers away, other variety of bluestone to a different outcropping about about 140 kilometers away. The large stones are sourced nearby but their orientation is different from the nearby strata.
But since there have been many different configurations on the site it is possible that some erratics left from glaciation could have been at the location when the first inhabitants happened along.
Gravity ,ice and water too. And the guys who built my stone wall.
But…but… God was present where life originated, because God is omnipresent!!!!1!!1!1one
Adapa,
The above does not =Evolution has to search the entire sequence space.
If you had been following the arguments you would know that we have been discussing the possible functional space vs the entire search space.
I am looking forward to your analysis of the prokaryotic to eukaryotic transition. I am not expecting you to assume evolution has to search the entire space. You will have to search enough space to build a 200 protein complex where all the proteins need to bind and support a single function. Your total evolutionary resources are around 10^44 trials.
colewd,
What mechanism do you propose would do this ‘search’? I am not aware of any such mechanism in biology, randomly searching even a portion of the entire space: that occupied by 200 proteins’ worth of function.
Moved some comments to guano that should have been posted in the “moderation issues” thread. Please feel free to repost in that thread.
IDCists claim that there exists at least one metric that indicates that a particular artifact was designed. None have ever calculated such a metric for any biological system.
You contradict yourself in two sentences. Durston’s fits and Dembski’s CSI have completely different definitions. They are not the same, “by definition” or otherwise.
Joe Felsenstein demonstrated that clearly in a recent comment.
No, he simply needs to show that Durston’s calculations are nonsensical. He has done so. Are you going to address the actual refutation of Durston or just continue posturing?
You say that.
Then you go on to immediately make the equivalent of that claim.
The size of the search space doesn’t matter. Every time you mention it you are implicitly suggesting that it does. What matters is if functional sequences can be found via known evolutionary mechanisms that explore in the vicinity of known functional sequences. As shown in Arrival of the Fittest, they can.
Your continued focus on the number of all possible sequences suggests that you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the topic you are trying to discuss.
No, he simply needs to show that Durston’s calculations are nonsensical.He has done so.Are you going to address the actual refutation of Durston or just continue posturing?
Myer’s assertions are not evidence. Any rebuttal to a per-reviewed paper must appear in peer-review. Why don’t you support Myer’s BS as opposed to just a bald link?
You contradict yourself in two sentences.Durston’s fits and Dembski’s CSI have completely different definitions.They are not the same, “by definition” or otherwise.
Joe Felsenstein demonstrated that clearly in a recent comment.
Nonsense, I did not contradict myself and the definitions are a match.
IDCists claim that there exists at least one metric that indicates that a particular artifact was designed.None have ever calculated such a metric for any biological system.
Evos don’t have any metric to determine if something arose via natural selection and drift. IC still remains a great indication of ID, CSI/ FSC still remain great indicators of IC.
One more time: I challenge Patrick to find the difference between CSI and FSC
and
Now compare with https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2217542/:
In signature in the Cell Meyer points to sequence specificity, that is the specific sequences needed to get functionality.
There isn’t any difference between CSI in a biological context and FSC.
Posturing it is, I see. Have fun with that.
Posturing it is, I see.Have fun with that.
Yes, Patrick, posturing is all you have.
I point you directly to the evidence and you simply repeat your erroneous claims. I’m done with you.
I point you directly to the evidence and you simply repeat your erroneous claims.I’m done with you.
I laid out the evidence and you have ignored it. Everyone can see, Patrick
Why does Patrick just baldly accept what others say if it somehow rebuts ID’s claims? Joe Felsenstein has been soundly refuted every time he says something about ID or ID’s metrics. And yet people still reference him as some kind of authority on the subject.
What are the units of each, and how many does a hedgehog have?
Richie take the challenge:
I dare you
Umm, Joe, you need to show that natural selection can put that type of CSI into the genome. Your problem is you don’t even know how to go about doing so.
That is the whole point- your position doesn’t have any way to test its claims.
Too funny- Durston responds to Myers
I am sure it will be ignored by the ID critics.
Frankie,
Sharing high level concepts does not make you the same.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masked-man_fallacy
And if you understood science, you’d know we’d need to be able to create a correspondence between the units of each.
What are the units of each? If Fits = Bits, why not say Bits?
CSI is at best a notional, incalculable concept that resolves to design. “Things full of design (per my notion) are designed!” Science fail.
Prediction: Joe will dodge –
Take the challenge Richie…
Do you see the figure
which Durston defines as “the total number of possible sequences, both functional and non-functional.”? Strawman!
LoL! Al;an your claims are meaningless to me and everyone else. Support them as Durston has done. Get your paper rebutting him through peer-review.
Yawn – masked man fallacy. Scientifically, if a definition can’t be operationalized and given units they can’t be compared.
Let me help you understand:
One more time: I challenge Frankie to find the difference between diseased streetwalker and Joe Gallien
Diseased Streetwalker is a human who does things and suggests parking lots
Joe Gallien performs tasks and is humanoid with a penchant for vehicle parking places.
There isn’t any difference between Joe and a Diseased Streetwalker
Frankie,
/Meltdown typing.
Falsified – Many people find Alan’s comment meaningful. Your inability to find meaning is perhaps a shortfall in your own cognition?
Apparently! 🙂 Evolution is not and does not need to be an exhaustive search. Stumbling across good-enough proteins and then on to a bit better sequences that are modifications of existing sequences means never having to do an exhaustive search. Durston, by including his
creates the strawman of “exhaustive search”. His model is inaccurate so conclusions about evolution in reality are irrelevant.
That’s for everyone to say for themselves.
I’ve already pointed his error out to him in a thread at Uncommon Descent. I see you were there too!
I am shocked to see Frankie repeating a claim that was refuted years ago.
Useless-Dick,
Are we just supposed to take you on your word on this?
phoodoo,
Go and join Joe’s Blog, Phoodoo. Its written at a level you’ll understand, a disregard for logic you’ll love and has the readership you deserve.
UselessDick,
Well, I think I can understand what a “Diseased StreetWalker is, I just don’t have your vast experience with rating them.
phoodoo,
The point, which like so many is beyond you, is to highlight the ‘masked man fallacy’ of equivocating via soft definitions.
If that is what you want to call your little trysts with Diseased Streetwalkers, well, its fine with me.
phoodoo,
Yawn
Man, you guys are really catching me on a good day. Let me explain.
The answer to your question is “cumulative selection.” The basic idea is that things start out simple, and gradually, over time, more complex arrangements get built up from those simpler precursors. Over that same period of time, more simple things are added, and they eventually become added to themselves and become more complex.
Thus you’ll end up with a distribution over simple and non-hierarchical to complex and hierarchical.
Tell me that’s not what the theory predicts and I’ll tell you that the theory doesn’t predict anything. It just happened, that’s all, isn’t a theory.
That’s not what Torley said. He said that he would not expect to find such a distribution under ID, but such a distribution would be expected under Darwinism.
He didn’t say anything about there not being any such distribution.
Because it was irrelevant. You’re misreading Torley.
Talk about a PRATT.
LoL. But has it been refuted a thousand times yet?
Mung,
In a book I read twice, 500 eye witnesses refuted it.
LoL.
Sure it does. I’ll work on trying to find a way to put it into words you’d understand but that could take awhile so please be patient.
The exchange between Frankie and Patrick about whether Durston’s fits measure is or is not the same as … someone’s … was more than a little confusing.
What I showed was that Hazen et al.’s measure was not the same as Dembski’s. Because it did not use the distribution of sequences that would result from natural evolutionary forces. Hazen used a more even distribution of sequences, such as might result from mutation alone, in the absence of natural selection. Dembski (in his 2005/2006 paper) has us use the distribution resulting from natural evolutionary forces. (He does this by leaving the actual calculating of that distribution to the reader).
These are blatantly not the same.
Durston is aspiring to have the same distribution as Hazen’s. So it would be different from Dembski’s.