Dr. Winston Ewert put forward his module hypothesis, but I put forward an alternate module hypothesis at the domain and motif level of proteins. It is based actually on papers by evolutionists who have pointed out that the problem of “Promiscuous Domains” remains an unsolved problem in evolutionary biology.
When I put Promiscuous Domains on the table in the Common Design vs. Common Descent thread, the TSZ Darwinists ignored the problem and then declared victory. I viewed their non-response as evidence they didn’t understand the problem and/or preferred to ignore it.
Perhaps pictures are worth ten thousand words. From the NIH, that great source inspiration for the Intelligent Design community, we have the CDART database viewer.
From the CDART viewer, I provide a few of the thousands of diagrams that show the promiscuity of protein domains. The diagrams below show the classical zinc finger ZF-C2H2 “ZF” domain and the Plextrin Homology “PH” domains. Note how the location of domains is “shuffled” to different locations in different proteins. It’s as if proteins are made by different lego-like parts in different order and position. My preliminary look into small 4-amino acid motifs that are the target of phosphorylating kinases suggests the the problem of promiscuity goes all the way down to small motif levels.
Such promiscuity is more consistent with common design than common descent.
Click to Enlarge Classical ZF-C2H2 Zinc Finger Page 5
Click to Enlarge Classical ZF-C2H2 Zinc Finger Page 157
Click to see all CDART Classical ZF-C2H2 Zinc Finger Architectures
Entropy,
It is a claim you repeatably use. It is your choice to let it remain unsupported but how effective do you think it is in this condition.
I offer in support that there is no evidence that his friend exists. Nobody has ever seen him and he has left no trace in the world. Yet if he existed we would expect such things.
Seems like you didn’t read the rest. Did you?
Since it doesn’t look like you did, here it goes again:
John Harshman,
You support his assertion with a false assertion.
There is plenty of evidence of the existence of a creator which has been discussed ad nauseam on this site.
Entropy,
The rest does not matter until you support your claim.
John Harshman,
So you are claiming Christ never really existed? Or are you claiming you have strong evidence against his divinity. This is not really your field of study is it?
But do words really have meaning. Can’t we just change out some words for others and say what they mean?
For example: Admin, moderator, conman, snake, propagandist, leech, oik, wanker, ponce.
Are these different terms, or the same? Do they have different meanings scientifically, then what you average skeptic would assume they mean?
Who is to say really? I guess it all depends on who has the keys to the good doctor’s chastity belt so to speak.
Don’t you think so, Alan Fox? I mean Sir Moderator Alan, er, er, no, I mean Sir Admin Alan Fox. Scratch that, I mean Sir, well, look, look just let people chose the moniker they think most appropriate. Means what it means.
I think so. It’s ideal when the same word means the same thing to all speakers of the same language. I might say then that language had become an objective tool to communication. I think the rest of your comment demonstrates fairly well how far we are from that objective objective.
“unless that being were attempting to convince us of common descent”! I already quoted John’s words.
Not quite. He said it would be odd if the “Special Creator” fixed things so that it looked like a nested hierarchy that fitted the evidence for common descent. That’s what I mean about “special creation” being unentailed, untestable. It can fit any scenarioo. There’s no way to rule it out.
If it came in through the door I’d offer it a seat and a cappuccino. Till then, I’m skeptical.
I’m sure he’ll correct me if I’m misunderstanding. I think he’s in a better position to explain his ideas and opinions than you are
I disagree. I’m happy for anyone to have whatever beliefs make them happy. Science is a way of studying natural (as opposed to imaginary) phenomena.
Really? Evidence that is more than reported testimony? Do you have links?
How would you know if my claim has support unless you read what I wrote? Since you refuse to read it, I won’t repeat it again. What’s the point?
While I disagree, do you think that the existence of a creator means that the ones different people believe to exist are one and the same? For example, Zeus, Odin, Quetzalcoatl, Aphrodite, Hermes, Amon-Ra, etc are the same creator? So, for example, if there was evidence that Odin existed, would that mean that all of the others are therefore proven to exist as well?
ETA: Now, suppose someone believes in a Christian god that will burn everybody in hell for fun. Suppose too that there was evidence for the version of the Christian god that you believe to exist. Now, would that mean that the Christian god who will burn everybody in hell for fun also exists?
Entropy,
Only if all the evidence is the same and it is not.
What evidence?
Alan Fox,
Sure there is more then reported testimony. Start with the design arguments which the only choice you have is to dismiss them out of hand.
Start with the op we are on and challenge Sal that the best explanation for the cellular control systems is a step by step evolutionary mechanism.
OK, check this:
Alan Fox,
You partially answered your own question already.
No, there is plenty of claimed evidence, but none of it actually holds up. Your standards for evidence are flexible.
There is very little evidence that Christ existed, but I’ll accept that there likely was a person at the core of the legend. There is no evidence of his divinity, and thanks for the burden-shift.
You’ve got it backwards Bill. Evidence is necessary to support the claim that Christ existed, and some pretty strong evidence is necessary to support that he was divine. Without that evidence we can reject those two claims, most importantly the second, since the existence of some guy called Christ is not extraordinary, but divinity? That’s a pretty strong claim, and, thus, it requires quite the extraordinary evidence. Good luck with that.
Hypothetically speaking, what would could as evidence of a creator and design?
1. God revealing himself and speaking from the clouds with signs and wonders as in the Old Testament? Yes, no?
2. Short of that, short of seeing the Designer working before your very eyes, what would count as evidence? Improbable structures? Yes, no?
3. Something like Paley’s watch? Yes, no?
If one answer no to all 3 question, then perhaps nothing would convince that person of design.
If one answers not to the last two, then nothing short of a directly observed miracle would convince that person of design. I respect what ever answer a person gives, but who is to judge which answer is right. Each person decide for himself what counts as evidence. But let’s not pretend we can actually, formally prove which answer to any of the 3 question is correct.
Richard Dawkins has already said if he saw God appear in he sky he would think he was hallucinating because he thinks Natural Selection has solved the problem of the appearance of design in biology, or that he was being deceived by space aliens, or that there is a multiverse that has created the universe, etc.
The problem is that unless one is God, one cannot formally prove God exists. As in mathematics, there are certain truths that are accepted on faith without formal proof. It’s just that some statements are more reasonable to believe than others.
John Harshman,
There is plenty of evidence. Start with Gary Habermas on the resurrection. For an overview read Lee Strobel a case for Christ.
An academic exercise, for sure? We see absolutely nothing of the sort mentioned in any of your three questions.
Patrick never quite got the point about evidence of a Creator God. He said there would have to be scientific proof. There is a problem however with that line of reasoning.
In fact, it was our very own Patrick who inspired me to tell of this HYOPTHETICAL but hopefully proverbial exchange I posted (with some adaptation) https://www.reddit.com/r/Creation/comments/8zn108/what_would_count_as_evidence_of_creation_andor_a/
I’ve invited Patrick to respond to my objections. In the past, he just punted, and then a few weeks later started accusing me of child abuse rather than engage the epistemological problems I posed to him.
Really
And that is not at all the same as” Actually your point is everything is equally subjective.“ ? Since we were talking about finite beings that was not understood?
Doesn’t the reception of revelation originate wth a finite being?
What makes some opinions more worthwhile or warranted than others?
Peace
Yes as an academic exercise, it’s to guage whether anything would count as evidence for you.
If you say, “something improbable”, then isn’t that “Designer of the Gaps” or “God of the Gaps reasoning?”
If not something improbable, then what would count as evidence?
stcordova,
So your concern is that atheists refuse to believe in hypothetical miracles?
Actually Sal ,as I recall, the charge stemmed from your admission you lied to your students for the greater good perhaps , but lied nevertheless. Not teaching that God exists.
No, I want to see if they would reject improbability arguments as a matter of principle. It seems to me, they do, but don’t want to actually admit it.
And if they reject improbability arguments, then what would, in principle persuade them of a God. Many just don’t want to admit, NOTHING would persuade them of God. At least Dawkins and PZ Myers have come out of the closet and effectively admitted they are closed minded.
Soooo, what point is there giving any credence to such a person saying, “there is no evidence.” I could write closed minded bot software that would just keep repeating the phase, “there is no evidence, there is no evidence,” and it would be just as good as what I would here from someone like Dawkins.
And that is?
I dismiss them as unsupported inferences. But… but are you saying ID arguments demonstrate a divine creatoir? Didn’t the ID movement spend a lot of time and energy trying to deny that suggestion?
If we don’t have any or a complete explanation for some phenomenon, then we have to admit we don’t know. We don’t have to default to an unsupported inference. And again, what has our incomplete knowledge of biological processes to do with whether there is a divine creator? Not seeing the connection.
But none of this is going to be primary evidence, is it? Just reported testimony. Just a matter of whether you choose to believe in a particular creation myth, a particular god, a particular prophet.
It was Patrick repeating Dawkins talking point that teaching children God exists is child abuse.
I gave them the Chicken and Egg paradox, which is an illustration of the origin of life problem. “If there is a Miracle, there must be a Miracle Maker.”
Our point is to simply find the root of fifthmonarchyman’s beliefs from which all his confusions stems. If he argues that the number of toes on an ordinary foot isn’t subject to objective verification, then how can anyone have a reasonable discussion about the objective nested hierarchy?
And that’s the crux. Fifthmonarchyman can’t argue for his ad hoc and extraneous presupposition. He has it from revelation, but, as you point out, that’s not an argument. The simplest presupposition, one with the least extraneous components, is simply that the observable universe exists.
No. It’s based on the scientific meaning of objective, that is, subject to independent verification, by multiple observers, with differing perspectives, and with various methodologies. It’s sort of like gravity. When you say a leader has gravity, you’re not referring to his weight.
To be clear, we use a methodological definition of objectivity commonly found in science. The question then is whether methodological objectivity is equivalent to philosophical objectivity, that is, do observed entities have an independent existence, are they are ‘real’? We would argue that there is a congruence, but not an equivalence. This seems somewhat beyond what is necessary, though, to address your confusion.
No, of course not.
Humans have meaning, and use words to express it. But the meaning isn’t really a property of the words.
Of course it is convenient to assume words have meaning, as a kind of shorthand way of talking.
Your Christian God is alleged to be omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent, no? Why does he need to mince about? Just throw a switch in my head, everyone’s head. In fact why bother with the material universe at all? Let’s all go straight to Heaven. There’s a fundamental lack of logic here. It’s as if some naïve humans just made stuff up.
Be a good start.
Why shoukdn’t we expect strange organisms to be popping up all the time, is there some reason for the absence of seeing special creation? Isn’t that a criticism of evolution, we can’t see it in real time?
New watches appear all the time, we know how they are created ,so yes. I would believe watches were designed.
That’s actually a reasonable response as it is something I’ve pondered myself. Why did God appear to Paul on the road to Damascus rather than us here at TSZ!
So does that mean you’ll reject improbability arguments as evidence of Design because you’d expect God to be obvious about his existence rather than being a hidden God.
What you said is a viewpoint I respect, but let’s just be open and say if we will pre-empt improbability arguments because of the problem of the hidden God. I respect that viewpoint, but lets just state what our criteria for evidence is. I’m not saying one position is formally provable as correct. I’ve stated, I don’t think there is a formal answer as to “what would count as evidence.” Each of us has his own answer to that question (that’s not to say each of us is right, we just can’t formally prove who is right!).
Alan Fox,
People have been supporting these inferences ever since I have been posting here.
Sure. In order to put itself on the same plain and the Darwinian claim as a scientific inference argument. That does not restrict a philosophical discussion.
Your statement maybe due to misunderstanding the argument.
Can you state the design argument for clarification?
Paley’s Watch is a fatally flawed argument. It can only be used to assert that an artifact resembles other artifacts made by a known process.
Ironically, the more we observe evolution in the laboratory, the more it looks like the process that produced the family of living things from a common ancestor.
In Paley’s time we could not observe the blind watchmaker. Now we can.
Which? God inference? Creation myth inference? Immaterial but interactive designer inference? Supporting? You mean with evidence? Not seen this.
Now I don’t dispute ID is arguably philosophy.
There isn’t a scientific argument from a “Design” perspective. It’s a version of the Sherlock Holmes fallacy. Can’t explain something? Must be ID!
The theory of intelligent design (ID) holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection. ID is thus a scientific disagreement with the core claim of evolutionary theory that the apparent design of living systems is an illusion.
Alan Fox,
What do you consider primary evidence? Do you dismiss historical evidence out of hand? What about primary evidence combined with historical evidence?
If the dead kept popping back into the realm of the living, new organisms would sprout up every week and God would write a daily bulletin on the sky, yes that would result in quite a number of converts. But none of those things happen. I can’t see why you blame non-believers for not being persuaded by stuff that doesn’t actually happen.
And … the origin of eukaryotes is a miracle because it was improbable? In what sense was that more improbable than the origin of extremophilic microbes, or winged insects, or duck-billed platypuses? Or did all that require miracles as well?
Something more than reported testimony. Archaeological evidence, corroboration from more than one source.
Yes, that would help. For instance if there were other than Biblical accounts of events that tallied with events in the Biblical life of Jesus, that might help establish whether the myth were based on some real-life person or composite of persons. Establishing that this Jesus rose from the dead and other supernatural embellishmùents would require extraordinary evidence.
Good point! 🙂
To the extent I have in the past. I was wrong for doing so.
Yes. This converted an evolutionist to a creationist. She had a PhD in organic physical chemistry from an Ivy League school, and then became a researcher in cellular biology and protein structure and teaches biology at a secular school. Since “outing” herself for her new found conviction in creation, she is suffering re criminations, but well, that happens:
http://biology.missouri.edu/people/?person=62
She outlined some of her new found convictions here:
https://answersingenesis.org/biology/microbiology/information-processing-differences-between-bacteria-and-eukarya/
Alan Fox,
The evidence that convinced me is first the extraordinary amount of deterministic origin events that are required to explain us. These events are factual and direct evidence. The historical evidence for the resurrection is also very strong.
First from historic documentation and second from the very fast adoption of Christianity from the original 12.
I suspect that you were not paying very close attention. Their problem is not about being closed-minded, but knowing too much about the many ways in which people can be deceived. That leaves them with lots of choices other than “an all powerful god did this!” From hallucinations to trickery, to very powerful, but real and limited extra-terrestrials. We would not be able to tell the difference between a very advanced life form and a true all-powerful god, would we? So how could we distinguish between any other options and an all-powerful omniscient god? How exactly? We’re left to our own devices and that poses a very serious problem with proving that there’s an all-powerful all-knowing god creator of everything that exists except “him”self.
That’s not an admission of being closed-minded, that’s an admission of human limitations. You yourself, even if you claimed to have experienced god directly, would be unable to tell if what you experienced was an all-powerful all-knowing creator of the universe and everything else, a hallucination, or something much more limited that you cannot distinguish from the real deal. Only you’d refuse to entertain that possibility, which would make you the close-minded one.
Corneel,
I see the light may be going off 🙂
Yeah, just pick what counts as evidence for God at will, and then have a completely different standard for pretty much everything else, except evolution, of course. That requires a standard of its own too … centuries of philosophy of science obliterated on the spot. Good job
I don’t think humans are capable of understanding entities more complex than themselves, but I digress
This I don’t follow. Because we don’t understand human origins, therefore God? How does our ignorance mean there must be a God? Don’t see the connection.
Other than Biblical accounts, what is this historical evidence?