274 thoughts on “The true origin of eyes according to intelligent design”
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The Skeptical Zone
"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken."
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Small steps I suppose 🙂
If we received a crudely-shaped rock point that came from beyond the solar system, that would be a sign of intelligence.
So what? Of course certain sequences (not just repetition, however) of radio signals would at least tend to point to intelligence, because intelligence is all we’ve seen to produce meaningful radio signals.
Does your God not know about radio, that it never gave organisms the ability to use it until they were smart enough to figure it out for themselves?
Glen Davidson
Alan Fox,
Design.
Design is the alternative and you have validated it by taking the position of bad design. Which is a bad argument but none the less an argument.
Now you’re arguing with yourself. You have been doing this for 12 years? 🙂
Do you know, Bill, I don’t think I’ve ever used the argument of “bad design”. Not ever! Never in my life!
What I have done very often is to ask what anyone means when they use the bare noun “Design” as if it is some sort of explanation for, well, anything.
Genetic change (usually called “mutation”). I’ll note that I do not describe this as “copying errors”.
colewd,
And you will die without ever seeing your argument advanced, for it is already fully formed and undefeatable. It can neither go forwards or go backwards, it is mute and inviolate.
How? Design!
Why? God!
Job done. For you anyway.
I alluded to it earlier in the thread by asking why these Intelligently Designed eyes seem to wear out far before the user has. I’m interested to know what part planned failure plays in the design of eyes and what rationale they can come up with it.
Of course, I already know the answer. It was “planned” in the “design”.
You’re actually just invoking a category. Design covers a whole range of activities, from CAD-type architectural design, to merely striking rocks together in a rough attempt to make some kind of shape or shapes.
Design is not an explanation, because it’s a general term, not anything specific. You have to know something about the design process in order to actually show that it occurred. One might have a strong sense that design was responsible for something without knowing how it might have occurred, but to really clinch the deal you’d need to have some idea of how it at least might have happened.
“Evolution” likewise is no explanation on its own. The reason evolution is science is that it actually has causal explanations whose entailments are rife throughout life, and that we can observe over the short run. You have nothing like that, and no good reason to think life was designed at all. We have good reason to believe that it was not, mainly because design has possibilities that we do not find in life, like portability of information (outside of gene flow).
Glen Davidson
In the OP of the other thread Mung asks:
I wonder what a neutral party reading this thread would think about IDists and their beliefs regarding the true origin of the eye.
Alan Fox,
Fair enough. You do realize however the ” bad design” argument is widely used by evolutionists.
Design is a noun i.e. a design and a verb i.e. to design. It is a process that requires foresight and planning. The opposite of blind unguided. Repetition is something that gives us a clue that something is designed. A complex structure with a specific arrangement of parts that perform a repetitive function (convert energy type A to work B) is a clue that something is designed. Sequential information that is translated into different information is a clue something is designed. The existence of coded information is a clue that something is designed.
I think you have a very hard argument trying to claim that design does not explain anything. The argument is limited but denying its existence is a big reach.
colewd,
Actually the problem is the opposite. Design can explain everything and nothing. One thing or all things.
Eyes? They were designed?
HIV? That was designed too.
The universe? Designed!
The solar system! Designed too!
The utility of an explanation is directly linked to the number of things it can explain. Design explains everything, therefore it explains nothing.
Unless of course you can explain the design of eyes in such a way that it comes with entailments? Why are some eyes wired “backwards”? Why do some people see many more colors then other people? Is color blindness designed or accidental? Why are some eyes far better then others? Just a few examples to be getting on with.
The trouble with your “design explains things” claim is that you’ve actually yet to explain anything except to say “it was designed”. Whereas explanations on my side tend to be somewhat longer then single sentences….
OMagain,
First this is not my argument. It is an argument for explaining life’s diversity within a material construct. The argument was put forward by guys like Mike Behe as an alternative to Neo Darwinism.
Darwinism was vulnerable to this type of argument because its grand claim of universal common descent is as of yet untestable.
colewd,
If you can’t explain the origin of eyes according to Intelligent Design, that’s fine. Just stop with the “evolutionists” stuff because that’s OT on this thread. I know it’s all you want to talk about given the paucity of your position, but there are plenty of threads for IDists to mock actual real explanations they don’t understand already.
colewd,
Let’s assume for the sake of argument that Darwinism is dead and buried. Somebody puts their hand up and asks “How does ID explain the origin of eyes” and you say “design”.
The audience laughs and leaves.
colewd,
Whereas of course your grand claim that the universe is designed is testable….
What is it with people rejecting other people’s alleged untestable claims in favour of their own untestable claims?
colewd,
What is the ID explanation for extant biology? One single ancestor or many or none at all (the orchard model)?
Has good design ever been used as an argument for design?
OMagain,
This is true but explanations on your side are implausible “just so” stories. The design guys can do this too and you will pick them apart just like we pick apart evolutions explanation for the origin of the eye.
Evolutions blind and unguided fallacy not only explains very little, it is almost certainly wrong.
Could be designed unless you want to assume your conclusion. The question is how was the verb design result in the structure?
And a figment of your imagination (or of some other dullard’s), that you trot out no matter how many times you fail to support it and others point out what egregious tripe it is.
Testable, to be sure, and considered to be universal so far as we can tell. But not an essential part of evolutionary theory (or the dullard’s term, “Darwinism”).
Glen Davidson
What would be the point of such an argument? If it’s designed it’s designed, whether poorly or well is beside the point.
OMagain,
The design hypothesis is agnostic to the common descent claim. It is an alternative to the blind unguided story.
Yes exactly right. One has explanation the other does not.
colewd,
All of them? Every single one? Why don’t you publish some rebuttal papers then and destroy evolutionism? Unless, of course, you are somewhat wrong in that appraisal. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect
There’s no much to pick apart in “it was planned” is there? When you provide an explanation let me know and I’ll gladly pick it apart.
And you prefer to believe something that explains even less for ideological reasons. Yes, we get that.
They mock us for not engaging in their silly story-telling. 🙂
Mung,
Us? Are you an ID supporter then?
colewd,
And what entailments does it have?
Mung,
Quite. So, were eyes designed?
If design can encompass the same mechanisms as evolution with the exception that at some undetermined point in the causal chain an intelligence was involved in some undetermined way it is not an alternative to evolutionary theory.
I believe the correct term would be parasite.
No we mock you because the story you tell is not explanatory.
The finger that tips the first domino.
Well we don’t know that for sure as they are yet to tell any story at all!
It’s a very dull and meaningless story, but “Designer did it” is just barely a story.
Glen Davidson
Indeed. Well said, Robert.
If you assume it designed there is no point, if you attempting to provide evidence that it is designed then that is the point.
That an unknown designer designed something somehow is a story.
Mung,
In other words, you are not willing to take the first step in the scientific method.
So Nilsson-Pelger is not explanatory. Got it.
Sounds like there’s something the Bobber wants to get off of his, uh, back.
Glen Davidson
That could lead to evolution.
Why can’t we learn to avoid anything that produces unwanted conclusions?
Glen Davidson
Could be, how is your model constructed ?
Evolved silly
Where would evolutionists be without their sky-daddy? Why can’t they just argue for evolution based on the scientific evidence for evolution?
What is the actual scientific evidence for the claim that the vertebrate eye evolved from a simple light sensitive spot?
Pay attention newton. Please.
Nilsson-Pelger is a model of eye evolution by means of intelligent design. That’s the model I’m going with, since evolutionists seem to love it so much.
Mung,
It seems you have trouble with basic comprehension. You’ve already decided that the evolutionary explanation for the eye is incorrect. So for the sake of argument I’m accepting that in this thread and am asking what the true origin actually is.
That is OT for this thread. Start another.
And yet the phrase does not appear in the paper. Seems odd.
Mung,
You are going with a paper that you’ve dedicated a thread to calling stupid? It seems you honor is on a level with your morals.
OMagain,
We both can take this step which is to collect data or make observations. The initial observation is made sense of by the design hypothesis and the the blind unguided hypothesis until you look at the detail of the cell and BU then falls apart. The design hypothesis becomes the shinning star 🙂
colewd,
Funny how you’ve not mentioned SETI or pulsars again. Shows how robust your conception of the design hypothesis is, that does.
Mung,
Its got to be around here somewhere 🙂
OMagain,
There is more behind the curtain then repeating codes, there are codes that translate into micro machines and codes that can build a living being from two fused cells.
The waters of this design hypothesis run deep 🙂