This offers the simplest “neutral” colloquial mixture of “design” and “evolution” that I’ve seen in a long time. The site is no longer maintained, but the language persists.
“As a designer it is important to understand where design came from, how it developed, and who shaped its evolution. The more exposure you have to past, current and future design trends, styles and designers, the larger your problem-solving toolkit. The larger your toolkit, the more effective of a designer you can be.” http://www.designishistory.com/this-site/
Here, the term “evolution” as used just meant “history”. The author was not indicating “design theory evolution”, but rather instead the “history of designs” themselves, which have been already instantiated.
The topic “design is history” nevertheless enables an obvious point of contact between “evolution” and “design”. They both have histories that can be studied. Present in the above meaning of “design” are the origin, processes and agent(s) involved in the “designing”. This differs significantly from the Discovery Institute’s version of “design theory”, when it comes to history, aim, structure and agency, since the DI’s version flat out avoids discussion of design processes and agent(s). The primary purpose of the DI’s “design theory”, meanwhile, is USAmerican religious apologetics and “theistic science”.
The quotation above likely didn’t come from an IDist, and it isn’t referencing “Intelligent Design” theory as a supposed “scientific theory”. The “designer” in the quotation above is a (more or less intelligent) human designer, not a Divine Designer. This fact distinguishes it “in principle” from the Discovery Institute’s ID theory, which is supposed to be (depends on who you’re speaking with in the IDM) about first biology, then informatics, and statistics. The DI’s ID theory is not actually focused on “designing by real designers”, but rather on apologetics using “design” and informational probabilism.
The Discovery Institute’s failure to distinguish or even highlight the differences and similarities between human design and Divine Design, and instead their engagement in active distortion, equivocation, double-talking, and obfuscation between them, are marks of its eventual downward trend to collapse.
Stop right there. Protein complexes are sequenced in DNA. It is not just ‘one component of the system’: without that sequence, there would not be a protein. It is insufficient to dodge that by saying ‘well you can’t have that protein without another protein’. Protein, protein, protein, protein, protein. Say it often enough and it loses meaning.
The professor burst into the lab. “I’ve found a control element that has nothing to do with DNA! It’s made of … protein!!!!”. His colleagues wondered how in hell he’d retained tenure for so long.
As I’ve said before, your schtick is simply to blur the detail, call it all ‘control’, ‘system’, ‘music’ and so on, yet it adds no insight whatsoever.
CharlieM,
Kinda. But the key here is their genomic identity. The genome of a clone gets copied irrespective of which cell in the clone it is copied from. That creates a setting in which most cells can be ‘persuaded’ to forego their direct reproduction in favour of the identical copies in other cells, allowing for specialisation. This is how multicellular organisms work, for one thing, and provides a rationale for cooperative behaviours among clonal cultures in some circumstances.
A non-answer. How are those ‘cellular processes’ differentiated according to bodily position? Why does the liver of every rat produce the same isoform, but the spleen a different one, consistently? Cellular processes? They are both made of cells, as is a zygote or blastocyst, so that simplistic rejoinder can’t be it.
That is not my perception. You question the things the ‘revolutionaries’ pick at, because something about conventional approaches bugs you. You seem uncritical of the revolutionaries themselves.
Sure. This is you ‘questioning everything’.
Never thought I would be defending the DI, but they constantly make the point that they don’t posit a designer or even a process, but merely the existence of design. The question of whodunnit etc can come later.
Now I have to go and have a bath.
Hello graham2,
Yes, I agree “they don’t posit [which] designer or even a process”. That’s what I meant saying “the DI’s version flat out avoids discussion of design processes and agent(s).” But I don’t say it in defense of them. It reveals a currently vacuous “theory”, which the DI is using as “theistic science” apologetics.
That the DI does not actually research or refer to real design theories, design thinking, design studies, or design history in its works – all “designs” involving identifiable “intelligences” – speaks loudly.
Sure, I’d be willing to support and “defend” design thinking, if someone really wanted to try to challenge it here. Not so for “ID theory.” How about you graham2?
To me, this is a semantic confusion due to the fact that the word design is both a verb and a noun. This linguistic misfortune too easily leads people to the incorrect conclusion that where there is design, there must be a designer applying a design process. Or if I’m in the right mood, I see mendacious people carefully conflating the two uses, as you point out. the DI claims that they don’t posit a designer or a process, but that dog whistle is audible to anyone who cares to listen. They make it abundantly clear that since life sure looks like a design, it must have a designer, and YOU figure out who that might be. The “question of whodunnit” was answered FIRST. Finding facts that could be misrepresented to fit came later.
In reality, there is no question of whodunnit, since the existence of design does NOT necessarily imply a designing agent as they want to trick you into thinking. I see the design of life as comparable to the design of sunsets, rock formations, cloud shapes, watersheds, sunspot patterns, snowdrifts and anything else interesting to look at.
Indeed, simply by using “design” as a noun begs the question. X looks designed ergo there is a Designer. Design inferred – job done.
Not comparable. The same! 😉
While this design1 vs. design2 distinction has been made, I’m not sure it is the strongest “semantic” case available against ID theory from the DI. Nevertheless, as it is not original to Flint, here’s another presentation of it looking at the etymology of “design”: https://www.etymonline.com/word/design
Can’t “designed” be used as an adjective also, to add to the multiplicity of meanings of “design” and cognates?
Here are the definitions of “Intelligent Design” & related terms the DI and IDM uses that I provided here not long ago for reference: http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/definitions-involving-intelligent-design-di-fellows-language-vs-everyone-elses/
As an argumentative strategy, I think there’s some merit in asking people invested in “the Intelligent Design Movement” why they don’t care about studying how human beings design. (Likewise, for all their bluster about “Intelligent Design” they are completely incurious about the study of intelligence.)
But I also think it is pretty obvious why they don’t care about the study of intelligence or of design: because despite their protestations to the contrary, they really do believe that the Intelligent Designer is a divine being that transcends the conditions of empirical scholarship.
Of course they can’t say that, because otherwise they couldn’t get ID taught as science in US public schools.
I mean, I think Steve Fuller is just correct when he says that ID only makes sense if we think of it as saying that biology is divine technology, and no one is fooled when they deny that this is the whole point of their view — so why not just admit it?
I suspect — and this is just my own suspicion, without much evidence — that one reason why ID people don’t want to be open about their own belief that the Intelligent Designer is God is that they don’t want to expose themselves to theological criticism.
I don’t know much theology, but David Bentley Hart (in The Experience of God) is completely clear about why it would a theological disaster to associate the Intelligent Designer — to use a Neoplatonic term, the Demiurge — with God as the Ground of Being.
Gregory,
Winston Ewert proposed a process. This idea is a little ahead of the databases being robust enough for accuracy but it is an interesting idea.
https://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2018.3/BIO-C.2018.3
David Bently Hart … jeeez, what a pompous blowhard.
graham2,
And yet he speaks so highly of you. Is he influential?
“Strangely, as David Bentley Hart has gotten more gratuitously nasty and unhinged in his attacks on me, I find myself less offended, or even having much of an affective reaction at all. It’s like dealing with a mental patient or a surly neighborhood dog.”
Ed Feser
colewd,
LOL, Bill. We discussed Ewert’s dependency graph paper here previously and noted that Winston has come up with an overly complicated way of spotting annotation errors. He conceded as much at Peaceful Science. Is there any reason to think that Winston’s process would yield anything of interest once annotation errors are eliminated?
Oh dear. OMagain can predict the future:
Wow! That thread is a depressing read. For Bill. Near the end it even includes the news that Bill was back at PS (later in the same month) repeating the same discredited claim.
I would vote against it, since “designed” implies an active, dynamic, intentional designing agent.
Sure, everything that might be described as “a design” came about through some process. For clouds, meteorological processes. For dunes, wind processes. For watersheds, topology and gravity driving the flow of water. For life, various evolutionary processes. For mountain ranges, tectonic processes.
The distinction to draw is whether we can regard the “designer” as having purpose and intent. We know how clouds form and are shaped, but nobody thinks clouds are “designed”, or uses that phrase for that purpose.
DNA_Jock,
Are you claiming every case had annotation errors? The idea was an attempt at a model. Precisely what claims were made that no one has attempted this.
Good grief. No, Bill. What a misleading thing to say.
YOU claimed that Winston had found [at least] 100 genes that are shared by Pan troglodytes and Rattus norvegicus but not found in humans or mice. I was able to find the genes that he was referring to, and there are 108 of them. I went through the first 16 genes on that list and I showed that every single one was an error. Sixteen errors out of sixteen hits. This proves that your claim is false, since 108 – 16 = 92, and 92 < 100. Within nine days, you repeated this claim that you knew to be false. How should we characterize your behavior?
If you had any courage of your convictions, you could have gone through the remaining 92 genes to show us how many were real hits, to show us that (perhaps) you were only off by a factor of ten. You did not do that. Instead you repeated the false claim. And accused us of “spinning”!
Huh?
Let us know when you or Winston generate any data that are not fatally flawed.
We’ve been waiting.
E4math
DNA_Jock,
From my original post
This idea is a little ahead of the databases being robust enough for accuracy but it is an interesting idea
Are even reading the posts? Your post totally misses what I was trying to convey.
An interesting idea that did not pan out. Clinging to what did not work seems to be something you like to do.
Can’t help wondering, if there really are (say) 100 anomalies – that’s, ooh, 300,000bp, let’s say? – what we’d make of the 99.99% of the genome that isn’t anomalous? What accounts for the hierarchic pattern? It doesn’t just disappear when you hit an anomaly – it’s what makes anomalies anomalous.
Collapses. Haha.
Gregory is so funny.
I love his sense of humor.
The Macrame lobby could really use a man like him.
True. It had to be substantial in the first place to collapse.
Simply show where they have done that then. I think you think you are making clever, substantive comments here. But you are not.
Do you think the Discovery Institute is succeeding then in it’s mission?
Also misleading.
From my original reply, which you even quoted:
Which addresses the “point you wished to convey”.
As does my follow-up comment:
When you blatantly mis-characterize a conversation for rhetorical effect, or repeat a claim about “100 genes” that you know to be false, the record is here in black and white, and you are not fooling anybody.
DNA_Jock,
I was acknowledging your supported claim that there were problems with the database. There was nothing more to my post then letting Gregory know that some ID guys were working on a model. If you want to continue to make a mountain out of the mole hill go fo for it 🙂
OMagain,
Are you claiming this research is over?
Every single one an error. Seems to me the research is indeed over.
A model that has demonstrably failed. Or do you dispute that?
Gee Bill, it’s such a shame people get irritated by your constant lying and misrepresentations. They should just let you slide, right? 😀
OMagain,
This is one dependency point out of hundreds Jock is commenting on. You guys have stepped on a toe but your opponent will probably live to fight again 🙂
Of course they will Bill. The IDiot Liars for Jesus will keep thinking up new ways to misrepresent and bastardize actual science in their quest to get their Christian religion forced back into schools. It earns them points towards their “get into Heaven free” pass.
Find one that is not in error then.
It’s not about opponents. It’s about right and wrong. It’s about lying to children about facts. It’s about religion disguised as science being forced into impressionable minds.
You want Behe‘s ideas taught to such minds. Behe can’t bring himself to publish his own ideas formally but you want them taught!
So my opponent does not care about facts, my opponent will never lie down of it’s own accord. My opponent thinks it can do no wrong in the service of it’s deity. My opponent and I will fight till one of us can fight no more.
Not that it makes a difference whatsoever to the content of his research production, but I’ve met Winston Ewert. We were both participants at the DI’s summer program in 2008. We spoke a couple of times there, nothing lengthy. This is only to say that as a result it means I’ve kept track of Winston’s “ID theory” work over the years, though it is mostly outside of my fields of study and engagement. This includes being aware “the model” he’s been dabbling with for a couple of years, after work with Marks & Dembski, among other ideological IDists.
IDits like Bill Cole always think they’re educating people above their own knowledge level. This is a kind of twisted humility ID theory-style. To non-IDist theists, it often just looks like posturing and pride.
As far as non-scientific narratives go, I do recall Winston was one of the people posturing a bit about playing “soccer/football” between the two groups at the 1-week event. It was a few moments to trash talk between two very different approaches to “ID theory” from the two groups in a sports challenge, something that didn’t end up happening (one of the NS group participants was later scheduled for weightlifting in the Pan-American Games, if I recall correctly). Obviously the “Intelligent Design in the Humanities and Social Sciences” (now defunct -> “C.S. Lewis Fellows Program on Science and Society”) group would have crushed the “Intelligent Design in the Natural Sciences” group in the match! = P
Neither Ewert at the DI, nor Holloway here, nor anyone at Uncommon Descent, & none of the other DI summer program “graduates” has provided a response to the tragic self-wound of flip-flopping and double-talking that ID theory has made and continues to make to itself. Simply no one trusts these people because of how they intentionally communicate their “theory” to “outsiders” as evangelically oblivious to higher knowledge than their own limited supply. The only decent attempt at providing an answer by an IDist that I have seen in over 15 years studying the IDM was given by the DI’s ghostwriter (who for privacy and identity concerns remains anonymous), though it was too philosophical and “inactive” in application to be of much use.
One person here who need not be named in the main discussion thinks that “design universalism” cannot be openly and honestly called out for what it certainly appears to be in the words of many, if not most IDists. At least, this person won’t put those words in their own mouth and admit it here. That is why the act of purposefully arranging the parts of language in such a way that distinguishing “human design” as the realm of design theory, design thinking, design history and design studies, as carefully distinct from “Intelligent Design Theory” that studies the effects of (non-natural) Intelligence (Dembski), which is a sub-category of something like “Divine Action Theory” or “neo-creationism”, itself reveals the faux-victimhood narrative being hoisted in public currently by the Discovery Institute. This is revealed most clearly not when discussing “just with atheists”, but primarily in the double-talking and distortion rampant in the IDM as revealed among fellow religious theists.
Other than your “vote” being acknowledged, I’m not really sure if the rest of us really need to bother with your personal vocabulary, when standard dictionaries can tell us what you don’t seem to wish to admit about designers & design.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/designer#:~:text=adjective,mass-produced: designer jeans.
https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/designer_2
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/designer
It should be obvious to everyone, Flint, when the language is clarified to the simplest, that what you are attempting to do – for yourself, since it doesn’t seem other people are stuck on this like you, and Adrian Bejan – is avoid Design = a divinely-created universe, including people, and any hint of the possible existence of a Designer, that (Who) you would therefore need to morally face up to.
It thus appears that the motivation in your “this is a semantic confusion due to the fact that the word design is both a verb and a noun” is not actually to suggest that “designers don’t design”, or to disqualify yourself as a “designer”, of course not. Instead, it is to argue, persuade, state, show, tell, express to actual believers in a meaningful universe, that you believe a Designer (read: Creator) of the world and people doesn’t & can’t exist. Does that make a simple explanation of why you are/have been putting forward “design without a designer” expressions?
Can I ask a personal question that is relevant to this discussion then: Is English not your native language, Flint?
OMagain,
I agree this is important.
I think your belief that the evidence of design in biology being a mirage is mistaken. When you tell kids this you are lying to them because you have no fundamental basis for the claim.
You purposely want to hide this from them. To do what? Distort how they look at nature?
There is design in biology, or rather the illusion of design. Remember the niche!
Except that’s not what I tell kids. So I’m not lying. You are the liar. You have already stated that you want Behe’s ideas taught and your source for his ideas seems to be a fucking youtube video.
Going to sit in class are you and bring up a youtube video are you?
You are the person who want’s to distort children minds by telling them that an invisible man is responsible for the worms that blinded their friends. That what they seem around them was designed explicitly for a purpose, and if that purpose happens to be blinding them, then so be it.
You pretend (lie) that there is no evidence for macro evolution. There is a mechanism at hand, and micro evolution is observable in real time. We have an evidence trail stretching back into the past for macro evolution and guess what! It’s lots of micro evolution added up.
And all you have is the shit you pull from your arse, shit-heel.
And when they ask “who is the designer” what will you say, shit-heel?
Obviously, omagain has a “reason” or “motivation” for there not being “evidence of design (read: supernatural Design) in biology”. This is because he is an atheist/agnostic. He doesn’t want there to exist a Creator-God, so nature “cannot” be Designed/Created. You are thus playing a silly tune.
Do you not think that having a “reason” or “motivation” for there not being “evidence of design (read: supernatural Design) in biology” also can be given by a religious theist? Why do you think devoutly religious theists reject ID theory & don’t accept that we can “scientifically infer Design in biology”?
BioLogos assumes the world is Created, thus the capital “L”. The DI’s failure to properly capitalize their “I plus D” reveals all that is needed about the emptiness at the heart of this “movement’s” intellectual forces.
All you’ve really said to omagain is: “You’re an agnostic/atheist and therefore can’t accept ID theory. Stop being an agnostic/atheist and then you’ll be able to accept ID theory. (On top of that, since ID theory is so truthy true right, it doesn’t matter if you accept it or not. Nah, na nah nahh.)” Not very gracious for a “theist”, are you Bill?
I grew up an ostensible theist. I don’t remember ever actually believing but that was how I was brought up.
When I first heard of Intelligent Design I was fascinated. “They claim to have discovered what?” I thought. Must read more about this….
If someone presents me with evidence that there is Intelligent Design in biology I am fully prepared to listen. But so far their “evidence” seems to be solely the claimed insufficiency in evolution rather then anything positive regarding ID per se. And silly claims about “minds” and an inability to see that any such mind would be vastly different to ours, and no evidence for such either.
Exactly so. To my knowledge colewd has never addressed this specific point. Perhaps those who reject ID in such a situation don’t have access to youtube and have therefore never seen Behe’s utterly convincing “arguments”?
I just don’t see the need for supernatural interventions in biology. We have a mechanism that seems to fit the bill. And it’s mindless as we understand it.
colewd does not seem to be arguing for Intelligent Interventions in, say, the convection currents of the sun, which I’d argue are even more complex then a few bits of chemicals making up DNA. This exact arc in this exact place at this exact time.
Why is it biology only that requires such interventions? Why are there not people arguing for the Intelligent Design of rain-clouds? Each is unique and contains an exact number of raindrops! What makes biology so special?
I mean, we all know the answer to that. But perhaps it’s something for colwed to ponder….
That’s the same whining excuse the Flat Earthers and the Geocentrists use. Are you a Flat Earther and Geocentrist Bill? Do you want those be taught too to “keep science honest”?
It’s Design all the way down!
When will you start trolling Geology discussion boards and whining no one takes the Intelligent mountain / valley Designer seriously?
OMagain,
OMagain does not want it to be true so it’s not. You are the owner of truth. Good for you.
My, I seem to have struck a nerve here. My motivation is to point out that creationists are using semantic ambiguity to promote a bait-and-switch. So I should ask you, do you think there are designs in our universe which are NOT the result of conscious intent?
If you do, and I think you do, then you are necessarily drawing a distinction between designed and non-designed designs. The former derive from the conscious intent of a designer, the latter do not. And we know of plenty of cases of consciously-created designs, which encompasses almost everything humans have ever made (and arguably things made by fish, birds, insects, etc.) But in ALL of these cases, we can identify the designer, the method, and the function of the designs. We can actually watch while people make iphones and birds make nests, see how it’s done and what these are made of.
And this leaves designs which (1) are consciously created; but (2) the designer’s identity, methods and purposes are unknown. And THIS, in turn, begs the question of whether there is in fact anything in this set, or whether it’s a null set existing only our minds. What you (or the DI) seem to be proposing is:
1) All designs must have a designer
2) Life is designed
3) Therefore, life must have a designer!
My position is, it’s entirely possible that ALL THREE of these are false.
LOL! Bill you’re the clown who keeps claiming his unsupported religious beliefs are DA TROOTH. 😀 Your lack of self-awareness must be some sort of record.
Well, sure. But whodunit? And how? And when? And why? (Never understood the Christian claims as to why God might have created the Universe and everything in it so we humans – if we fit the bill – can nip off to heaven for an eternity of hallelujahs)
This is a trite argument. I’m sure one’s cultural background and emotional needs govern one’s religiosity or lack of it. Religions offer stories and a sort of community. I’m doubtful about the net worth.
Welcome to reality. It’s evolution all over again.
You ideas are poor and unsupported and you are unable to communicate them effectively. In the marketplace of ideas your ideas have found their niche. Being prodded at incessantly by sharp sticks in a spare time forum for retired scientists all the while ineffectually bleating the same tired nonsense over and over while coming to the conclusion not that your ideas are poor but there is a grand conspiracy instead…
I am the owner of truth.
And the truth is that for me this is a zoo while for you it is a prison.
Break out of it if you can and I’ll go read your ideas there instead. But you are not capable of elevating your game I suspect so it’ll be round and round we go here until you admit defeat. For I am the owner of truth and as long as I can I will strive against you and yours.
Well, mostly mondays and tuesdays early evening and lunchtime. BST.