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 The site is no longer maintained, but the language persists.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.
But if everything is designed, that’s curtains for the science of Design Detection…
I’ve had some fun with JoeG on this subject over the years. He never learns.
phoodoo,
If that something was designed by someone, then we know it “was designed”. We have to know the design was designed by a designer. No designer; no design.
Of course, we could be in a God-created world with some people simply not being aware of it. Since the DI IDM rose & will fall on their outlandish claims of being “strictly scientific” and not starting with any kind of theology or religious anthropology, we must take capitalized Designer = God off the table for conversation when speaking of ID theory. If ID theory is full of holes, then a person basing their faith on “ID” instead of on the God of their religious tradition (whether Muslim, Christian, Jew, Baha’i, Hindu, Sikk, etc.), will come across as “deviant” and even as “attackful” to traditional religious teachings and beliefs.
Animal “makings” don’t count as “designs” because there is a species-level gap that cannot be crossed. We do not “think as non-human animals”. We operate functionally with a fairly clear and distinct realm of “human-made things”. Some of those human-made things required more “design” in order to “instantiate” those “mere designs” into actuality by the act of instantiating the pattern in reality; by “creating”, “making”, “building”, or “manufacturing”.
Most IDists run away from the study of designers because they are not trained or versed in social sciences. They don’t actually know how to do it. So they don’t, and yet still complain and complain and complain about being “misunderstood”. It’s their own fault because they haven’t done the intellectual work needed to be understood and as a result clearly don’t really understand the topic they claim to be addressing.
They don’t count because “there is a “species level gap that cannot be crossed.”
Gregory, this statement is almost completely meaningless. Its words, that make a sort of sentence, but other than that, nope.
This is just circular nonsense as well.
When you see a house, you can infer its design, without knowing who designed it.
When you see a rug design, you know nothing about the designer. Your theory about design has no foundation whatsoever.
https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/history-and-civilisation/2018/08/thousands-people-live-these-ancient-spanish-caves
But if everything evolved, that’s curtains for the “science” of Evolution.
You’ve already granted that there is evidence for Intelligent Design in biology. So why now do you repeat the claim that there is no evidence of Intelligent Design in biology?
Heh. People who live in glass houses and all that.
I’d say that from what I can gather from what he is trying to say, that it’s wrong.
We can see that through their design, spider’s webs are perfectly suited to catching their prey. They are obviously designed for a function and we don’t need to get into the “mindset” of a spider to recognise this.
I agree. But the claim was that there is no evidence. But the appearance of design is evidence. The question is what we can infer from the evidence. It’s just silly to deny that the evidence exists.
Fuck off.
See above.
First time for everything …
Depends on what you call fun. Getting him to go all caps was amusing.
This reminds me of a science fiction short story I read a long time ago. The idea was that a bunch of humans were captured (along with other larger animals) by aliens, and put into a cage. The humans needed to demonstrate that they were intelligent, but how? They tried constructing things like art, tools, images out of materials in the cages, but the aliens (like Gregory) assumed these were just “animal makings”. Animals can make some amazingly sophisticated things, after all. What sort of thing might require unambiguous intelligence?
What happened was, there was an alien small critter that got into the cage, and the humans trapped it, constructed a cage for it, and fed it. That worked! Only intelligent entities keep pets! The humans were doing with that critter exactly what the aliens were doing with the humans.
(And yes, I know that there are commensal relationships in nature).
DNA_Jock,
Sure once all detection is finished. If there are things that are the result of direct design like OOL that are beyond science it would quite a time saver to figure this out.
I would say that the variety of materials, patterns, and the spacing within the webs of garden orb-weaver spiders makes the intelligently deigned.
Well, I think you have that wrong. Candidates for designer is the most interesting question. How did they (could they) do that.
Stonehenge was designed. We can only guess why, we have a good idea of over what period, we know it was designed and built (and redesigned and rebuilt) by people though we don’t know their names, we can model parts of the construction to demonstrate feasibility.
Why stop at “it was designed”?
But there’s no evidence of design i biology.
Saying something looks designed is not the same thing as saying there’s (scientific) evidence that it’s designed. The former is not a scientific inference as far as I can tell
Well, he would, wouldn’t he!
It’s niche design, Charlie.
OMagain,
Alan Fox,
In what universe is “not publishing” same as “collapse”? Not in this one. Collapse requires some crushing arguments against. Which is exactly what is happening to “evolution”. You know, the stupid story. Meanwhile, as recently reinforced, Paley’s excellent argument is as great today as two hundred years ago and just as strong as Newton’s work. Also meanwhile, no one is able to say ONE LITTLE objective thing about “fitness”, the crumbling pillar of “evolution”. Now that’s a spectacular ‘collapse’.
phoodoo,
Nothing like displaying your own ignorance. Yet ignorance is strangely considered a virtue by IDists, the DI, and the IDM. (It’s like he thinks I’m making up the rather sizable area of design thinking, design theory, design history and design studies that are credible, unlike the “theistic science” of “ID theory.”)
There’s a whole design industry out there, beyond what you call “my theory about design”. It is not controversial to discuss, nor at all difficult to find, unlike the “secret sciency” talk of the Biologic Institute & Discovery Institute.
https://dschool.stanford.edu/
https://designthinkingforeducators.com/
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/01/how-design-thinking-became-a-buzzword-at-school/512150/
I don’t see why IDers are allowed to purloin “design”. (They can have “intelligent”). Selective pressure in a niche will produce design.
Gregory,
Exactly.
Nonlin.org,
Baghdad Bob pops into my mind or is it Chemical Ali?
Nobody should trust IDists because they continually betray the trust of others. They betray the trust of fellow Abrahamic monotheists who have faithfully critiqued ID theory, the DI & the IDM. They also betray the trust of all the American people because atheists cannot accept ID theory in principle, since it goes against their “religion” (worldview). Thus, trying to promote ID theory as “science” in any public institution, whether school, university, or courthouse, is in fact operationally anti-religious, i.e. anti-atheism.
Unfortunately, IDists like phoodoo are ignorant because they CHOOSE to be ignorant. This is obviously a pattern of experience after >25 years of the IDM. IDists have left a scar on science, they have left a scar on philosophy, and they have left a scar on theology. And they are proud of it & mostly don’t care that other people, even most people, see it that way. Eric MH, care to comment?
The appearance of design is not necessarily the evidence of intelligent design.
Cool ,what is the next step to determine how the physical came to be?
Alan Fox,
Not in “real” design theory. Your secret inner God-longing aside, Alan, the Designer is obviously meant as the Abrahamic God by ALL major ID theory proponents. There is no need to discuss “candidates for designer” as if we are all detectives on an academic quest to encounter some “higher power”.
No “candidates for designer” needed. The Designer is there & “known” to those who seek the Creator in their hearts. It’s a will & action thing, Alan.
We can read about spider silk here and wonder about how spiders managed to “stumble” onto and make use of such a versatile substance during their evolution.
Niche designs are still have to be designed, and marvellous designs they are too.
Flint,
Ah, so how was that “need” communicated to them? Intelligence of some kind is already presupposed in asking for it, isn’t it? Philosophically, one can return to the actual and the potential. The point is a kind of weak atheistic apologetic, isn’t it?
Some human beings think they are morally & ethically on par with non-human animals. They literally think humans are “only animals”, in a non-spiritual understanding of humanity informed by natural science, without religion or theology. It is likewise anti-Indigenous knowledge and spirituality. This position is known as “human non-exceptionalism” or “species egalitariansm”. No Abrahamic monotheists that I am aware of hold to this position; it’s an atheist/agnostic invention.
Alan and his boyfriends. Are your friends also too weak for the strong truth, hence raised only on intellectual mush?
CharlieM,
You’re trying to channel the intelligence of spiders as “designers”, CharlieM?
This is the kind of woo that derives from Steinerian “spiritualism”.
Alan Fox,
You don’t have to. There is a book He helped author and lots of tools now available to learn more about Him.
From a scientific stand point we will learn more about Him and his capability from just doing science.
Well, sure. If there were a Creator of the universe all could have been set at the beginning, if you incline to strict determinism. Or it depends on emergence and bias on chance. ID seems the cheapest of tuxedo’s in comparison.
All science is ID science!
We were always at war with eurasia!
What I mean is what puzzles me is that IDers avoid “how” like the plague. It’s the first question I ask myself, confronted with some work of nature. How did that happen?
Gregory,
There just seems an odd lack of curiosity.
Discovery, surely!
Won’t surprise you to learn I can’t see how spiritualism can explain human exceptionalism beyond fatuous story telling. At any rate, I don’t see how atheism entails non-exceptionalism so I don’t need to subscribe to it.
Spiders build their webs instinctively. They show no signs of individual conscious awareness of, or thinking about, what they are producing.
Where do you think they get this skill from?
I thought your Deity was omnipotent? Created the entire universe just by speaking it into existence? All that power yet incapable of using evolutionary processes to produce variety in life forms. What a weaksauce God you worship.
CharlieM,
Their genes. It’s innate. A marvel not yet understood how complex behaviour patterns are inherited.
Alan Fox,
It’s avoided because its answer very open at this point from a science perspective. There is plenty of work on just detecting design using Behe’s criteria. This is lower hanging fruit.
dazz,
Indeed. What links the Creator of the universe to religion of any stripe? Join these dots for me, Abrahamists!
ETA scuse typos. Never blog with small phone while in the bath.
Behe’s “criteria” is to declare you see design, then use that “observation” as evidence design is present. Completely circular and fallacious, only swallowed by the most ignorant and desperate Fundies. Oh, that’s you Bill. 🙂
Strict determinists, physicalist evolutionists or ID advocates can believe what they want about the origins of design. That makes no difference to the fact that when I look at constructions such as these spider’s webs I can appreciate the intelligent use of materials and design principles even down to the tension and stickiness of the strands.
CharlieM,
Don’t protest too much, methinks.
ROTFLMFAO!
Adapa,
The “straw-man kid strikes again 🙂
I found this from Nature: “Spider gene study reveals tangled evolution”
There are:
Jason Bond, an evolutionary biologist at Auburn University in Alabama believes that the first option is more realistic,. Why?
What he means is that it would be beyond belief for it to happen by blind evolution, and as no other form of evolution is allowed the only other option is the former, early evolution and loss of the trait.
Even the fall-back explanation of convergent evolution has been stretched beyond believability for some.