What mixture of “design” and “evolution” is possible as the IDM collapses?

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 The site is no longer maintained, but the language persists.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.

1,506 thoughts on “What mixture of “design” and “evolution” is possible as the IDM collapses?

  1. DNA_Jock,

    And the hypothesis would be “common descent”, which gpuccio is fully on board with on days containing a “u”. You might notice that it forms part of his “massive injections of FI” shtick.

    Thats one possible explanation for part of the pattern. How do you explain the origin of the ubiquitin system for specific animal types? The origin of the multicellular spliceosome or the origin of mission critical brain proteins?

    Common descent only explains the similarities. Turns out there is a Sharp Shooter involved 🙂

  2. colewd: Thats one possible explanation for part of the pattern.

    A rather parsimonious one, I think you’ll find…

    How do you explain the origin of the ubiquitin system for specific animal types?

    Duplication and divergence. Note that ubiquitination is an insane smorgasbord of partially overlapping functions; no sane designer would create anything that overly complicated. But a fun trip down memory lane.

    The origin of the multicellular spliceosome

    Huh? It evolved from the “unicellular” spliceosome; we have offered to discuss the evolution of splicing with you, but you quickly changed the subject.

    or the origin of mission critical brain proteins?

    errr, they evolved from non-mission-critical brain proteins.

    Common descent only explains the similarities. Turns out there is a Sharp Shooter involved

    Well that’s incoherent. But thank you for all the hand waving, it’s been illuminating.

  3. DNA_Jock,

    Duplication and divergence. Note that ubiquitination is an insane smorgasbord of partially overlapping functions; no sane designer would create anything that overly complicated. But a fun trip down memory lane.

    What do you think it does? Is it similar in function to the cellular system of the last multicellular organism you have designed 🙂

    A rather parsimonious one, I think you’ll find…

    Indeed parsimonious and limited.

    errr, they evolved from non-mission-critical brain proteins.

    And the non-mission critical evolved from 🙂
    DNA_Jock,

    Well that’s incoherent. But thank you for all the hand waving, it’s been illuminating.

    I guess I over estimated your sense of humor 🙂

    Huh? It evolved from the “unicellular” spliceosome; we have offered to discuss the evolution of splicing with you, but you quickly changed the subject.

    Im sorry I must of missed the model that shows this transition 🙂

    At the end of the day you believe in Darwins simple to complex model. What is the fundamental scientific basis behind that belief? I would speculate it is based on circular reasoning.

  4. colewd: At the end of the day you believe in Darwins simple to complex model. What is the fundamental scientific basis behind that belief? I would speculate it is based on circular reasoning.

    Not only Darwin, human design can follow the same trajectory. A kite ,a modification an existing structures , is less complex than the 747.

  5. colewd: At the end of the day you believe in Darwins simple to complex model. What is the fundamental scientific basis behind that belief?

    The 160+ years of consilient positive scientific evidence from dozens of independent scientific disciplines. Same as the last 25 times you asked then forgot.

    I would speculate it is based on circular reasoning.

    Since you’ve shown repeatedly you don’t even know what the term “circular reasoning” means, knock yourself out.

  6. Adapa: Since you’ve shown repeatedly you don’t even know what the term “circular reasoning” means, knock yourself out.

    It seems that in some creationist circles finding something that fits a definition constitutes circular reasoning. If and only if it’s about evolution or something else they might dislike.

    ETA: So, for example, if you say, hey, this is a square! How do you know? Well, it has four sides of the same length, square angles. That’s circular reasoning you evil evilutionist!!

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