Intelligent Design and Evolution at the White House

SETI Institute ^ | August 2005 | Edna DeVore

[Southack]

"There is no room for a "can be" here. By your statements Man IS an ID. Right? (note the "an" part)"

Oh, are we getting more serious all of a sudden?!

OK, well yes, mankind, overall, is an ID.

[RadioAstronomer]

That I posted it. :-(

[PatrickHenry]

... if they keep biting I will be singing soprano.

It must have happened already. Otherwise you would not have deleted your post.

[ml1954]

OK, well yes, mankind, overall, is an ID. An an ID created man(kind). Right?

[malakhi]

In that case, your own logic above debunks your original claim in post #133 (with which I took issue)...because your original claim was that the two were in no way related...that they bore "no relation" to each other. ...And that, as any good student of logic and geometry knows full well, is something that a subset and its larger superset contradict. Because a subset and its larger superset are always related in some way. They "bear relation" to each other by definition. So the math is against this line of your argument.

Do I need to go through this step-by-step?

A is the set of all diamonds.

B is the set of all man-made diamonds.

B is a subset of A.

That B is contained in A does not imply that A is contained in B.

Now then,

C is the set of all things.

D is the set of all intelligently designed things.

E is the set of all humanly designed things.

E is contained in D, and D is contained in C.

That item x in E is contained in D does not imply that item y in C is contained in D.

[malakhi]

I am resting my argument on your lack of understanding of the word philosophy.

You seem to be the only person on this thread using your peculiar definition of 'philosophy'.

[ml1954]

OK, well yes, mankind, overall, is an ID.

Disregard previous. Fat fingers and all that.

An ID created mankind and mankind is an ID, right?

[Southack]

"All of which has nothing to do with the question of everything else, which is the question we are discussing. We have lots of priors for man designing things, but no priors for other entities designing things and certainly not for anything complicated like animal physiology at the molecular level."

No, that only presents a problem for those who are extrapolating.

The theory itself (ID) does explain some life forms (e.g. pigs that have been gene-spliced to produce human hormones). Evolutionary Theory can't explain those particular laboratory animals.

For animal physiology at the molecular level, I'd refer you to Los Alamos scientist Steen Rasmussen's current abiogenesis experiments (large research grant funded).

[RadioAstronomer]

you would not have deleted your post.

I didn't. That was the first post of mine in 4.5 years at FR that was pulled without me pulling it.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Many (if not most) people I worked with over the last few years did vote GOP. They have slowly changed. Had almost any Democrat but Kerry been the candidate, they would have voted Democrat in the last election.

[b_sharp]

"But you're a tool. You can't do unproductive things. You must do tool things. The Intelligent Designer will be very disappointed in the tool he/she/it created if you play computer games.

You've just squeezed all the fun things out of being a tool. Darn the intelligent designer anyway, just who does he think he is? God?

[malakhi]

It gets back to my hypothesis that tribalism and sexual selection are very likely how modern man evolved, rather than natural selction.

Can you explain a bit what you mean by 'sexual selection' vs. 'natural selection'?

I would generally include sexual selection in natural selection. It seems to me that you are using 'natural selection' in the limited sense of 'survival of the fittest'. Am I reading you right?

I don't see how survival of the fittest can cleanly be separated from sexual selection. That some members of a species will not survive to reproduce is going to have an impact on sexual selection options.

[malakhi]

micro is change within a species. Macro is change to another species.

Okay, thanks.

Does ID posit a mechanism which prevents changes within a subpopulation of a species from progressing to the point of a change into another species?

[Doctor Stochastic]

You still gave no answer to the question.

What is the purpose in a duck? Or a rock? What distinguishes purpose from somthing with no purpose?

[js1138]

Natural selection and sexual selection got separated in the late 1800s because Victorians were horror struck that female choice was responsible for so much of evolution.

Even the hard-nosed materialists didn't want to admit that human intelligence evolved to attract women.

[Southack]

"Lacking any priors, the odds of something being 'designed' by a designer you would recognize as such is approximately zero."

I disagree. I fully recognize the designer of all transgenic animals. So do you.

http://www.accessexcellence.org/RC/AB/BA/casestudy3.html

Barnyard 101: An Introduction to Transgenic Farm Animals Commentary by Thomas M. Zinnen "We have the ability today to probably transform any cell type," said Carl Pinkert in his opening remarks to the Transgenic Animals in Agriculture conference held August 24-28 in Tahoe City, California.

"But it's not just transfer of the gene, it's gene function that's key," added Pinkert, a researcher at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He illustrated his point with a cartoon of two mice. The first asks, "How do you like my new genes?" The second replies with mores questions: "They're nice, but are they expressed? Are they regulated properly? Are they altered during inheritance?"

Pinkert noted that now nearly 20 years after the first transgenic animal scientists can answer those questions.

[ml1954]

I'm afraid the movers and shakers (like Rove) are asleep and have wide eyes wide shut on this.

[Doctor Stochastic]

What was the purpose of the Indonesian Tsunami?

[Southack]

"An an ID created man(kind). Right?"

That appears to be possible. We don't know, however.

[malakhi]

Apparently, neither do the cardiologists who whose papers come up when you Google "purpose of the heart".

We speak of the sun rising, when it really doesn't. And what is the "it" that rains?

Casual use aside, "purpose" does have a teleological connotation, and for the sake of precision should be avoided in a scientific context.