Posted on 02/19/2002 2:59:38 PM PST by Cameron
Not really. The 2nd applies to a closed system. For an open system it only identifies a probable trend, and that's almost useless for what we're discussing.
"Does it make any predictions at all?" - Virginia-American
Post #192 has already addressed that question decisively. Please read the entire thread so that redunduncy can be kept to a minimum.
"What would be a good way to distinguish the hypotheses?" - Virginia-American
A good way would be to see evidence in the lab of DNA self-forming (i.e. Evolution or Abiogenesis) or being formed by Man (i.e. an Intelligent Designer), but I wouldn't be so bold as to claim that that is the only way to distinguish the two (although I'll leave other examples up to you).
How nice. Evolution does proceed exceedingly rapidly by means of natural selection. It proceeds even more rapidly under the influence of artificial selection. It all depends on the selection pressure. ID does not predict rapid speciation, it predicts instantaneous speciation. There is absolutely no evidence of this. The fossil record, as sketchy as it is, contains abundant precursor species for almost every known life form.
"The sheer existence of Punctuated Equilibrium as a replacement theory to Darwin's Evolution demonstrates that it was Darwinism which failed the first scientific test, not Intelligent Design." -- Southack
Darwin published in 1859. Natural selection is still the primary means by which changes become fixed in a population. The questions that Darwin didn't answer have occupied researchers since 1859 to such an extent that today evolution stands as the single most thoroughly documented fact known to man. Uniformitarianism gives way to Catastrophism as the defining factor explaining abrupt changes in the fossil record.
"Yet you rule out Intelligent Design as impossible because you say that it fails all scientific tests. That's ridiculous, as I can show you Life form variants that have already been created by Intelligent Design (e.g. growing human organs in pigs)." -- Southack
ID is impossible as a source of variation in the organisms that have lived on this planet up until now. Does that clear it up for you?
ID done the way we do it now requires tools. If you are going to say that ID is possible because we do it, then you are basing your argument on the methods we use. Where is the historical evidence (clearly necessary on a massive scale) of the Class A Recombinant DNA facilities that have been continuously in operation for the last 3.5 million years or so?
"That doesn't mean a thing. We still see Base-4 programming in DNA because we see four different codons (A, C, G, and T). Whether or not all possibilities of combinations and permutations of Base-4 are used changes nothing." -- Southack
No, of course not. You are absolutely right, eh eh. Say, would you care to join me in a friendly game of high stakes poker?
Perhaps it would be the same sort of intelligence that would put ancient CP/M code in the kernal to Windows NT
Perhaps there's a Designer, and perhaps he codes like a person rather than a Deity, and perhaps...
Perhaps Occam had a point.
So you claim ID first predicted fast speciation. Where? Genesis?
Intelligent Design was born late last month and didn't scoop punctuated equilibrium on anything, unless you're buying off on ID = creationism. Not that I don't think it is, but part of the ID mantra is "Creationism is a strawman!"
The punctuated equilibrium model still says Thing A comes from similar Thing B in fairly smooth steps. (If you can find where to dig for the smooth steps, assuming they even got fossilized.) It can cite evidence from the fossil record that things do happen that way.
Note that in the preceding examples, you can see the changes happening smoothly in one place, whereas they appear abruptly everywhere else (from migration). It makes sense and requires no assumption of supernatural elements.
Which is what ID-er's don't like about it. ID isn't about explaining anything any better. It's about getting rid of those nasty naturalistic explanations.
I don't see where ID offers comparably testable or already-supported content.
Merely stating that life is Intelligently Designed makes at least two predictions -- intelligence and design. In order for these predictions to have any meaning in the physical world, where we are unfortunately condemned to conduct the entirety of our investigation, the evidence must be physical. Otherwise, we may just as well call the Intelligent Designer by the name, God, and be done with it.
Because ID really is just a surrogate for the god of Genesis, the ID proponents generally don't care to make testable predictions. However, some have been made in the vain hope that they will pan out. Irreducible complexity is one such prediction. It depends largely on an argument to incredulity. They point to some complex organism, chemical pathway, appendage, etc. and pronounce it as irreducibly complex and therefore impossible to exist unless designed by a higher intelligence. Then some humble journeyman chemist or anatomist works out the details and explains the thing so everybody (with the possible exception of the ID guy) sees how really simple and reducible it actually is. This doesn't stop the ID guy from trying. Meanwhile everybody else has abandoned even investigating irreducible complexity claims from the little boys that cry "Wolf."
Right. Because the premise [man designs things] has zero rational relationship to your conclusion [therefore somebody designed our DNA].
"Right. Because the premise [man designs things] has zero rational relationship to your conclusion [therefore somebody designed our DNA]." PatrickHenry
One does not follow the other. You agree with the facts but then say that said agreement has no bearing on the conclusion (which, to be accurate, is that some intelligent process could have designed DNA).
The premise is that an intelligent process can design DNA. If this premise is false, then Intelligent Design is falsified and we move on to other theories. If the premise is not false, then the theory is scientifically valid and worthy of further scientific study.
Can an intelligent process program DNA?
If so, then there is more than one game in town...
"How nice. Evolution does proceed exceedingly rapidly by means of natural selection. It proceeds even more rapidly under the influence of artificial selection. It all depends on the selection pressure. ID does not predict rapid speciation, it predicts instantaneous speciation. There is absolutely no evidence of this. The fossil record, as sketchy as it is, contains abundant precursor species for almost every known life form."
Precursor species are merely earlier examples of speciation. All that we have in our physical evidence archives are examples of complete species. The fossil record shows distinct, quantum (meaning smallest finite, not physics) steps of change.
That evidence is entirely in line with instantaneous speciation, which is what Intelligent Design predicts.
I can imagine an intelligent process which could create the earth, the sun, and even the whole galaxy. There are numerous science fiction tales along such lines. So what? Wild imaginings don't mean that one has stumbled onto a serious scientific hypothesis. Again I say (and probably for the last time because the earlier statements didn't register at all) you have no evidence for such a designer. All that you have is the undisputed fact that man can design things, but you have no evidence of some creature prior to man who did the designing that you claim was done.
"Darwin published in 1859. Natural selection is still the primary means by which changes become fixed in a population. The questions that Darwin didn't answer have occupied researchers since 1859 to such an extent that today evolution stands as the single most thoroughly documented fact known to man. Uniformitarianism gives way to Catastrophism as the defining factor explaining abrupt changes in the fossil record. "
Darwin said that Evolutionary change happens slowly. He was wrong. To counter his error, Evolutionists derived the new Punctuated Equilibrium theory of Evolution, which says that change happens very fast.
Are you familiar with Punctuated Equilibrium, and if so, can you explain why it was needed if Darwinism was correct in the first place?
By the way, "natural selection" only works on existing populations. Natural Selection does not directly inject creativity into the Evolutionary process, which is why mutations are a necessary degree of freedom for Darwinism.
That's not a valid scientific viewpoint. A scientist needs to ask if a theory is possible, can be falsified, and can be repeated if true.
Can an Intelligent process program DNA? If no, then the theory is falsified. If yes, then the theory is possible. Can it be repeated if true? Gene-splicing says yes.
From this information can we discern any information about the composition of that Intelligent process? Perhaps only that it was/is slightly more clever than Man's current state of technology and knowledge today. The quest for any more conclusions further along those lines would probably all be fruitless due to a lack of data. That seems to be your focus, to point the debate into that fruitless region to distract from your own theory's shortcomings (such as repeatable processes for DNA self-forming in the lab, which Evolution does not have).
Not even close. Camels and Llamas have been successfully interbred. This shoots down your theory in one big hurry.
Related species share common DNA. The closer the relationship, the more common DNA. All life on the planet is related both phylogenetically and immediately through the agency of viral transduction. For bacteria you can add plasmid exchange.
When are you going to comprehend the meaning of this ability to produce novel combinations of genes in generation after generation for ages and ages? Your hypothetical Intelligent Designer would be hard pressed to get a word in edgewise.
Intelligent Design makes a prediction by definition. Designers introduce new models in quantum steps, such as new car models each year. Applying this prediction to the fossil record means that Intelligent Design predicts that the fossil record will show rapid speciation. That happens to be the same prediction made by the current preferred replacement to Darwinism: Punctuated Equilibrium.
It also seems to align rather well with the actual known fossil evidence.
"Not even close. Camels and Llamas have been successfully interbred. This shoots down your theory in one big hurry."
On the contrary, at best that demonstrates a rapid speciation event, precisely what Intelligent Design predicts.
Cross-breeding is a poor digression for this debate, by the way. By definition, the very first species of life had no other species to cross-breed with, so the second species had to either self-form (Evolution) or be created (Intelligent Design). No cross-breeding was possible at that time, so when trying to discern how those first and second species were formed, it makes no scientific sense to pursue lines of thought that can not by definition apply (e.g. cross-breeding).
Then you haven't been paying attention to modern science. Would you dare claim that human organs are growing in laboratory pigs due to unaided, natural Evolution, after all?!
Clearly Intelligent Design is supported by testable content by merely looking at such human/pig lab experiments wherein Man has used gene-splicing.
If you want to see where Intelligent Design offers testable and already supported content, then look first in modern scientific labs. The pigs are there.
Evolution?
Can you name the physical evidence that we have in hand in which an Intelligent process has Designed DNA?
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