Theory of 'intelligent design' isn't ready for natural selection

The Seattle Times ^ | 6/3/2002 | Mindy Cameron

[medved]

Reep (VadeRepo) claims that God loves idiots...

Take flying birds for example; suppose you aren't one, and you want to become one.

You'll need a baker's dozen highly specialized systems, including wings, flight feathers, a specialized light bone structure, specialized flow-through design heart and lungs, specialized tail, specialized general balance parameters etc.

All of which probably co-evolve. If there's any co-dependency, then they're going to evolve together...

Right... In other words, you've got some dinosaur who never thought about flying and for some mystical reason, flight feathers with their complex matrix of interlocking barbules, the system for pivoting flight feathers, wings, light bone structures, and flowthrough hearts and lungs are all going to evolve at the same time.

That what you call logic there, Reep?

[Tench_Coxe]

"Insect wings and bird wings are physically different, and have different origins within the organism, but they are functionally similar."

I have to disagree to some extent on this. If you are saying only to the level that 'these different types of wings allow them to fly through the air', then you would be correct.

However, the aerodynamics involved does differ, the extreme example being that of your typical bird wing and the wings of a bumblebee, which, up until recently, was thought to have violated the basic principle of aerodynamics.

[Heartlander]

The argument was based upon something that man had never seen before – as if man had never seen a watch. You have read Dawkins?

[BMCDA]

Now, if the springs and gears interacted in similar ways with each other as do atoms and molecules then I'd say yes but since this is not the case...

[PatrickHenry]

We're just not communicating very well. Let's end it with the realization that we've had a total, across-the-board disagreement.

[Heartlander]

Free will...

[Tench_Coxe]

"Actually, engineering isn't science and isn't the scientific method. Science is about developing and testing new hypotheses. Engineering is the application of science, a very different discipline."

I'm sorry, this takes the insult of the day prize. Engineering not only requires a solid grounding in the scientific method, but also involves formulating hypothesis, and testing it( just attend some classes in heat transfer, fluid dynamics, or electrodynamics ). ACtually, most of what I hear representing the arguments of the 'soft science' folks here is a very cavalier application of the scientific method.

[Heartlander]

Intelligent Design is not Optimal Design

[Tribune7]

Ethics," writes Ayn Rand, "is an objective, metaphysical necessity of man's survival"

But if man is not spiritually different than any other animal why should this be the case? Other creatures survive without our Western Judeo-Christian, property respecting, life respecting, take-care-of-the-old-and-ill ethics. Why should we need them to survive?

[ConsistentLibertarian]

This is a stunning confusion. First, who disagrees with the claim that a species that is ill equipped to deal will suffer or change? Are you suggesting that if murder is wrong, that claim is false? You'd _have_ to be making that inference if you think that the truth of the claim entails that murder is not wrong. This is a monster howler. You've got to at least get straight on the difference between saying "if X, then Y _will_ happen" and "If X, the Y _should_ happen". This is an important point for your own mental hygiene. Get it, grok it, repent.

[Tribune7]

Good link

[Sabertooth]

The scientist would obviously be wrong and by attempting to make others believe his illogical theory – would be immoral.

Is it immoral to be mistaken and persuasive?

[Doctor Stochastic]

...then he would have to conclude that zebras, for example, would be more "complex" (perhaps in some unspecified manner that Darwin could not foresee) in 2002 than they were in 1830.

This is a rather blatant misstatement of evolutionary theory. Evolutionary theory makes no predictions about the evolution of any species. Likewise your time scale is far too short. Such short times are not predicted by evolutionary theory.

[Doctor Stochastic]

...Darwinism was one of the foundations of Nazism.

Time to invoke Godwin's law. A the first user of the term "Nazi" in an internet discussion, you are declaried the loser.

[Sabertooth]

Other creatures survive without our Western Judeo-Christian, property respecting, life respecting, take-care-of-the-old-and-ill ethics. Why should we need them to survive?

We don't, outside of an inclination against cannibalism.

Yet man seems to prefer moral explanations. Why do you suppose that is?

[Heartlander]

Is it immoral to be mistaken and persuasive?

Good question. I would say it’s a matter of heart – that is, ‘is it intentional?’ Beyond that, it’s not to say that one has ‘never’ questioned the existence of some kind of Intelligent Designer. It becomes a problem when the question is not allowed.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

OK, lets work with that analogy. It will help you get straight on some basic concepts, like the relation between observation and theory. Question: What must be true in order for an observation to count as evidence in favor of a theory? Answer: The conditional probability of the observation given the theory must be greater than the conditional probability of the observation given the denial of the theory. (Bayesians: I'm on your side, but Paley's argument seems to presuppose Edwards Likelihood Principle so let's play along for the sake of agrument.) Apply that to the watch example: The conditional probability of finding a watch given that there was a designer is greater than the conditional probability of finding a watch given that there was no designer. So far so good? OK, now apply that principle to the present case. Paley didn't have the wealth of observation to work with that we have now. So he might be making a reasonable inference from the information available to him and _still_ be as wrong as people in the 3rd century BC who inferred the world was flat because gosh darn it looked flat. Observation: There are structural similarities between creatures that have no functional explanation. Ie two legged and four legged mammals have the same skeletal structure. Apply the likelihood principle. Is the conditional probability of this observation greater assuming the truth of intelligent design or is it greater assuming that two legged and four legged animals have a common ancestor?

[Sabertooth]

Science can't deal with the supernatural or the spiritual, because such matters are not capable of being accurately and verifiably observed and tested. There is not a trace of morality or immorality involved. Science does only what it can do. Theology deals with the supernatural and the miraculous.

Well said.

[Sabertooth]

I would say it’s a matter of heart – that is, ‘is it intentional?’

Then how can your sincerely mistaken, watch-finding scientist be immoral?