Specified complexity

[Roy]

Your friend's argument is so idiotic that I've had to reread 12 times to make sure I'm getting it correct.

You friend's argument, in a nutshell: "if crystals were something entirely different from crystals, and exactly like lifeforms, we would recognize them as lifeforms, therefor, there's no difference between crystals and lifeforms."

I have to say, in my many years of reading the Darwin vs. design debate, this might be the worst "argument" I've ever read.

Keep reading - I've seen much worse ones

[DayOneish]

Though these questions are so fundamental that they don't need articulating.

You nailed it, Lee.

Design detection is such a simple-yet-omnipresent concept, that a combination of observation and common sense is usually all it takes.

Of course, there are situations where the line between design and non-design can be blurry -- intentionally or not -- and more work is needed: detectives trying to distinguish between murder and a natural death, arson and a natural fire, etc. But, even in these situations, the fundamentals remain: looking for specified complexity that nature does not produce.

Here's something that's very telling . . .

Design detection is uncritically accepted in every single walk of life, except for biology, where all of a sudden the idea goes from uncritical acceptance, to being treated as heresy.

So, why is it that something so well-understood and uncritically accepted drives people crazy when it's applied to biology? Because it's viewed as a threat to ideology.

That's it. That's the entire controversy.

If these atheists, agnostics, and confused religious Darwinists just came out and said, "I reject intelligent design because it challenges my deeply-held beliefs" I could respect them. Instead, they choose to lie and come out with hundreds of terrible arguments to hide their ideological motivations. It's pathetic.

[HMS_Beagle]

The concept of specified complexity is incredibly simple.

It's many parts (complexity) arranged in a manner as to give that complexity meaning or function (specification).



If you're able to recognize the sandcastle in that picture, you're able to recognize specified complexity.

The artist has taken the sand on the beach -- complex, but unspecified -- and arranged it into a specific pattern, creating specified complexity.

Nature can produce very, very, very, very low levels of specified complexity -- basic fractals. However, the only known cause for high levels of specified complexity is intelligence, thus, when we find high levels of specified complexity, scientific reasoning says we must infer an intelligence.

Guess what has more specified complexity than any other structures in the known universe? Living systems. Life is library after library full of specified complexity, which acts as a programming language, controlling our develop and the operation of everything in our bodies, from the microscopic (cells) to macroscopic (limbs, organs, etc.).

And that, my friends, is the whole problem: there is a large group of people who don't want this to be true. It challenges their ideology. And so they fight it, tooth and nail, and come up with a lot of really bad excuses for why it can't be true.

Yet, it remains true.

Sorry but the whole concept of "specified complexity" is a worthless ad hoc argument dreamed up by religiously motivate ID pushers. SC depends on matching an existing, already known pattern to the complex item in question. You can do it with a sand castle because you've already seen other examples human designed sand castles. When it comes to biological entities and biological systems there is no "specification", nothing known you can pattern match to. It is well known iterative processes involving selection feedback (i.e. evolution) can produce amazingly complex features so mere complexity is not an indication of conscious Design. Claiming "function" is the specification is an after-the-fact worthless hand wave.

[HMS_Beagle]

Here's something that's very telling . . .

Design detection is uncritically accepted in every single walk of life, except for biology, where all of a sudden the idea goes from uncritical acceptance, to being treated as heresy.

In every other instance of design detection the detection is done by matching the unknown to a previous known to be designed pattern or artifact. Even SETI assumes alien intelligences will use the same modulation schemes for radio waves humans have developed. In biology you have no previous known example of "designed" life to compare too. That's why the IDiots tie themselves in knots trying to finagle some other way to show "Design".

No one in the real world uses the IDiot concept of "specified complexity" for anything. No one.

[Roy]

The concept of specified complexity is incredibly simple.

It's many parts (complexity) arranged in a manner as to give that complexity meaning or function (specification).



If you're able to recognize the sandcastle in that picture, you're able to recognize specified complexity.

The artist has taken the sand on the beach -- complex, but unspecified -- and arranged it into a specific pattern, creating specified complexity.

Nature can produce very, very, very, very low levels of specified complexity -- basic fractals. However, the only known cause for high levels of specified complexity is intelligence, thus, when we find high levels of specified complexity, scientific reasoning says we must infer an intelligence.

Guess what has more specified complexity than any other structures in the known universe? Living systems.

Oh dear.

First, DNA etc hasn't been arranged into a specific pattern, so claiming that life is full of specified complexity is suspect.

But there is an even bigger hole in your argument.

If living systems do contain specified complexity then there are two known causes of high levels of specified complexity: (human) intelligence and evolution.

Or, if you insist on rejecting evolution, there is a known cause of specified complexity and an unknown cause - and you can't simply claim that the unknown cause is the same as the known one.

Your argument, in a nutshell: Complex things we built were built (by us), so complex things we didn't build were built (by us)..
Expressed formally: X&Y -> Z => X -> Z.

I did say there were much worse arguments than the one by Seeker's friend that you objected to, but I didn't expect you to provide one, let alone so quickly.

[DayOneish]

Not true your sources betray you. The only staff at the Discovery Institute and AIG are Evangelical Fundamentalist Christians. 'Product of Intelligent Design' directly refers to Design that is outside nature that CANNOT be accounted for by NATURAL causes. More references to follow.

Actually, it doesn't. There are secular Jews and agnostics at the Discovery Institute.

In fact, their religious/ideological makeup is very similar to America's as a whole, which is exactly what you would expect from an organization with no ingrained bias.

The only bias here is the fact that you have a problem with an organization for not having an anti-religion bias.

As for what I.D. is, it's simple: the detection of design in biology, using methods which are uncritically accepted everywhere outside of biology.

If an I.D. proponent happens to believe the designer of living systems is God, that is their personal belief, and not an extension of the theory of I.D.



If you had better arguments, shunyadragon, you wouldn't have to lie all the time. Something worth considering.

[Roy]

If these atheists, agnostics, and confused religious Darwinists just came out and said, "I reject intelligent design because it challenges my deeply-held beliefs" I could respect them.

Intelligent design doesn't challenge my deeply-held beliefs. It insults my intelligence.

[TheLurch]

Nature can produce very, very, very, very low levels of specified complexity -- basic fractals. However, the only known cause for high levels of specified complexity is intelligence, thus, when we find high levels of specified complexity, scientific reasoning says we must infer an intelligence.

And I could just as easily declare the only know causes are intelligence and evolution.

The only difference? I'd have over a century of science backing up my position.

[HMS_Beagle]

Actually, it doesn't. There are secular Jews and agnostics at the Discovery Institute.

In fact, their religious/ideological makeup is very similar to America's as a whole, which is exactly what you would expect from an organization with no ingrained bias.

The only bias here is the fact that you have a problem with an organization for not having an anti-religion bias.

As for what I.D. is, it's simple: the detection of design in biology, using methods which are uncritically accepted everywhere outside of biology.

If an I.D. proponent happens to believe the designer of living systems is God, that is their personal belief, and not an extension of the theory of I.D.

If you had better arguments, shunyadragon, you wouldn't have to lie all the time. Something worth considering.

LOL! The Discovery Institute is a far right leaning religious think tank dedicated to pushing the Christian religion, nothing more. This was made abundantly clear in their "Wedge Document" which described the long term religious goals of the DI. For some reason the IDiots at the DI thought if they rebranded their version of Creationism "ID" and dropped the mention of the Christian God to get around the U.S. Constitution's Establishment Clause no one would notice. That strategy has failed miserably.

Oh, and there is no "theory of ID". There isn't even a testable hypothesis of ID. Right now ID is merely religiously motivated speculation completely unsupported with any empirical evidence.

[DayOneish]

Intelligent design doesn't challenge my deeply-held beliefs. It insults my intelligence.

You're an atheist. You have no intelligence to insult. Lol.

[HMS_Beagle]

You're an atheist. You have no intelligent to insult. Lol.

Yet you're the one pushing the brainless pseudo-science of ID.

[Roy]

Actually, it doesn't. There are secular Jews and agnostics at the Discovery Institute.

Berlinski might be one. Who are the others?

[Roy]

You're an atheist. You have no intelligent to insult. Lol.

[TheLurch]

I find the whole argument truly bizarre, because none of these protein complexes look designed to me. Don't know why, and i know that there are other people who do think they look designed. But it really does drive home that this is just a matter of personal opinion, rather than anything objective. Because, as you've seen, i can spend page after page asking for ways of making any of this objective, and get nothing in return.

[DayOneish]

In every other instance of design detection the detection is done by matching the unknown to a previous known to be designed pattern or artifact.

Which is exactly what I.D. does, yet you're so blinded by your ideology that you're unable to admit it.

If you want to lie to me, that's fine; I have no problem seeing through lies and calling people out for them. You really shouldn't lie to yourself, though. It's very unhealthy.

Even SETI assumes alien intelligences will use the same modulation schemes for radio waves humans have developed. In biology you have no previous known example of "designed" life to compare too. That's why the IDiots tie themselves in knots trying to finagle some other way to show "Design".

The genetic code, the foundation of life, is a literal programming language. I do believe humans have some experience working with programming languages.

The macromolecules of life are literal machines. I do believe humans have some experience working with machines.

So, yes, what we see in life is entirely comparable to the work of human intelligence.

In fact, there's such a strong overlap between biology and human design principle that the most cutting-edge fields of biology are almost exclusively rooted in engineering and information sciences.

Maybe you should contact MIT, Harvard, U.C. Berkley, etc., and inform them that there's no relation whatsoever between human design and biological design, and they should shut down their bio-engineering and bio-informatics courses.

There is one thing you're right about, yet ironically, it's actually further evidence for I.D.: human intelligence has never been able to engineer life from non-life. So, while life uses the same tools and principles we're familiar with, it uses them at a level which blows our scientists and engineers away. That's evidence for I.D., not against it. After all, if even brilliant men can't create life, there's no logical reason to believe a fortuitous chemical soup could. The designer-free explanation is incredibly weak, and since science is ultimate a competition of explanatory hypothesis, when one explanation is weakened, the alternative is simultaneously strengthened.



Folks, let's get real here: All of these poorly-thought-out anti-I.D. arguments are nothing more than flimsy excuses to justify rejecting it. You accept them, not because they are good arguments, but because the only alternative to accepting them is to admit defeat, and that's something ideologues can never do. If you gentleman don't start arguing in good faith and with reason and logic, I'm not even going to waste my time here.