Snowflakes....designed or accidents of nature?

[Shadow Wolf]

Your argument is a double-edged sword, and I'd argue the edge pointing at your view is much sharper than the edge pointing at mine. Let's not forget, the overwhelming majority of evolutionary biology comes down to patterns: Patterns in the fossil record, patterns in morphology, patterns in genomes, etc. -- patterns which allegedly show relatedness, gradual change, and common descent. Shall we apply your critique to it?

"Evolution's not real; it's just our pattern-seeking brains looking for meaning where there is none."

Works for me.

There is a very big difference between finding patterns and having firm evidence. We don't find patterns in the fossil layer because it is what it is. We do not have to speculate to see that life has evolved over the eons because we have proof. We can see how genetic replication occurs without letting our human brains try to fill in the gaps.
When you say "when I look out in the world and see" you are seeing patterns, and speculating without evidence. When you say "I am examining the evidence," you are looking at what we have, things that definitely exist, and putting them together as they fit into the larger picture. There is speculation, but the scientific method makes it very possible, and very easy, to rearrange the pieces when we have found a piece that makes the other pieces fit together better (which is not likely to happen with evolution given we have a heaping mountain of evidence to support it). When you say there is a designer, you have no solid evidence, and it is really no different than trying to say there is a face in the clouds. You may be convinced there is a face there, but there is no way to objectively state this as a fact as there is no way to actually prove there is a face there.

 

[`mud]

I am waiting for the answer to the question as to what contained the singularity ?
What was it's container made from ?
What did it inflate into ?
Where was the gravity ?
And on and on and on.....
~
'mud

 

[outhouse]

Let's not forget, the overwhelming majority of evolutionary biology comes down to patterns

Yes factual patterns.

Evolutionary biology comes down to facts.

 

[Ouroboros]

I am waiting for the answer to the question as to what contained the singularity ?
What was it's container made from ?
What did it inflate into ?
Where was the gravity ?
And on and on and on.....
~
'mud

A singularity is its own container. There can't be something outside of it since then that would be part of the singularity as well. A singularity would be singular, solo, alone in existence.

It doesn't inflate into something either since there's nothing to inflate into, i.e. it inflates into nothing.

The gravity is perhaps caused by the very fabric of it all, the Higgs field. Like a mesh tying it all together.

 

[outhouse]

Question for the design-deniers: Do you believe it's possible, if only in theory, to detect design within living organisms and/or the cosmos, and if so, how?

I am waiting for the answer to the question as to what contained the singularity ?
What was it's container made from ?
What did it inflate into ?
Where was the gravity ?
And on and on and on.....
~
'mud

Lest put this into something you can chew on for a bit.

A black hole is a singularity.

Imagine if a supermassive black hole expanded into what is known today.

It inflated into our universe
it was the container
The gravity was there from the beginning of the black holes formation

And on and on? great questions.

 

[outhouse]

Question for the design-deniers

Question for those who follow design.

Where are the facts? You have ZERO

Where is any evidence at all? You have ZERO

Why do you go against the biblical accounts in full? To the world, it looks like the biblical accounts have been shown to be mythology, and in a desperate attempt to keep your particular god in the picture "design" was made up whole cloth.

 

[Jared Jammer]

No.

Here are three number series:

23482437520957109347239457823094837092487134908945872359031847394572957

57931579939935157624688086024687573717399774610103887005111010010019871

01001000100001000001000000100000001000000001000000000100000000001000000

Can you tell which one of these were designed? And which one is not? One is a mathematical sequence. One is handpicked numbers by me that I just liked at the moment (designed). And one was number I randomly clicked on the keyboard. Now, it should be obvious which one is which. So which one is designed? A, B, or C, and give a reason.

And here are 10 more sequences. Can you say which one is designed and which one is random?

085784383827967976681454100953883786360950680064225125205117392984896084128488 626945604241965285022210661186306744278622039194945047123713786960956364371917 287467764657573962413890865832645995813390478027590099465764078951269468398352 595709825822620522489407726719478268482601476990902640136394437455305068203496 252451749399651431429809190659250937221696461515709858387410597885959772975498 930161753928468138268683868942774155991855925245953959431049972524680845987273 644695848653836736222626099124608051243884390451244136549762780797715691435997 700129616089441694868555848406353422072225828488648158456028506016842739452267 467678895252138522549954666727823986456596116354886230577456498035593634568174 324112515076069479451096596094025228879710893145669136867228748940560101503308

Spoiler: Answer:

A) Random
B) Handpicked, i.e. designed
C) Algorithm.

The following 10 number sequences: All based on mathematical algorithm. None design, nor random. They're all picked from sequences in π.

Weak argument.

Designers can intentionally (and unintentionally) create things which don't look designed. That's a yawn-worthy revelation.

The question is, can designers create things which cannot be replicated by nature, and if so, what things?

 

[Ouroboros]

Weak argument.

Weak response.

Designers can intentionally (and unintentionally) create things which don't look designed. That's a yawn-worthy revelation.

Then that's your answer. Your question was if it's possible to recognize design, and you admit here that a design could be designed so it doesn't look like it, and a non-design can look like it was designed (like the algorithms).

So it's not a weak argument since you actually are agreeing with it.

The question is, can designers create things which cannot be replicated by nature, and if so, what things?

All things that are natural are natural. If it can't be replicated by nature, then it's not part of nature. Genes are natural. Take DNA for instance, it stands for deoxyribonucleic acid. It's the name for its chemical composition. It contains sugar (a molecule), nucleotides (which are molecules), and phosphate. All these things are natural. Constantly in your body, the DNA is replicated into new cells, by biochemical processes that have been studied for decades. Nature is producing these new strands and copies of DNA. It's a natural process. Life produces life. Life is natural. So to answer your question, nature is the designer.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Designers can intentionally (and unintentionally) create things which don't look designed. That's a yawn-worthy revelation.

This is doubtful. I have yet to see anything that would support this claim.

The question is, can designers create things which cannot be replicated by nature, and if so, what things?

I've not seen nature replicate a computer.

 

[outhouse]

The question is, can designers create things which cannot be replicated by nature, and if so, what things?

Mythology

 

[outhouse]

I've not seen nature replicate a computer.

Human brain

 

[Jared Jammer]

There is a very big difference between finding patterns and having firm evidence.

Your firm evidence is finding patterns.

We don't find patterns in the fossil layer because it is what it is.

You find patterns in the fossil record because you find patterns in the fossil record.

How do you know these patterns are real, and not merely your pattern-seeking brain playing tricks on you? Humans do tend to suffer from confirmation bias, you know.

Could it be that the people who are finding these patterns in the fossil record are finding exactly what it is they set out to find? How do we know these patterns are real, rather than confirmation bias causing us to impose our desired pattern on the fossil record?

We do not have to speculate to see that life has evolved over the eons because we have proof.

You have patterns. You believe these patterns to be proof.

We can see how genetic replication occurs without letting our human brains try to fill in the gaps.

Yes, we can directly observe genetic replication. What we directly observe are organisms producing fundamentally identical organisms. Does that gel with the patterns you're finding in the fossil record?

When you say "when I look out in the world and see" you are seeing patterns, and speculating without evidence.

Empiricism is not evidence? Since when?

When you say "I am examining the evidence," you are looking at what we have, things that definitely exist, and putting them together as they fit into the larger picture.

In other words: You're taking the data (observations) and fitting it into . . . patterns.

There is speculation, but the scientific method makes it very possible, and very easy, to rearrange the pieces when we have found a piece that makes the other pieces fit together better (which is not likely to happen with evolution given we have a heaping mountain of evidence to support it).

All I see are more and more patterns.

When you say there is a designer, you have no solid evidence, and it is really no different than trying to say there is a face in the clouds. You may be convinced there is a face there, but there is no way to objectively state this as a fact as there is no way to actually prove there is a face there.

What if there actually was a face in the cloud? Why wouldn't we be able to objectively and scientifically conclude that, yes, there is a face in the clouds?

 

[Ouroboros]

Human brain

Funny thing this word "computer". It was used to describe humans who did computing in the 17th century up to 19th century or so. I saw a documentary once about Charles Babbage, the inventor of the first programmable mechanical computer, and he was a "computer". He did sin/cos/tan and sqr tables and such. Tedious job following the steps to calculate each number. That was probably the reason why he came up with the difference engine and analytical engine.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Weak argument.

Designers can intentionally (and unintentionally) create things which don't look designed. That's a yawn-worthy revelation.

So, you're saying that design is an untestable hypothesis, since no observation or evidence can refute it?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Human brain

The human brain may seem like a computer, but even the best programmers have failed to replicate the complexity of the human brain, and nature has not created a device of pure logic (that we know of anyways) that is bound to operate within a certain parameter of functions that only allow for logical processes.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

You find patterns in the fossil record because you find patterns in the fossil record.

Genius.

How do you know these patterns are real, and not merely your pattern-seeking brain playing tricks on you? Humans do tend to suffer from confirmation bias, you know.

It'd take a little more than cognitive bias for millions of years worth of fossilized remains to order themselves in the geological strata in such a formation that they fit perfectly with evolutionary predictions. The whole point of the scientific method is to weed out cognitive biases and examine the facts and what they tell us objectively. What they tell us is that, many years ago, most - or all - of the species that currently exist on earth didn't yet exist, but instead there existed very similar organisms which show subtle but distinct variance in morphology, and that when we descend further into the geological strata we find they they cease appearing and are replaced by organisms similar to them, and so on. There is no way "confirmation bias" can place fossils in the geological strata.

Could it be that the people who are finding these patterns in the fossil record are finding exactly what it is they set out to find?

It very well could be. It's called a "successful prediction". "If X is true, we would expect to find Y". Finding Y therefore indicates the truth of X. For example, if evolution is true, we would expect to find the fossils of organisms laid out in the geological strata from oldest to newest showing a gradual progression towards contemporary species from other, simpler organisms. Lo and behold, this is exactly what we find. If evolution were not true, this specific ordering of fossils would simply make no sense. What's more, if evolution weren't true, proving it using the fossil record alone with be trivial - all you would need to do is find a single fossil of a contemporary species alongside its supposed evolutionary ancestor (say, for example, a rabbit fossil earlier than the supposed evolutionary origin of mammals).

How do we know these patterns are real, rather than confirmation bias causing us to impose our desired pattern on the fossil record?

For the same reason that when you dig up a large rock, observe it, classify it, date it and show it to thousands of other rock-diggers, it can be pretty safe to assume that the rock is not figment of your imagination.

Yes, we can directly observe genetic replication. What we directly observe are organisms producing fundamentally identical organisms.

Wrong. What we see are organisms producing copies of themselves with slight variation.

 

[outhouse]

Humans do tend to suffer from confirmation bias, you know.

Yes. Many theist are guilty of refusing facts. You do.

Evolution is now fact. You just personally refuse to accept the facts at hand.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Your firm evidence is finding patterns.

Finding patterns is not looking at evidence. Looking at evidence is not finding patterns. You can find patterns once you have evidence, but evidence is concrete. Patterns only exist because we can "find" them.

You find patterns in the fossil record because you find patterns in the fossil record.

The fossil record isn't a pattern though. It is a record of past life on earth.

What we directly observe are organisms producing fundamentally identical organisms

Organisms are not the only things that reproduce. Even with cellular reproduction, if the results of genetic replication were always fundamentally identical to the prior generation, mutations could not happen, there would be no cancer, and we would all be perfect 50/50 blends of our parents. But this "fundamentally identical organism" is, quite simple, impossible as the strand of DNA itself is radically altered from reproduction, and if even it somehow manages to reproduce a 100% reproduction of itself, the telomeres become shorter with each generation, thus causing fundamentally different offspring generation. If reproduction reproduced fundamentally identical results, aging itself would not happen.

 

[Jared Jammer]

Then that's your answer. Your question was if it's possible to recognize design, and you admit here that a design could be designed so it doesn't look like it, and a non-design can look like it was designed (like the algorithms).

So it's not a weak argument since you actually are agreeing with it.

The thrust of the question was obvious from the context of the discussion, yet you took the easy way out. Rather than giving me a concrete example of a (proven) product of nature indistinguishable from an advanced product of intelligent design, you settled for lowly numbers (on a side note, your random number is actually a design; you intentionally crafted it with the goal of making it appear non-designed -- it was designed to look non-designed).

Further, despite taking the low road, you still didn 't adequately address the question. Let me repeat it.

Question for the design-deniers: Do you believe it's possible, if only in theory, to detect design within living organisms and/or the cosmos, and if so, how?

You've given me one low-brow example of what you believe to be "no." Do you believe this one low-brow example is all-encompassing? That because we may not be able to distinguish between a non-designed short string of numbers and a designed short string of numbers, that we can never distinguish between non-design and design?

Also, algorithms behave according to man-made rules. Any outcome of an algorithm is, thus, a product of design.

All things that are natural are natural. If it can't be replicated by nature, then it's not part of nature. Genes are natural. Take DNA for instance, it stands for deoxyribonucleic acid. It's the name for its chemical composition. It contains sugar (a molecule), nucleotides (which are molecules), and phosphate. All these things are natural. Constantly in your body, the DNA is replicated into new cells, by biochemical processes that have been studied for decades. Nature is producing these new strands and copies of DNA. It's a natural process. Life produces life. Life is natural. So to answer your question, nature is the designer.

Ah . . . the, "all things which exist are natural" argument. The beauty of this argument is that it refutes the claim that intelligent design requires the supernatural. If intelligent design is true, then life's designer would have to exist (or existed), and if life's designer exists (existed), then life's designer is/was natural.

So, are we in agreement that intelligent design does not require the so-called "supernatural?"

 

[Ouroboros]

The thrust of the question was obvious from the context of the discussion, yet you took the easy way out. Rather than giving me a concrete example of a (proven) product of nature indistinguishable from an advanced product of intelligent design, you settled for lowly numbers (on a side note, your random number is actually a design; you intentionally crafted it with the goal of making it appear non-designed -- it was designed to look non-designed).

Which answers your question. You are answering your own questions.

Further, despite taking the low road, you still didn 't adequately address the question. Let me repeat it.

Question for the design-deniers: Do you believe it's possible, if only in theory, to detect design within living organisms and/or the cosmos, and if so, how?

And my answer is still No. Based on the simple reason that a random number that looks organized and designed is indistinguishable from a intentionally randomized number that is designed.

You've given me one low-brow example of what you believe to be "no." Do you believe this one low-brow example is all-encompassing? That because we may not be able to distinguish between a non-designed short string of numbers and a designed short string of numbers, that we can never distinguish between non-design and design?

If you really think about it, then you can see the answer. Rude responses won't really get you anywhere.

Also, algorithms behave according to man-made rules. Any outcome of an algorithm is, thus, a product of design.

So pi is designed to be the relationship between radius and circumference?

Ah . . . the, "all things which exist are natural" argument. The beauty of this argument is that it refutes the claim that intelligent design requires the supernatural. If intelligent design is true, then life's designer would have to exist (or existed), and if life's designer exists (existed), then life's designer is/was natural.

So, are we in agreement that intelligent design does not require the so-called "supernatural?"

Correct. Nature and God are identical.