A simple case for intelligent design

[gnostic]

I didn't assume complexity equals designed. I assumed maximal, theoretically near-infinite complexity, combined with the likelihood of most mutations to be not beneficial, and working against natural law/entropy, etc. equals designed. Then you said it's logical to look for complex aliens elsewhere using SETI, but not for any of them to have perhaps created life on Earth. I call that a double-standard.

It makes you "feel better" to constantly say I'm dishonest. What is bothering you so much that you need to assault my character to feel better?

There are huge differences between what SETI do and what Discovery Institute do, and they don't approach what they do in the same way.

It is true, that SETI scientists are searching for intelligent life out there, and they are searching for evidences, and not making premature announcement that they found such life without evidences.

The Discovery Institute on the other hand, is prematurely announcing the Designer to be true, without a single shred of evidence for the existence of this Designer.

And now here in the SETI program, do they ever remotely suggest that any intelligent life created life on Earth, so SETI is not proposing the same thing as what Discovery Institute is claiming about ID.

SETI is doing science, the Discovery Institute is not doing science.

You have learned a bloody thing at RF. No hypotheses and theories are true, until there are empirical and verifiable evidences, which there are none for ID and its Designer.

 

[BilliardsBall]

Good, so we now agree that given a "continuum", there need not be a crisis at some stage, by which a creature is unable to function. Yes?

You may call it a "just so" story if you like, but the logical point is made: if evolution proceeds in such a gradual manner, that disposes of your earlier objection that the creature cannot survive the changes.

So do we now need to go through the evolution from fish to tetrapod, or are you now happy that, if evolution proceeds by a "continuum" of small changes, there need not be any crisis for the organism as it changes?

If you are, then can I further take it that it is the gradual process that you do not believe?

I have no problem with certain gradual changes, where biblicists veer away is the change in taxonomic families (kinds). The temperature in the ocean changes about one degree in 24 hours, on land, it can change 50 degrees in the same time period:

1) What stimuli would cause an ocean creature to gradually develop thermoregulation on the level needed to survive on land, while it and its progeny remain at sea until it can indeed survive on land?
2) What attendant systems have to work along with thermoregulation besides availability of prey, endocrine regulation, respiratory, propagatory, circulatory, etc. and how did all these develop gradually while it was in the sea or occasionally on land?
3) What stimuli drove sea creatures to be on the land, gradually?
4) The above questions logically apply to amphibious creatures also...

 

[BilliardsBall]

I'm not shifting to a moral discussion, except insofar as reliance on lies for an argument is something that needs to be shown up. (I'm not calling you personally a liar of course. You are presumably just repeating in good faith what you have read somewhere, not knowing any better.)

In general, whole systems do indeed tend to higher entropy, which can, naively at least, be interpreted as "disorder" at the micro level. But that is beside the point, which is there are plenty of occasions in chemistry in which ordered structures form spontaneously. So "entropy" is neither here nor there in the debate about abiogenesis.

I understand--why do you think scientists have been unable to create all but a sub-sub-sub (sub-sub-sub!) strata of the most basic needs for abiogenesis, working in labs for a century?

 

[BilliardsBall]

Meaning, "null set".

 

[BilliardsBall]

There are huge differences between what SETI do and what Discovery Institute do, and they don't approach what they do in the same way.

It is true, that SETI scientists are searching for intelligent life out there, and they are searching for evidences, and not making premature announcement that they found such life without evidences.

The Discovery Institute on the other hand, is prematurely announcing the Designer to be true, without a single shred of evidence for the existence of this Designer.

And now here in the SETI program, do they ever remotely suggest that any intelligent life created life on Earth, so SETI is not proposing the same thing as what Discovery Institute is claiming about ID.

SETI is doing science, the Discovery Institute is not doing science.

You have learned a bloody thing at RF. No hypotheses and theories are true, until there are empirical and verifiable evidences, which there are none for ID and its Designer.

I didn't compare/contrast SETI and ID, though you seem to think very general statements are true of all SETI supporters and all ID supporters.

I merely pointed out your logical fallacy--"Let's search for hyper-intelligent life forms, who might respond and/or visit us as FTL speeds, but let's not presume we were designed, even though we seek aliens smart enough to have engineered life."

 

[SkepticThinker]

I didn't compare/contrast SETI and ID, though you seem to think very general statements are true of all SETI supporters and all ID supporters.

I merely pointed out your logical fallacy--"Let's search for hyper-intelligent life forms, who might respond and/or visit us as FTL speeds, but let's not presume we were designed, even though we seek aliens smart enough to have engineered life."

How is that a logical fallacy? Unless you think aliens designed humans.

 

[gnostic]

I didn't compare/contrast SETI and ID, though you seem to think very general statements are true of all SETI supporters and all ID supporters.

I merely pointed out your logical fallacy--"Let's search for hyper-intelligent life forms, who might respond and/or visit us as FTL speeds, but let's not presume we were designed, even though we seek aliens smart enough to have engineered life."

No intelligent aliens created life on Earth. That’s the type of pseudoscience craps you would find among ignorant ID proponents or over-imaginative but flawed sci-fi authors.

When scientists speak of one of the alternatives to abiogenesis starting naturally on Earth, there are those who speak of abiogenesis being formed from interstellar space objects.

They (scientists) do not speak of “intelligent aliens” that could designed and engineered life as proposed by you, and those idiots of Discovery Institute, but they do speak of organic compounds found in space, particularly found in meteorites.

With the discoveries of organic compounds (eg amino acids, xanthine, uracil, etc) found in the some large meteorites (eg the 1969 Murchison meteorite), it is quite possible that abiogenesis might have started from extraterrestrial organic compounds, because in the 1st billion years, the young Earth was being bombarded by meteorites. Earlier meteorites that might contained the same organic compounds as those found in the Murchison meteorite.

I have talked about amino acids before, being one of early compounds, needed in proteins, which could have occurred naturally on Earth and on meteorites, but I have never spoken of RNA and DNA.

RNA and DNA are not found in meteorites, but their base components were found, eg uracil (nucleobase for RNA) and xanthine (purine base, which are found in most animal tissues and fluid, including that of humans) were found among different organic compounds in the 2006 research of the Murchison meteorite.

Now I don’t know much of DNA and RNA, because I was never a biologist, but from what I have learned is that both nucleic acids are made of nucleotides.

The nucleotides are made of three components:

1. the carbon component found in carbon-based sugar (ribose and deoxyribose; it is either the ribose “R” or deoxyribose “D” that are prefixed to the nuceleic acid “NA”),
2. the nitrogen component found in the compounds known as nucleobase (there are 5 types of nucleobase, ie adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine and uracil, or represented by their respective 1st letters, thus A, G, C, T & U),
3. and the phosphate component, or the compound from the phosphate group.

It is these 3 basic organic compounds that needs to bond together to form the nucleotide for nucleic acids (ie RNA & DNA).

All nucleobases, except thymine, have been found in meteorites and can be replicated in experiments in the laboratory to mimic outer space condition.

My point is that organic compounds can be found in space, as the Murchison meteorite have shown (thus evidences), but it has nothing to do with “Intelligent DESIGNER” or intelligent aliens designing and engineering life.

 

[gnostic]

I didn't compare/contrast SETI and ID, though you seem to think very general statements are true of all SETI supporters and all ID supporters.

I merely pointed out your logical fallacy--"Let's search for hyper-intelligent life forms, who might respond and/or visit us as FTL speeds, but let's not presume we were designed, even though we seek aliens smart enough to have engineered life."

Btw

I wasn’t the one who brought up SETI program, you did. Or you must have confused me with someone else whom you were arguing with.

I have only mentioned SETI, because of your reply to me.

In any case, I highly doubt that any intelligent aliens travel to Earth. It is great for sci-fi novels, movies or TV shows, but the reality is that there are no such evidences of such ET visits.

The SETI project isn’t proposing such sci-fi fantasy.

The alien-based ID are just as ridiculous as the god-type ID or creationism. They are fictional with no basis in reality.

Is that where you got your ridiculous alien-based ID from? From sci-fi mass media or from Hollywood? LOL

 

[Bear Wild]

I understand--why do you think scientists have been unable to create all but a sub-sub-sub (sub-sub-sub!) strata of the most basic needs for abiogenesis, working in labs for a century?

The answer is size and time. The largest laboratory investigation in minute to the surface area of a planet even if you limit it to the areas of higher probability. The studies are also minimal in duration compared to the time frame of the earth. Greater the area of possible events coupled with longer times increases the probability of even unlikely events to occur. We just cannot appreciate the spaces available and the time duration in our limited view. Once formed however a self replicating system would expand rapidly. So unlikely events become more likely with increased chances over time.

 

[BilliardsBall]

The answer is size and time. The largest laboratory investigation in minute to the surface area of a planet even if you limit it to the areas of higher probability. The studies are also minimal in duration compared to the time frame of the earth. Greater the area of possible events coupled with longer times increases the probability of even unlikely events to occur. We just cannot appreciate the spaces available and the time duration in our limited view. Once formed however a self replicating system would expand rapidly. So unlikely events become more likely with increased chances over time.

Our size and time dramatically is decreased by applying intelligent design to the problem...

 

[BilliardsBall]

How is that a logical fallacy? Unless you think aliens designed humans.

You think super-intelligent aliens, who can fly FTL without injury or time dilation, etc. cannot engineer life, even though human scientists are trying to "ID" a duplication of abiogenesis?!

The point being there is nothing wrong with attempting to contact aliens who may have designed life. It's logical. Give up the double standard and anti-God bias!

 

[BilliardsBall]

No intelligent aliens created life on Earth. That’s the type of pseudoscience craps you would find among ignorant ID proponents or over-imaginative but flawed sci-fi authors.

When scientists speak of one of the alternatives to abiogenesis starting naturally on Earth, there are those who speak of abiogenesis being formed from interstellar space objects.

They (scientists) do not speak of “intelligent aliens” that could designed and engineered life as proposed by you, and those idiots of Discovery Institute, but they do speak of organic compounds found in space, particularly found in meteorites.

With the discoveries of organic compounds (eg amino acids, xanthine, uracil, etc) found in the some large meteorites (eg the 1969 Murchison meteorite), it is quite possible that abiogenesis might have started from extraterrestrial organic compounds, because in the 1st billion years, the young Earth was being bombarded by meteorites. Earlier meteorites that might contained the same organic compounds as those found in the Murchison meteorite.

I have talked about amino acids before, being one of early compounds, needed in proteins, which could have occurred naturally on Earth and on meteorites, but I have never spoken of RNA and DNA.

RNA and DNA are not found in meteorites, but their base components were found, eg uracil (nucleobase for RNA) and xanthine (purine base, which are found in most animal tissues and fluid, including that of humans) were found among different organic compounds in the 2006 research of the Murchison meteorite.

Now I don’t know much of DNA and RNA, because I was never a biologist, but from what I have learned is that both nucleic acids are made of nucleotides.

The nucleotides are made of three components:

1. the carbon component found in carbon-based sugar (ribose and deoxyribose; it is either the ribose “R” or deoxyribose “D” that are prefixed to the nuceleic acid “NA”),
2. the nitrogen component found in the compounds known as nucleobase (there are 5 types of nucleobase, ie adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine and uracil, or represented by their respective 1st letters, thus A, G, C, T & U),
3. and the phosphate component, or the compound from the phosphate group.

It is these 3 basic organic compounds that needs to bond together to form the nucleotide for nucleic acids (ie RNA & DNA).

All nucleobases, except thymine, have been found in meteorites and can be replicated in experiments in the laboratory to mimic outer space condition.

My point is that organic compounds can be found in space, as the Murchison meteorite have shown (thus evidences), but it has nothing to do with “Intelligent DESIGNER” or intelligent aliens designing and engineering life.

I love how intelligent and logical you are! But you have suspended logic here:

1) SETI should look for hyper-intelligent aliens who can communicate and/or travel at FTL speeds
2) Human scientists should use ID to recreate abiogenesis and/or create/alter life using genetics
3) There cannot possibly be aliens more intelligent or as intelligent who can create or design life

Hmmmm....

 

[SkepticThinker]

You think super-intelligent aliens, who can fly FTL without injury or time dilation, etc. cannot engineer life, even though human scientists are trying to "ID" a duplication of abiogenesis?!

Not sure when I said that. I haven't yet seen any evidence for the existence of "super-intelligent aliens." God either.

What I asked was how the statement was a logical fallacy. Care to address that?

The point being there is nothing wrong with attempting to contact aliens who may have designed life. It's logical. Give up the double standard and anti-God bias!

No, the point is, you said the statement, "Let's search for hyper-intelligent life forms, who might respond and/or visit us as FTL speeds, but let's not presume we were designed, even though we seek aliens smart enough to have engineered life," is a logical fallacy. I asked why. Even if someone did posit that aliens created us (and I'm not sure of any serious person making any such statement), the fact of the matter is that those aliens would still be physical beings in a physical universe and would exist within the realm of the natural world. It would still be a testable claim. However, I don't see anyone making such a claim.

 

[Bear Wild]

Our size and time dramatically is decreased by applying intelligent design to the problem...

Than makes no sense. All the evidence of the real world shows that there was an immense time for life to begin and evolve. There is no evidence of an intelligent design. All is explained by natural processes so creating something an intelligent design is unnecessary and completely unsupported.

 

[gnostic]

1) SETI should look for hyper-intelligent aliens who can communicate and/or travel at FTL speeds

You are so full of crap, BB.

You forget that you was the one who first brought up SETI, not me.

And you were the one brought up space travel, “at FTL”, not me.

Not once did I ever said the aliens were super-intelligent or hyper-intelligent. That’s just you, you using strawman repeatedly.

As to SETI.

If you looked at the history of SETI programs, it was to detect radio or EM signals. They construct radio telescopes to detect for these signals.

They are not investigating UFO sighting. And they are not saying aliens "designed" or "engineered" life on Earth.

No where did their program ever indicated that they were searching for aliens that could do space travel, let alone that they have visited Earth, EVER. They are not and have not been searching for any alien spaceship.

Do not confuse what SETI scientists have been doing with those UFO nuts, who fabricated stories of them being here on Earth, abducting and studying people.

All of these alien’s capabilities are coming from you, not from SETI. It just a bunch more of your ridiculous strawman.

You are confusing sci-fi stories with reality.

You say that I shouldn’t attack your character, or question your integrity and honesty, but you are clearly not honest person, when you use these strawman that you have fabricated in your posts, about things I have never wrote.

 

[gnostic]

2) Human scientists should use ID to recreate abiogenesis and/or create/alter life using genetics

The “human scientists” are not some invisible Designer or fictional ET aliens.

Abiogenesis is still work in progress hypothesis, and there are different groups searching for how life may have started on Earth.

1. Some are going for life started on Earth, through natural causes.
2. Others (scientists) are searching for the answers from space, where organic compounds or organic molecules were formed naturally in space, and brought to Earth from meteorites. They are not talking about your ridiculous hyper-intelligent aliens coming by ships with FTL capability.

The Miller-Urey experiment, first performed in 1952. Since then, there have been other experiments. And the M-U experiment has been successful, in turning inorganic chemical molecules into organic compounds, amino acids.

So the M-U experiment, and others that were successful, make abiogenesis falsifiable.

Evidences of organic compounds have already been found in meteorites. For example, the Murchison meteorite that crashed in 1969, they found more different amino acids (over one hundred) than that are normally found in life on Earth. This discovery make abiogenesis from space, not only possible and probable, but also make abiogenesis falsifiable.

But the evidences found, and the data collected, still haven’t narrowed down which one of these different versions of abiogenesis were more likely to happen.

None of these discoveries point to Designer of god or hyper-intelligent aliens creating life on Earth. And the falsifiable abiogenesis hypothesis have done far more than any of ID followers ever did.

Michael Behe made no discoveries of evidences that complexity means “design” and therefore a Designer. Nor does his pseudoscience and unfalsifiable Irreducible Complexity offer any methodology of performing experiments to get such answer that support ID.

And Behe is Discovery Institute’s biggest scientist. All Behe ever did, was just make a bunch of unfalsifiable assumptions about complexity equals to Design. And no one else at the Institute did any better than Behe.

 

[BilliardsBall]

Not sure when I said that. I haven't yet seen any evidence for the existence of "super-intelligent aliens." God neither.

What I asked was how the statement was a logical fallacy. Care to address that?


No, the point is, you said the statement, "Let's search for hyper-intelligent life forms, who might respond and/or visit us as FTL speeds, but let's not presume we were designed, even though we seek aliens smart enough to have engineered life," is a logical fallacy. I asked why. Even if someone did posit that aliens created us (and I'm not sure of any serious person making any such statement), the fact of the matter is that those aliens would still be physical beings in a physical universe and would exist within the realm of the natural world. It would still be a testable claim. However, I don't see anyone making such a claim.

You are saying these super-intelligent aliens, who could break physical laws, like FTL travel, obey only physical laws, based on your axiomatic, anti-supernatural illogical reasoning?

 

[BilliardsBall]

Than makes no sense. All the evidence of the real world shows that there was an immense time for life to begin and evolve. There is no evidence of an intelligent design. All is explained by natural processes so creating something an intelligent design is unnecessary and completely unsupported.

Hmm. "All is explained by natural processes" doesn't explain the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Although the Bible says we must EVOLVE to become NEW CREATIONS or perish...

 

[BilliardsBall]

You are so full of crap, BB.

You forget that you was the one who first brought up SETI, not me.

And you were the one brought up space travel, “at FTL”, not me.

Not once did I ever said the aliens were super-intelligent or hyper-intelligent. That’s just you, you using strawman repeatedly.

As to SETI.

If you looked at the history of SETI programs, it was to detect radio or EM signals. They construct radio telescopes to detect for these signals.

They are not investigating UFO sighting. And they are not saying aliens "designed" or "engineered" life on Earth.

No where did their program ever indicated that they were searching for aliens that could do space travel, let alone that they have visited Earth, EVER. They are not and have not been searching for any alien spaceship.

Do not confuse what SETI scientists have been doing with those UFO nuts, who fabricated stories of them being here on Earth, abducting and studying people.

All of these alien’s capabilities are coming from you, not from SETI. It just a bunch more of your ridiculous strawman.

You are confusing sci-fi stories with reality.

You say that I shouldn’t attack your character, or question your integrity and honesty, but you are clearly not honest person, when you use these strawman that you have fabricated in your posts, about things I have never wrote.

So, SETI is sending signals to those unable to respond or able to respond? For what purpose, do you think?

And why is it necessary for you to constantly insult my honesty? What is your purpose?

 

[BilliardsBall]

The “human scientists” are not some invisible Designer or fictional ET aliens.

Abiogenesis is still work in progress hypothesis, and there are different groups searching for how life may have started on Earth.

1. Some are going for life started on Earth, through natural causes.
2. Others (scientists) are searching for the answers from space, where organic compounds or organic molecules were formed naturally in space, and brought to Earth from meteorites. They are not talking about your ridiculous hyper-intelligent aliens coming by ships with FTL capability.

The Miller-Urey experiment, first performed in 1952. Since then, there have been other experiments. And the M-U experiment has been successful, in turning inorganic chemical molecules into organic compounds, amino acids.

So the M-U experiment, and others that were successful, make abiogenesis falsifiable.

Evidences of organic compounds have already been found in meteorites. For example, the Murchison meteorite that crashed in 1969, they found more different amino acids (over one hundred) than that are normally found in life on Earth. This discovery make abiogenesis from space, not only possible and probable, but also make abiogenesis falsifiable.

But the evidences found, and the data collected, still haven’t narrowed down which one of these different versions of abiogenesis were more likely to happen.

None of these discoveries point to Designer of god or hyper-intelligent aliens creating life on Earth. And the falsifiable abiogenesis hypothesis have done far more than any of ID followers ever did.

Michael Behe made no discoveries of evidences that complexity means “design” and therefore a Designer. Nor does his pseudoscience and unfalsifiable Irreducible Complexity offer any methodology of performing experiments to get such answer that support ID.

And Behe is Discovery Institute’s biggest scientist. All Behe ever did, was just make a bunch of unfalsifiable assumptions about complexity equals to Design. And no one else at the Institute did any better than Behe.

What did Behe actually discover regarding complexity, do you think? He talks about it in Black Box.