IAP Political Forum

I have long puzzled about why it is that materialists don't regard any inquiry that contradicts the idea that random assembly (with or without constraints) can account for all we observe as science.  As I continue to listen and read the objections offered it is becoming clearer. 

To a materialist, the purpose of scientific inquiry is to determine how things came to be within the framework of material mechanisms only.  Any inquiry into causation outside materialism is by default not scientific. Therefore the only valid modes of explanation available to scientists in their mind is necessity and chance or a combination of both.  Nothing else is allowed because by their definition, it cannot be science.

There are two very serious problems with this. 

The first is that there are many items and events in our natural world that contain characteristics that have never been shown capable of being generated by random and constrained chance processes.  Information is one of the best and easily identified examples.  The materialist has never been able to demonstrate that high levels of information can be generated by materialistic processes but the materialist assumes this is the case and instead looks for evidence to support the assumption. The materialist calls this pursuit of evidence in support of an assumption science.  Meanwhile discoveries that disconfirm the assumption are not treated as evidence.

The second problem is what happens if material processes is not the answer to items and events.  In this case the materialist will never discover the answer. 

Is the materialist suggesting that discovery of truth is not the purpose of science?  That instead the purpose of science is to confirm the philosophy of materialism?

You post what materialists think.  How do you know this?

That's exactly why Philosophy exists -to deal with questions whose answer can't be found through Science. Anyway, the good thing with science is that you don't need to do everything here and now. What today is a mistery may be resolved tomorrow. That we don't know today means that we must keep researching the material world for an answer, not that it's time to give up a material explanation.

Science is not ultimate, Science is not absolute, Science is not complete and Science is not infalible. BUT, it expands continuously and haves a incorporated correction device that makes it as perfect as we humanly can achieve to make it. Science is humble but developing. And it's the best tool we got to understand material reality.

(Some people claim that there is a reality beyond material reality. But then that's not Science but Philosophy, or maybe Theology)

I explained it here:

So you are using subjective personal experience.  Thank you for the clarification.

 

I find that statement outrageous.   Philosophy as a study predated exclusion of any non-materialistic explanation in science.

Far better would be to allow all modes of explanation and to pursue the evidence wherever it leads you.  Why abandon scientific inquiry when the mode of explanation does not suite your philosophy?  This is what the materialist is insisting be done.


How is science hurt by allowing all modes of explanation?  It would be more complete and better able to explain evidence.


Indeed but note that this is not what I am advocating for.

Non material explanation is not Science. ::)

Right. The question is why not. I see science as embracing the rule of law, if something doesn't follow the laws we know it is evidence of other material laws we don't know yet. If (god forbid) it was proved that the FSM was really pushing things down, he'd be found to be following some rules in the way he made that happen, and science would investigate those rules.

Not correct. Intentional design follows known laws and yet design is not a materialistic process.  Deducing or inferring that something was designed is not a violation of any physical law or theorem.  This cannot be a valid reason to exclude design.  If something was designed then but we don't know how it was designed or by whom it was designed how is that any different than your appeal to unknown material laws?

tadpol, you'll have to come up with a better justification.

I don't understand. All laws of science are materialistic. That's how I think about materialism; if we understand it it's materialistic.

Science only concerns itself with things that can be tested. If it cannot be tested or exists beyond the realm of repeatable phenomenon, it is not science. Non-materialism cannot be tested, you should know this.

Materialistic processes are, in addition to other conditions, processes that are not intentional.  Events that are driven by physical laws are driven by necessity to occur.  Random chance processes and constrained chance processes account for unintended events that did not have to happen but did.  Design is a contingent process that is intentional and therefore is not considered materialistic.

If you view design as a valid mode of scientific explanation then you are not strictly a materialist in the sense I mean.


Design is imminently testable. As an engineer, I design things and then test them and when they are properly designed and constructed they are quite testable and repeatable.

It's always equivication galore with you.

You are trying to understand design as if a material being did it, since you have no other reference point.
Plus, you say design is contingent and therefore not materialistic! Do you know of any other process that design, except your imaginary sky pappy? Materialists desing things all the time, and they do so for a materialistic purpose. You have abstracted the process into some Platonic form - no wonder you are a Theist!
Plus, you say you design something and test it.  You aren't testing to see if it was designed!  You are testing to see if it performs according to your design, and you have to know your purpose - you have to know the designers purpose in order to test if it is performing according to specifications.

Jeez, RF, you are really unravelling.

Science is methodological naturalism. If you have another mode of explanation that works half as well, offer it up. Science does what it does. It may turn out to be a small part of potential human knowlege but it has worked amazingly well in manipulating our observable universe. Why require it to confirm to individual subjective concepts such as meaning, faith and revelation? That's beyond the scope of work.


There is nothing immaterial or mystical in human based design, if that is what you're getting at. Design (as is the concept of intent) by living organisms is on a sliding scale from algae mats to skyscrapers. The analogy from human based design to design as the answer for the progression of life on this planet is an unwarranted leap of faith. You definitely need some empirical evidence other than the fact that it looks like it was designed to make that case. It is obvious that humans had little to do with creating life or the universe.

There is also a long history of the discovery of unknown material causes. I've seen no compelling evidence for the discovery of unknown immaterial or supernatural causes. Somewhere whoever designed this mess had to get his hands dirty. You'd think there would be smudgy thumbprints all over the place. 

You are suggesting that this reply is disproof of materialism, because while my hands and computer follow known laws my mind does not?

The Pyramids are thought to be designed, and the study of them including inferences about their creator(s) is considered science. As long as evidence is the foundation of understanding.

Evidence? Yes. Disproof? Each must evaluate the burden of proof. 

The Pyramids are thought to be designed, and the study of them including inferences about their creator(s) is considered science. As long as evidence is the foundation of understanding.
[/quote]

Yes and this group of scientists seem to be able to follow the evidence where it leads them.  Many scientific fields also do not burden their field of study with philosophical boundary conditions.  Evolutionary biologists do though.  How odd.

Design (intentional constrained contingency) is a valid mode of explanation.  What justification is there to exclude it? In the case of biological diversity, design does a much better job of accounting for observations than methodological naturalism (materialism).  Why should we exclude a known process that accounts for observation and instead cling to proceesses that by observation, and information and probability theory does not?

As I don't understand how either brains or thinking work I would hesitate to state the one isn't up to handling the other.

Evolutionary biologists have to believe in evolution? Get out. This is the greatest injustice of the modern world. Say it ain't so. The Cultural Marxists have entirely too much power over the scientific community. Thinkers of the world diversify, you have nothing to lose but your chains.

Even if this was true and accredited grants asked if applicants reject Design and all it's empty promises, I hear some institutions with money support the idea. I have every confidence that smart folk with curiosity about how things work will figure out how things work.

Simply because design cannot be separated from the process. You have no discrete identified design events, no hypothetical processes and no identified or reasonably inferred designers. Observation of the fossil record identifies a progression. You have no answer for that. Machinations involving probability and information theory do not account for observed changes in genetic information that result in changes of phenotype and function. PCB and Nylon degrading bacteria as well of the relatively recent evolution of multiple species of Hawaiian drosophilia come to mind. In the case of probabilities the background information is inadequate. In the case of Information Theory your best hope is to somehow tie it to changes in protein function. I think Schneider's already done that. If he's right, you lose. At any higher levels of organization you lose again. The latest research indicate that small changes in regulatory genes may result in large phenotypical changes. There is no one to one correspondence and benefits or detriments are based on changing environmental conditions. How do you quantify that enough to use it in information theory?

I can't see where the design concept is defined enough to be of any use to anybody and I particularly don't see how design as we know it operates outside the material world.

By the way, design isn't excluded. Supernatural design is. There just is no reason to include it without evidence.

I sense a special pleading. You identify three reasons to discount design.   

1. You say the mode of explanation cannot be separated from the process.  If this is the case, then it applies to materialistic modes as well.  But evolutionary theory separates the mode from the process. 

Darwinian Evolution separates modification and selection from the process when coevolution, coptation, patchwork, brigolage, scaffolding, roman arches, incremental indispensability and a host of other unobserved processes are cited to prop up the failure of observed evolutionary processes to account for new biological function.

Even if you are correct that the mode must provide a process, design does provide a process.  Genetic Engineers have already provided a process for how design accounts for genetic diversity.  Design provides a working process to explain genetic diversity.

2. You say there are no discrete identified design events and no hypothetical processes.

There are no discrete identified evolutionary events where new form or function occurred. 

However once again design events by Genetic Engineers have inserted new form and function into biological systems and these successes provide the basis to establish that a designer using similar processes can hypothetically have uses similar processes.

Neither design nor evolution can identify historical events and claim them because the causal history is lost.

3. There is no reasonably inferred designer.

Here I simply ask you to demonstrate where in the scientific process is there a requirement that a designer must be identified in order to conclude something was designed?  Archeologists produce things that are declared designed all the time without identifying a designer.



An inferred progression does not tell us a thing about how each of these fossils were formed and what relationships exist between them.  Even if the inference of a progression is correct, this progression is not inconsistent with design.  A designer is quite capable of staging a progression of function and form.  Automobiles and computers and nearly everything we design exhibits a progression.  It is not correct to say ID has no answer for the fossil record.  The fossil record is not inconsistent with design.


None of these examples fall outside the bounds of probabilistic range of evolutionary change.  Both the PCB and nylon examples involved a singe mutation and generated a singe very poorly and clearly accidental mono-protein while at the same time destroying one or more functioning proteins for a net loss in function.  We can walk through this to confirm my analysis.  Information I have on the Hawaiian fruit fly don't provide any useful information on what new form or function if any (I suspect none) distinguishes one from the other.



How so?  Probability analysis does not require complete background information.



Don't see how this is so.  Please explain.


This is not new research.  I am quite prepared to discuss this issue.  These large phenotypical changes you refer to amount to huge and bizarre mix-ups in construction order.  We get eyes on antennae and feet where eyes should be.  The results demonstrate that regulatory gene must be precisely timed or you get a form that is completely inadequate to compete in the environment outside the lab.  Perhaps you can provide even one example where any regulatory change resulted in a selectable advantage.


The narrative describes a progression of selectable advantage but experiment consistently demonstrates damage to existing function as a trade-off to relieve selection pressure.  Observation simply does not correspond with the narrative.  Even if benefits and detriments are as difficult to quantify as you claim (they are not) we have conducted enough experiments by now that we should be racking up at least a small list of evolutionary pathways several steps long.  The fact that we have not confirms that observed evolutionary processes cannot account the diversity we see.

Archaeologists may not identify a designer, but one is always inferred, as are certain ideas about the designer relating to the how the designer was inferred.

For instance, if we find a ceramic pot among certain strata of earth, we can infer a couple of things about the individual that designed it.

First, we can identify an approximate age of the piece, and therefore an approximate point in time at which some agent of that the culture that created it existed there.

Second, we can identify this culture as one that had mastery over fire.

Other things can be inferred with less certainty (culture's use of language, possible specific uses of a pot like that, etc.), but for that culture to not have been there at that time, or to not have had mastery over fire are more or less impossible.

Realization of design does necessarily lead to an implication of some attribute of the designer. If nothing more, we know parameters of how they could and couldn't have built that design.

I'm not sure why, after 3 years, RF does not see the problems with many of his lines of thought. I'm not sure if its intentional or not.  CSLewis would say: Liar or Lunatic?

I find your argument irrelevant to the point which is that it is not necessary to infer anything about the designer in order to conclude for example that the pottery shards or arrowheads  or what-have-you are designed.  Design is deduced (or possibly inferred) from the item itself and not from any inference about the character of the designer.

Yes, RF, we know you are not allowed by your Pope to comment on the possible designer.

After all, you'd have to explain what character a designer would have to create malaria, the plague, AIDS, sickle cell anemia, and other "specifically complex" aspects of life that couldn't have evolved (as you suggest).

Of course, this doesn't bother you since all you want is for people to accept a designer in the first place, then you work on the Xianity (and thus apologize away all these evils by using the Sin argument). It is so obvious that it amazes me how ham-handedly you do it.

That's just it barney, while the precursor organisms cannot be explained by materialistic processes, these parasites, pathogens and genetic defects can be accounted for by random unintended evolution from constructive or neutral forms. 


Logic that has its roots in truth generally is obvious.

Character of the design is inferred from the design.

Do you claim that archaeologists have no interest in who made the things they find?

Usually, some attempt is made to figure out who made the pot.

Not at all. I simply claim that this interest is independent of their ability to recognize that something was designed.

I think this quote gets to the point better than anything else I have run across.

Richard Lewontin, 1997. Billions and billions of demons, The New York Review, p. 31, 9 January 1997 (review of Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark).


His error of course is that one does not have to make the jump from materialism all the way to a supernatural deity that can and does suspend logic and turn physical laws on end.  Really, it makes no sense to make such a leap and only reinforces the admitted prejudice these materialist admit they cling to.  Why must they presume that a supposed inventor of physical law would then go ahead and overturn those very laws?  They fully admit that they lack explanation for events but then illogically won't grant that a creator could not exploit physical laws they simply don't understand.  The best explanation for this unreasonable leap is because they must make it seem that the alternative to materialism is as patently absurd as they admit materialism is.   Perhaps they need a way to rationalize it when in fact  they have no justification to make such a claim.  It is the same prior commitment to materialism that likely makes them attempt to justify rejection of an alternative on such fallacious grounds.

Of course you miss the point. How do you determine which event is "real" and which is by your supernatural designer?  This is why you Creationists have so many differeing opinions - some claim the Designer did it all in one week, others say he just tweaked something here or there.

And since you refuse to define, or reveal something supernatural, you continually appeal to the Gaps.

Plus, you forget the lesson of QT that if you can't determine where your Designer acted, then you can't use induction.  Since you have no reason to believe one thing is by MM or God (which you do often) you have no reason to accept that a bus exists on a street.  That is, like QT suggests you have reduced your ability to know at a base level as completely unknowable.

You have created a Cartoon universe that is only understood by the limits of your imagination and dogma.

For example:
Can your god create something ex nihilo (i.e., without using materials that already exist)?
Can your god create a water-breathing man?
Can your god create green snow?
Can your god create red grass?
Can your god create flowers that speak Mandarin Chinese?
Can your god create a human being with 42 arms?
Can your god create a woman who gives birth to elephants?
Can your god create a teacup that dances with a spoon?
Can your god create a second moon to orbit the earth?
Can your god remove all salinity from the world’s oceans?
Can your god create a biological organism which requires no nutrients or oxygen to live?

All these are possible by your Deusigner, according to your worldview.

No, barney you miss the point.  Just like Richard Lewontin you are beginning to recognize the patent absurdity of your materialistic position and its utter failure to fulfill any of its many extravagant promises but you cling to it because you find the alternative distasteful.  Just as Lewontin did you in your last post created a construct of the alternate position that you find even more outrageous than your own so that you can satisfy  your intellect that your own incredible beliefs are as good as any other.

You also know though that you don't have to do this.  You know that design as an alternative mode of explanation need not include the construct of a rule breaking arbitrary and capricious creator your intellect requires you to construct in order to keep materialism afloat.

You know that a designer of life and even a designer of this universe can put physical laws in place and laws of rational behavior in place and then abide by them and still have produced all that we observe and all that we don't observe making use of processes that we have discovered, processes that we have yet to discover and processes we may never discover.

The reality that Lewontin admits and that you seem unwilling to admit is that except for the implications, design is by far the better explanation for this universe and life in it.

"Magic Man Done It" is not an explanation. You can tell Rick I said so.  ;-)


Oh, wait, I'll let him speak for himself - in full context (really, RF, have you even read any of Lewontin? I get the impression you just cut and paste off of the DI site.  They aren't honest people , you know)



http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18363

It appears that it is you who is being dishonest.  You are the one being caught in deception, half-truths and out and out lies.  Here your quote is from 'The Evolution Creation Struggle'  while mine is from 'Billions and Billions of Demons'.  I did not remove my quote from the context as you accuse me of.  I did not leave off the part you quoted.  Your tactics are shameful.

You and Lewontin have the same approach though Lewontin is more honest when he admits that the materialist position is absurd given what we have learned about biological systems in the last 20 years.  In Darwin's days, with only a microscope, one could look at a single cell and only see a mash of gelatinous substances seemingly undulating rather randomly and imagine that what was going on inside was random, hectic and chaotic.  As a consequence it may have been reasonable at that time to presume that the processes that went into forming that cell were also random and incoherent. Today you cannot hold that same ignorant viewpoint. 

Here is an animated video produced by Harvard I think of some of the inner workings of a white blood cell. 

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=kxSLw1LMvgk

You have not addressed the substance of my previous post which I repeat here.

Ah, yes, the video that Dembski stole, and altered for his ID purposes. Harvard had to threaten him with legal action to stop him from using it for his lies.

Talk about deceptions and half-truths!

Another Red Herring diversion. barney you are becoming legondary for these.  I found the video on u-tube with full credits to the producer and no indication that it has been altered by Dembski.  I see no reference to Dembski at all.  Meanwhile your response is typical of the materialist proponent when cornered and no substantive response.

So, once again we have the sheer absurdity of the materialist position exemplified in this video where you claim this cell is the product of incoherent random chemic processes eventually generating a first life form and then along with selection, all others.  Here we have Lewontin admitting that the materialist position is spectacularly weak and in fact a failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life.  Meanwhile we have the hard sciences like the medical field having tremendous successes by reverse engineering biological processes and genetic engineers inserting new form and function where it did not previously exist.  Both of these are design processes.

Still we have no valid explanation as to why we should not accept design as a valid mode of scientific explanation except as Lewontin has admitted:


Because there is no valid argument, you and Lewontin and all your fellow materialists improperly turn the design inference into something as bombastic as your own premise just to satisfy your own intellect and prevent the materialistic house of cards from crumbling.

So let's drop this charade and provide a sound reason why design should not be a valid mode of scientific explanation.

http://austringer.net/wp/index.php/2007/11/27/deguassed-moral-compass-alert-dembski-using-internet-video/


Oh, stop the theatrics, RF.  Propose a scientific hypothesis and we'll call it science, but "Magic Men Done It" aka Creationism isn't science.

You know the arguments against it, you just choose to dismiss them because you are a Xian apologist.

You have admitted that you are only interested in the absurd philosophy of materialism despite evidence to the contrary.  You have admitted as Lewontin says: "We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism."  You won't accept any alternatives as science because, to you, science is not pursuit of truth, to you, science is an attempt to justify materialism.  Why do you now lie?

Where I have admitted this? Please provide the quote.

Your prior commitement to materialism is clear in your posts.  I am surprised you deny your principles and the faith you clearly hold so strongly.

I think Barney makes a good point. You really need to take the good with the bad. There are several parasites with more complicated life cycles than their free ranging counterparts. Parasitism does not always involve the devolution of already existing forms. Take the blood fluke (please), a parasitic cousin to the planarium. It is a multiple host parasite with two different phenotypes in its life cycle. One to infect the intermediate snail host and one freeswimming variety to infect the final human host. There are dozens of equally or more complex examples.

Since ID Theory precludes the increase in genetic information through mutation and selection leading to the evolution of these more complex forms we can only conclude Design for these organisms. Having nailed this as a designed organism we can begin to infer something about the nature of the designer, using as our template the analogy of human design and behavior.

We can infer that the Designer is either seriously, sadistically deranged or that parasitism is his ultimate goal.

Of course, religionists will have no problem with this: was it Satan? is it our inability to grasp the majesty of gods plan? Do they (the organisms) provide some good that we don't know to offset the horror? etc.

What is also interesting is that if ID is true, we are robots - very limited in what we do and think. In fact, RF, goes on further to suggest that his Deusigner imbedded morality, logic and free will into our program (which can only go through minor changes according to him).  Talk about Determinism!  We are machines designed for the purpose of the Deusigner - we are toasters for his bread, wrenches for his bolts.

It's odd how much theology has changed to resemble more atheistic conceptions of the universe.

I see now why most IDers are beginning to seperate from old concepts of theology into a new brand - another change for Xianity is in the works.

This supports the thesis that religon changes to the new understandings of our universe so that the religionists can always claim they were always right in the first place (note the apologetics when the Steady State universe was in favor: they used it as PROOF of god).



Plus, RF will have to explain why, after lambasting science for not opening its doors to ID, why ID stops and rejects any mention of the character of the Designer?  Intellectual cold feet all of a sudden?

And then in this intellectual vacuum, he will have to admit that ID doesn't even begin to explain life from non-life, since the points he claim are the design points (the gaps) are, well, gaps.   In fact, ID doesn't explain HOW anything is done, it just asserts a designer filled in the gaps.

It is simply an absurd and bankrupt hypothesis. It is Creationism, plain and simple.

Precisely what new form and function do these supposedly more complex worms have over the precursor forms?  Without this information you invent yet another "just so" narrative as an article of faith.  Just as Lewontin proclaims, your prior commitment to materialism compels you to create yet another construct in this case one that attempts to falsify the competing explanation.

I don't understand. I think all theisms offer explanations why god looks like a jerk but isn't, and if ID doesn't have theism there is no problem with the designer being a jerk. So saying the designer looks like a jerk doesn't advance the anti-ID argument. Why are parasites an issue?

Sure, but you admit it speaks volumes about the prepposed designer.
PLus, if the designer isn't god, then it throws evolution back into the forefront, since the designer would presumably have to be an evolved creature - since we know of no other way that can account for the diversity and complexity of life.

Perhaps I didn't state my objection clearly. A designer's character has nothing to do with its existence. "God is a jerk" might be an interesting thread, but this is not it.

Granting a non-divine designer  creates a problem of the designer's creation, but I can't see how it offers any insight into that problem. The argument of ID is that we don't know of any scientific way to account for the complexity, diversity, or even presence of life. So accepting a designer only account for it by evolution confuses me.

Jeez, I'm just trying to see things from the ID perspective.

A free ranging planaria would have no need to infect an intermediate host or any host for that matter. Once the eggs of this particular blood fluke are passed in the feces they hatch into a miracidium which penetrates and infects a snail. Each miracidium is capable of producing up to 200,000 intermediate forms known as a cercaria, a free ranging organism which is capable of penetrating human skin and blood vessels which then mature into worms in the intestines and lay eggs, completing the cycle. Under our current understanding of evolutionary processes how could a simple planaria envolve two different intermediate phenotypes perfectly suited to infect two different hosts? We must conclude design.

Because RF's position, if I understood it correctly, is that parasites are degenerate forms of free ranging organisms who have arrived at their cozy niche in life through the loss of existing genetic information. Many parasites have incredibly complex life cycles, too complex to have evolved under current ID Theory. After all if you can't evolve a bacterial flagellum you certainly couldn't evolve the capacity to infect multiple hosts through multiple means.

After we have determined design, the next step is to tease out mechanism and timing and then perhaps when we have determined the designers capabilites we can infer something about the designer himself. ID takes great stock in making an analogy for design based on human capabilities. Sadistically deranged was an editorial comment on my part. It had nothing to do with my basic argument from complexity. Although I would think we would consider a human designer a little bent if he designed an organism, then designed multiple parasites for it and even parasites for the parasites

Even more confusing is this: we don't know - so we insert a designer?

If we don't know, we don't know.

Sure, design COULD explain it, so could magic, or time folded upon itself, or wormholes from other universes, or... evolution.  Since we have evidence of evolution and no evidence that the others exist in the process, we are wise to stick with evolution.

Remember, after all the scientistic language RF can't point to ONE design event.  Not one.  Only a gap in knowledge.

They are not.  competition between parasite and host is quite easy to explain within the context of observed evolutionary and selection processes.

You are correct once again.


Close. ID states that design is a better explanation for many of the characteristics we observe in nature.  Design explains irreducible complexity, specified complexity, the origination of information, artificial language, and a host of other objective complex characteristics while material processes are unable to account for any of these.  I agree that while claiming a designer designed evolution is interesting, it makes little sense to me as well.

And how do host/parasite competitions and the resulting genetic and phenotype changes differ from organisms competing with each other for the same resources in the same ecology? What prevents the same mechanisms from working on a global scale?

Are the blood flukes life cycle transitions "easily explained" within the context of observed evolutionary and selection processes or was it designed?
 

Exactly what phenotype changes are you referring to?  Has the phenotype of the flat worm been changed to  adapt to human or animal hosts as opposed to some vanishing organic rich environment that may no longer exist? 

On the other hand have some metabolic processes been altered and others damaged or disabled to make reliance on a host required so that survival on its own is no longer possible?  My scenario is supported by observation that metabolic processes are often damaged when others can fill in.  Evolutionary processes are quite able to accomplish this scenario within the limits of available probabilistic resources.

 
Nothing would allow one example to succeed while others fail.  This is why presuming phenotype changes is questionable without observable evidence to support the narrative.


The more immediate question is are there alternate environments other than animal hosts that at one time were available but the parasite has migrated into animals as they encroached on their original habitat?  Has the worm since evolved and lost function so that the hosts are now a requirement?

The cercaria have evolved (or been designed with) the ability to penetrate the skin and blood vessels of its final host. This is host specific. This ability, plus the three stage life cycle, show a marked increase in complexity from free ranging flatworms.



Not at this level of increased specified complexity.



Exactly


No presumption required. They either evolved or were designed. Here's a basic outline (http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/I/Invertebrates.html#Platyhelminthes) and here is more detail (http://www.uni-duesseldorf.de/WWW/MathNat/Parasitology/gen_paen.htm#DDE_LINK4) regarding this organism.


It obviously gained a few functions or had them to start with. Evolution or design?

So, "EVIL Magic Man Done It"!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?  Yikes!

Note that however anyone wants to create the narrative, RF is fine with it AS LONG AS IT INVOLVES A DESIGNER.

He even claims that a designer who designed evolution is within his game.  Anything that includes a designer - even if an unnecessary addition - is the important part of his hypothesis. As long as there is a gap for his deusigner, he is happy.

Why presume that they were descendent from an organism similar to the current free ranging flatworms?  What specific difference enable them to penetrate skin and blood vessels that are lacking from the worms they were descendent from?



Not at this level of increased specified complexity.[/quote]

What specifically is this increase in SC and how can we deduce that it occurred the way you claim?



Designed, fine, but designed to be a parasite to humans?  How can we determine this?


Or had similar required function for its original environment.




[/quote]

I thought it was your presumption that this form may represent a minor adaptation of a free ranging form that used these features to make use of an organic environment that no longer exists. I believe the cercaria produce enzymes capable of dissolving tissue when they come in contact with human tissue.


I am not making any claims as to how this arose by evolutionary processes. Using the design inference there are multiple factors leading one to conclude specified complexity. Multiple hosts, the fact that 2 stages in its life cycle cannot support themselves, only the ultimate stage can mature and reproduce, and the use of digestive (?) enzymes redirected to infect hosts. Loss of any of these features causes this organism to be non-viable.


I don't know. Take away humans and see if it goes extinct? Only the original  designer would be willing to perform that experiment. At any rate, there are multitudes of these buggers for different hosts, some even encapsulate in the second host and go on to hit the trifecta. Obviously they are designed to be parasitic to something. Since we agree on design, maybe we ought hike over to philosophy and religion to determine motive.


I don't know what wouldn't involve parasitism. The point is that many of these parasites exhibit a complexity that was either some sort of pre-loaded design or a sustantial increase in genetic information through evolutionary processes.

Is RF suddenly arguing AGAINST ID?!?!!?!?!  How fickle! ::)

Some form perhaps, but why should we presume the original form lacked features that alow it to penetrate organic tissue?  Perhaps it's role was to aid decomposition of tissue?  That presumption does not make sense.



I do not dispute that the worm as a whole contains markers for design.  I accept that its original form was likely designed but I also know that the present form may be altered from the original by invading hosts and then through evolution, losing function that were reduntant to functions the host now performs for the worm (thus parasite).




Indeed, and since observations indicate that evolutionry processes don't increase form and function, design is the better explanation.  But it is a stretch to insist that the current habitat was the original habitat. Evolution can damage function that is reduntant and in the process trap the worm in a parasite situation.

Its amazingly easy to be a creationist, isn't it, rf. YOu don't even need to try. Just assert things and keep your faith!

True enough in one sense.  It takes far less faith to believe we were designed than to beleive materialism.  Lewontin confirms this in the words I provided earlier:

While I love your argument from Authority, I still don't see why you continue?

The problem is, easy isn't the name of the game. Easy doesn't make it true.

Perhaps you need to think harder? ;)

Yes but Occaam's razor suggests that one should select the simplest explanation that fits the evidence.  Clearly materialism contradicts the evidence while designe fits quite well and materialism requires hopelessly complex gyrations that continue to get more complex  (not less) and less understandable as our knowledge grows.  Your problem is that you need to let go of your prior commitement to materialism so that you no longer have to construct the just so narratives that hold your materialistic house of cards together.

Yes, too bad a perfectly formed being is less plausible then an infinite number of alternatives.

Yes yes, love it.

Materialism is just too darn complicated. The much simpler answer of 'It was designed' is so much easier.

You are indeed right that materialism is a house of cards. It's quite an anomaly how it hasn't managed to blow over yet.

Keep huffing and puffing, you're almost there!

Yes, Occams Razor and lightning: Thor is easier - it must be the Gods!  Not a complex and specific set of electro-chemical reactions.

I find it curious that you fabricate such falsehoods of my position but fail to acknowledge that the more honest modern scientist admits your position includes "patently absurd" constructs, failed "extravagant promises", tolerance of "unsubstantiated just-so stories", "prior commitments", "counter-intuitive" arguments etc. 

Quote from: Lewontin

We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

Still using that guy!  Wow, is he your new Messiah?

So, if I were to explain to you that an internal combustion engine works to containing and directing the explosion created by the oxidization of hydrocarbons in a cylinder, forcing the piston down and rotating the crankshaft, you would dismiss my explanation because  "God makes it go" has fewer syllables?

Even then, your theistic explanation for everything is still hopelessly cumbersome and speculative when you start asking questions like "Where does such a creator come from?", "What are the mechanisms by which the creator created everything?", and "Why would he even bother?", and you have to dance around, playing the "He's Not Materialistic So He Doesn't Need To Be Testable So There" Card. I just love how you point out that "materialism requires hopelessly complex gyrations", while you provide arguments for your God in impenetrably convoluted and rambling conjecture.

Christ, it's like you want to be pointed out what a hypocrite you are.

Your problem max is that I do not bring God into this discussion.  Design is not a synonym for God.  When we observed characteristics of events that occur in this universe and investigate the possible explanations there is material causation (necessity based on physical laws) and random chance (contingency based on the inherent uncertainty in particle behavior and the resulting Brownian motion) and there is design (intentional contingency). 

When we look into the inner workings of cells and the metabolic processes we immediately notice the enormously high degree of coherence, the organization and the orchestration.  Closer evaluation reveals an immense degree of encoded deterministic information, communication networks, transport infrastructure, control and feedback system, inventory control, construction and deconstruction systems, etc.   When we look back to the modes of explanation we find that these characteristics are often present in systems that were designed but never present in system that were derived by material mechanisms.  furthermore we note that design has been and is being successful in deriving within cell systems the same kind of characteristics in Genetically Engineering new features in cells that previously lacked that feature.

Now applying Occaam's razor to this portion of the question, design is by far the superior explanation.  It will remain the superior explanation unless and until someone is able to show how materialistic processes can and does achieve the same and better results that Genetic Engineering and the reverse engineering processes occurring in modern medicine.

Notice that I have said nothing about "God".  Notice also that I leave open the possibility that material mechanisms may be revived as an adequate explanation. 

The hypocrite is the person who remains steadfastly cemented to their materialistic prior commitments while claiming to adhere to rational thought and pursuit of truth.  One may never find the truth if prior commitments eliminate one forth of the modes of explanation available.

RF, your Argument from Design has not changed in 3 years despite it been rebutted on all levels.

Amazing that you can end your screed with some claim of hypocrisy of others not changing their mind when relevent information comes to light.

I swear that whole piece you did was straight off the DI website.

Manage the Message, eh, RF?  Straight out of the Wedge Document and Religious Right playbook.

Not if you're a Raelian or pastafarian, but please, keeping in mind your desire for a simple, Occam's Razor-abiding explanation, tell me how design comes about, what sort of intelligence is behind this design, and how such an intelligence would come to be.

Agreed.


Assuming you exclude the previous examples, and in systems designed by organisms (humans) which function on the kind of "coherence, organization and orchestration" that they base their design around.

In other words, we are proof of design because our creations mimic our own design. Mind-boggling.

 
So, we are able to utilize our ingenuity to engineer new features in cells (note: not exactly "new", they're features ruthlessly plundered from the DNA/plasmids of other cells and, with enzymes, stitched into the DNA/plasmids of host cells), and this is evidence that the things we modify were, themselves, designed? Tell me if I'm missing something here.


Indeed, with your perversion of Occam's Razor, yes, design is "by far" the preferable explanation. Ironically, your version of OR is overly simplified. It's original meaning was that one should eliminate unnecessary assumptions when formulating a theory, to keep it as succinct as possible, and that of two theories of equal credibility, the simpler one is preferable. Design is, of course, the superior explanation, assuming you only factor in the last five words of the previous sentence.

 
What? Says who? Since when is mankind's ability to understand the universe evidence for design? I'd like to see the logic behind this, and until then, please stop making irrelevant ultimatums.


As do I leave open the possibility of a designer, but surely you believe that if something (in this case, everything) were designed, that there must be a designer? Who or what do you think this is?


Really? I consider a hypocrite to be someone who attempts to point out flaws in an opposing argument while ignoring identical flaws in their own.

I think the term is Dellusional Hypocrite - or is that an oxyMoron?

I wouldn't call him delusional - he's merely the product of an upbringing that's entrenched him in his beliefs, requiring some profound mental acrobatics to reconcile his beliefs with reality. He's certainly not guilty of anything that everyone else in the world isn't guilty of.

Oh, now you're just being reasonable... where's the fun in that? :laugh: