Have cdesign proponentists finally found evidence of Intelligent Design? March 20, 2008
Posted by Evil Bender in BPSDB, Origins, Science, wingnuts.trackback
Of course not. But over at Uncommon Descent, they’re bleating about how Nature’s published an example of ID. One little problem, though: they’ve not detected the work of god the designer, but rather just listened to those who did the research:
The following is an edited extract from a Nature paper. It is an example of real ID research. Notice that the designers only used evolutionary techniques to very slightly tweak the enzymes scaffold structure that had been designed with “borrowed components” from existing enzymes tacked together. The novel active site was completely intelligently designed. doi:10.1038/nature06879
Kemp elimination catalysts by computational enzyme design
“We designed eight enzymes with computationally designed active sites. In vitro evolution enhanced the computational designs, demonstrating the power of combining computational protein design with directed evolution for creating new enzymes.
This is sad. ID proponents have long tried to claim that the fact that humans design things somehow validates “magic man done it” as a scientific explanation. But now they’re actually pointing to human design as though it somehow demonstrates the validity of their psuedoscientific nonsense.
But I’m a fair man: I’ll make a deal with the ID folks. If they can secure an interview with god their designer, so we can learn what techniques he used and what he designed. Better yet, they could suggest any mechanism by which the Intelligent Designer works. They could propose and attempt real, falsifiable experiments to test their “theory.” Any of this would work.
Somehow I suspect we’ll get more nonsense, lies and quote-mining instead.
[...] Link to the original site [...]
Once again you’re three steps ahead of me. I read that and about shot Sierra Nevada Big Foot Ale out of my nose last night.
It’s the repeating pattern that if the word design is used anywhere that it automatically means that that piece is a pro ID work.
Thankfully the comments have some that are pointing out the stupidity of the title of that post.
proponentists? Sheesh…….give me a break……….shaking head…rolling eyes……scratchin noggin.
cdesign proponentsists”: creationists who lie about being creationists to try to sneak their ideology into schools.
Magic man…. Do you always borrow your tautology from other people? Do you ever think about the idiocy you bleat?
The point of the ID guys is that [follow me here. This might take actual comprehension. You guys seem tolet other folks do your thinking for you, so I realize you're likely out of practice] just as someone has to create a program to imitate biological processes, the information these actual biological processes follow has to come from somewhere. Where did the information come from? Atheist science has no natural answer.
Except Dawkins’ lamentable, “Well, shucks. We’re here, ain’t we? The information must just be a part of biology. Like life, it just popped out of nowhere. I guess how [nevermind, we're supposed to be scientists] it happened will just hafta be one of them thar unsolved mysteries. But maybe some scientist way after me, maybe even something we evolved into, will have the answer. Someday. But that’s not faith, cuz faith is for irrational losers!”
I thank God for dawkins every day.
Next time, try reading with comprehension. Or just believe what they tell you. Whichever.
–Sirius Knott
Dear Sirius,
Your argument is based on personal incredulity. “I don’t know how this information got here, so God must have done it,” you suggest.
The truth is we know a great deal about what biological processes can do in terms of generating information. Where we don’t know something specific–as you mention, we don’t know exactly how life came to be–there is absolutely no reason to resort to mysticism to explain it.
Claiming God did it adds absolutely nothing to our understanding of how biological processes work. Using human designers to further our understanding of nature is in no way like claiming that somehow, at some point, a being we can’t detect did the work for some reasons we don’t have access to.
Actual science looks for answers. ID doesn’t, because gaps in our knowledge are all it has.
Nice work with the personal attacks, though. They really help your case.
What have science when you can have pie in the sky explanations? Anyway, I just absolutely love this place EB.
Of course I meant to say why have science. I hate it when I get flustered like that.
My argument is based on the FACT that order demands information. Where did it come from?
Please keep in mind that the scientific method originated form Christian theism. We believe that God created the world [something I've explained in greater depth to you other post] and that we should expect to find it ordered. Which means we should be able to discover those processes and laws by which the Creator have caused it to operate.
Now to assert that I am utilizing a God of the gaps does not address the equal fact that you are utilizing a no-God of the gaps. Your assumption is that there is no God, no supernatural possibility. having excluded this possibility by saying that everything will eventually have a natural explanation, you have done three things:
1] According to the law of noncontradiction, you accept the possibility that you could be wrong. If the assumption of your framework only allows for a natural explanation, your methodology and your conclusions will be in error if there is infact a God. If you have not allowed for the supernatural, you would be wrong if the supernatural actually existed.
2] You have virtually guaranteed by your naturalistic assumption or bias that if you are given evidence for the existence of the supernatural that you will reject it as an anamoly or simply outright.
3] You have admitted that you rely, as do Creationists, upon faith. It might be reasonable faith [faith based on a reasonable weight of arguments and evidences], but that “We’ll know why someday” optimism is faith nonetheless.
So where did it come from then?
–Sirius Knott
The number of distortions here is truly staggering. But to address your main point: “Your assumption is that there is no God, no supernatural possibility.”
I’ve done no such thing. I’ve merely insisted upon evidence for that God, and have been completely unimpressed with what I’ve seen.
Furthermore, I’ve repeatedly called upon Creationists to demonstrate an actual theory, where they explain what God did, how he did it, and how we can have confidence that this explanation is accurate.
I welcome those who want to argue for supernatural causes, but I insist that they be held to the same standards of evidence they demand of others. What predictions does saying “God did it” imply? What does it tell us about reality? We know evolution through natural selection occurs. What, then, did God do? Did he create original life? Did he create the Cambrian explosion? The various species? phyla?
I call your argument a god of the gaps not because it relies upon the supernatural, but because it uses the supernatural as a stand in for actual explanation. It’s lazy thinking, and advances knowledge not a whit. If you want me to take Creationist ideas seriously, you need to demonstrate that they have real evidence and explanatory power.
But since you think that demanding evidence for arguments is “based on faith,” I’m not going to hold my breath.
It’s well understood where the information created during evolution comes from. Random variation from mutation and sex probes the parameter space of a population. Differential reproductive success amplifies the proportion of those variants which happen to contain information leading to successful reproduction. Randomness is the source, but selection is the filter that results in new information.
There’s nothing mysterious about this at all. In computer science we call this a global optimization algorithm. There are a many similar algorithms that employ randomness to find near-optimal solutions to problems with many variables given a quality metric. Simulated annealing, for example, makes random changes and selects them if they result in improvement or at least not very much decline in the quality metric. The “not very much” is the key to the algorithm’s ability to find global maxima. There’s no question that when you run this algorithm information is created out of random changes.
Jack,
In computer science, how did this global optimization algorithm that creates information out of random changes come to be? Oh, somebody designed that algorithm and put in in a computer that somebody built and designed and supplied it with raw data [information] to work with.
Thank you for your insights into design theory.
Nothing cannot produce something. period.
–Sirius Knott
Jack,
In computer science, how did this global optimization algorithm that creates information out of random changes come to be? Oh, somebody designed that algorithm and put in in a computer that somebody built and designed and supplied it with raw data [information] to work with.
Thank you for your insights into design theory.
Nothing cannot produce something. period.
–Sirius Knott
The point of the original post was that when humans create artificial systems that mimic natural processes, that is not evidence that the natural processes themselves are designed. There’s no reason to believe that biological evolution isn’t as entirely natural and undirected as the weather.
As for the origins of life, if you can bring any evidence in favor of intelligent design knock yourself out. So far you’ve merely provided bland aphorisms like “nothing cannot produce something.” Calling the complex chemistry and geology of the early Earth “nothing” is simply denial.
[...] way of Evil Bender, I learn that intelligent Design Creationists on the Uncommon Descent blog have been crowing about [...]
Sirius,
I hope that your name betrays the fact that you are infact a parody.
Sirius Knott => Serious Not => Not Serious
However from your statements it would seem you are not, or your parody is too subtle.
Regardless I ask that you prove your assertion that ‘order demands information’ crystal’s are highly ordered yet require no additional information beyond the fundamental chemical and physical properties.
Life it would seem is in a similar situation, the order arises from the fundamental chemical and physical properties. ID proponents have never proven the requirement that order demands information.
We have an example of order arising from fundamental properties of matter (in crystals) so we can safely make the assumption that other instances of order require no external intervention, until evidence is shown for an additional party to be involved Occam’s razor demands we exclude it from the theory.
Locksmyth,
Sirius Knott is in fact a pseudonym, but I assure you I am quite serious.
Now, of crystals, you stated that they “are highly ordered yet require no additional information”… wait. There it is. No ADDITIONAL information. But where did the original information come from?
Jack,
You presume that weather is natural is undirected, which is purest bunk from an observational standpoint. How can we observe weather PATTERNS if they’re undirected. Weather follows its own program based on an intimidating number of factors, but the patterns are undeniable. Ask a meteorologist. They’ll admit that their predictions aren’t flawless, mostly because they can’t account for all of the factors, but there are observable recurring patterns that make weather predictions reasonable. By and large, they prove right, unless I’m planning a picnic. But we see seasons, weeather fronts obey rules of temperature and humidity, et cetera.
I’m sorry, but you haven’t demonstrated your case.
Nothing does not produce something. It’s a simple rule of logic.
Why do you refuse such easily observable truth?
–Sirius Knott
“No ADDITIONAL information. But where did the original information come from?”
There isn’t any original information, simply fundamental properties of matter. It’s not actually information, but the word is simply useful. You have to establish that the fundamental properties of the universe require intelligence, you haven’t done so. You need to produce matter with no fundamental properties in order to establish that such a thing can exist, only then can you make that claim that fundamental properties have been added by an external agent.
Occam’s razor again, the simpler conclusion is that matter has fundamental properties, adding a designer add complications, we need further evidence before it can be added.
Stop dissembling.
Information is information, whether or not the implications of the term fit your presuppositions in this case.
–Sirius Knott
I’m not making a presupposition, if there is any evidence of design or that matter can exist without fundamental properties; that can then move to a discussion of the possibility of a designer. Without that evidence we cannot make the assumption that it requires design.
You still didn’t prove that order demands information.
Seeing as Sirius agrees with me that living organisms show the same evidence for intelligent design as the weather, I rest my case.
jack,
you apparently [cute bunny].
read it again you [cute bunny] and you’ll see that you have no case.
[cute bunny]…
[cute bunny].
I have shown that order demands information. Your presuppositions [that there is no God] won’t allow you to see the observable obvious.
–Sirius Knott
All personal shots in Sirius’ comment have been replaced with links to a cute bunny. Enjoy!