Discussion for AronRa and OFNF exclusive thread

[Dave B.]

Greetings,

Actually, Dave B., we'd been discussing this in regard to Dawkins' definition from The Blind Watchmaker, where he gave a few criteria: heterogeneity, non-random and proficiency (at something, including reproduction).

The problem is he still seems to be confusing this with "information" (Shannon) and/or "specified complexity" (Dembski)

Kindest regards,

James

Understood.

I still think that if we're discussing complexity then there needs to be a way of objectively determining what is or is not complex. I don't see how Dawkins' criteria pertains to any of the examples dandan has given. What I see is the classic "it appears specific and we are able to understand it because it came from a mind, therefore, if it appears specific it must have come from a mind" argument.

 

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

Greetings,

Actually, Dave B., we'd been discussing this in regard to Dawkins' definition from The Blind Watchmaker, where he gave a few criteria: heterogeneity, non-random and proficiency (at something, including reproduction).

The problem is he still seems to be confusing this with "information" (Shannon) and/or "specified complexity" (Dembski)

Kindest regards,

James

Understood.

I still think that if we're discussing complexity then there needs to be a way of objectively determining what is or is not complex. I don't see how Dawkins' criteria pertains to any of the examples dandan has given. What I see is the classic "it appears specific and we are able to understand it because it came from a mind, therefore, if it appears specific it must have come from a mind" argument.

Agreed - that's the other part of his underlying problem: conflating order with design.

Kindest regards,

James

 

[M.Watson]

AronRa and OFNF's debate thread is a great read, I'm having a lot of fun following along. That said, I wanted to mention that I think in some cases the way AronRa is responding to OFNF's arguments is lacking. Not in that any of his arguments are unsound, but I think he would benefit from being more explicit with OFNF. OFNF honestly seems to making some effort to willfully misinterpret AronRa, and I think being completely exhaustive in his responses would give OFNF less room to wiggle around and waste time repeating himself. Now, I realise that it's probably time consuming enough as it is, but personally I would try to handle it that way. Another nitpick I had was the minor tirade AronRa went on, talking about how OFNF is in denial and whatnot. Even though I tend to agree with what AronRa was saying, it really didn't move the discussion forward, and I think it gave OFNF an opportunity to play persecuted and an excuse to call another entire post a red-herring and not be completely full of shit about it.

Okay, now that's over with, HOLY SHIT, ARONRA IS ON THIS FORUM, THIS IS SO COOL, HOLY SHIT, HOLY SHIT.
I'm uh, something of a fan. *giggles*

 

[Rumraket]

dandan has completely ignored my post on ancestral sequence reconstruction. :roll:

 

[dandan]

dandan has completely ignored my post on ancestral sequence reconstruction. :roll:

I am not ignoring it, I simply haven´t had time to read those papers

 

[scalyblue]

dandan has completely ignored my post on ancestral sequence reconstruction. :roll:

I am not ignoring it, I simply haven´t had time to read those papers

Then you don't have the time to form an educated opinion on what you're arguing about.

 

[Inferno]

c0nc0rdance had something to say:

 

[dandan]

dandan has completely ignored my post on ancestral sequence reconstruction. :roll:

Ok I read the paper....
Here, read this:
http://www.bx.psu.edu/miller_lab/dist/11_Blanchette.pdf

Honestly what is your point, I already told you that for the sake of simplicity for this particular point, we are presupposing that commons ancestry is true, what you have to do is show that Darwinian mechanisms rather than something else was responsible of building complex stuff like an ATP motor. Your paper doesn’t even attempt to answer this question.

There was nothing ridiculous about my answer. It is a categorical fact that an ATP-synthase requiring 10 trillion simultaneous mutations could not have evolved by known evolutionary processes. You got what you asked for, you are apparently disappointed that this question of yours wasn't the "gotcha" you had hoped for

.

Ok, I what to see your numbers… why 10 trillion? Why not 1 trillion or 1 million or 10 or 5 or 2? I what to see the statistical model that allowed you that 10 trillion is the point where darwinism would be falsified

 

[dandan]

Rumraket This argument contains a question-begging premise, that "complicatd systems" can only come from a mind. How do you know this?

Also the first premise is demonstrably wrong. Simple replicating systems like clay crystals are known. See for example:
http://originoflife.net/crystals/
Just to be clear, I'm not advocating this particular hypothesis as how life originated (I don't happen to believe this). My point with linking this article is that it gives several examples of simple self-replicating, information-transferring systems outside of life.

The second premise is still totally unsubstantiated. How do you know that "complicated systems" can only come from a mind? Is the weather system on the surface of our planet a complicated system? Yeah, I think it is. Did it need to be designed? Nope. How about the geological processes taking place in the crust and magma, giving rise to continents, mountains and so on. All the different kinds of minerals and rocks this process produces. Is the totality of this system complicated? Yes, I think it is. Yet it is remarkably simple to see how these processes could originate from simple gravity and the laws of physics and chemistry working on coalescing supernova remnants to produce our solar system and planet.

I'm sorry, but I buy neither of your premises and I think we have good reason do doubt them. Good enough to think that your conclusion is in fact the least likely option.

How did you even determine the likelyhood of your premises? You say they are "more likely to be true than to be wrong". Well shit buddy, to have reason to say that you must have checked over 50% of all possible natural processes, otherwise how could you possibly know how likely it is if you have not ruled out the majority of all possible natural processes?

1 Fire waves and crystals reproduction is not analogous to life reproduction.
2 climate and geological processes are not complicated, there is nothing “special” about the patterns that we observe. For example if you show me a volcano that explodes only on Monday that would be a special pattern and design would be the best explanation.

 

[dandan]

DRAGAN

Something which designs something else has to be more complex than that which it designs.

Something which evolves something else doesn't have to be more complex.

I've given examples of both - you can't provide any examples to support your contrary claim, other than to assert it.

Evolution is a simpler process than Creation (Design) - since the latter requires that you know all possible outcomes prior to the act of creation, the former doesn't necessitate that.

I don´t find good reasons to assume that a designer can´t create something more complex than himself. There is absurdity there, the idea of a designer creating more complex than yourself is not logically absurd like a squered circle or a married bachelor.

However you did presented a valid point, no one has ever seen a designer creating something more complex than him. But the lack of direct observation is not sufficient no conclude that it can´t happen… ¿imagine what would happen to evolution if we operate using that logic?

My point was that a snowflake - like the Giant's Causeway, etc - represented order which did not need a mind.

You're conflating design and order.

Life is another example of order - there is nothing that necessitates it be due to a mind, anymore than claiming a snowflake's or the Causeway's order be due to a mind.

Claiming that it is, is simply a arbitrary assumption based on religious belief

.

I never said that ordered requires a mind, I challenge you to quote from any of my comments. In order to conclude design the order has to be independent from natural laws. The hexagonal pattern of a snow flake is not independent from natural laws.
But a drawing that represent something that looks like a snowflake would be complicated because in this case the hexagonal pattern would be independent from the laws of nature, there is no law that states that “ink” has to organize in an hexagonal pattern.

Using man-made things as evidence/proof that order requires a mind is circular.

Kindest regards,

James

There is nothing circular, if we find a complicated pattern with most always assume intelligent design even if such pattern is found in the fossil record before humans evolved, or even if this pattern is found in another planet, design would be the best explanation.
All you have to do to falsify my premise if provide an example of something complicated that didn´t come from a mind.


Yes, evolution has been shown to add one 'piece' at a time. This is one of the laws of evolution, so it is important that you understand it; especially since NO creationist EVER seems to get this:

Evolutionary development is always only ever a change in morphological or physiological proportions, which might occasionally build on previous growths. It's a matter of incremental, superficial changes being slowly compiled atop successive tiers of fundamental similarities. Those multiple levels of similarity represent taxonomic clades, which encompass all the descendants of that clade. Evolution never suggests that one thing ever turned into another fundamentally different thing. In evolutionary theory, there is never a bridging of gaps between distant lineages, such as creationists might imagine to be different 'kinds'. There is no such thing as a "kind". So there is no time when one 'kind' ever turned into a different one, because every new family, genus, or species, (etc.) that ever evolved was just a modified version of whatever its ancestors were.

Do you understand and accept this? Because any of the points I present, which you do not accept, I will have to prove

I already told you, for the sake of this particular point, we are assuming that evolution is true, so let’s pretend that complexity can be a consequence of ether design or evolution.

My point is that even the first “self replicating” molecule would be complicated because self-replication requires multiple parts and systems to operate in a coordinated way. But this premise if also falsifiable, all you have to do is provide evidence that ancient self-replicating agents could have been simple, (simple enough to have come in to existence by chance)

 

[Rumraket]

Ok I read the paper....

Honestly what is your point, I already told you that for the sake of simplicity for this particular point, we are presupposing that commons ancestry is true, what you have to do is show that Darwinian mechanisms rather than something else was responsible of building complex stuff like an ATP motor. Your paper doesn't even attempt to answer this question.

You didn't understand the paper or my point at all. I gave you two papers, one on ancestral sequence reconstruction and another that actually uses ancestral sequence reconstruction on several key proteins in the ATP-synthase.

Ancestral sequence reconstruction assumes evolution took place, then uses that assumption to try and work out what the most probable ancestral state of a set of assumed to be orthologous DNA or protein sequences were. Once this has been done, the ancestral state is physically reconstructed by the researchers and tested for it's function.

The very fact that it HAS a function, that it works and that the function is usually related but different from the functions of the extant orthologues is evidence that the assumed evolutionary process probably took place.

Apparently you failed to understand how this actually answers your question.

There was nothing ridiculous about my answer. It is a categorical fact that an ATP-synthase requiring 10 trillion simultaneous mutations could not have evolved by known evolutionary processes. You got what you asked for, you are apparently disappointed that this question of yours wasn't the "gotcha" you had hoped for

.
Ok, I what to see your numbers… why 10 trillion? Why not 1 trillion or 1 million or 10 or 5 or 2?

Simply to make it easy to demonstrate that it can be falsified. I don't have to show you the exact limit, it is sufficient to go to an extreme to show that it can be falsified. This was obvious from the beginning. Your chronic inability to get these simple points is starting to look synthetic.

I what to see the statistical model that allowed you that 10 trillion is the point where darwinism would be falsified

I didn't say that it was the exact limit where we go from possible to impossible. All I meant to show was that it was in fact possibly to show it can be falsified. I did this by going to a simple extreme, so your original challenge was met.

 

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

DRAGAN

Something which designs something else has to be more complex than that which it designs.

Something which evolves something else doesn't have to be more complex.

I've given examples of both - you can't provide any examples to support your contrary claim, other than to assert it.

Evolution is a simpler process than Creation (Design) - since the latter requires that you know all possible outcomes prior to the act of creation, the former doesn't necessitate that.

I don´t find good reasons to assume that a designer can´t create something more complex than himself. There is absurdity there, the idea of a designer creating more complex than yourself is not logically absurd like a squered circle or a married bachelor.

However you did presented a valid point, no one has ever seen a designer creating something more complex than him. But the lack of direct observation is not sufficient no conclude that it can´t happen…

Again, thank you for the acknowledgement of a valid point.

The lack of direct observation is strong evidence for such, though I grant that it is not proof of such.

However, again, I remind you of the clash between logical possibility versus physical impossibility.

For example, it's commonly held that "God" is "omnipotent" - literally able to do anything.

To show how absurd is this claim/belief, a common question is, "Can God create a weight which he can't lift?" This sets up the contradiction of, "What happens when the Unstoppable Force meets the Immovable Object?"

A similar question is, "Can God create a God more powerful than Himself?"

As these result in impossible scenarios, there are those in theological circles who claim that "God" is only powerful enough so that such contradictions don't/can't occur. In other words, when they claim that "God" is "omnipotent", they don't mean that He's literally "omnipotent".

To return to the scenario of a human or alien designing/creating a more intelligent being - as you believe - it would mean that the designer would have to have near-perfect knowledge of how such a designed being would work. We're not here talking about a machine or robot, which is made up of discrete parts - we're talking about a organic being made up of nested "parts". And by "parts" I mean that they only have the appearance of such - they're not actually parts. This is why a watch or car is not analogous to a life-form, and can't be used to show that life needs a designer - both for the circularity of using a known man-made device as a analogue for the life-form and the non-discrete (not separate) nature of a life-form's "parts".

¿imagine what would happen to evolution if we operate using that logic?

The difference is that evolution doesn't "design" anything in advance.

My point was that a snowflake - like the Giant's Causeway, etc - represented order which did not need a mind.

You're conflating design and order.

Life is another example of order - there is nothing that necessitates it be due to a mind, anymore than claiming a snowflake's or the Causeway's order be due to a mind.

Claiming that it is, is simply a arbitrary assumption based on religious belief

.
I never said that ordered requires a mind, I challenge you to quote from any of my comments. In order to conclude design the order has to be independent from natural laws. The hexagonal pattern of a snow flake is not independent from natural laws.
But a drawing that represent something that looks like a snowflake would be complicated because in this case the hexagonal pattern would be independent from the laws of nature, there is no law that states that “ink” has to organize in an hexagonal pattern.

The point I'm making is that life is just another example of order that has emerged through natural processes, whereas design is pre-ordained. There is nothing in Nature to indicate that life-forms are due to pre-ordained design - they are explainable as emergent order through natural processes.

You are looking at emergent order and seeing pre-ordained design where there is none.

By claiming that "(pre-ordained) design" needs a mind, you are effectively claiming that - what is actually nothing more than - emergent order needs a mind.

Using man-made things as evidence/proof that order requires a mind is circular.

Kindest regards,

James

There is nothing circular, if we find a complicated pattern with most always assume intelligent design even if such pattern is found in the fossil record before humans evolved, or even if this pattern is found in another planet, design would be the best explanation.

Again, this is a presupposition on your part.

There is no reason whatsoever as to why we must always assume a mind - intelligent design - as the explanation.

Again, I refer you to the important differences between the watch/car analogies and life-forms.

All you have to do to falsify my premise if provide an example of something complicated that didn´t come from a mind.

As Dawkins' notes:

So, what is a complex thing? How should we recognize it? In what sense is it true to say that a watch or an airliner or an earwig or a person is complex, but the moon is simple

We already know that watches and airliners come from a mind - that can not incontrovertibly be said of a earwig or a person.

We know earwigs and persons - aka, humans - come from earwigs and humans respectively: more precisely, their predecessors.

Not from "minds".

And that is not meant as some "witty response", dandan.

You can't deny the above - just as you can't show that they come from a mind rather than their predecessors.

Yes, evolution has been shown to add one 'piece' at a time. This is one of the laws of evolution, so it is important that you understand it; especially since NO creationist EVER seems to get this:

Evolutionary development is always only ever a change in morphological or physiological proportions, which might occasionally build on previous growths. It's a matter of incremental, superficial changes being slowly compiled atop successive tiers of fundamental similarities. Those multiple levels of similarity represent taxonomic clades, which encompass all the descendants of that clade. Evolution never suggests that one thing ever turned into another fundamentally different thing. In evolutionary theory, there is never a bridging of gaps between distant lineages, such as creationists might imagine to be different 'kinds'. There is no such thing as a "kind". So there is no time when one 'kind' ever turned into a different one, because every new family, genus, or species, (etc.) that ever evolved was just a modified version of whatever its ancestors were.

Do you understand and accept this? Because any of the points I present, which you do not accept, I will have to prove

I already told you, for the sake of this particular point, we are assuming that evolution is true, so let’s pretend that complexity can be a consequence of ether design or evolution.

My point is that even the first “self replicating” molecule would be complicated because self-replication requires multiple parts and systems to operate in a coordinated way. But this premise if also falsifiable, all you have to do is provide evidence that ancient self-replicating agents could have been simple, (simple enough to have come in to existence by chance)

You don't appear to realise that you're contradicting yourself here.

A molecule is "simple" - a self-replicating molecule is somewhere between a molecule and the simplest life-form: a cell, although much, much closer to the former.

Perhaps you're thinking that a self-replicating molecule must be really complicated: in other words, have thousands upon thousands of atoms.

That is not the case.

For example, hexadeoxynucleotide is a self-replicating molecule with just over twenty atoms: this is easily achievable through naturally-occurring chemical reactions.

But if you already accept evolution - complexity - then you already accept that a self-replicating molecule can occur - since self-replication is one of its criteria.

Kindest regards,

James

 

[Rumraket]

1 Fire waves and crystals reproduction is not analogous to life reproduction.

Actually crystal reproduction is exactly like life. There is information transfer and introduction of small errors in the crystal lattice structure.

2 climate and geological processes are not complicated, there is nothing “special” about the patterns that we observe.

What do you mean by special? How is it special? According to whom is that "specialness" "special" and why does that even matter with regard to how it came about?

For example if you show me a volcano that explodes only on Monday that would be a special pattern and design would be the best explanation.

Why? Where do you get this shit?

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

2 climate and geological processes are not complicated, there is nothing “special” about the patterns that we observe. For example if you show me a volcano that explodes only on Monday that would be a special pattern and design would be the best explanation.

:facepalm:

Based on this logic, dandan must believe that Old Faithful was designed.

 

[WarK]

2 climate and geological processes are not complicated, there is nothing “special” about the patterns that we observe. For example if you show me a volcano that explodes only on Monday that would be a special pattern and design would be the best explanation.

:facepalm:

Based on this logic, dandan must believe that Old Faithful was designed.

:lol:

Reality is a minefield for a creationist

 

[SpecialFrog]

OFNF seems to have posted some form of reply to YouTube (of course).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7ReLOc9U-0

As well as still not understanding how a system of currently-interdependent parts could evolve, he takes this paper (Inventing the dynamo machine: the evolution of the F-type and V-type ATPases) and quote mines it so that it appears the paper is saying that the evolution of the cellular membrane is impossible.

The paper says that the origin of the cellular membrane seems to be a Catch-22 and that the mechanism by which it evolves is unclear. OFNF ignores the "seems" and pretends "unclear" means "impossible.

He also ignores the fact that the very next paragraph starts with "however", making this quote mine an apparent homage to the classic creationist attempt to make it seem like Darwin said that the evolution of the eye was impossible.