A structure or an event is specified when there is a match between said structure or event and some external pattern that is independent of said structure or event. Mount Rushmore nicely illustrates this concept.
Any given cloud is highly complex, that is highly improbable. The same is true of any mountain. But of course the mere complexity (improbability) of a mountain or a cloud is not enough to draw
a design inference, which requires another ingredient in addition to mere complexity, i.e., a specification. Cf Mount Rushmore.
So we have an improbable configuration. So that meets the complexity criterion. And we have a specification (just on the way to work today there was a cloud that looked like a fetus in the womb).
So CSI can not be a reliable indicator of design because nature produces it as well
If you or any created thing makes an appeal to himself or itself, that appeal is illegitimate. That is because you live inside a closed created system. Plus there is always someone greater than you either inside or outside of the system.
When God makes an appeal, he can only appeal to himself for their none greater than he. As well, God is not created, so he is not subject to the closed created system he in fact created.
Kids, always say Yes to Creationism because it is the only way to enlarge your brain and direct it properly and to properly give glory to the One who created it and you.
I deny it. Provide this independently given pattern that is a specification for the manufacture of planthopper leg “gears”. Note that superficial similarity to human designed mechanical gears is NOT a specification.
Can you explain how this does not just boils down to ‘it looks like something else’?
A cloud in the shape of Great Britain is complex (= improbable; because there are near infinite cloud shapes) and specified (it looks like Great Britain). Therefore, it has CSI.
I saw such a cloud this summer when sitting in the garden. According to you I must conclude it was Intelligently Designed.
And here is the abstract of the original paper published in Science:
Abstract
Gears are found rarely in animals and have never been reported to intermesh and rotate functionally like mechanical gears. We now demonstrate functional gears in the ballistic jumping movements of the flightless planthopper insect Issus. The nymphs, but not adults, have a row of cuticular gear (cog) teeth around the curved medial surfaces of their two hindleg trochantera. The gear teeth on one trochanter engaged with and sequentially moved past those on the other trochanter during the preparatory cocking and the propulsive phases of jumping. Close registration between the gears ensured that both hindlegs moved at the same angular velocities to propel the body without yaw rotation. At the final molt to adulthood, this synchronization mechanism is jettisoned.
Given these elements, are you still denying that planthopper nymphs are using functional mechanical gears to propel their bodies?
So in the case of Mt. Rushmore the specification is the physical appearance of the four presidents who are depicted upon it. There is no “natural” process or factor that would explain the high degree of concordance between the faces of those individuals and the structure of the rocks.
The gears of the planthopper show no such specification. They exist because of the functional adaptations they provide which have been subjected to natural selection.
You forgot to provide the before-the-fact specification. The fact they function LIKE human designed gears isn’t a specification and it doesn’t make the planthopper legs be “designed”. Try again.
In the common usage of English, specification implies the prior stipulation of requirements. One object bearing a resemblance to another object in itself does not infer specification. This is just another word game, where ID is really saying “I assume design therefore I have demonstrated design.”
This is wrong. An object is only determined to be specified when a causal connection can be established between the object and the similar looking independent thing the object resembles. With your empty definition any cloud which looks like a bunny is “specified” and designed.
All you’re providing is another unscientific “looks designed to me!” subjective assertion.
Yes, but not contingent, therefore no design inference is warranted in this case
Same remark as above
I’ve found this definition of specification in googling for it: an act of identifying something precisely or of stating a precise requirement.
So it is simply not true that in the common usage of English, specification necessarily implies the prior stipulation of requirements. Not only that, but the above definition is consonant with the idea that something is specified if it conforms to an independently given pattern.
That is very different than your definition where you do not identify anything precisely. It’s still just the completely subjective “looks designed to me”.
I really don’t understand what you mean here. Could you elaborate ?
Wrong. The fact that they function exactly like human designed gears means that they conform to an independently given pattern, I.e., they are specified.
A structure or an event is specified when there is a match between said structure or event and some external pattern that is independent of, but contingent upon, said structure or event.
So this is acceptable to you as a revised definition?
Wrong. In the planthopper case, the scientists who discovered the bug gears have precisely identify that they conform to an independently given pattern, i.e., to human designed gears. Try again.
Still wrong as you have still not provided any specification. You’re still trying to define “design” into existence with the superficial "looks designed to me!’
Rainclouds provide the same function of watering the lawn as do human built lawn sprinklers. Does that mean rain clouds are specified?
You completely ignore the fact natural processes can independently produce results similar to human design so a superficial similarity does not indicate the natural object was designed.
