so lets go a step by step. why you conclude design in your second image?
Well, I actually didn’t conclude anything. But if you asked me “was this manufactured from a human design?” I’d say sure – it’s made out of metal, has a very nice circle shape, regular pattern that is unusual in metal samples, and it has writing on it that I recognize. Also, I’ve handled gears myself and know they go in mechanical things that are designed. I could design one myself with a particular gear ratio since I know some of the various principles and purposes of gears.
The fact that 2 parts work together to perform a function is evidence of design. The more parts that work together and the more significant the function the stronger the design inference.
Any chemical reaction will include 2 or more parts working together to perform a function.
2 Likes
Not even close. GA’s mimic people doing the job. That is a fact. Thousands of people working on one problem with a supervisor guiding them.
@Roy The weasel program would never reach the target without said target guiding it. The antenna GA could never produce anything but the antenna it was designed to produce.
A GA is a search heuristic. Natural selection is not. A GA actively searches for solutions to the problem it was designed to solve. That is nothing like natural selection
Heuristic : involving or serving as an aid to learning, discovery, or problem-solving by experimental and especially [trial-and-error] methods
Algorithm: a procedure for solving a mathematical problem (as of finding the greatest [common divisor] in a finite number of steps that frequently involves repetition of an operation
broadly : a step-by-step procedure for solving a problem or accomplishing some end
Genetic algorithm: An algorithm that solves a problem using an evolutionary approach by generating mutations to the current solution method, selecting the better methods from this new generation, and then using these improved methods to repeat the process.
A fitness function is a particular type of [objective function] that is used to summarize, as a single , how close a given design solution is to achieving the set aims. Fitness functions are used in [genetic programming] and [genetic algorithms] to guide simulations towards optimal design solutions.
Genetic algorithms were invented to solve problems. The fitness function guided all generational solutions towards that goal.
@Mercer- The argument is referenced to blind, mindless and purposeless processes. According to Dr. Behe/ Intelligent Design, the immune system was intelligently designed and works as it was designed to do. Blind, mindless and purposeless processes had not part.
I agree. As I said it is not binary. The fewer the parts and the less significant the function the weaker the design inference. Significant needs a definition and I will think about it.
The Kreb cycle. Ask any biochem student who’s had to memorize it all, it’s got a lot of parts. Yet it’s still just a chemical reaction that performs a function.
3 Likes
I think the Kreb cycle along with the Calvin cycle strongly meet the design inference. Just a chemical reaction that performs a function is not true. There are cellular enzymes involved which require functional information to build.
It’s absolutely true, what in the cycle isn’t a chemical?
2 Likes
“Complicated things have some quality, specifiable in advance, that is highly unlikely to have been acquired by random chance alone. In the case of living things, the quality is specified in advance is…the ability to propagate genes in reproduction.”- Richard Dawkins, “The Blind Watchmaker”
Information means here the precise determination of sequence, either of bases in the nucleic acid or on amino acid residues in the protein. Francis Crick
The specification is in the precise determination of sequence. Predict hand-waving, flailing and personal attacks…
If your work consists of thousands of people doing completely random things with a supervisor plucking out the bits that happen to do something useful, you’ve got a very strange job. No, it’s not a fact that that’s how people do the job.
5 Likes
Its the way you are stating it as just a chemical reaction, It is a chemical reaction involving organization and enzymes. You are implying all chemical reactions are the same and they are not.
Plus… It goes backwards, forwards, is broken at times and/or in various organisms, has a bypass, and converts intermediates in different directions. Plus most of the enzymes have structural relationships with other enzymes that catalyze similar reactions, so there is a good case for duplication & divergence. There’s also research that’s investigated how substrate specificity has switched over time, as in the case of NADP vs. NAD, which had implications in energy metabolism and catabolism.
2 Likes
You clearly misread what I posted. And GA’s don’t do “random things”
Wait, what? Organization = reaction and enzyme = chemical, I don’t get how it’s anything but a chemical reaction. You seem to be conflating function with origin. The chemical reaction doesn’t care where the other reactants came from, it’s just going to do it’s thing. You said:
And I’m just saying that I don’t think it’s nearly that easy. I gave a few counterexamples. I’m not trying to tear “design” or ID down or win an argument. I’m just saying that I think your definition needs more work.
I responded to what you wrote. You wrote that GAs mimic people doing the job. They don’t.
Of course they do. That’s not all they do, but they certainly do random things (usually pseudo-random, but only because real randomness is hard to come by).
1 Like
It’s obvious:
- Safe #1 up
- Safe #1 down
- Safe #2 up
- Safe #2 down
- Safe #3 up
- Safe #3 down
6 possible states. Easy.
First, I appreciate the fair exchange of ideas you are providing. 
This may be why we are seeing it differently. In my mind I am thinking about how the cell manufactures the components to build this cellular function. The design inference is generally a conclusion of how something originated.
The two definitions for the design inference are a purposeful arrangement of parts that perform a function and functional information greater than 500 bits.
The Krebs cycle probably requires both of these conditions to build so I believe it passes the design inference.
That was a rather short response to a much larger post, focusing only on the beginning sentence.
The target is 3 open safes. How is “safe #3 up” a possible successful search for that target?