The two aren’t inherently opposed in an either/or choice; that’s the mistake you and many people here keep making.
I don’t recall any design theorist inferring design from the mere fact that two people have similar DNA, and I think all design theorists would say that two brothers have similar DNA due to inheritance. What they challenge is some of the extrapolations made from such legitimate conclusions, e.g., that because inheritance within species seems to have a natural cause, therefore all organic change on earth from the beginning of time is due to wholly to inheritance modified only by natural and undirected, unplanned causes.
That’s obvious, but the issue is not whether “evolutionary mechanisms” exist, but whether they can account for all organic change between bacterium and man (or, if you go for chemical evolution of life, between ammonia and oxygen and water and other molecules and man), without any reference to a designing mind. You believe that they can, but you have not demonstrated it. You give future science a blank check to provide the rigorous demonstration. Others say they will not treat a possible future demonstration as a present demonstration, and withhold intellectual assent until such a demonstration is provided. Withholding assent is a perfectly rational course of action, unless one is being propelled by an assumption of metaphysical naturalism. (On the assumption of metaphysical naturalism, it is perfectly reasonable to conclude that evolution without design must be true, even if we can’t demonstrate it yet.)
I’m quite willing to see people like yourself withhold assent to design inferences. I have no problem with that. I even respect it, where it springs from a healthy skepticism about possibly premature conclusions. But to withhold assent from design inferences, while growing indignant to the point of fury (in the case of some internet commenters, as seen even here, though not in your posts which are calmer) at people who withhold assent to the inference “from molecules to man, without any design,” is rather inconsistent. I’m happy if both parties, the pro-design party and the anti-design party, agree that neither side has proved its case, i.e., that design is necessary, or that design is not necessary. I don’t need a win to maintain my position; I need only a draw.
What does this mean to you? Universal common ancestry from a single origin life event all generated from single cell division plus parent child inheritance all with natural variation?
If that’s you definition I think there is very little evidence that supports this.
Evolution isn’t restricted to common descent. To make an inference to the best explanation you have to explain observed data with a predictive model. A model has parameters that can be evaluated in terms of parsimony and explanatory power. Something that predicts certain types of data as opposed to other types of data. Biology does this. Evolutionary biology does this. It isn’t just restricted to inferring common descent.
What are the parameters of the ID model? What data does it predict?
See now you’ve just been too vague for any of your statements to have made any sense. First you complain that the inferences made in biology are a standard of evidence “a thousand times higher than they would demand for design inferences in their daily practical lives”. It’s not clear what the “standard of evidence used in their practical lives” is, but multiplying it by a thousand doesn’t get you to absolute certainty in any case. You’re just blathering.
The standard of evidence isn’t “absolute certainty” anywhere, in any science, including evolutionary biology. Yes it’s higher than it is in our everyday lives, and that’s a good thing, it shouldn’t be lowered. It is noteworthy however that applying the standards of evidence used in science, the inference to the best explanation results in evolution being inferred, not intelligent design.
If you claim now is that intelligent design predictions are equivalent to those of evolutionary biology, but you can’t model it or explain why, then, sir, we have no need of that hypothesis.
I am talking about all historical events (assuming the tree of life) that require substantial functional genetic information that leads to biological innovation such as splicing, flight, sight, echo location etc.
It’s been demonstrated to the satisfaction of virtually all professional scientists who research and study the subject. That some scientifically ignorant layman don’t have the knowledge to make an informed decision and use their religious teachings to guide their beliefs instead doesn’t negate the solid science one iota.
The anger and indignation isn’t directed at laypeople who personally believe ID. It’s directed at the professional liars and charlatans who try and sneak their pseudo-science crap into public schools with things like blatantly dishonest and misleading “academic freedom” legislation.
I no longer have any idea what you’re talking about. I thought you were talking about ORFan genes when you wrote “de novo sequences”. It’s not clear what you are talking about now? What’s a “substantial functional genetic information that leads to biological innovation”? Actually nevermind, I’m sure I don’t even care.
Bill’s religion tells him evolution is wrong. He can’t say how, or where, or why, but he just knows it has to be wrong. I think the plan is if he tosses out enough non-sequiturs and technical terms he doesn’t understand maybe he’ll accidentally hit on the refutation.
False. If you found an advanced computer on Mars, and ascertained that it could not possibly have come from the earth, it would be rock-solid evidence for the existence of a hitherto unknown designing mind, even if you knew nothing about who the designer might be. The knowledge of design would not only precede any knowledge about the designer, but would in no way depend upon our ever finding out who devised the computer, where they came from, whether they were aliens or gods, etc. The design inference is independent of all that.
In fact, any reasoning about the designers would have to work in exactly the opposite of the way you state. The only information we would have about the nature of the designers, if we could obtain any at all, would have to come by inference, from the features of the designed object itself.
Of course, if you want to postulate a scenario with other elements, i.e., the ruins of a Martian civilization lying all around the computer, then if might be possible to learn something directly about the people who designed the computer. But if for some reason every trace of civilization was gone (maybe swallowed up in a great earthquake, or maybe the computer was manufactured elsewhere and merely dropped on Mars), there would nothing to go on but the computer itself – which would provide more than enough evidence to warrant the design conclusion.
It’s nonsensical to you because of your extreme linear thought. You try to categorize things to your own paradigm and are not really reading for comprehension. Gpuccio has put out many posts on the infusion of genetic information over evolutionary time scales. Have you read his work?
Well, I can hardly see why anyone should give a flying fig what you “think” on the issue. Except to point out that if you don’t accept common ancestry, you have no basis on which to distinguish some genes as “de novo” or “ORFans.”
You could see similar patterns if there was guiding in certain cases. I do believe in common ancestry just not unguided universal common ancestry. We could also see a similar pattern with common ancestry but multiple origin events.
UCD is a claim that has never been defended and UC Berkeley now calls it a working hypothesis.
Because we know how computers arise, and that they do not arise thru any natural processes.
Whereas we also know that DNA only arises thru natural processes, so there is no reason to suspect “design.”
But here’s an interesting point that your examples raises: Suppose the Mars Rover actually did find a computer or similar piece of technology on the planet. What would be our reaction? “Well, sure, we know that was designed. That’s all we need to know.” Hardly. We would be devoting as many resources as we could to find out exactly who had designed this computer, where they came from, and where they are now.
Yet the ID creationists believe they have made exactly that sort of discovery, but are completely uninterested in doing any research to uncover the nature and origin of this “designer.” They just keep writing stupid blog posts trying vainly to find some sort of flaw in evolutionary theory.
Doesn’t that strike you as odd? The only explanation I can come up with is that the ID creationists don’t even believe their own propaganda and know they have found no evidence of a designer.
No. You have to have a model of your designer, some model and expectations of it’s means, motives, and opportunity, otherwise you can’t explain the computer by appealing to just some nebulous “designing mind”.
You seem to be saying that your model has no parameters. It merely amounts to uttering the word “design” and then you think you have somehow given an explanation for an advanced computer on Mars. You have not. Nowhere in science is what you’re doing actually done. Heck, not even in real life. We don’t infer that someone wished a letter or stone tool into existence.
To make an inference to the best explanation you have to actually have an explanation. There needs to be something in your model that explains the attributes of the observed phenomenon. Otherwise you haven’t made an inference to the best explanation when the explanation part is lacking.
You seem to be doing something else and it’s not clear what it is. Rather than explain the “advanced computer”, you seem to be just trying to reach a conclusion that a designer must exist, but it isn’t clear how you achieve this. How could you do that without having some sort of model of your designer and some expectations about what it can or can’t do, and how and whether it will achieve this?
