How can I tell which ones are designed? They all seem to have purposeful arrangement of parts to me. They are all examples from chemistry, which is what biology is based on, so wouldn’t these be relevant? If purposeful arrangement of parts is the only requirement, wouldn’t all of these be designed? Which ones would be the most designed? I’m not asking just to pick a fight, I truly would like to know how I could know which is which in these examples.
But this is where even the ID big tent does not agree within the movement. What is the granularity? What constitutes a part? What constitutes a function? Is every function a purpose? Can micro-evolution increase complexity and formulate a new function? Is design continuous or does it happen in episodes? The definitions in ID themselves require definition.
Mike’s claim is not about designed or not designed. It’s about how strong the design inference is from what we are observing. Something can be designed such as an organic molecule but have a relatively weak design inference compared to the flagellum.
So it’s not a purposeful arrangement of parts then? [Edit: sorry, that may have come off as snarky, I didn’t intend it that way. I just don’t get the argument. So it’s not a definition then, but you seem to be using it like a definition. Can we infer anything from the images I put up? Again, not a trap, just trying to understand.]
The purpose of the water is to fall and create a mist
The purpose of the rock cliff is to give the water a place to fall
The purpose of the mist is to make a rainbow
You mean Behe’s argument from ignorance based personal incredulity. His “this superficially resembles a human designed object, so it must BE designed!”
Well no, I just happen to know the history of those pictures so I’m trying to do the scientific thing and see if an independent 3rd party can test them. I personally, feel like I couldn’t tell whether the first two are designed or not. I feel like for sure the 3rd one is and maybe the 4th (they look more like Rushmores than Everests to me). Maybe we could do a poll?
But you don’t know whether they are paintings, that’s the whole point here. You are supposed to be able to infer whether they were designed. If you already know they’re paintings that basically gives it away doesn’t it? So, what do you think? Were they designed, are they paintings, and if so what tells you that?
OK cool, thanks for that. So then let me ask this one:
vs
Now, the first one is not a picture, but a chemical reaction. The second one is a painting. Which one is more likely designed based on “a purposeful arrangement of parts”?
I would agree that the design inference here is relatively hard to differentiate in this case. Even though the bottom one was designed a positive design inference is relatively more difficult than if the painting showed a recognizable figure.
Ah, Bill finally comes clean about his criteria for detecting “design”. The more an unknown object looks like some other already-known-designed human artifact, the more “designy-ness” it has.
Watching this fruitless simplistic conversation makes me suspect, rather strongly, that one of the biggest impediments to thinking about design, productively, is immersion in the “work” of the ID movement. Once you convince someone that there is any useful intellectual content in phrases like “purposeful arrangement,” you can apparently discourage them from pursuing real questions about design.
Now, whether this state of affairs is—what’s that word—“purposeful” is another question.
So “design” is in the eye of the beholder it seems. Makes “looks designed to me!” be a pretty worthless criteria for design detection. Don’t you agree Bill?
