I confess to being utterly unable to understand how you can conclude this. What you are “allowed,” of course, is to conclude that black is white and white black, or any other thing that suits your fancy. But this conclusion of yours is such an obvious non sequitur that one can hardly rebut; one can only gape in astonishment.
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“not required” =/= “not involved”
For somebody who has nothing but rhetoric, you sure have a very under-developed understanding of what words mean.
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You must remember that English is not Gilbert’s first language. Maybe more extensive tuition in English As Second Language (EASL) could help him.
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@theaz101 said the following:
My claim is that all functional digital information, which requires elements (dots/dashes, bits, nucleobases) of a coding system to be put into functional sequences, requires intelligence to do so.
To which @Puck_Mendelssohn replied the following:
As @Rumraket points out, of course, this is contrary to what we know to be true, so that’s a bit of a problem.
The word « this » in Puck response refers to theaz’s claim, right? So what on earth is wrong when I say that Puck has claimed that saying that systems such as the genetic code require an intelligence is contrary to what we know to be true? Just curious.
Appreciate
These two are not the same:
theas101 is talking about all functional digital information which requires elements of a coding system, such as bits or nucleobases, which by what those words mean can be any functional genetic sequence.
I point out that we have directly observed functional genetic sequences evolve, so as @Puck_Mendelssohn is right to point out, @theaz101’s claim is contrary to what we know to be true.
You then start talking about the translation system (the genetic code is the translation system, of course). Apparently taking that when Puck agrees with me then Puck is claiming—you seem to think—that we have somehow empirically proven that little magical hammers/wands/fingers of Thor, Hermione Granger, or Yahweh, aren’t invisibly pushing the molecules around against their physical tendensies when the translation system evolved.
Which makes me think you can’t read.
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Exactly. And the fact that it is contrary to what we know to be true is, outside of the realm of highly motivated reasoning, completely uncontroversial.
I don’t even begin to understand how this observation about things we empirically know somehow is meant to translate into a claim that an intelligence is known not to be involved in the origin of the genetic code. The origin of the code isn’t at all the same question as the origin of any “functional digital information,” and no assertion is made here in any sense about the former, only the latter. Nor does the knowledge that information DOES arise from non-intelligent sources in any way mean that it can’t arise from intelligent sources. The same can be said of the supernatural: the fact that information is only seen to arise from natural processes does not mean that supernatural processes capable of producing information do not exist.
@Giltil claimed that I had committed a “gross epistemological error” (and it is only fair to note that there are few here who have as much experience with gross epistemological errors as he does) by claiming “that we know that no intelligence was involved in the genetic code.” But I of course never said anything of the sort, or even anything similar. So far as I am aware, one can never make such a definitive statement – trying to figure out whether some supernatural cause existed at one time in the past, and the details of what that supernatural cause did or did not do, is a fool’s errand. All we can know is that there is not a shred of evidence that any such intelligence WAS involved, leaving this proposed intelligence as the merest wisp of purely philosophical possibility. My experience is that learned people who are interested in probing the real causes of things do not waste their time with such notions.
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That is just ID speak for projecting traits of recognizably manufactured artifacts onto personifications of nature.
The motivations which propel the manufacture of things are as varied as human experience, with their functions ranging over practical, artistic, whimsy, spiritual, cultural, and more. By common experience of normal upbringing, people learn to immediately distinguish artificial from natural, and by extension, design. Recognition is social and essentially subjective informed by life, outside of which there is no design inference, and certainly not any relative or quantifiable inference.
While ID likes to focus on complexity as a marker of design, simplicity and uniformity are ubiquitous traits of manufacture. A 2x4 is simpler than a tree. A silicon wafer is purer than sand. Reference weights are more uniform than rocks. No complex arrangement of parts involved for their function.
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Hi Ron
A semiconductor wafer on its own has very little real function. When you add lines, transistors and the arrangement of those you end up with very complex functions like digital signal processing and graphic processing which powers AI.
How much?
Is “very complex” more than “very little”?
You don’t believe God etched life forms into rocks, so what point are you making?
A spark plug on its own doesn’t do much.
The purpose of wafers is to serve as the substrate for integrated circuits - that is as much a function as anything. On what do you plan to add micron scale transistors, if not ultra pure silicon?
Silicon wafers may be simple, but their manufacture is involved and at the limit of what is technologically possible. Their design is inseparable from the process of making them. This has been true of technology from the beginning. Artifacts of the bronze and iron ages are due to processes which enable higher temperatures. The tools in your garage are identifiable and detectable as forged or cast. For manufacturers everywhere, the process is the design.
But not for ID. Their official stance is that the identity of the designer is outside the scope. In contrast to human manufacture, the process of design is also set outside the scope. That leaves little of substance. As ID has never advanced a compelling positive case of insufficiency in nature, it all boils down to God of the gaps.
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As is the process of manufacture.
Many of those gaps have been filled by science, but the target audience is never exposed to that.
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Hi Allen
The nested hierarchies do not tell us how simple structures became more complex. They don’t tell us how orphan genes came into existence and they don’t tell us how structures can skip several nodes in the hierarchy like eyes, echo location, and genes.
Population genetics works well with existing populations yet it tells us very little how new populations with unique genetic arrangements came into existence. If we break from the single origin model population genetics mathematics works well.
Or, as Zippy once said, “I was eating doughnuts and now I’m on a bus!”
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Nested hierarchies don’t tell us how to make chicken risotto. They don’t tell us how Stonehenge was built, and they don’t tell us how genetic diseases can skip generations in the genealogy, like colour blindness, haemophilia and cousins.
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I am interested to hear more about these clades that Bill says didn’t have any genes.
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What nested hierarchies do tell us, however, is that there is an inheritance-based relationship that goes beyond mere similarity. Which is what is expected from an evolutionary process, but not necessarily expected from an intelligent design process.
(Unless said designer was trying to mimic an evolutionary process.)
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But what do they tell us? Can you answer that?
(Incidentally, the nested hierarchy often tells us how simple structures became more complex or, more broadly, how features have changed over time; it just doesn’t usually tell us why.)
They don’t tell us this as the relationship cannot be reconciled based on the differences which lead to unexpected deviations from a pattern you would expect if the populations were genetically related. We would not expect distinctly different animals sharing unique features.
The inheritance based relationship is inferred based on methodological naturalism. Methodological naturalism is leading to a model that we cannot make sense of mathematically.
This sound very much like a proof by contradiction, and it would be completely fair to ask you to show the math for why you think this is true. However, prior experience suggests that you are unwilling of unable to do the required math. Maybe it doesn’t make sense to you, but that hardly rises to the level of a problem with methodological naturalism.
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