Why are We Disagreeing with ID?

[colewd (Bill Cole)]

@CrisprCAS9

You have repeatedly made this claim, and never once supported it.

This was discussed in detail based on the Behe/Lynch papers. There are inherent limitations to the amount of changes given realistic populations and realistic amounts of beneficial vs deleterious occur in populations.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1110/ps.04802904

http://dx.doi.org/10.1110/ps.051674105

[colewd (Bill Cole)]

Here is the image that shows unique gene sets between different vertebrate.

[Rumraket (Mikkel R.)]

@Tim

Only if you Beg the Question, by first assuming that species cannot bifurcate and evolve.

Or, to put it another way, it does not challenge “common descent by natural means” as scientists understand it, but rather Bill Cole’s Potemkin Common Descent™.

Exactly. It only challenges common descent if you have as an axiom that species that have diverged from common ancestors cannot possibly gain new genes.

Hilariously even Behe accepts common descent, he just thinks the new genes’ evolution is guided by God.

How Bill has managed to convince himself that novel genes contradicts common descent is, well, not the product of a process of rational inquiry.

[T_aquaticus]

@colewd

There are inherent limitations to amount of changes given realistic populations and realistic amounts of beneficial vs deleterious occur in populations.

All of which is based on the Sharpshooter fallacy.

[T_aquaticus]

@colewd

Here is the image that shows unique gene sets between different vertebrate.

We would expect unique gene sets from evolutionary mechanisms due to gene gain and gene loss.

[CrisprCAS9]

@colewd

This was discussed in detail based on the Behe/Lynch papers.

Results from 2013 were discussed in 2009? Try again, this time honestly.

[Faizal_Ali]

@colewd

Here is the image that shows unique gene sets between different vertebrate.

I think you posted the wrong diagram. You have received so many explanations why the diagram you did post does not demonstrate what you said it does, that it is impossible you could not understand this by now.

[Mercer (John Mercer)]

@colewd

I agree with you that it is used for apologetics and I was resistant to it at first but I now believe it is a very useful tool for science.

If so, where are its empirical predictions?

[Paul_King]

That doesn’t pose any obvious problems.

I also found Lynch’s response to Behe and Snokes quite convincing:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1110/ps.041171805

[lee_merrill]

@Faizal_Ali

@lee_merrill

design is implied when the number of unselected steps results in a probability of say, 1 in 10^40 (using Behe’s edge of evolution) or 1 in 10^150 (using Dembski’s universal probability bound).

Could you demonstrate how that would work in practice? For instance, use those criteria to demonstrate that Mt. Rushmore was designed, and not a natural rock formation.

That’s not a procedure for every design, though.

@Faizal_Ali

@lee_merrill

I believe that my thoughts are not the result of blind natural processes. Otherwise, I have no reason to trust my thoughts!

That doesn’t follow. Flesh out your argument here.

This is “The argument from reason”, you may read about it here. "It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all. If you are merely a sceptic, you must sooner or later ask yourself the question, “Why should anything go right; even observation and deduction?” (G.K. Chesterton)

@Faizal_Ali

Is nature “deterministic”?

All right, deterministic or random, if either of these are the ultimate causes of my thoughts, why should I trust them?

@Faizal_Ali

And Behe’s claims are just as well supported, and based on no better an understanding of the data, as are the claims of the flat earthers. We can discuss why further, if you wish.

Glad to discuss further…

@Faizal_Ali

@lee_merrill

But the discovery of laptops on Mars would not require a description of agency and mechanism to conclude design. These are further questions of interest, but not requirements.

We would conclude “design” because we know with near certainty that laptops are only produced by intelligent designers, and that no natural process produces them. It has nothing to do with any of the measures that ID proponents suggest.

Sure it does, something no natural process could probably produce, based on our knowledge of nature, must have a non-natural cause, i.e. a designer.

@Faizal_Ali

@lee_merrill

… materialistic explanations do not cover all types of explanations, is the point.

What is an example of an explanation that is known to be non-material for something that occurs in the material world?

The explanation for the validity of reasoning!

@Faizal_Ali

If I leave a glass of water on a table, walk out of the room and on my return find a pile of broken glass on the floor in a pool of water, I know that the glass fell to the floor and shattered. I don’t have to have observed the fall, and yet my conclusion is based on what has been observed.

So the point would be that there is no direct observation of the event, science will often rely on deductions (as you say) instead of direct observations.

[lee_merrill]

@Rumraket

You have no more reason to trust your thoughts there, and you still have to just posit some question-begging assumption to make your mind trustworthy.

"It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all. If you are merely a sceptic, you must sooner or later ask yourself the question, ‘Why should anything go right; even observation and deduction?’ " (G.K. Chesterton) The validity of reasoning has to be a postulate, a postulate of the supernatural, and not a deduction.

@Rumraket

@lee_merrill

So by “design” I mean something outside of the deterministic processes of nature.

That seems to make the whole thing fundamentally untestable.

No, it makes design testable, if I see something nature could not probably have produced, I conclude design, like the SETI researchers.

[lee_merrill]

@Paul_King

@lee_merrill

Yes, but it’s not pointless to compute the probability of a path in some instances, such as evolution. If the path is improbable, then the result is improbable.

Yes it is. Because it makes exactly the mistake pointed out above. The probability of the path really doesn’t matter. Only the probability of the outcome.

But if we have a probability of the path, then we can use that as the probability of the outcome, viewing the outcome before the event, not after the event.

[colewd (Bill Cole)]

Here is Behe’s response to Lynch.

https://doi.org/10.1110%2Fps.051674105

How does this discussion make you believe there is a good model for the emergence of novel genes with unique sequences?

The duplicated gene needs to find functional advantage prior to any selection taking place.

[lee_merrill]

@faded_Glory

You are entirely focused on one specific particular structure as if that is the only solution to a particular challenge.

No, I am saying let’s consider the probability that this structure evolved. Whether there are other solutions to the challenge, or whether this structure might give a competitive advantage, are separate questions.

@faded_Glory

First of all, contrary to what you say, no, we can’t actually compute the probability of evolution doing anything specific. There are far too many variables and complex relations between them for us to be able to do so.

In general, yes. But there are some specific results, such as the arrival of chloroquine resistance in malaria, or the probability of a new protein-protein binding site, that are amenable to analysis.

@faded_Glory

… what if the Designer works through evolution? In that case the options are not independent and your ‘probability through elimination’ calculation would be false.

Good point, though I believe that nature operates by laws we can discern, and thus nature can be posited as a cause, if only a secondary one.

[Paul_King]

@colewd

How does this discussion make you believe there is a good model for the emergence of novel genes with unique sequences?

You linked that and I read it earlier. And no, I did not find it a convincing reply - it certainly did not adequately address Lynch’s points.,

@colewd

The duplicated gene needs to find functional advantage prior to any selection taking place.

But variation can occur before duplication without being selected out as Behe assumed. Behe admitted that this was the major difference but did not have an adequate response.

[Paul_King]

@lee_merrill

But if we have a probability of the path, then we can use that as the probability of the outcome, viewing the outcome before the event, not after the event.

Only if it is the only possible path to the outcome. Dembski knew better when he wrote The Design Inference.

[colewd (Bill Cole)]

@Paul_King

But variation can occur before duplication without being selected out as Behe assumed. Behe admitted that this was the major difference but did not have an adequate response.

He responded that most amino acid changing mutations are deleterious and supports his claim with several papers. On what basis do you disagree with Behe here. We can test this hypothesis with several shared house keeping genes. Many show vary little variation over time.

https://www.uniprot.org/align/A202205234ABAA9BC7178C81CEBC9459510EDDEA301FCE71

[CrisprCAS9]

@colewd

The duplicated gene needs to find functional advantage prior to any selection taking place.

And that advantage, necessarily, is a result of being different from the original sequence. Meaning that this:

@colewd

He responded that most amino acid changing mutations are deleterious

Is a disqualifyingly silly thing to have said.

[Rumraket (Mikkel R.)]

@lee_merrill

But if we have a probability of the path, then we can use that as the probability of the outcome, viewing the outcome before the event, not after the event.

But if we already have the outcome, we can’t use that calculation to cast doubt on the outcome for the same reason we can’t use such a calculation to cast doubt on you yourself being the product of the accumulation of 10 generations of your ancestors particular mutations.

[Rumraket (Mikkel R.)]

@lee_merrill

The validity of reasoning has to be a postulate, a postulate of the supernatural, and not a deduction.

How would you demonstrate the truth of that without attempting a deduction? All you did here was make a bold assertion.

So no, it’s just an assumption. You don’t have to assume it’s supernaturally made valid, and assuming that the supernatural makes it reliable is no less an assumption than it is to assume it just is reliable, or that there is some natural reason for it being reliable (such as it having survival value).

Regardless of which option you pick it will always and only ever remain an assumption you strictly can’t demonstrate whether is true. Inventing a supernatural reason for it’s reliability doesn’t somehow magically make it not be an assumption, nor does coming up with such a story somehow make you magically better at reasoning, and there’s no reason for making that assumption in the first place since there could just as well be a supernatural reason for your rational faculties being fundamentally unreliable. For all you know, God could have made your reasoning completely invalid, yet so deluded you are convinced it works, for his own amusement. And despite your constant failure to reason correctly about your life and circumstance, God could keep you alive by preventing your designed-to-be-flawed reasoning from getting you killed while having you persist in your own little delusion that He’s making your reasoning valid. And how could you ever hope to show that he didn’t? All you can do is to just assume He didn’t.

How is that different from just implicitly assuming reason is valid? How are these things not perfectly obvious to you already? How did you get to your current position without realizing it’s obvious flaws? How is it that some random guy on the internet has to point it out for you and you haven’t come this far yourself? I am continually astonished at the incredibly shallow and poor reasoning skills of presuppositional apologists.

You have to assume God makes reasoning valid. Uhh no, I clearly don’t have to assume that(I can after all assume it just is valid), and doing so doesn’t make it valid anyway(what you happen to assume about reality doesn’t somehow force reality to conform to your assumptions), and even if I did make that assumption that would still just be an assumption and nothing more.