Re Michael Haanel, 55:

When I think about the examples that you have shown, like a fine-tuner tweaking the Big Bang, it seems more probable to me that the perfect conditions would occur for life in some of the billions of galaxies that the existence of the universe allows.

Perhaps, this clip from an online encyclopedia article on the Anthropic principle, will help you see the force of a few of the issues that have developed since the 1950′s:

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In physics and cosmology, the anthropic principle encompasses diverse explanations about the structure of the universe that open the question of whether it exists with the purpose to permit the emergence of human life. It regards as significant the surprising coincidence of physical features that are—or at least seem to be—necessary and relevant to the existence on Earth of biochemistry, carbon-based life, and eventually human beings to observe such a universe. It has led some to a reconsideration of the centrality of human beings—who can observe and understand the universe—despite astronomers having long ago pushed humans to the edge of insignificance amidst the vastness of space . . . . If the universe or cosmos is purely mechanistic, consisting only of matter and physical entities (forces, energy, fields, etc.), then it seems that the answer to that question of an intending entity or intelligence or creator would be “no.” But then what is the source of those closely balanced features that are observed in the existing cosmos—are they just happenstance or fortuitous coincidences? Can coincidence or lucky happenstance be a sufficient answer to this problem?

. . . . The observed values of the dimensionless parameters (such as the fine-structure constant) that govern the four fundamental forces of nature are finely balanced. A slight increase in the strong nuclear force would bind the dineutron and the diproton and all the hydrogen in the early universe would have been converted to helium. There would be no water or the long-lived stable stars essential for the development of life. Similar relationships are evident in each of the four force strengths. If they were to be modified even slightly—some commentators have noted that a change as infinitesimally small as one part in 10^40 or even smaller would be sufficient—then the universe’s structure and capacity for life as we now know it would disappear. The extreme precision of these constants is seen by some commentators as precluding simple chance or coincidence . . . .
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In short, the issue is not merely whether enough galaxies exist that variations across the galaxies will give room for what we see, probabilistically, but whether the universe as a whole that we see would exist in any way that would be conducive to life, apart from purposeful fine-tuning.

And, indeed, the scope of he observed universe, about 10^80 particles is rather small by comparison with what we are discussing. For instance, if we see algorithmic, functionally specific, complex information that takes up just 1,000 bits, that is a configuration space of 10^301, or ten times the square of the number of quantum states the atoms of the observed universe would take up across the thermodynamically credible lifespan of the cosmos. As a result, the whole observed universe acting as a search engine could not sample more than 1 in 10^150 of that config space.

So, it would be most implausible to suggest that a blind, non foresighted search would find islands of function for such FSCI within the gamut of the observed universe. And, observed life DNA for independent organisms STARTS at about 600,000 – 1 million bits.

Space is large by our human scale, but it is utterly too small by the scope of the search spaces we are dealing with on ID for first life or body-plan level biodiversity.

And, if a quasi-infinite multiverse — an unobserved, metaphysical construct if ever I saw one — is suggested, this still has to have “a universe-making factory,” capable of getting the energy, the laws and the random variations in those laws sufficient to get to the multidimensional precision on the scale of 1 in 10^40 or worse in several instances.

And, a super-law or theory of everything that forces the parameters to take up the life facilitating values screams of design.

So, of law, chance and design, law and/or chance keep pointing back to design as at least as viable as the alternatives. And, that is no “God of the gaps” argument.

GEM of TKI

In case you are really interested, the answers are not so difficult:

1) “What was designed?”

That is really easy. The genomes, obviously. And therefore the proteomes, and whatever else in the genome contributes to general biological function. And maybe even other things, but I think tht can be enough for a start.

2) “How was it done?”

We don’t know exactly, but maybe we will know more in the future. But, certainly, in a general sense, it happened through the action of a designer (that is, a conscious intelligent being) who had access to manipulating biological realities, and especially genomes. You choose: aliens, a god, an intelligent force, or whatever else may comply with that definition. And how was it made? You choose: guided variation, intelligent selection, both, direct implementation at the nucleotide level, interaction with quantum level events… There is much to hypothesize and to research.

I get to the end of another interesting thread, and then realize I still don’t know what ID theorists believe was designed, or how this designer made the design happen?

If we knew the answers then we wouldn’t need science to help us find them, would we?

As for HOW something was designed-

The ONLY possible way to make any scientific determination about the designer(s) or specific process(es) used, in the ABSENCE of direct observation or designer input, is by studying the design in question.

If you want to know something about ID you have to know & understand that first.

I apologize if my statement is rhetorical. I mean no disrespect. I am a person who is interested in what is going on here since I read the Mentor paperback by George Gamow, “One, Two, Three, Infinity” in the early ’50′s. A book I still own.

I appreciate your answer about what you believe is designed. I see that the superlatives, “fine-tuned,”unfathomly complex,” and all things that are “irreduceably complex” have special meaning, and show the efforts of a designer to you.

When I think about the examples that you have shown, like a fine-tuner tweaking the Big Bang, it seems more probable to me that the perfect conditions would occur for life in some of the billions of galaxies that the existence of the universe allows.

And then I have to add the leap of faith that an intelligent designer requires. Don’t I have to say that an intelligent designer is intelligent beyond our comprehension of intelligent? How could such an intelligence get so smart? Don’t I have to grasp at superlatives again to fathom such a designer? And isn’t that how we explained every phenomena that was incomprehensible in the past, we said it was His design, His plan?

I absolutely agree with your post #51. Very well said.

There is a fundamental problem with McNeill’s engines of variation which goes beyond verification or falsification: most of them are not “engines” at all, because they are not causal mechanisms. At best, most of them are mere descriptions of what could be the intermediate events through which a causal mechanism could work, but the causal mechanim itself remains undeclared. In other words, NacNeill seems to be more interested in descriptive natural history than in explanations.

If you want to get silly, then we can return the favor. Here is the answer I gave another person just last week. There are two relevant comments:

http://www.uncommondescent.com.....ent-305293

http://www.uncommondescent.com.....ent-305339

It has happened again! I get to the end of another interesting thread, and then realize I still don’t know what ID theorists believe was designed, or how this designer made the design happen?

This statement you made, “how this designer made the design happen?” is painfully rhetorical. You laugh in your silly heart saying, “boy, we got ‘em we got ‘em.” Is it beyond you to believe that the science of ID is in its infancy, that ther remain huge unanswered questions? Is it beyond you to believe that the designer might feel no obligation to publicize his/her/its methods? And in truth, when you jump into your car in the morning, turn the key and drive off, do you do so with a clear understanding of how crude oil is refined into gasoline? Do you know how they make thes steel that your key is made of? You know enough to know that the ID community doesn’t have answers to these questions. You don’t seem to know enough to know that not having these answers is not a show stopper.

“I still don’t know what ID theorists believe was designed” Let me start at the start.

> That big bang that physicists talk about — designed. How do we know? Because physicists tell us that it is amazingly fine-tuned, that life as we could conceive of it would not happen otherwise.

> Life itself — designed. How do we know? Because even the simplest life is unfathomly complex, that it contains significant, tightly defined, information.

> Ultra-conserved genes — designed. How do we know. Sir Fredrick Hoyle has shown the math. (Oh, he was an athiest until the day he died. He’s not now.) If a gene is ultra-conserved, then it has no molecular clock. By its very nature it must have existed for all time, or have been created.

> Organs — designed. Bacterial flagella — designed. Anything that contains irreduceable complexity — designed.

> The differences between the coyote and the wolf — most probably not designed.

Do we know exactly where the lign is between the designed and the “not designed”. No. Do archaeologists know the exact lign between the arrowhead and a natural occurring rock? Well — no.

I said in my post that Lenski’s research supports ID and extend my point to say that every mapping of a genome so far supports ID. Because the two propositions are mutually exclusive, naturalistic evolution and intelligently designed evolution, negative information for each one is support for the other. And positive information for one is negative information for the other. Thus, Lenski’s work and all genome mapping is ID type research whether they or Kris like it or not. If ID can use their results to validate an ID proposition, it is ID research.

In other words the probability gets closer to p=1 that a phenomenon is intelligently designed each time a naturalistic process fails to explain that phenomenon. There is no good ways to assess accurate probabilities since it is impossible to observe the past or create an accurate past in any modern day setting. So essentially all assessments are somewhat subjective.

For example, take Lenski’s research. So far no complex biological phenomenon have taken place so the p creeps gradually closer to p=1. But if just one appeared, then the p would jump a great deal towards p=0 and the process would continue. How much would it jump. That depends upon the nature of the change.

Since there never will be enough resources to watch bacteria evolve, one has to go to the natural world to have more realistic findings and that is why the mapping of genomes at the various levels will eventually lead to more realistic assessments of just what nature is capable of doing. What has all of Allen MacNeill’s 47 engines of variation produced. That is where the future assessment of p will be done.

“I know I am simplifying the argument, but I think it is very surreal that the discussion has lead to this backwards seeming place.”

Well, in a sense it is not so surprising after all. I will try to briefly sum up how I see the question.

The position of ID is simple enough: all species are rather stable (because they are designed), but all of them are obviously subject to some degree of variation (that is usually called “microevolution”). In that sense, bacteria are certainly more subject to it than mammals, because of their number and fast replication. But the point is, no accumulation of microevolution can really create new species, or substantially modify existing ones: species remain rather stable in spite of microevolution.

Darwinists, on the contrary, have always had a very complicated, and usually inconsistent position regarding change: they love variation when it’s convenient for them, and they hate it when it’s convenient for them. Let’s say that a smart mix of variation and conservation, in the hands of a darwinist, can explain practically everything.

An example? Just take the recent great popularity of HARs, and the relative definition from wikipedia:

“a set of 49 segments of the human genome which are conserved throughout vertebrate evolution but are strikingly different in humans”

Conservation plus striking change: what is better than that to explain away the small detail of human identity?