Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

HeKS continues to suggest a way forward on the KS “bomb” argument

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Last week, one of my comments relating to the KS “bomb” argument was made the subject of an OP, which can be found here.

In that comment, I had offered a few preliminary thoughts on Keith’s argument (originally found here, and summarized by him here) and asked a few questions to better understand the assumptions informing his argument. Unfortunately, the issues raised in my OP comment, as far I can tell, were never actually addressed. Instead, the ‘responses’ in the ensuing conversation revolved almost entirely around what the participating ID proponents considered obviously false analogies, which invoked “Planetary Angels”, “Rain Fairies”, “Salt Leprechauns”, and “Toilet Whales”.

Regarding these analogies, Keith, Zachriel, and other ID opponents, seemed to be arguing as though ID claims a designing agent is necessary to explain the shape/pattern of the ‘Objective Nested Hierarchy’ (ONH) into which living organisms are claimed to fall, when the production of  an ONH can be explained by a natural, unguided process of branching descent.  Thus, they claimed, there is no difference between the ID position and one that claims planets are moving in elliptical orbits because angels are choosing to push them around in such orbits, or one that claims salt falls from a salt shaker into a pile on the table because the falling salt is being guided by invisible leprechauns who like making salt piles. The idea here is that in each case we have some superfluous explanatory entity being posited to directly guide some process that looks exactly like it is not being guided, does not need to be guided, and is explained perfectly well by law-based processes.

During the course of the thread it was pointed out to them innumerable times that, even granting the existence of an ONH for life, ID does not and would not cite the shape or production of such an ONH as being an example of something that requires an explanation by reference to an intelligent cause. Rather, in identifying the need for an intelligent cause to explain certain aspects of biology, ID points to the evident infusion of significant amounts of biological information into the world of life, as well as the novel introduction of complex, functionally-specified biological systems and molecular machines. In other words, for its evidence, ID points to aspects of life that do not seem obviously explicable by reference to purely natural processes, whether stochastic or law-based, but that do contain hallmarks that we habitually and uniquely associate with conscious, intelligent, intentional activity. In yet other words, the previously mentioned analogies to “Planetary Angels” and “Salt Leprechauns” are horribly and obviously misguided and entirely off the mark.

Unfortunately, the distinction never seemed to get through to them. And even more unfortunately, the thread was eventually derailed and shut down while a number of conversations were still in progress. Aspects of the discussion, however, continued here.

In that new thread, the Rain Fairies, the Salt Leprechauns, and their most recent common ancestor, the Plantary Angels, have again reared their head, being invoked in response to the objection from ID proponents to the description of microevolution as being “unguided”. The point of the ID proponents in this case relates quite closely to one of the claims in Keith’s so-called “bomb” argument, with which I myself took issue in the previously mentioned OP. In Keith’s summary of his argument, he says that even “the most rabid IDer” admits that “unguided evolution” exists, with the ultimate intention of extrapolating what ID proponents admit happens into what they say does not happen.

Now, when Keith refers to “unguided evolution” here, he is referring to the relatively minor microevolutionary changes that take place within a population, but on the view of ID proponents, these are not the kind of phenomena that could, even in principle, be extrapolated to account for the macroevolutionary innovations that would be necessary to account for the full content of the alleged ONH “Tree of Life”. And in taking issue with the characterization of microevolution as “unguided”, the ID proponent is taking issue with the fact that a phrase that might be uncontroversially applied to a subset of these phenomena is, within the context of Keith’s argument, being over-generalized in a way that implicitly suggests an acceptance by ID proponents of propositions they do not actually accept, and so is a case of illegitimately stealing ground en route to the argument’s conclusion.

In addition to my comments in the original OP, I expanded on them somewhat in a recent comment, which I’ll duplicate here to fill out the remainder of this post and hopefully spur further discussion.

From here:

Now, when it comes to this business of proving that microevolution is unguided, I think there needs to be an understanding of what it would even mean to suggest that it is “guided”. I’m reasonably certain that the majority of people who would dispute claims that microevolution is unguided do not mean that a designer is actively, in the moment, effecting a specific microevolutionary change. Nor would they dispute that random mutations happen. Rather, they would likely dispute that all mutations are random. And they would also likely argue (as I did in the previous thread) that the constrained allowance for – and even rapid increased initiation of – mutations and general genetic and epigenetic changes are a purposeful aspect of the design of organisms to allow for diversification and adaptation (which is sometimes very rapid). If the random variation or shuffling is too large, however, it kills the organism, makes it sterile, or at the very least reduces its reproductive potential, decreasing the chances that the significant defect will be passed on or largely affect subsequent generations of a population.

In other words, the argument is not that random mutations allowing microevolution look unguided but are actually being directly manipulated by some designer. Rather, the argument is that 1) the RM/NS mechanism is a constrained feature of organismal design, and that the Neo-Darwinists are looking at a design feature of a system that makes use of randomization and illegitimately extrapolating it to explain the entire system itself; and 2) that not all mutations/changes are random at all, but some are internally directed in a purposeful manner for the benefit of the organism.

So, it seems to me that, from an ID perspective, saying something like, ‘even IDists admit unguided evolution exists’, is either A) a case of making a trivial claim that cannot be legitimately extrapolated from the kinds of microevolutionary changes that are seen (overwhelmingly degrading genetic information and/or narrowing genetic variability; breaking or blunting existing biological function for a net fitness gain) to the kinds of macroevolutionary innovations that are theorized (the introduction of complex, functionally-specified systems and molecular machines), or B) a case of making an unwarranted and unsubstantiated claim that the system that allows for and makes use of the RM/NS mechanism for the benefit and diversification of the organism does so by fluke, in a way that is fully unconstrained, and is itself undesigned; or C) both.

Of course, as I’ve said numerous times before, I think this is only one of many issues with Keith’s argument, but it has become quite clear that it is difficult to get even just one criticism seriously addressed in a comment thread, so it would likely be useless to draw in any others at this point. I’m hoping that the nonsensical false analogies about Rain Fairies and Planetary Angels can be left to the side to allow for some kind of substantive discussion of the issues, but I’ve been given little reason to suspect that my hope is grounded.

 

Comments
keiths has given up arguing for unguided evolution. A random misfiring of some neuron perhaps?Mung
December 15, 2014
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HeKS, Very well stated. The logical conclusion of your argument appears to imply that evolution itself is evidence of Intelligent Design. This is a position I have taken for quite some time. OTOH, as others in this thread have pointed out on a few occasions, Keiths has yet to even provide evidence that evolution forming an ONH can occur on a basis of unguided occurences. His 'bomb' is nothing but an empty, rusted shell. AnyWho, that's my two cents.CJYman
December 12, 2014
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Think, HeKS. You’re confusing a hierarchy within a design with a hierarchy of designs.
The ONH of OOP objects making up a software application is a hierarchy of designs. Life is the software application. The organisms are the objects of which it consists.
You are telling us to neglect the fact that most human designs don’t fall into ONHs, and to neglect the fact that even most software systems don’t fall into ONHs, but to concentrate on the fact that some (and only some) software designs contain class hierarchies. Talk about cherry-picking your evidence! I’ll have more to say tomorrow, but that is truly a ridiculous and unjustifiable move.
You clearly have a very hard time understanding the point of an argument. The question is whether or not a designer would have any reason to choose an ONH pattern for life rather than any of a supposed trillion other options. I know how much you enjoy assigning flat probabilities across the logically possible choices that an agent might make, but if we actually care about considering the question honestly then, surprisingly enough, we actually have to look at cases of human design that are in some way comparable to life. Software design is the most closely related field of human design that we have, and the connection is widely recognized by people on both sides of the debate. In attempting to determine if a designer would have a strong reason for using an ONH in the design of life instead of some other pattern, or no pattern at all, it is not particularly helpful to simply take a survey of how often human-made designs happen to produce ONHs. Such an approach simply assumes that the putative designer's use of an ONH would be random rather than purposeful, such that the likelihood of an ONH pattern being used in this context would in some way simply correspond to its frequency of appearance across all human design endeavors. In other words, it assumes that there would not be any particular reason for the designer to use an ONH and that ONHs, in general, are not used for any particular reason. But this is the very thing you're trying establish to give your argument some semblance of force, and my choice not to use your mistaken and misguided approach does not constitute cherry-picking. In order to consider this issue honestly we have to ask ourselves whether humans use ONH patterns, and if so, when and why? Do they show up randomly? Or are they used in particular scenarios for a particular purpose and in line with some particular design logic. Then we can ask whether those circumstances in which humans use ONHs, and the reasons they use them, apply to the world of life in such a way that the use of an ONH would be a desirable (even a best-practice) approach for a putative designer of life. When we conduct such an investigation, we find that ONHs are produced when there is some kind of progression taking place within a unifying context, when there is some kind of common functional requirement or dependency that exists throughout that context, and where there either currently is or there is a future potential for a high degree of diversity of functions, choices, etc. ONHs show up in such circumstances because they are produced by a logical, efficient approach to handling these circumstances. Where these criteria are not present, we would not expect to find an ONH. Pointing to situations in which we would not expect to find an ONH and noting that we do not find an ONH is not particularly interesting or impressive and it does not tell us much of relevance in terms of whether or not a designer of life would have some reason to produce an ONH. Now, I've given several examples of cases in which human design produces ONHs, such as in the planning of exhaustive or near-exhaustive diversity within a domain of services or products, in the development of processes and procedures, the organization of pathways on a circuit board, and, in Software Engineering, the functional and data dependencies making up a software application, represented by class hierarchies in OOP and function hierarchies in procedural and functional programming. Of these, it is the programming scenario that produces discrete objects / designs that can be organized after the fact into an inferable ONH pattern. And, as it happens, Software Engineering is precisely the field of human design that is widely recognized by people on both sides of the debate to be highly relevant to the world of life. The important point, however, is not just that good programmers consistently produce ONHs, but why they do so and what logic leads to their production. I described these reasons in previous comments. For example:
best practices in a field of human design (software development) most relevant to what we know about life consistently produce ONH patterns by writing and organizing code in a way that is highly efficient and scalable / expandable . . . . where new functionality builds on and outwards at various points from existing functionality
It’s how they get their designs to work best while leaving hooks at various points in their code to build off of in another direction to add new functionality.
a nested hierarchical approach to programming, with objective nested dependencies and OOP class inheritance by sub-/extended-classes, is considered a best practice, as it maximizes the efficiency of coding and prevents you from inefficiently writing new code to do the same thing a different way in the same context.
So, in deciding whether or not some putative designer of life would have had a good reason to design life in an ONH pattern, the question we need to ask is not how often, generally, humans happen to produce ONHs - or even simply how often they produce them in fields relevant to life, such as programming, which is pretty much all the time - but why they produce them when they do and whether the logic is applicable to the world of life. And it is quite clear that the logic obviously does carry over. And if best design practices in programming routinely lead to ONHs at multiple levels, why should we surprised on a design hypothesis to find that the world of life, which has very many widely acknowledged similarities with Software Engineering, also displays ONHs at multiple levels. Why should we be surprised to find an ONH pattern on a design hypothesis if good programmers using best design practices routinely generate the same patterns? There is zero reason for an ID proponent to think that life falling into an ONH pattern would have to simply be a randomly selected pattern by a designer when they can point to very clear and applicable design logic that would lead to such a pattern and regularly find the same pattern in the field of human design that is most similar and most relevant to the world of life. In case it is not clear at this point, allow me to spell out the problem. Your argument goes wrong here yet again because you approach the whole issue from the wrong perspective. Intelligent activity is not investigated the same way as either random or law-like processes. We don't simply survey how many times humans carry out action X or Y, absent any context, and then use the statistical results of our survey to predict what some specific person will do in a specific situation. Typically we observe the results of intelligent action after the fact, identify it as such, and then investigate the reasoning behind it and determine if that reasoning was sensible, efficient, etc., and what that might tell us about the agent who carried out the action. If, instead, we want to predict what action or approach an unknown person will likely take in some situation, then we can identify a range of likely actions or approaches by identifying what other people have done in similar circumstances, or perhaps even what we would do, and that will tend to give us at least a workable framework of what to expect, given some agent who has at least our level of intelligence. Of course, if the logic of some approach is sound and well tested in relation to competing approaches and has even become a best-practice, then it would not be unreasonable to expect that it might be used even by an agent who is significantly more intelligent than us, but with a more sophisticated implementation. And this is precisely what was noted by the previously mentioned Microsoft Engineer about living organisms:
'All those design patterns are inside the cell, except they’re using a design logic that’s like an 8.0, 9.0, 10.0 version of ours. It’s the same basic logic, but it’s more elegantly executed'
Why should we be surprised to find the same thing at the macro scale of life?
UE fits the evidence without cherry-picking. It’s the better hypothesis.
This claim does not get any less silly with repetition. I've addressed this claim at length.HeKS
December 11, 2014
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Phinehas, That is correct. keiths says: "An ONH within an organism differs from an ONH that relates all the organisms to each other" but doesn't tell us what the difference is. Still waiting to hear where he thinks his ONH that relates organisms to each other comes from if not from the organisms that make it up.Mung
December 11, 2014
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keiths:
You are telling us to neglect the fact that most human designs don’t fall into ONHs, and to neglect the fact that even most software systems don’t fall into ONHs, but to concentrate on the fact that some (and only some) software designs contain class hierarchies.
Apparently, keiths wants to make something of whether an ONH is observed inside a "system" or across "systems." But there are at least a couple of problems with this argument. 1) Keiths acts like this is an important distinction, but he never tells us why it must be. He expects others to accept his assertion without question, or he expects them to take on the task of disproving his assumptions. In either case, keiths obviously doesn't take his obligation to support his own argument very seriously. Keiths needs to show why it is unlikely for a designer to use an ONH. His argument rests on this premise, but so far he has done nothing to support it in the face of contrary evidence, despite how desperate he is to pretend otherwise. 2) Even more problematic, keiths' argument about "systems" rests entirely on his own ability to draw an arbitrary boundary describing what is inside or outside the "system." His argument rests on claiming that each organism is a "system" and that they, therefore, demonstrate an ONH across systems in contrast to "software systems." But why should we draw the system boundary where keiths does so? After all, organisms are part of an ecosystem. So, from this perspective, the ONH is not across systems, but internal to the ecosystem, just like an ONH of programming objects is internal to the programming system. Similarly, why must a "software system" be defined at the program level? Programming objects, with their data and methods, can readily be seen as analogous to an organism. There's nothing that would preclude this, is there? So, if an organism can be a system, why can't a programming object be a system as well? Why can't an ONH be seen as existing across programming objects within the program system in the same way an ONH exists across organisms within the ecosystem? Keiths doesn't even attempt to tell us, hoping instead, for the sake of his damp squib, that everyone will simply swallow his assumptions with the same lack of skepticism that he is accustomed to employ.Phinehas
December 11, 2014
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Keiths
If unguided evolution isn’t responsible for the elaborate predatory adaptations that happened after the Fall, then who or what is?
I don't think it is an all or nothing proposition. In my judgment, the fall affected nature and the ability of animals to co-exist peacefully. On the other hand, I also think that the Creator designed carnivores as carnivores for ecological reasons, not for the purpose of suffering, as you indicated. TRex probably had those jaws long before the Fall of man. My question to you persists: How and why did carnivory (and the evolutionary arms race) begin? Relate the timing of that event to the Cambrian explosion.StephenB
December 11, 2014
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My Internet connection is down (I'm on my phone), so I won't be able to respond until sometime tomorrow.HeKS
December 11, 2014
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StephenB, You still haven't answered my question. If unguided evolution isn't responsible for the elaborate predatory adaptations that happened after the Fall, then who or what is? Be specific.keith s
December 10, 2014
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keiths
Think, HeKS. You’re confusing a hierarchy within a design with a hierarchy of designs. An ONH within an organism differs from an ONH that relates all the organisms to each other.
So the ONH within organisms is due to design and not due to unguided evolution? And yet it's these ONH's within organisms from which we construct the ONH that relates all the organisms to each other from which we get our proof that evolution is unguided. How does that work? keiths:
Living organisms do fit into an inferable ONH, as predicted by unguided evolution.
"Unguided evolution" doesn't predict anything. keiths:
Apart from religious reasons, why would anyone prefer ID?
If you have a rational alternative to ID we'd love to see it.Mung
December 10, 2014
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So unguided evolution is responsible for all of the predatory adaptations after the Fall?
No. I was laughing at your "poof, there it is" scenario posing as an explanation. Unguided evolution is not responsible for anything.
Straight answer, please.
How straight can an answer get? How about answering my question? How and why did carnivory (and the evolutionary arms race) begin? Relate the timing of that event to the Cambrian explosion.StephenB
December 10, 2014
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// Adressing Zachriel's continues bluffing //
Box (quoting Behe): - They deleted an enzyme that previous work showed could likely be replaced.
Zachriel: They chose a strain that already lacked trpF.
Nope, trpF was deleted.
Näsvall: Deletion of the trpF and hisA genes. The his A and trpF genes were replaced with FLP-recombinase target (FRT) site flanked kanamycin resistance (KanR) cassettes derived from plasmid pKD4, using the lambda-red recombineering functions from plasmid pKD46 (24).
**/-
Box (quoting Behe): They added the necessary nutrient histidine because previous work showed that mutations conferring an ability to make tryptophan destroyed the ability to make histidine.
Zachriel: In any case, Behe’s statement is directly contradicted by the experiment itself.
Nope, Behe’s statement is in full accord with the experiment.
Näsvall: We included histidine in the medium because previous studies have demonstrated that mutations that confer TrpF activity to Thermotoga maritima HisA results in loss of HisA activity (27).
**/-
Box (quoting Behe): The added histidine would have shut off production of the protein, so they removed the genetic control element to keep it in production.
Zachriel: They started with an enzyme that had HisA activity, but also had acquired a spontaneous mutation for weak TrpF activity. They then grew it in a medium lacking histidine and tryptophan. They didn’t have to do anything to keep histidine in production, as the enzyme was already there.
Nope, everything Behe said is confirmed by Nasvall. They had to remove the genetic control element.
Näsvall: The expression of the his operon (including hisA) is regulated by an attenuation mechanism that regulates the amount of read-through of a transcriptional terminator before the first structural gene of the operon according to the availability of charged histidinyl-tRNA (2V). As this results in very low expression of hisA in medium containing histidine, we included a mutation (hisO/242) (29) which removes the transcriptional terminator thereby leading to de-repressed transcription of the his operon even in the presence of histidine.
**/-
Box (quoting Behe): Later, once they found mutations to produce tryptophan, they removed histidine from the medium to encourage the production of mutations restoring histidine synthesis.
Zachriel: The spontaneous mutation necessary to produce tryptophan was at the *very beginning* of the experiment, not somewhere in the middle.
At the very beginning? What are you talking about?Box
December 10, 2014
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keiths:
Manufactured objects generally do not fall into an inferable objective nested hierarchy, and neither do software systems. Class hierarchies within a system don’t help you.
As long as keiths gets to pick and choose what qualifies as a "system." As long as a programming object with its data and methods couldn't possibly be a system. As long as an ecosystem couldn't possibly be a system. Keiths once again makes assumptions and assertions and thinks everyone else ought to be beholden to them.
UE fits the evidence without any special pleading...
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! So funny! But also a bit sad.Phinehas
December 10, 2014
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Box: They didn’t have to do anything? The mutations were spontaneous. They cultured the mutant that represented the innovation. Are you saying the innovation couldn't have occurred except in artificial conditions? For what reason? Box: This shuts down “evolution”. That depends on the environment, which often changes during the course of evolution. Are you saying that changes in availability of histidine and tryptophan never occur in nature?Zachriel
December 10, 2014
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Zachriel #998,
Box (quoting Behe): The added histidine would have shut off production of the protein, so they removed the genetic control element to keep it in production.
Zachriel: They started with an enzyme that had HisA activity, but also had acquired a spontaneous mutation for weak TrpF activity. They then grew it in a medium lacking histidine and tryptophan. They didn’t have to do anything to keep histidine in production, as the enzyme was already there.
They didn’t have to do anything? Utter nonsense. Only two mutations are required to evolve TrpF activity. However the first one presents a formidable hurdle:
Näsvall: Two mutations were required for this innovation: First, an internal duplication of codons 13 to 15 (dup13-15) gave a weak TrpF activity but led to a complete loss of HisA activity.
Bummer! This shuts down “evolution”. Or is there still a way forward? How did Näsvall restore HisA activity? Amino acid substitution followed by the isolation of unhelpful mutants:
Näsvall: A subsequent amino acid substitution [Asp^10?Gly^10 (D10G)] restored some of the original HisA activity (10). We also isolated two other bifunctional derivatives of hisA that had acquired TrpF activity, (…)
After that intelligent manipulation (designing) simply goes on and on, which shows how apt Behe’s comparison with ‘a rolling-ball maze’ actually is.Box
December 10, 2014
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UE fits the evidence without cherry-picking.
UE doesn't make any predictions nor can it be modeled. It is outside the realm of science. keith's lies will never change that factJoe
December 10, 2014
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Living organisms do fit into an inferable ONH,
Not really. There isn't an ONH for prokaryotes and given a gradual evolution there shouldn't be one at all. But then again keith is ignorant of nested hierarchies.Joe
December 10, 2014
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HeKS, Your cherry-picking attempts are obvious. UE fits the evidence without cherry-picking. It's the better hypothesis.keith s
December 10, 2014
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Keith, You seem to have an incredibly hard time following the logic of an argument. You keep pointing to the aspects of things that are least relevant to life and saying, "See? That doesn't fall into an ONH. Why aren't you giving that the most weight?" Whatever. I'm going to bed.HeKS
December 10, 2014
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HeKS, You can't be serious. You are telling us to neglect the fact that most human designs don't fall into ONHs, and to neglect the fact that even most software systems don't fall into ONHs, but to concentrate on the fact that some (and only some) software designs contain class hierarchies. Talk about cherry-picking your evidence! I'll have more to say tomorrow, but that is truly a ridiculous and unjustifiable move. UE fits the evidence without any special pleading, yet here you are making excuse after excuse for neglecting the majority non-ONHs and focusing just on the ONHs, solely in order to prop up ID.keith s
December 10, 2014
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StephenB, So unguided evolution is responsible for all of the predatory adaptations after the Fall? Straight answer, please.keith s
December 10, 2014
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Keith, For goodness sake, Keith. Look at the whole paragraph rather than just the first sentence.
In OOP, class hierarchies form the whole basis for the entire project. They specify traits (properties) of things and what things can do (methods). Individual objects are merely instances of classes. An object that instantiaties a class becomes a self-contained representation of the class, having its properties and methods. An object that instantiates an extended class becomes a self-contained representation of that class and its parent classes(s). In other words, it becomes a “physical” representation of objectively hierarchically organized blueprints, and objects instantiated from the various levels of the blueprints (the original class, one of it’s sub-classes, one of its sub-sub-classes) could also be organized after the fact into an ONH.
The ONH exists at at least two different levels: the blueprints and the intantiations. The classes themselves form an ONH of related blueprints, where one class builds on another as you descend through the branches (or ascend, depending on how you look at it). However, classes are made to be instantiated into objects that actually do things. Any given object is an instantiation of a class and any higher-level classes that class has inherited properties or methods from. So, imagine we have Class1, with extended (child) classes Class2 and Class3. Class2 has extended classes Class4 and Class5, while Class3 has extended classes Class6 and Class7. Class1 will be instantiated as an object, with the properties and methods of that class. At another point, Classs2 will also be instantiated, having the new properties and methods of Class2 as well as those of Class1. The same will happen for Class4, which will have its own new properties and methods as well as those of Class2 and Class1. Class5 will also get instantiated and have its own new properties and methods as well as those of Class2 and Class1, but not those of Class4. Any object will be a compilation of the properties and methods of all the prior classes in its line of descent. The objects making up a project and actually doing stuff will be capable of being organized into their own ONH (using as many datasets as you like), because they were instantiated in accord with hierarchically nested blueprints, having been designed in a coherent way.
You’ve made an obvious mistake by confusing different levels of description. Manufactured objects generally do not fall into an inferable objective nested hierarchy, and neither do software systems. Class hierarchies within a system don’t help you.
No, Keith, you're the one who is confusing different levels of description. You're confusing the tasks that a software application does as a whole, or even the software application itself, or perhaps even a group of completely separate applications, for the individual things, the objects, that carry out their own tasks within the unified context of a software application and jointly make up the whole. Class inheritance in OOP operates exactly as common descent is envisioned as happening and it produces exactly the same types of patterns. The thing is, the blueprints upon which the objects are based, including the extensions - the new functionality and traits that get added to distinguish a new class from its ancestors - are the product of design, and the objects that get instantiated with properties and methods of their own as well as those of their ancestors are instantiated deliberately and contiguously rather than continuously. If the classes and extended classes in a software application were instantiated as 3D objects in the real world, with both external physical traits (properties) and internal systems and functions (methods), you would have a collection of things that would look very much like the world of life we see in many relevant ways and that could be categorized after the fact into an ONH using multiple datasets. As it happens, we don't really have the technological capability to do this degree of real-world 3D instantiation at the moment, but we can do it digitally in a much less sophisticated manner (and anyway, who's really to say we're not a simulation on someone's computer with delusions of existing in a 3D world?). More importantly, we have reasons for taking this design approach that make perfect sense in the context of designing a diverse world of life, where precisely the same best-practice design logic would apply (and the soundness of the best-practice approach would be discernible from the project itself). Your attempted counter-argument here is truly weak. There is just no way to have a serious and honest discussion with you. You're too enamored with a lame argument and so you grasp at any conceivable objection to rescue it. Who do you think you're convincing with any of this stuff? Because it seems at this point that you're just trying to convince yourself.HeKS
December 10, 2014
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Keiths
No, you ruled that out already
Of course, I did. I wasn't serious. I just thought it might be fun to think like Keiths. Oxygen levels increase>>> >animals bulk up>>>carnivores dutifully appear>>>and the arms race is on. The next thing you know---zowie--diversity. Who needs a designer" LOLStephenB
December 10, 2014
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keiths:
Regarding the Fall, can you explain how all the elaborate and deadly means by which predators track and kill their prey came about via “compromised” benign designs?
StephenB:
One way would be through an evolutionary arms race after the fall.
No, you ruled that out already:
UE can’t do it because UE can’t do anything.
The Designer must have done it, or Someone Else did. Do tell.keith s
December 10, 2014
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Regarding the Fall, can you explain how all the elaborate and deadly means by which predators track and kill their prey came about via “compromised” benign designs?
One way would be through an evolutionary arms race after the fall. However, I was hoping that you would tell me how and why carnivory (and the evolutionary arms race) began and relate the timing to the Cambrian explosion.StephenB
December 10, 2014
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keiths:
Why does he [HeKS] ignore the fact that the class hierarchies of object-oriented programming are hierarchies within designs, not across the entire universe of designed systems? He doesn’t say, but it just so happens that acknowledging it would weaken his case for ID.
HeKS:
In OOP, class hierarchies form the whole basis for the entire project...
Think, HeKS. You're confusing a hierarchy within a design with a hierarchy of designs. An ONH within an organism differs from an ONH that relates all the organisms to each other. Likewise, a class hierarchy within a design differs from an ONH relating all of the designs to each other. You've made an obvious mistake by confusing different levels of description. Manufactured objects generally do not fall into an inferable objective nested hierarchy, and neither do software systems. Class hierarchies within a system don't help you. Living organisms do fit into an inferable ONH, as predicted by unguided evolution. UE simply fits the evidence better. Apart from religious reasons, why would anyone prefer ID?keith s
December 10, 2014
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keiths - "I did? Quote, please." Here let me help you https://elnuevoeuropeo.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/wpid-screenshot_2014-11-19-16-47-21-1.png?w=676 .DavidD
December 9, 2014
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Upright Biped:
Yet, when you started this ludicrous argument on UD, you conceded upfront that the weakness in your argument was your mere assumption that Darwinian evolution could originate Orgel’s specified complexity (OSC).
I did? Quote, please.keith s
December 9, 2014
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Oh come now Keith, have you forgotten what your non-negotiable criteria are for a scientifically valid claim? If I remember right (and I do) one of them is that the claim must be scientifically falsifiable. Yet, when you started this ludicrous argument on UD, you conceded upfront that the weakness in your argument was your mere assumption that Darwinian evolution could originate Orgel’s specified complexity (OSC). And in making this concession, you graciously offered ID proponents the criteria they would need in order to seek salvation from your ridiculous assumption. You suggested that ID proponents can falsify your claim if they merely “demonstrate that evolution cannot produce OSC” (some 3.5 billion years ago).This is, of course, not possible to demonstrate scientifically. This leaves your claim in the position of being a non-falsifiable assertion based on an assumption that no one in their right mind would allow you to make in science. Yet, you presented it as a fundamental necessity in making your claim. Oops. Another of your non-negotiable criteria is that any scientific claim must demonstrate consequences that unambiguously distinguish it from its competing theory. Yet again, this is a problem. Through your very own form of charismatic self-indulgence, you’ve made it profoundly clear that either of the two competing explanations are perfectly capable of producing the effects in question. In fact, this was a central feature in your presentation. You’ve said so over and over and over again. What you offer as a distinguishing feature is not actually in the material evidence at all; it’s only another assumption made by the investigator promoting the claim. Oops. But hey, don’t fret. Allow me to repay you for your generosity in telling us that all we could do to refute your claim was an impossible task. Back in October, you claimed that you’ve already demonstrated that Darwinian evolution can give rise to the OSC found in biological systems. Oddly enough, no one was able to recall you providing these particular details. To do as you claim, you’d have to show how Darwinian evolution could give rise to the information and translation apparatus that leads to that OSC. You’d need to show how it leads to an informational medium having a controlling effect on objects other than itself, and doing so in ways that are not derived from the dynamic properties of the materials involved. Of course, you were called on this claim when you made it, but surprisingly, you choose not to defend it. This is unfortunate, given that its the only thing that could make your argument meet your own standards for claims in science.Upright BiPed
December 9, 2014
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With the words "Care to substantiate your assertion?" ringing in his ears, brave Sir Upright runs away once more.keith s
December 9, 2014
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Oh, no. If I wanted to do that I would have done it back in the 3rd week of October when you stuck your foot in it. Besides, as you have demonstrated to the point of no return, logic and rationality have no impact on you anyway. No, I decided then to watch your argument be disassembled on it merits, not on its lack of merit. We have all been rewarded. What you need to do now is prance around in victory some more.Upright BiPed
December 9, 2014
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