Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

KF vs VS on how “intelligently directed configuration” does not “sneak” teleology into “directed”

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It seems that another response to VS needs to be headlined, the second within a few days. We are seeing here the sort of breakdown of reasoning that seems to be implicit in making ever more determined objections to the design inference on FSCO/I as sign. While we are at it, let’s take advantage of media features of an OP:

_______________

>> This, from 74 above, is a New-Speak classic:

Wiki: Delicate Arch is formed of Entrada Sandstone.[5] The original sandstone fin was gradually worn away by weathering and erosion, leaving the arch. Other arches in the park were formed the same way but, due to placement and less dramatic shape, are not as famous
Wiki: Delicate Arch . . . The original sandstone fin was gradually worn away by weathering and erosion . . .
Not unless one tries to sneak in teleology into the word ” directed” , I think Delicate Arch is a non intelligent controlled/ directed configuration.Natural forces cause the pattern of elements , the design.Since ID is agnostic on the mechanism of design,it cannot say where the Fsco/I it detects came from, it may just be in error in its elimination of natural causes as the source, will all due respect.

Delicate Arch and the like natural bridges etc are NOT directed, they are observed to be the products of blind chance and mechanical necessity in concert. They do not exhibit FSCO/I as features of one and the same aspect.

[Let us contrast Mt Rushmore and observe how we readily tell the designed from the natural feature, no matter how dramatic:]

mt_rush

[–> A wireframe of Venus de Milo (HT: Autodesk ) may help us understand how functionally specific nodes-arcs patterns help define interactive functional relationships in ways relevant to much more than statues that are portraits:]

venus_de_milo_wfrme

[ . . . for instance, compare a mesh of gear teeth, bearing in mind how an accurate cylindrical disk must be oriented, centred, have a keyed shaft accurately at centre, then just the right number of teeth must be cut in just the right profile to integrate with the rest of the power transmission machinery; necessarily involving a compromise between an integral number of evenly spaced teeth and the irrational nature of pi. That readily puts us beyond 125 bytes worth of descriptive, specifying information . . . we must not allow familiarity to fool us into imagining that gears are “simple.” They have much to teach us about FSCO/I and design.  In the case of the main gear for the 6500 reel, the recess for drag washers must be accurately centred and cut in, bearing in mind strength requirements under drag load. A common upgrade, carbontex washers, can lead to stripping off of the brass teeth due to overly high settings . . . yet another subtle set of interactions and constraints. It is worth noting that apparently the very first PhD granted in Engineering in the USA, to Josiah Willard Gibbs, was for his study of spur gears:]

spiral_gear_tooth

[ . . . where, of course, circuit diagrams are classic cases of node-arc patterns, e.g. an analogue computer circuit that uses operational amplifiers in integrator and simple gain circuits, potentiometers etc:]

op_amp_integrator

[. . . with also, an oil refinery as another classic case of an integrated functionally specific network:]

Petroleum refinery block diagram illustrating FSCO/I in a process-flow system
Petroleum refinery block diagram illustrating FSCO/I in a process-flow system

[–> Observe, how the second decision diamond below uses a joint complexity-specificity criterion, relating to a single aspect:]

explan_filter

Your objection now is trying to force into the word, directed, just what directed does not mean, its opposite. And it does so with a snide accusation that the normal established meaning of directed “sneaks” in purposefulness.

Sorry, ah nuh so it go, mon!

Collins Dict: >> intelligence(?n?t?l?d??ns)n
1. (Psychology) the capacity for understanding; ability to perceive and comprehend meaning
2. good mental capacity: a person of intelligence.

3. news; information
4. (Military) military information about enemies, spies, etc
5. (Military) a group or department that gathers or deals with such information
6. (often capital) an intelligent being, esp one that is not embodied
7. (Military) (modifier) of or relating to intelligence: an intelligence network.
[C14: from Latin intellegentia, from intellegere to discern, comprehend, literally: choose between, from inter- + legere to choose] >>

Collins Eng Dict: >> direct (d??r?kt; da?-) vb (mainly tr)
1. to regulate, conduct, or control the affairs of
2. (also intr) to give commands or orders with authority to (a person or group): he directed them to go away.
3. to tell or show (someone) the way to a place
4. to aim, point, or cause to move towards a goal
5. (Communications & Information) to address (a letter, parcel, etc)
6. to address (remarks, words, etc): to direct comments at someone.
7. (Theatre) (also intr) to provide guidance to (actors, cameramen, etc) in the rehearsal of a play or the filming of a motion picture
8. (Film) (also intr) to provide guidance to (actors, cameramen, etc) in the rehearsal of a play or the filming of a motion picture
9. (Classical Music) (also intr)
a. to conduct (a piece of music or musicians), usually while performing oneself
b. another word (esp US) for conduct9 . . . . [C14: from Latin d?rectus; from d?rigere to guide, from dis- apart + regere to rule] >>

VS, your quarrel here is with the English language and with high quality dictionaries. Sorry, New-Speak agenda rejected.

Back on the design inference on FSCO/I as inductively grounded sign, what is OBSERVED is FSCO/I.

[CASE 1: Abu 6500 C3 Fishing Reel]

abu_6500c3mag

[CASE 2: Protein Synthesis in the living cell involving co-ordinated nanotech machinery and control tapes bearing 4-state element digitally coded information per A/C/G/U . . . a typical protein involving 300 AA and requiring 900 4-state elements to code it as well as a stop to impose algorithmic halting and special initiation sequences as well, for info carrying capacity 1,800 bits:]

Protein Synthesis (HT: Wiki Media)
Protein Synthesis (HT: Wiki Media)

[CASE 2a: The following comparison may be helpful:]

fscoi_facts

[CASE 3: The wider metabolic cycles and processes in the cell, showing protein synthesis as a component in the upper left hand corner:]

cell_metabolism

OBSERVED, per Wicken wiring diagram functional, information-rich organisation. As in:

‘Organized’ systems are to be carefully distinguished from ‘ordered’ systems. Neither kind of system is ‘random,’ but whereas ordered systems are generated according to simple algorithms [i.e. “simple” force laws acting on objects starting from arbitrary and common- place initial conditions] and therefore lack complexity, organized systems must be assembled element by element according to an [[originally . . . ] external ‘wiring diagram’ with a high information content . . . Organization, then, is functional complexity and carries information. It is non-random by design or by selection, rather than by the a priori necessity of crystallographic ‘order.’ [“The Generation of Complexity in Evolution: A Thermodynamic and Information-Theoretical Discussion,” Journal of Theoretical Biology, 77 (April 1979): p. 353, of pp. 349-65. (Emphases and notes added. Nb: “originally” is added to highlight that for self-replicating systems, the blue print can be built-in.)]

What is further massively observed is that objects, events, systems, processes etc are often causally shaped by distinct causal factors.

For instance, aspects may represent:

A pair of dice showing how 12 edges and 8 corners contribute to a flat random distribution of outcomes as they first fall under the mechanical necessity of gravity, then tumble and roll influenced by the surface they have fallen on. So, uncontrolled small differences make for maximum uncertainty as to final outcome. (Another way for chance to act is by  quantum probability distributions such as tunnelling for alpha particles in a radioactive nucleus)
A pair of dice showing how 12 edges and 8 corners contribute to a flat random distribution of outcomes as they first fall under the mechanical necessity of gravity, then tumble and roll influenced by the surface they have fallen on. So, uncontrolled small differences make for maximum uncertainty as to final outcome. (Another way for chance to act is by quantum probability distributions such as tunnelling for alpha particles in a radioactive nucleus)

a: blind chance [–> a die tumbles and settles to a value, sky noise id detected on a radio, flicker and Johnson noise are observed in an electronic circuit . . . which points to various ways chance behaviour arises . . . ], and/or

b: mechanical necessity [the die, dropped under gravity undergoes 9.8 N/kg initial acceleration per F = m*a] and/or

c: intelligently directed configuration aka design [a die can be volitionally set to a reading by hand or it can be artfully loaded].

This, we separately and directly experience and observe. In a context where we have no reason to hold or conclude that we exhaust the set of possible intelligences with power to contrive objects etc.

If you would dismiss this basic reality, the very act of composing an objection is an instance of design of an entity exhibiting FSCO/I.

Further to all this, you are back at undermining the logic of science, viz induction, by way of straining to find a rhetorical dismissal for inferring design on empirically observed and tested reliable signs such as FSCO/I.

What is observed is FSCO/I expressed in an object etc. Start with text of posts — including your own — in this thread.

Separately, design and its effects are experienced and observed. Including, on a trillion case basis, FSCO/I. (Start with, the Internet full of web pages etc. Move on to 5,000 years of recorded history and technology. Think about nuts, bolts, gears, pencils, pages of text, bricks and more.)

It turns out there is just one empirically verified adequate cause of FSCO/I.

The Derek Smith two-tier controller cybernetic model
The Derek Smith two-tier controller cybernetic model for an intelligent automaton

And no, we do not have to reduce the observation or experience of design to a blindly mechanical computation connected to a set of actuators in order to properly infer design. That is a back-door smuggling in of a self-refuting agenda of reduction of mind to blind mechanism. Haldane, long ago aptly rebuked and refuted all such:

“It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter.” [“When I am dead,” in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209.]

A summary of why we end up with foundations for our worldviews, whether or not we would phrase the matter that way}
A summary of why we end up with foundations for our worldviews, whether or not we would phrase the matter that way}

Instead, we are fully entitled to accept the reality of designs and designers as empirically well grounded first plausible facts. We do not have to undertake an absurd infinite regress on mechanisms or go in mechanistic circles in order to do so. We start from our well grounded ability to function as cognitive agents in a common world in which we have common experiences of designing and of designed objects etc with associated characteristics.

On well substantiated induction, we are then entitled to infer on cases of observed FSCO/I that their best current (and given the needle in haystack search challenge, prospective) explanation is similar to that trillion item knowledge base — intelligently directed configuration, aka design.

Not, by somehow sneaking in design into our thought question-beggingly or similarly demanding reduction of everything to a mindless and blind mechanistic process predetermined as required foundation, but based on well founded direct inductive reasoning.

Where, it can be readily shown that just 1,000 bits of FSCO/I comes from a config space from 000 . . . 0 to 111 . . . 1 that involves 1.07*10^301 possibilities. Where also, we see that a blindly mechanistic needle in haystack, chance and necessity search on the gamut of our observed cosmos (~10^80 atoms, 10^17 s, 10^14 attempts to examine and assess configs per atom per s) will be drastically overwhelmed by the scope to be searched. That is, turning the number of atom level, fast chem rxn rate observations (10^111) into a metaphorical straw, the scope to be searched would be a cubical haystack so large that it would dwarf the observed cosmos within as a comparatively tiny blob.

Blind needle in haystack search is not an analytically plausible source of FSCO/I. Intelligent agents routinely produce it — including text of comments here at UD meant to object to, dismiss or deride it — and demonstrate that intelligently directed creative configuration is sharply distinct from what blind chance and mechanical necessity may reasonably do.

This is often in turn dismissed as appeal to “big numbers.”

Sorry, the search challenge is a real issue that must be faced. Dodgy rhetoric is not good enough.

sol_coin_flipr

And so, intelligently directed configuration is not question-begging but an inductive inference to well founded explanation. On pain of trying to burn down inductive reasoning.>>

_______________

We need to carefully ponder what comes out more and more as determined objectors strain every nerve to undermine the design inference on empirically tested signs such as FSCO/I. END

Comments
Good grief, wrong thread. What's going on with UD...?Upright BiPed
April 4, 2015
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Physics does not distinguish between ink marks that convey a meaning and those that don’t.
A yet it must, under materialism. Temporal phenomena such as add glycine next could not occur otherwise. If such things cannot be evoked to occur by an arrangement of matter and interpreted by an arrangement of matter, such things could not happen. Yet, they did happen at the origin of the autonomous homeostatic self-replicating cell (or we would be having this conversation). If the dynamic properties of matter do not explain the origin of representationalism, then what does? Do we need a source of organization that can establish something in arrangements of matter that is independent of the minimum to total potential energy state of the medium - something to explain this observed local (and lawful) independence arising in an inanimate environment?Upright BiPed
April 4, 2015
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First, thanks for the picture of Delicate Arch at sunset. I need to get back to Moab. KF: Delicate Arch and the like natural bridges etc are NOT directed, Not according to the definition: control the operations of; manage or govern. "an economic elite directed the nation's affairs" synonyms: manage, govern, run, administer, control conduct, handle, be in charge/control of, preside over, lead, head, rule, be at the helm of; More the configuration of the arch is controlled/ governed by geology, chemistry,etc . Perhaps this is your confusion: 2. aim (something) in a particular direction or at a particular person. "heating ducts to direct warm air to rear-seat passengers" And that was what I meant, aim has the aspect of control, it also implies teleology. they are observed to be the products of blind chance and mechanical necessity in concert. Sounds like a complex interaction, there are many failed arches in the park. Yes the configuration is governed by those forces , Another word for governed is directed. A directed configuration. Both those forces are employed in human design as well. They do not exhibit FSCO/I as features of one and the same aspect. Are you says there is no Fsco/I in that configuration? Or not a lot? does all human design have FSCO/ I?velikovskys
March 16, 2015
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kairosfocus: we know that is your creedal belief, but can you demonstrate the power of blind chance and mechanical necessity to create FSCO/I in the here and now that we may see the power of statistical miracles that we might believe? Evolutionary algorithms provide the mathematical basis. kairosfocus: Surely, massive computer power working through chance text generation can demonstrate 72 or so characters of coherent text in English or the like if that were so . . . not just 20 – 24 as is in the record. Sure, as long as there is a reasonable selection criterion. It's easy enough to show that very long sequences are not isolated on inaccessible islands.Zachriel
March 16, 2015
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Z, we know that is your creedal belief, but can you demonstrate the power of blind chance and mechanical necessity to create FSCO/I in the here and now that we may see the power of statistical miracles that we might believe? We do not ask for extraordinary evidence, just adequate evidence that really does demonstrate that power. Surely, massive computer power working through chance text generation can demonstrate 72 or so characters of coherent text in English or the like if that were so . . . not just 20 - 24 as is in the record. After all, those would be about as speeded up a process as we can get. KFkairosfocus
March 16, 2015
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kairosfocus: FSCO/I, as common as fishing reels and DNA data strings, is real, relevant and on trillions of cases known to be routinely caused by design. Sure, but can also occur through evolution. Evolution is quite adept at creating 'FSCO/I'.Zachriel
March 16, 2015
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Z, you know better. The deep past of origins was not and cannot be observed by us. All we can inspect is traces, and there is a serious question of institutionalised a priori materialist ideology leading to question-begging. Instead, we are well advised to revert to the Newtonian adequate or true cause -- vera causa -- principle supposedly espoused by Lyell and Darwin. That is, first we should show that factor-X has per our observation, power to cause effect E that is materially similar to trace T before we admit it as even a candidate to explain T. FSCO/I, as common as fishing reels and DNA data strings, is real, relevant and on trillions of cases known to be routinely caused by design. The ONLY actually observed cause is design, intelligently directed configuration. Until factors of blind chance and necessity demonstrate such capability, they are not even serious candidates -- which per the blind needle in haystack search challenge is maximally unlikely. You have begged the question and twisted the logic into pretzels. KFkairosfocus
March 16, 2015
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kairosfocus: can you provide an observed case where blind chance and mechanical necessity based walks across config spaces gave rise to FSCO/I beyond 500 – 1,000 bits? FSCO/I is not a consistent measure, but with a reasonable use of the term, then the evolution of life qualifies. Of course, you reject that answer, but then again, you asked.Zachriel
March 15, 2015
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Z, can you provide an observed case where blind chance and mechanical necessity based walks across config spaces gave rise to FSCO/I beyond 500 - 1,000 bits? We can confidently note, no; if it were otherwise, that would be trumpeted from the roof tops and design theory would have collapsed. So, as on trillions of observed cases intelligently directed configuration routinely creates FSCO/I -- this is not something done in a hidden corner, your own posts of comment are cases in point -- we are epistemically entitled to the inductive inference that such FSCO/I is a strong sign of design. In the case of Stonehenge not only the circular array but the astronomical alignments count. That 8 yo is right to wonder. KFkairosfocus
March 15, 2015
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liljenborg: Even an eight-year-old child can look at Delicate Arch and tell it is somehow a natural formation and wonder, “How did that happen?” Actually, humans have traditionally ascribed 'design' to natural phenomenon, from mountains to lightning. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/Jupiter_Smyrna_Louvre_Ma13.jpgZachriel
March 15, 2015
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F/N: To help TA and others, I decided to add several further figures to the OP; with a particular emphasis on node-arc functionally specific wiring diagrams and similar networks.The specific case of protein synthesis and comparison with NC machinery, is addressed. KFkairosfocus
March 15, 2015
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AD, thanks. KFkairosfocus
March 15, 2015
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BA, the CAPTCHA seems to be getting out of hand, it just forced me to do three tries. KFkairosfocus
March 15, 2015
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TA, First, kindly look at the original post as headlined; which answers the question. Notwithstanding, as a courtesy, I outline -- yet again (kindly cf here recently and here and here in the UD ID Foundations series some years ago):
a: the fishing reel illustration [and so the actual object] is a simple and readily understood case of an undeniable nodes-arcs "wiring diagram" specific, functionally organised pattern as was discussed by Wicken in 1979 . . . a further, classic, case is a watch as opposed to a stone, but that is far more complex, and the self replicating watch thought exercise immediately thereafter discussed by Paley seems to be commonly ignored strawmannishly by those eager to dismissively sniff "analogy . . . one, that patently exhibits -- b: functionally specific, complex interactive organisation and associated information, FSCO/I. Clipping and highlighting a key point from Wicken . . . it is hard for clarity to break through dense rhetorical fog and the smoke of ad hominem soaked burning strawmen created by years of selectively hyperskeptical objections:
‘Organized’ systems are to be carefully distinguished from ‘ordered’ systems. Neither kind of system is ‘random,’ but whereas ordered systems are generated according to simple algorithms [[i.e. “simple” force laws acting on objects starting from arbitrary and common- place initial conditions] and therefore lack complexity, organized systems must be assembled element by element according to an [originally . . . ] external ‘wiring diagram’ with a high information content . . . Organization, then, is functional complexity and carries information. It is non-random by design or by selection, rather than by the a priori necessity of crystallographic ‘order.’ [“The Generation of Complexity in Evolution: A Thermodynamic and Information-Theoretical Discussion,” Journal of Theoretical Biology, 77 (April 1979): p. 353, of pp. 349-65. (Emphases and notes added. Nb: “originally” is added to highlight that for self-replicating systems, the blue print can be built-in. Also, since complex organisation can be analysed as a wiring network, and then reduced to a string of instructions specifying components, interfaces and connecting arcs, functionally specific complex organisation [FSCO] as discussed by Wicken is implicitly associated with functionally specific complex information [FSCI]. Thus, FSCO/I.)]
c: Where, the referenced associated information is in principle quantifiable by use of an efficient structured pattern of y/n q's, i.e. a description language . . . in praxis something like AutoCAD; and of course this is exactly the pattern of complexity measure put forward by Kolmogorov-Chaitin. So, the "it's not quantifiable" canard fizzles out. Where also: d: as Wicken's thought context and that of Orgel (OOL) implied, one and the same FSCO/I nodes-arcs pattern (though obviously with different details) is instantiated -- this is no mere dismissible loose analogy -- in many ways in the protein synthesis process of the cell and in the wider metabolic framework (cf. illustrations above). e: Thus, with a common observable and quantifiable phenomenon (noted on since Orgel and Wicken in the 1970's) we may speak to the inductive significance of FSCO/I when it appears.
It is a general inductive conclusion that FSCO/I beyond 500 - 1,000 bits . . . on trillions of cases, has only been observed to be formed by intelligently directed configuration, aka design. This is unsurprising because the config spaces from 3.27*10^150 to 1.07*10^301 possibilities and more readily swamp the atomic and temporal blind needle in haystack search resources of the sol system at 500 bits, and the observed cosmos at 1,000+ bits. In simple terms, consider a string of 1,000 coins on a table. Flip them, we expect to see one of the overwhelming bulk of the binomial distribution, near 50-50 H:T in no particular order. But if instead we were to note the string of coins had the ASCII code for the first 143 characters of this post, we would for cause infer design on FSCO/I. In a nutshell, the 10^80 atoms or so of the observed cosmos each having such a tray flipped 10^14 times.s [a fast chem rxn rate] for 10^17 since usual estimate for BB, reduced to one straw, would be like a one straw sample of a cubical haystack so big that it would reduce the observed cosmos to a small blob by contrast. Too much haystack, far too little search to find needles. Where, FSCO/I, by virtue of the specific kind of interactive nodes arcs pattern of correct and matching parts properly oriented and coupled to work together to achieve function, sharply constricts relevantly functional configs relative to clumped at random much less scattered configs. That is, where FSCO/I is concerned there are definite, narrow islands of function in the much larger space of possible configs. For the protein synthesis, start with DNA and mRNA transcribed (and often edited) from it. The s-t-r-i-n-g pattern is a nodes arcs one, and each node requires one of ACGT/U in proper orientation (and chirality). These carry an algorithmic coded pattern with start, extend and stop elements. Choice of alternative 3-letter codons for particular AAs seems to have a speed regulatory effect. Thus we see codes [thus language], algorithms [thus goal directed patterns of functional steps carried out by co-ordinated execution macjhinery], and we see formation of highly specific AA sequences based on loading of tRNAs that have a CCA universal "tooltip." Yes, the coding is based on loading enzymes interacting with tRNAs, which have anticodon prong-height templates at the other end of the folded tRNA. These fit in succession with the codon prong height patterns in the mRNA control tape. Much as with the prong height coded password on Yale type locks. And the protein string then folds (perhaps with chaperoning) to a stable, functional form. Which comes in deeply isolated islands in AA-sequence space, much less organic chem possibilities. Thus the FSCO/I in protein synthesis is evident as may be seen in the OP figure. Which same FSCO/I is aptly illustrated by the much simpler case of a fishing reel. And, FSCO/I is per strong induction and linked needle in haystack analysis, a characteristic sign of design as cause. Which, is what sticks cross-ways in the gullet of many objectors to design thought. For to them the notion of seriously considering design as evidenced on inductively reliable sign in the world of life is anathema. But in fact, the vera causa, demonstrated adequate cause principle is pivotal to keeping origins science explanations from becoming captive to ideological frameworks. For, we cannot observe the remote past of origins. So, following Newton and others down to Lyell and Darwin, we acknowledge that before using a claimed causal factor to explain traces from the past of origins, we must first observe that such have adequate causal power to cause substantially the same effects. Glorified common sense. Once applied to something like the FSCO/I in protein synthesis, we see that there is just one empirically demonstrated adequate cause for FSCO/I. Intelligently directed configuration, aka design. The many objections out there cannot answer to this simple fact: FSCO/I is real, is observable, is quantifiable as beyond a threshold [all that is needed, side tracks on demanding differences in value for X, Y, Z etc are irrelevant) and has a strongly inductively identified cause. Design. No wonder batteries and volleys of selectively hyperskeptical objections are trotted out to try to justify adherence to a priori, lab coat clad evolutionary materialist scientism. But ideology and fallacious rhetoric are not science. KFkairosfocus
March 15, 2015
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KF says this:
F/N: It seems troll CH (reportedly implicated in Facebook abuse as well by way of setting up fake FB accounts) cannot acknowledge the evidence of coded functionally specific information in D/RNA, nor is he able or willing to recognise that the nodes-arcs functionally specific complex organisation patterns in protein synthesis or the cell’s metabolic network exhibit the same configuration dependent functionality that is familiar from say a fishing reel.
Can you explain why or how protein synthesis is related to the design of a fishing reel?timothya
March 15, 2015
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My apologies. I mistyped the web address. Try http://www.evillusion.net He also has a YouTube channel, stevebee92653. He has several videos that explain his position and some of them are quite funny and irreverent. See: http://youtu.be/sHWrzzdItT0 Here is an example on the impossibility of evolved teeth: http://youtu.be/tPC0Ngki-As (Blume is a trained dentist) And evolution, the religion: http://youtu.be/sOxNVg85OLA Hope this helps. He's got an in your face approach and he's done a lot of battle and is banned on most pro Evo sites.AnimatedDust
March 14, 2015
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lil, you seem to be new to UD; welcome aboard. Some points to ponder there, and I did not think about Stonehenge but indeed that is an apt comparison also.That one manifests a plan, and plans come with purposes and reasons. Finally, strong appearance of design is good reason to accept design as a serious possibility, we are looking at ideological a prioris that lock that out, and insist on considering only factors that do not have adequate warrant per observation, to be causes of FSCO/I. KFkairosfocus
March 14, 2015
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AD Thanks. Yes, I am speaking about Carbon based chemistry organic chemistry. I emphasise C atoms because of the fine tuning that sets H, He, O and C as the first four atoms in abundance, with N nearby. That is, Stars etc, gateway to the periodic table, water, Organic Chemistry, proteins in five atoms. Which just happen to be basically the top most common, save for N. As Sir Fred Hoyle so often said, another put-up job. Stephen Blume, I do not know of. The web site is down. There is an Amazon book but the details are a bit sketchy. I see the familiar two peak reviews that suggest he has something to say and you know who wish to drag him down. Ravi is a very insightful Christian apologist from Atlanta GA and onwards India. I deeply respect his insights. He is right and I think there is a study out there that documents a fear and anger reaction at the mention of God by atheists who were wired up, maybe BA77 can dig it up -- he is amazing that way. My own conclusions as of now are that we are too often seeing willful obtuseness in exchanges. CH above is plainly much more than that, he may well be part of a dirty astroturf PR scheme. Certainly, he has unhealthy obsessions and is driven by an unreasonable hostility. I am led back to some sober counsel from the apostle Paul -- and yes, this winds'em up (which they need) -- on en-darkenment vs enlightenment:
Eph 4:17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self,[f] which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. [ESV]
KFkairosfocus
March 14, 2015
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The scientific community is regularly alarmed at the number of Americans who don't seem to accept Darwinian evolution as a foregone conclusion. But it is exactly the obvious feature of design that constantly thwarts them. Even an eight-year-old child can look at Delicate Arch and tell it is somehow a natural formation and wonder, "How did that happen?", and yet look at the stone arches of Stonehenge and know to ask, "Who made that, and why?" Even children can look at the stone blocks of Stonehenge and wrap their minds around the fact that someone put them there for a reason, even if they have no idea who did it or why. It doesn't take a lot of exploration of the complex molecular machines at work in the cell or the complex organic machines at work in our organs, to start wondering WHO designed all of these machines. Even Dawkins in the Blind Watchmaker talks about the "appearance of design" in biological systems. I remember, many years ago, listening to a lecture about "non-intelligent non-design" by Dr. Barash at UofW and the way he tried to extrapolate random changes in the eye color of flies into the development of whole new types of tissues, organs, and biological function. His lecture strove to establish that these complex systems were simple pieces that just happened to string together and that small changes in proteins in a cell didn't reduce function and could add up to anatomical changes in the organism that didn't crash the organism's function (the lecture was a direct response to Dr. Behe's idea of irreducible complexity). But that's exactly what makes these systems look designed. Stonehenge is a simple circle of simple stones. Yet even children looking at Stonehenge recognize that that many identical rocks, arranged in such a perfect circle, with blocks bridging the gap between them, even in such an state of ruin, knows that those pieces of stone can't be the product of random chance and natural processes like erosion. For thousands of years people have looked at Stonehenge and wondered who built it and why. It seems to me that the only people with an a priori commitment to refuse to acknowledge a designer (and biology degrees) can look at obvious design and see only the "appearance" of design.liljenborg
March 14, 2015
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Thank you for your hard work KF. I just lurk with my mouth agape at the thoughts of materialists that they hold as true. Two questions from a layman: 1. When you describe C-chemistry, what does the C stand for? I'm guessing Carbon (based) but I defer. 2. Are you familiar with the work of Stephen Blume (www.evoillusion.net) online known as stevebee92653? I've often been amused at atheist/materialist stridency and vitriol as it relates to God. Ravi Zacharias observed recently that people don't get angry when dismissing the Flying Spaghetti Monster or Santa Claus, but the God of the bible is another matter. He believes it's becausedeep down, they know it's true, and they're angry about it. Thank you.AnimatedDust
March 14, 2015
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F/N: I inserted an outline sketch of the Smith cybernetic loop model. KFkairosfocus
March 14, 2015
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H, thanks for kind words -- after what I just had to deal with, they are very appreciated. Unfortunately, we are dealing with radical factionalism which is amoral. CH is an outright troll -- likely a paid astroturfer or worse -- and on the FB issues, possibly much worse. And he is a representative of even worse out there. Do people understand the matches they are playing with and how they can burn down our civilisation through the march of folly? Do they care? KFkairosfocus
March 14, 2015
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CH is a product of a larger failed materialistic system. I agree 100% with Kf in post #1 "I am increasingly, sadly, convinced that evolutionary materialism advocates will burn down language, logic and the reasoning process of science to sustain their ideological commitment." We see this insane behaviour and faulty logic all the time. These folk would rather burn it all down rather than admit they are wrong.humbled
March 14, 2015
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F/N: It seems troll CH (reportedly implicated in Facebook abuse as well by way of setting up fake FB accounts) cannot acknowledge the evidence of coded functionally specific information in D/RNA, nor is he able or willing to recognise that the nodes-arcs functionally specific complex organisation patterns in protein synthesis or the cell's metabolic network exhibit the same configuration dependent functionality that is familiar from say a fishing reel. Then, as the OP outlines, there is a vast difference between question-begging and inductive reasoning per empirical evidence on here a knowledge base of trillions of cases that warrant the strong conclusion that FSCO/I is a reliable sign of design as cause. The intensity of selectively hyperskeptical refusal to look at evidence and acknowledge it for what it is is ironically evidence of its strength. There is none so purblind as he who WILL not see, KFkairosfocus
March 14, 2015
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The problem still being that just calling a living organism functionally specifically complex still doesn't make it so and is, in fact, simply question begging. [Left to stand because already present. Future trolling will be snipped. You know the false accusation you have made against the memory of Mr Gish -- a fighter pilot and biochemist -- who won several hundred open debates on the state of fossil evidence, and by extension of the abusive and slanderous term "Gish gallop" against BA77 and the undersigned; which needs to be retracted. As to the silly nonsense over want of original thought, originality is not a criterion of soundness (and Plato and Wicken have said things so well that it is well worth drawing attention to what was said by a leading OOL researcher in 1979 and to Plato c 360 BC) . . . and besides CH does not recognise the originality above, for simple e.g. the per aspect version of the design inference explanatory filter. KF]ChristopherH
March 14, 2015
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F/N: I decided to put in contrasting images of Delicate Arch and Mt Rushmore that show the contrast between functionally specific complex organisation and associated information and natural complexity resulting from erosion and weathering. It is highly relevant to note that the Borglum sculpture represents four portraits whilst the natural feature with some imagination whimsically looks like the legs of a chaps wearing cowboy. KFkairosfocus
March 14, 2015
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Have you EVER had a thought of your own? Mr CHartsil you have a retraction of false accusation to make and are directed to leave this thread. KFChristopherH
March 14, 2015
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Hi Mung, I clip Wiki:
A telos (from the Greek [letters: TELOS] for "end", "purpose", or "goal") is an end or purpose, in a fairly constrained sense used by philosophers such as Aristotle. It is the root of the term "teleology," roughly the study of purposiveness, or the study of objects with a view to their aims, purposes, or intentions.
Agents exhibit purpose. Indeed, here is Plato in that same passage from The Laws, Bk X on the self moved initiating cause as opposed to the mechanistic chain . . . going on to a cosmological design inference:
Ath. . . . when one thing changes another, and that another, of such will there be any primary changing element? How can a thing which is moved by another ever be the beginning of change? Impossible. But when the self-moved changes other, and that again other, and thus thousands upon tens of thousands of bodies are set in motion, must not the beginning of all this motion be the change of the self-moving principle [--> defines agency on reflexive, volitional free causal action that is initiatory to purely secondary mechanistic causal chains]? . . . . self-motion being the origin of all motions, and the first which arises among things at rest as well as among things in motion, is the eldest and mightiest principle of change, and that which is changed by another and yet moves other is second. [[ . . . .] Ath. If we were to see this power existing in any earthy, watery, or fiery substance, simple or compound-how should we describe it? Cle. You mean to ask whether we should call such a self-moving power life? Ath. I do. Cle. Certainly we should. Ath. And when we see soul in anything, must we not do the same-must we not admit that this is life? [[ . . . . ] Cle. You mean to say that the essence which is defined as the self-moved is the same with that which has the name soul? Ath. Yes; and if this is true, do we still maintain that there is anything wanting in the proof that the soul is the first origin and moving power of all that is, or has become, or will be, and their contraries, when she has been clearly shown to be the source of change and motion in all things? Cle. Certainly not; the soul as being the source of motion, has been most satisfactorily shown to be the oldest of all things. Ath. And is not that motion which is produced in another, by reason of another, but never has any self-moving power at all, being in truth the change of an inanimate body, to be reckoned second, or by any lower number which you may prefer? Cle. Exactly. Ath. Then we are right, and speak the most perfect and absolute truth, when we say that the soul is prior to the body, and that the body is second and comes afterwards, and is born to obey the soul, which is the ruler? [[ . . . . ] Ath. If, my friend, we say that the whole path and movement of heaven, and of all that is therein, is by nature akin to the movement and revolution and calculation of mind, and proceeds by kindred laws, then, as is plain, we must say that the best soul takes care of the world and guides it along the good path. [[Plato here explicitly sets up an inference to design (by a good soul) from the intelligible order of the cosmos.]
Food for further thought, KFkairosfocus
March 13, 2015
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indeed. insightful as always kf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telos_%28philosophy%29 direct : to cause (someone or something) to turn, move, or point in a particular wayMung
March 13, 2015
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PS: I am increasingly, sadly, convinced that evolutionary materialism advocates will burn down language, logic and the reasoning process of science to sustain their ideological commitment. I headlined the above by way of an illustrative case, and to call for doing better. KFkairosfocus
March 13, 2015
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