(2017-11-21, 07:59 PM)Kamarling Wrote: [ -> ]What we might regard as evidence for design, Dawkins (and you) would call the "appearance of design". However, the whole argument is that such elegant and complex systems don't come about by accident. You seem to ignore that and cling to RM/NS as the only possible way to account for that appearance of design. My contention is that you do so, not because that is the only possible explanation but the only explanation which satisfies your atheist/materialist ideology.
It further seems to me that the whole point of so-called skeptics hanging around on a forum like this is to defend that ideology to the last. The posts by Steve001 are an extreme (and often clumsy) example of that but the rest seem just as closed-minded. Your presence and input is fine by me but I wish you could be honest about your motives.
Can you prove design comes about by non natural means? No, you can't and neither can anyone else that subcribes to that position. Your position on this particular matter offers nothing other than the possible hope of transcendence. A hope that through out human history has never been realized.
Not speaking to you specifically, please don't point fingers about defending an ideology to the last. Folks are just as entrenched, clingy (specifically you this time) on your side.
What is the point of such forums where everyone thinks the same other than to congratulate each other for discovering the real truth. Without diametric opposition this forum would be a near copy of skeptiko.
(2017-11-21, 01:29 PM)stephenw Wrote: [ -> ]Natural design in living things predates human design by 3 billion years.
Hmmm... "natural design" ay? Is that like "designed" by the pressure to thrive in an environment?
I don't think there's much between us.
(2017-11-21, 07:59 PM)Kamarling Wrote: [ -> ]What we might regard as evidence for design, Dawkins (and you) would call the "appearance of design". However, the whole argument is that such elegant and complex systems don't come about by accident. You seem to ignore that and cling to RM/NS as the only possible way to account for that appearance of design. My contention is that you do so, not because that is the only possible explanation but the only explanation which satisfies your atheist/materialist ideology.
Stephenw said "Natural design in living things predates human design by 3 billion years." So he is claiming that there is design in nature. However, the only thing we can compare to this supposed natural design is human design. There is no objective measure of "designedness." The idea of specified complexity is faulty.
Stephenw also said "Design has a definition in terms of enforcing purpose and intent, ..." To then claim that there is design in nature is to claim that nature has purpose and intent. Again, we have no objective evidence of this.
I am certainly willing to consider design in nature as an explanation for evolution, but why should I take it seriously without at least some evidence? To say "humans can design and some things in nature look vaguely like such designs" is not evidence. Neither is "design is the only way to obtain complex mechanisms," when all you can really say is "design is the only way for humans to obtain complex mechanisms."
I find it interesting that no one is willing to pursue specified complexity as a potential source of evidence. Why is that?
~~ Paul
(2017-11-22, 07:30 PM)Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Wrote: [ -> ]Stephenw said "Natural design in living things predates human design by 3 billion years." So he is claiming that there is design in nature. However, the only thing we can compare to this supposed natural design is human design. There is no objective measure of "designedness." The idea of specified complexity is faulty.
Stephenw also said "Design has a definition in terms of enforcing purpose and intent, ..." To then claim that there is design in nature is to claim that nature has purpose and intent. Again, we have no objective evidence of this.
I am certainly willing to consider design in nature as an explanation for evolution, but why should I take it seriously without at least some evidence? To say "humans can design and some things in nature look vaguely like such designs" is not evidence. Neither is "design is the only way to obtain complex mechanisms," when all you can really say is "design is the only way for humans to obtain complex mechanisms."
I find it interesting that no one is willing to pursue specified complexity as a potential source of evidence. Why is that?
~~ Paul
Paul, be honest. You had a long running debate on the same subject with Lone Shaman. Every time you asserted "no evidence" he (or Michael Larkin or David Bailey, etc.) came back with some and you reverted to your assertion. I don't think it will achieve anything to go down that dead-end street again - we may as well all re-read those threads on the Skeptiko forum.
Stephenw might respond but let's remember that LS left the forum because he tired of playing tennis against a wall.
Over the last couple days, I've read this entire thread and greatly enjoyed it.
I'm curious about something though that no one's touched on to my recollection. I'm pretty much intuitively convinced that if organisms were truly only evolving by RM + NS, that the random mutations would so often - almost always - be detrimental that the survival of any living thing would be close to impossible. Has no IDer made and developed such an argument?
(2017-09-21, 09:43 AM)Laird Wrote: [ -> ]I finally finished reading this blog this evening. I don't regret it. Lots of good food for thought in there. I am more and more convinced that neo-Darwinist evolutionary theory is bankrupt. Here's a quote from the blog that I quite liked re the tarantula hawk, "a gigantic wasp that begins life as an egg inside a paralyzed and buried tarantula, where its mother put it":
Laird, if you find that sort of thing as greatly intriguing as I do, you really ought read 'Beyond Natural Selection' by Robert Wesson. It's chock full of those types of very strange and interesting animal behaviors.
Beyond Natural Selection
Thanks, Reece, that book does look interesting. I notice that the (deceased) author's daughter posted a review... and a not altogether complimentary one. But generally, reviews were very positive.
(2017-11-22, 08:52 PM)Kamarling Wrote: [ -> ]Paul, be honest. You had a long running debate on the same subject with Lone Shaman. Every time you asserted "no evidence" he (or Michael Larkin or David Bailey, etc.) came back with some and you reverted to your assertion. I don't think it will achieve anything to go down that dead-end street again - we may as well all re-read those threads on the Skeptiko forum.
Stephenw might respond but let's remember that LS left the forum because he tired of playing tennis against a wall.
Unfortunately for most people it ends up being about belief. Both LS and M. Larkin preferred to dismiss rather than consider evidence or ideas which didn't fit their belief systems. This applies to the sceptics too. But it ends up meaning that the people who benefit most from these exchanges tends to be the uncommitted reader, perhaps the so-called 'lurker', who may find information of which they were previously unaware. But if as a result they become a 'true believer' then the discussion can be considered to have been a failure.
Out of curiosity...I see people keep referring to RM+NS, as though that represents the theory of evolution, but does anybody working in the field of evolution actually hold that view? Everything I've seen refers to other means of genetic variation and non-genetic means of heredity, such as epigenetics and phenotypic plasticity.
Why refer to outdated ideas, rather than the state-of-the-art in the field?
Linda