Could intelligent design be legitimate?

[PrimalMinister]

3 minutes ago, Strange said:

The only way of establishing if something was designed, is to have evidence of that design process

We have evidence of the design process of laptops, laptops were designed by us.

 

4 minutes ago, Strange said:

What differentiates the things above it from below it? The materials they are made of? Their function? Their size?

I am not so interested that, I guess that is the job of intelligent design proponents (which is what I am asking). Its just that I have looked at intelligent design and it seems to all boil down to this point, where is the line. But its often presented as something different from people disparaging intelligent design, I just wonder whether they have honestly looked at it. There is clearly a line, its just undefined, but isn't it legitimate to ask where that line is?

Creativity is a strange creature in science, its there but not really acknowledged.

Like in evolutionary theory, creativity is the mutations, random, but at the same time creative. Evolution via natural selection cannot be the whole answer. Natural selection is a passive attribute of the universe, not an active one, its not creative, its the mutations that are creative.

These natural process people talk about are all passive attributes of the universe, that is how science defines them. All of them. Modern science is not about creativity, none of it, its all about passive attributes of the universe. To borrow a concept from a different culture, scientific models are inherently Yin like (from the Yin and Yang of the Tao), they do not describe creative processes, they can't, by design they are not creative.

Creativity exists in the universe, we are creative, we are evidence the universe supports creativity. But is the universe as creative as we are? Not according to our models which model only the passive attributes of the universe.

But creativity creeps in, its just not really discussed. But its there.

 

 

[zapatos]

2 hours ago, PrimalMinister said:

Why is it silly to ask where the line is?

It isn't. Unless you ask questions, how will you ever discover anything?

Intelligent Design proponents have been looking for a line from the beginning and they always find one, whether it is in the awe inspiring beauty of the universe, or the complexity of the eye.

Unfortunately for them, when examined with a critical eye, the line always fails the test. No 'line' ever proposed by ID proponents has stood up to scientific scrutiny.

The reason you get somewhat hostile reactions here is because the ID proponents generally start with the solution (God exists) and then piece together some bits of data to make the solution appear true, glossing over the weak spots as they go.

9 minutes ago, PrimalMinister said:

We have evidence of the design process of laptops, laptops were designed by us.

 

Correct, there is evidence that laptops were designed. That is a line showing human intelligence, not supernatural intelligence.

[Janus]

1 hour ago, Strange said:

I guess so. If you could work out a way of finding evidence for a designer (although, if there is, it is not particularly intelligent).

And "it looks designed" is not evidence.

 

And in a great deal of cases, things in nature don't "look designed".

Compare the human brain to the aforementioned lap-top.  

With the lap-top, everything in it has a purpose aimed towards the proper operation of the device.  It doesn't have buttons or switches that were needed for earlier computers and no longer have any function now, for example.

The human brain however, is a series of more complex structures built on top of earlier more primitive brain structures.  There is no indication that its final form arose from any design process.   It would be like designing the lap top by starting with a ENIAC base structure, and tacking a IBM 360 architecture on top on that, then adding a 6502, then a 16 bit microprocessor...   No sane designer would go about it that way.

[Phi for All]

5 minutes ago, Janus said:

The human brain however, is a series of more complex structures built on top of earlier more primitive brain structures.  There is no indication that its final form arose from any design process.   It would be like designing the lap top by starting with a ENIAC base structure, and tacking a IBM 360 architecture on top on that, then adding a 6502, then a 16 bit microprocessor...   No sane designer would go about it that way.

And the old audio out cord is wrapped around all the equipment that's been added since, so it's waaaay longer than it needs to be. 

[PrimalMinister]

So if intelligent design is effectivily 'where is the line' why is it not science?

 

[QuantumT]

34 minutes ago, Janus said:

And in a great deal of cases, things in nature don't "look designed".

For starters, I don't see myself as a supporter of ID, and I am a proud atheist, - but that is not entirely true.

There are two examples in nature that looks designed: The golden ratio and the "branching" pattern.

The branching pattern is seen in places like: Lightning, tree roots and tops, rivers and blood vessels. I do know that nature "chooses" the easiest and most effective path, so it isn't a sign of ID, but it looks like it. Just like the golden ratio.

[Phi for All]

15 minutes ago, PrimalMinister said:

So if intelligent design is effectivily 'where is the line' why is it not science?

The premise of a "line" has been rejected. It seems to be a real hangup in your reasoning process. What is it about human intelligence that you find linear?

[Strange]

1 hour ago, PrimalMinister said:

We have evidence of the design process of laptops, laptops were designed by us.

Exactly. 

We don't have evidence of design of other things (things not designed by us).

1 hour ago, PrimalMinister said:

I am not so interested that, I guess that is the job of intelligent design proponents

Then you should probably find a non-science forum where they hang out and ask them. There doesn't seem much point asking on a science forum what the basis of some aspect of religious literalism is.

1 hour ago, PrimalMinister said:

Its just that I have looked at intelligent design and it seems to all boil down to this point, where is the line.

As far as I know it boils down to "the bible says so" and "it looks designed". Neither of which are very good arguments.

1 hour ago, PrimalMinister said:

There is clearly a line, its just undefined, but isn't it legitimate to ask where that line is?

It isn't clear that there is a line. As even you (who invented it) cannot say what this line is, I see no reason to accept that it exists.

 

57 minutes ago, PrimalMinister said:

So if intelligent design is effectivily 'where is the line' why is it not science?

Define this line, and then maybe you could start a scientific discussion about whether there is evidence that it exists or not.

[swansont]

1 hour ago, PrimalMinister said:

 Evolution via natural selection cannot be the whole answer. Natural selection is a passive attribute of the universe, not an active one, its not creative, its the mutations that are creative.

And since mutations are a part of evolution, how can you justify this claim?

 

1 hour ago, PrimalMinister said:

These natural process people talk about are all passive attributes of the universe, that is how science defines them. All of them. Modern science is not about creativity, none of it, its all about passive attributes of the universe. To borrow a concept from a different culture, scientific models are inherently Yin like (from the Yin and Yang of the Tao), they do not describe creative processes, they can't, by design they are not creative.

Bollocks. Science doesn’t explain how a star is created? How atoms are created? How antimatter is created?

 

 

[Moontanman]

1 hour ago, PrimalMinister said:

So if intelligent design is effectivily 'where is the line' why is it not science?

 

Please define what you mean by natural and designed, how do you tell the difference? 

[Ghideon]

5 hours ago, PrimalMinister said:

My question is, could intelligent design be legitimate if it actually did some science? For example, a laptop has the signiture of intelligent design, no one would say that a laptop is the product of natural forces, it quite clearly has an intelligent agent(s) behind it.

Surely it is legitimate to ask where the line between natural forces and intelligence is?

I do not see a line or how to define the parameters for such a line. Some thoughts about this, illustrated by a constructed scenario:
Let's say humans are able to create artificial intelligence. Not software/hardware currently labeled AI but something that by our standards would be labeled as "intelligent".
Next, put this intelligence in a context where the intelligence does not know that it was created by humans. Now if the intelligence, since it is intelligent, manages to come up with a scientific method to investigate and find evidence that it (the intelligence) was created by a designer (the human), how would that count? Is that a scientific approach at investigating intelligent design? The intelligence, created by humans, is just a consequence of human evolution and natural processes. Where does natural end and not natural begin? The existence of human and it's creations do not seem very significant when looking at the universe as a whole. How does our definition of intelligence matter in the greater scale of things, such as how universe came into existence?

 

[Strange]

2 hours ago, PrimalMinister said:

Like in evolutionary theory, creativity is the mutations, random, but at the same time creative. Evolution via natural selection cannot be the whole answer. Natural selection is a passive attribute of the universe, not an active one, its not creative, its the mutations that are creative.

Can you define what you mean by "active" and "passive"?

[mistermack]

If there is a line, it's constantly on the move. 

Just a thousand years ago, everything in existence was on the "designed" side, and nothing at all was on the other side. There was no available explanation, other than "god did it". 

Gradually, virtually everything in existence has been jumping across the line, to the non-designed side. Darwin shifted most of the important ones, and Einstein did a good job on the rest. Laptops should be included, because their designers evolved naturally. They are just like the beaver dam.

So the magic "line" really equates to the gaps in our knowledge. You would have to know everything, to eliminate the line entirely. It's the good old god of the gaps argument, dressed up as "where is the line?"  

Edit : Of course, if something was discovered that could not under any circumstances have occurred naturally or by human means, the proper conclusion should be that it's evidence of aliens, so an intelligent designer should still be the final possibility, the filling in of the final gap. Not the FIRST conclusion you jump to.

Edited September 16, 2019 by mistermack

[dimreepr]

1 hour ago, mistermack said:

So the magic "line" really equates to the gaps in our knowledge. You would have to know everything, to eliminate the line entirely. It's the good old god of the gaps argument, dressed up as "where is the line?"

No it's not, just one explanation of a natural cause eliminates the line; and while you could argue a designer designed the initial conditions for that explanation, that's not what "intelligent designers" are asserting.

1 hour ago, mistermack said:

Of course, if something was discovered that could not under any circumstances have occurred naturally or by human means, the proper conclusion should be that it's evidence of aliens, so an intelligent designer should still be the final possibility, the filling in of the final gap. Not the FIRST conclusion you jump to.

Not unless you find a babel fish.

[Prometheus]

2 hours ago, mistermack said:

Just a thousand years ago, everything in existence was on the "designed" side, and nothing at all was on the other side. There was no available explanation, other than "god did it". 

There were quite a few alternatives, some of them predating Christianity. Anaximander proposed that all life began in the sea and that man was an adaptation of animals. The view of eternal creation and collapse is found in certain Hindu and Buddhist cosmologies - which is why the big bang/big crunch idea appeals to them. Even the primordial ideas that creation somehow emanated from chaos could indicate that people were comfortable saying 'don't know'.The idea that 'God did it' is the default view of humanity is only true of a limited time and location in our history. It's an unfortunately stubborn meme though.

[MigL]

Laptops are perfectly natural and subject to evolutionary forces.

In the future, they will evolve into Terminators and come back in time to kill you for starting the resistance.
Or, they'll evolve into a Machine World, where humans are grown not born, and turn us all into batteries.

[justqwer]

yes, intelligent design has a case, it's more scientific than all the evolution nonsense.

[swansont]

!

Moderator Note

Bald assertion falls well short of a convincing argument, and also of the level of rigor required here.

 

[dimreepr]

1 hour ago, justqwer said:

yes, intelligent design has a case, it's more scientific than all the evolution nonsense.

22 minutes ago, swansont said:

!

Moderator Note

Bald assertion falls well short of a convincing argument, and also of the level of rigor required here.

 

But present your case, anyway...

 

Edited November 18, 2019 by dimreepr

[J.C.MacSwell]

2 hours ago, justqwer said:

yes, intelligent design has a case, it's more scientific than all the evolution nonsense.

Congratulations on your first post.

[swansont]

2 hours ago, dimreepr said:

But present your case, anyway...

!

Moderator Note

But not here in this thread, unless the post relevant to the OP

 

[StringJunky]

22 hours ago, swansont said:

!

Moderator Note

But not here in this thread, unless the post relevant to the OP

 

Why are you allowing the OP to ask us to defend evolution when it is him that is asserting for ID (masked as a question)? This is contrary to normal SFN practice.

Edited November 19, 2019 by StringJunky

[swansont]

53 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

Why are you allowing the OP to ask us to defend evolution when it is him that is asserting for ID (masked as a question)? This is contrary to normal SFN practice.

!

Moderator Note

The OP is not asking anyone to defend evolution, or even asserting ID. "could intelligent design be legitimate if it actually did some science" is asking a question about whether, in principle, a certain approach could be legitimate science. I don't see how that's contrary to normal practice.

 

 

Hijack on irreducible complexity has been split

https://www.scienceforums.net/topic/120588-irreducible-complexity-split-from-could-intelligent-design-be-legitimate/

 

 

[StringJunky]

16 minutes ago, swansont said:

!

Moderator Note

The OP is not asking anyone to defend evolution, or even asserting ID. "could intelligent design be legitimate if it actually did some science" is asking a question about whether, in principle, a certain approach could be legitimate science. I don't see how that's contrary to normal practice.

 

 

Hijack on irreducible complexity has been split

https://www.scienceforums.net/topic/120588-irreducible-complexity-split-from-could-intelligent-design-be-legitimate/

 

 

Sorry, I forgot it was Primal Minister's thread.

[mistermack]

If intelligent design could be shown to be legitimate, would that destroy the concept of evolution? Not one bit. The evidence for evolution is all over the place, in the rocks, in the genes, in the development of resistance to antibiotics and weedkillers, it's never ending. So the proponents either have to disprove every bit of evidence for evolution, which just cannot happen, there is too much of it, OR, to somehow merge intelligent design with evolution, and accept that evolution happened. 

But if you accept evolution, then the process is there to be seen, all the way back to the earliest of fossils. So you can forget Adam and Eve, and the garden of Eden. All your designer did was to kick start some slime into action, and gave it the gift of the odd imperfection of reproduction, such that evolutionary change could follow. 

And if you are arguing for a more "hands on" designer, then you have to explain what an evil son-of-a-bitch it was, to design diseases and parasites, and every form of life living off the remains of others, when you could have designed anything you felt like.