DNA Proves Existence of a Designer

[Angrboda]

Saying that they are specific as a way of defining what specific means is pointless.   Define function without reference to teleology or else you're just reasoning in a circle.  Function is an artifact of interpretation, it is not a self-standing characteristic of its own.  I have a rock which functions as a doorstop.  Nothing specific about it.  Until you can explain how my rock functioning as a doorstop is different from DNA functioning to bring about lungs and wings and hearts and brains, then all you've got is a placeholder.  For what it's worth, google tells me that function is defined as, "an activity or purpose natural to or intended for a person or thing."  That behaving in the way chemicals do is natural to DNA does not distinguish it from the wind which does what it does because chemicals in the form of gases naturally do what they do.  Using that as a definition is vacuous, as all things do the activities natural to them for they can do no other.  Thus it does not serve as an acceptable demarcation.  And talk about what something's purpose or someone's intention for something would be is not a property of the thing itself and so cannot serve as a characteristic distinguishing specified from non-specified things, as my rock-cum-doorstop readily shows.  What definition of function did you think you were appealing to here?

That same definition the rest of the world knows for function.

work or operate in a proper or particular way.

DNA works or operates in the particular way that it does because of the laws of nature. The same with the wind. Yet you consider one specified and the other not. Obviously there is more to function or specification than this or else the notion of function or specification is essentially vacuous and useless for distinguishing designed things from things that weren't designed. As to the 'proper' way of working or operating, that is a judgement as to its fitness for a particular purpose, or a comment upon someone's subjective valuation of said working or operation. The first is a teleological appeal and so cannot serve the function of distinguishing designed from non-designed thing, because, as noted, it is not a property of the thing itself, but rather a characteristic of some agent reflecting upon said thing. The latter does not suffice for similar reasons. So in the first case, function does not separate design from non-design, so if specification is based upon it, then specification does not distinguish design from non-design. In the second case, function doesn't distinguish design from non-design because it's not even about the thing itself, so if specification is that, then it can't possibly be the basis of determining design from non-design.

So, in other words, if that is the definition of function you indeed were using, or that you believe that someone else whose opinion you were relying on was using, then you or said person obviously didn't know what they were talking about, as things cannot be distinguished on that basis with reference to the things and their properties themselves. That's a big fail.

Try again.