RE: Detecting design or intent in nature
January 7, 2015 at 11:25 pm
(This post was last modified: January 7, 2015 at 11:28 pm by Heywood.)
(January 7, 2015 at 2:40 pm)Esquilax Wrote: No, you're missing my point, which is that your own argument prevents you from appealing to generic intellects at all. You haven't observed any intellect that hasn't originated as a part of the one, unbroken chain of evolution occurring on Earth, and earlier on, you were using a lack of observations to argue against evolutionary systems existing by means other than intelligence. You literally said to me earlier, that arguing for the existence of natural evolution contradicts the observations we've made, and you framed that as a rebuttal to me.
Using this thinking, a automobile would be undesigned because it originated as part of one unbroken chain of evolution occuring on earth.
(January 7, 2015 at 2:40 pm)Esquilax Wrote: Well, guess what? The existence of generic intellects also contradicts the observations that we've made, as do your claims of a designer, since the only intellects we've ever observed have been products of evolutionary systems occurring here on Earth. When I pointed that out to you, you handwaved, in the process inverting your entire argument by pointing to our lack of observations of the universe as a reason to accept the existence of generic intellects occurring without an evolutionary system. So which is it, Heywood? Are observations absolutely required to come to conclusions, as you want them to be when arguing against me? Or is the lack of observations not only okay, but preferred, as you want it to be when defending your own arguments?
You are conflating the quality of being human with the quality of intellect. The are different things entirely.
(January 7, 2015 at 11:24 pm)Rhythm Wrote:(January 7, 2015 at 11:17 pm)Heywood Wrote: The game "Chinese Whispers" is an evolutionary system because it has all the elements of an evolutionary system. Information is passed on from one person to the next. This is replication and heritability. Small changes or mutations occur in the message. Which are either selected to be passed on or not.-and what about the imperfect transmission of information requires an intellect? As has been explained to you many times, you've been confusing presence with necessity. Correlation with causation.
In the case of Chinese Whispers, intellect is a component of the selection mechanism.
Now that you know what the elements of an evolutionary system are, it should be easy for you to identify one coming into existence that either was undesigned or does not use intellect as a component. That is of course....if such systems exist.