Is atheism a scientific perspective?

[Angrboda]

Intelligence is the only known cause of the information. The complexity of the cell is a product of information. Therefore intelligence is the only known cause that is capable of leading to cells.

For the third time, human intelligence is not capable of producing the complexity seen in a cell. The complexity of the cell is the product of chemistry. A chemical system that is beyond the capacity of human designers to design. Since "intelligence" isn't a known cause of the complexity of the cell, you can only mean something else. That something else is spelled out in the terms complex, specified information. Complex information is ubiquitous. All systems produce 'information'. So it can't depend on it merely being complex information. And the term specified is vacuous, so that adds nothing to the equation.

You can't just assert that something is an argument from ignorance and conclude that it is false. You are implying that there is a different explanation which we are currently ignorant of. That may be true, but we have no biochemical reason to think so. The only reason to think so is your own ideological bias.

I'm not concluding that it is false, I'm concluding that it is an invalid argument for your conclusion. That isn't due to my ideological biases, that's due to the structure of your argument. If you don't like the fact that you have made an invalid argument, then get another god damned argument.

And does it really produce false positives?  I might have missed it, but can you give examples of non-designed systems that have sequential information that leads to function? Otherwise, I think that the only way to state that it produces false positives would be to assert that living systems themselves were not designed and use that assertion to justify your rejection of the ID technique.

I've been through this. The word function doesn't apply specifically to designed systems. The rain has a function in the hydrological cycle. Rocks on a beach sort themselves hydrologically; that's sequential information. None of the terms you've supplied apply exclusively to designed things, so by consequence you will have false positives. For an example, I'd give the checkers playing neural nets of Chelapilla and Fogel. (here)(See here for a complete exposition.)

And I resent you telling me that I am denying established science for my inferences to work. I think you are confused on the empirical sciences and the speculative sciences. I disagree with the speculations of scientists often, but I don't think I've denied anything empirical.

I don't give a flying fucking damn that you resent it. You're nothing but an evolution denier and evolution is established science. Your made up distinction between speculative and empirical science is just your ideological bias looking for a way to worm itself to your already formed conclusion. All science is a mix of both empirical observation and speculation.

And adequate for information. Sequential information that gives rise to function is this feature.

Already dealt with.

We know that living systems contain information (Is this the part you disagree with?). We know of only one process capable of leading to information.

All processes lead to 'information'. It's the kind of information that is at issue, and you haven't been able to specify the kind of information in a way that unambiguously leads to designing intelligence.

[Tonus]

You act as though all ideas are treated the same by scientific journals.

Why would they treat every idea the same? No one does that.

Like everything else, they put money first.

That's a pretty heavy accusation to make. Are you implying that they would suffer a loss of funds if they didn't reject legitimate science that came from certain people?

Do you ignore everything that isn't peer reviewed?

No. But peer review helps to keep scientists honest and is a way of cutting through bias and bad science in order to learn more. To avoid the system that is in place is to avoid having your work tested as thoroughly and honestly as it should be. That should make anyone suspicious.

[Cyberman]

Let's put it this way. It's a few years old now but only ten minutes long and made by an actual professional science reporter.





Note that this is exactly 180° away from what IDers do.

[Esquilax]

ID does demonstrate what we've learned. It is based mainly on our knowledge of biological systems and finely tuned laws of physics. Actual mechanisms are something that no origin of life theory can produce. Possible mechanisms are the best we will ever get, and I believe that ID stands alone. After all, intelligent input has been the only way we have ever gotten RNA and DNA sequences to do what we want.

I'm curious as to why you think this matters at all? Yes, you're right: interfering with DNA is the only way we can get DNA to do what we want. That's because DNA doesn't take our wants into account when it forms, not because intelligence is required for DNA to do stuff. Did you seriously not consider this at all? We know that DNA arises naturally, and if your argument here is that you believe DNA requires an intelligent designer, because DNA only does what intelligent entities want it to do via intelligent input, then your position is entirely circular.

There are predictions. ID proponents predicted functional DNA while others predicted junk. ID proponents consistently predict that biological processes are highly specific and not based in randomness, and this is consistently being shown to be correct.

Would you care to define what those terms mean, such that we can actually check that for ourselves, instead of just proclaiming they're correct?

Because I'll probably have some news for you, there.

[robvalue]

"Processes are highly specific"?

"Functional DNA"?

This is exactly the sort of meaningless jargon I was talking about. This is not science. Can you produce definitions for these that are objective and falsifiable? Because if I can't use them to show that actually a particular life form isn't designed, then all they are is confirmation bias or tautologies.

The inherent problem here is a lack of data. We need examples of designed life, and non designed life. We then examine both to find the differences, and build a predictive model to tell them apart. We test the model on new data to see how good it is. This is how science works.

But of course, since "designed life" isn't even well-defined, we don't have any examples of either. So we can't get any data to even consider making a model with.

You say you care about the scientific method, but ID does not use it. It doesn't even come close to using it. All it is doing is examining life to look for ways that make it seem designed. That is all.

---

Let's be clear: I'm not claiming life isn't designed.

In fact, like the "God" question, that claim wouldn't be coherent until I even know what it means to be "designed' in the first place.

What we do know is that evolution happens, and it doesn't require guidance outside of natural selection. If there was any design involved, it happened way before humans evolved.

Seriously AAA, do you think that humans didn't evolve from other apes? Is that your position? I'm not sure if you don't even know your position, or you won't tell us out of embarrassment.

[Esquilax]

The inherent problem here is a lack of data. We need examples of designed life, and non designed life. We then examine both to find the differences, and build a predictive model to tell them apart. We test the model on new data to see how good it is. This is how science works.

The trouble here is that design proponents don't actually have any positive indicators of the position they hold. Looking at the support out there for design- specified complexity, irreducible complexity, fine tuning- what you quickly discover is that "designed life," is merely "life what I can't think of a natural explanation for," gussied up in pseudoscientific lingo. Where they aren't assuming by fiat that certain qualities that they oh so conveniently find in life are solely signifiers of design because they can't think of another reason for them to be there, design proponents merely attempt to construct categories out of whole cloth with the aim of building a god-shaped hole with them. Not having any actual evidence, they're left with just making shit up until the gaps in knowledge left by questions they just insist are meaningful happens to form the silhouette of the answer they've already come to.

Seriously, how the fuck is a design guy supposed to even know what signifiers of design are, if they're insisting that every form of life is already designed? There's no point of contrast, if everything is designed then the elements of design appear in every thing, and it'd be impossible not to find them. So the argument really just boils down to pointing at stuff in living entities and insisting that that must be designed, just cuz. As though the limitations of the natural world are restricted by design proponent's willingness to imagine shit other than what they already believe.

"That's irreducibly complex!" translates to "I can't think of how this would work if I took a part out, therefore it couldn't."

"Look at that specific information!" translates to "I can't think of how this particular thing could have arisen naturally, therefore it didn't."

"Oh them finely tuned constants!" translates to "this seems unlikely to me, so magic!"

The entire fucking enterprise is putting creationist ignorance up on a pedestal and calling these lack-witted post-hoc clusterfucks immutable features of reality. It's the same arrogant mystic babble we see from every other pseudoscience, right down to the way its proponents rabbit on about "alternate views" and "thought diversity," as though simply having a thought and figuring out some techno-jargon terms to couch it in means that idea is owed a fucking place at the scientific table.

[Tonus]

The trouble here is that design proponents don't actually have any positive indicators of the position they hold.

I think that this is where we stand in the question of God's existence. Since God will not show up, the only option left is to demonstrate that he is necessary. A "gaps argument" by any other name...

[The Grand Nudger]

Well for one, time limits it.

Sure, and?

We don't know how many replication events there have been, but as we continue to unveil new layers of complexity, we should be less confident that there have been enough.

Enough what, enough time?  Billions of years multiplied by many more billions of living subjects seems like it crosses the threshold for "enough" handily.  In any case, if it's "too complex" perhaps that';s just a problem of perspective on your part. All of life shares a great deal, either that shared heritage is too useful, too entrenched, or there hasn't been enough time to significantly diverge. Maybe it's "too simple"?

Also, I think the mechanism is inherently unlikely to produce new information.

Ah, but no one cares what you think about "new information", since you're categorically wrong from the very bottom of this dumpster term to the top. Call it old information, if you like, or repurposed information, ultimately, the terms you use to cloud your uninformed doubts do not change the process or it's outcome.

Changing sequence doesn't add nucleotides to the system. The only way to do that is to have a duplication event or a retrotransposon replication and reentry event. From there, the sequences must mutate slightly. If they mutate too much, then they will lose function (at least this is what is virtually always observed). That, coupled with the fact that mutation frequency is so low seems to make the whole mechanism questionable.

Questionable how?  You yourself have just noted that we observe mutation.  Mutations have been occuring for billions of years, in every individual example of life, the cumulative effect of all that change isn;t exactly going to be negligible, now is it? Vestigial organs and structures exist, sometimes...function is lost, and it doesn't actually take a mutation for that to happen. I find myself asking again, what's the problem?

[GUBU]

I love how Junk Status is still arguing that life is so "well designed" that an intelligent deity must be behind it, while simultaneously being member of a speciecs whose members can choke to death on a pretzel. The more you find out about the human body and how it actually works, the more ludicrous the designer hypothesis becomes.

[vorlon13]

a pretzel isn't near as much fun as . . . .