I notice in your intro that you say it "may be true" that we can detect design in nature.
But to say that because errors might be made in the detection of design is not the same as saying it can never be detected. And in fact, the massive amounts of information conveyed by living systems is an even more complex issue than Mount Rushmore.
Of course, you believe the opposite, that there is NO intelligent design in nature and mindless processes can explain all existence.
This of course has not been demonstrated, and, although you will of course not admit it, is a massive faith commitment.
Science restricts itself to what it can test. If the "design process" is totally mysterious, it's hardly worthwhile for science to consider it. It's a practical matter, not a matter of faith.
Tim ..., er, JB ... could you please explain why anyone needs to invoke an invisible, magic sky-fairy to account for biology - or even for artifacts produced by natural beings (e.g. Mt. Rushmore, a mousetrap, or a beaver dam)? Since naturalism accounts quite nicely for all of these things, why do the IDites insist on invoking supernaturalism?
Keep in mind that we can't hear the voices in your head, so please make the explanation of your proposed supernatural mechanisms as detailed and explicit as necessary to persuade those of us in the reality-based community.
Thanks in advance.
I never invoked a sky majic fairy, you did, so your straw man argument breaks down immediately.
As to naturalism accounting quite nicely "for all these things" that has yet to be demonstrated.
But I await your explanation.
By the way, I think the degree of insults is proportional to your doubt about your position.
Look at Les Lane, he almost never throws an insult and never a personal attack.
Tim/JB,
When can we expect to see results of test of the ID hypothesis? I mean, that design can not only be detected, but also scientifically validated?
A shelf mounted in drywall in my garage gave way and all the jars of partially used paint crashed to the floor and broke. Fortunately, I had a large dropcloth laid down.
The randomly strewn paint looked just like a Jackson Pollock painting.
Pollock designed his painting. Gravity "designed" my dropcloth. They look the same.
From an "intelligent design" perspective and using the "current" definition of ID which is the detection of design (recall, nothing implied about the designer) how would these two instances of artwork be treated?
"Indeed, the same highly improbable, independently given patterns that appear as the equidistant letter sequences in the Bible Code..."
Just curious: were they analyzing the letter sequences in their own copies of the Bible? In their own language (English)? The Bible wasn't written in English. The Old Testament was handed down by oral tradition for centuries in Aramaic, or precursor languages. It was written down in Greek in Ptolemaic Egypt so that it could be read by literate people all around the Mediterranean.
The New Testament was first written in Greek. The entire Greek Bible was then translated -- repeatedly -- into many languages. No two versions (and there have been hundreds of them in the last two millenia) are identical.
So when you find those "equidistant letter sequences," are you finding them in Aramaic? Or Greek? Or English, Spanish, German, French...?
How could anyone think the "patterns" discerned are anything other than a quirk of the translation that they happened to be working from?
I wonder what the Freudian aspects are to the trolls/creationists always changing their names in these sorts of threads. They claim to be so sure of their positions, but they'll change identities at the drop of a hat. I know why they do it on Usenet, people there get tired of listening to their insane rants and kill file them. They can't stand not having attention and change names to avoid it at all costs. The same pressure dosen't really exist here so...
Neil, above, makes some very good remarks about the known problems of the bible code hoax. Another, noted by critics, is that Hebrew spelling was not standardized until recent times.
Here are some references for those who would like to read a thourough debunking of the bible code bunkum:
Hidden Messages and The Bible Code by Dave Thomas in the Skeptical Inquirer: http://www.csicop.org/si/9711/bi...bible-
code.html
Scientific Refutation of the Bible codes by Brendan McCay: http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugi...ugim/
torah.html
Mathematicians Statement on the Bible Codes: http://math.caltech.edu/code/pet...e/
petition.html
For Phillip Johnson's accolade to the bible codes: http://www.firstthings.com/ftiss...11/
johnson.html
For an earlier post from Red State Rabble on the cordial relations between ID, astrology, and the bible codes, read Apophenia, Astrology, and Intelligent Design: http://
redstaterabble.blogspot.c...ntelligent.html
News flash, all. You get the same results with any book with enough letters. Lots of historical "predictions" from Dickens, for example.
But, you're right. The entire concept doesn't stand up to the simplest questions, like which book was used.
http://www.ntskeptics.org/news/n...-
27.htm#dickens
Hey Bill, what information did you Jackson Pollock reproduction convey?
I would be interested in your analysis.
As for the paranoid ramblings of Boosterz, who doesn't realize that more than one person in this building thinks YOU are the troll, kma.
Just curious: were they analyzing the letter sequences in their own copies of the Bible? In their own language (English)?
No it was Hebrew, but if they had done it in English, they would still get good results. It works for a lot of books. It works for Moby Dick.
My point, Pollock-wise, is that the detection of design is a human perception. Unless one knows that Jackson painted picture A and gravity created picture B, there's no way to tell them apart.
That's why Behe has a hard time describing "design" because it can't be quantified any more than beauty or love. It's totally subjective and you know it when you see it; or so you think. When pinned on that point in talks Behe has slipped away with the declaration that "he knows it when he sees it", thus the famous duck remark.
Basically, Behe ducks the issue.
ID fails on two significant fronts. First, design can't be quantified. It is not a measurable property of matter. Therefore, it's impossible to objectively detect design.
Second, biological systems are not designed. Therefore, no evidence of design will ever be found. It's not there.
Ironically, to date ID has proved both points by its inability to define design or detect design in biological systems.
JB/Tim/alaternametobenamed:
I am very sorry, but you must try to grasp the fact that it is due to your techniques and choice of expression that you are, very properly, labelled a "troll."
Examine the full definition of the word, then go over your own posts and compare them with the responses they evoke: you are a classic living example of this sort of misguided and useless person.
Finally, try to restrain that feeling of emptiness and mortality that seems to demand filling by spouting out the most juvenile (and self-congratulatory) nonsense.
If you can learn to restrain yourself, even a few minutes, something of the reason and sincerity of those you needlessly reject (and uselessly insult), even in its annoyed, hard-love form, is likely to stimulate an actual acorn of thought in your head.
No one here really cares much about you and your spiritual relationships, they just wish you to stop being an example of how shallow and peevish a homo sapien can be.
Bill,
Actually they can tell a real Pollack painting from a fake. http://tinyurl.com/ddfsq
LM Wanderer
I was just about to note that I saw an article recently that someone had used fractals to detect whether some paintings were actually produced by Pollock. (Looks like someone beat me to the punch.) So I'll just suggest that maybe Dembski should lock himself away for a decade or so to study fractals -- then maybe he can show us how to detect design.
bill wrote "Basically, Behe ducks the issue."
Was that supposed to be irony? Good job. If he quacks like a duck ....
Yeah, LM, I read that report and hesitated to use Pollock as an example. I did my graduate work on pattern recognition of chemical systems so I'm somewhat an expert on detection of design. However, all that work is based on generating algorithms in reference to a "known" set of data.
As an observer of design Pollock was able to sling his paint in a way that was receptive, unlike gravity. However, to the general observer Pollock's work would appear random, though somewhat appealing.
I would like to add that not only is the Mount Rushmore example an egregious fallacy, but there are no molecules in cells that look like the faces of presidents, or anyone for that matter. It's a double fallacy because the KIND of design is different - Mount Rushmore is made to look like something, whereas biological 'machines' don't LOOK like anything, they DO things.
What information does a Pollock painting convey, that is contained in the painting itself?
I distinguish this from the information that YOU may want to convey about it.
Oh, and Bill Farrells statement that biological systems are not designed, therefore evidence of design will not be found, its not there...is CLASSIC!
Classic circular argument that is.
What else have you got?
Here is face too, in constellation of Orion, ~ 3 degrees from star Rigel:
http://www.astrographics.com/Gal...dex/
GP3528.html
JB/Tim = 10 years old. At least I hope so. If he's an adult, he's got some serious problems.
One nit to pick with Dembski: the code shouldn't reveal the Finger of God exactly, so much as it reveals the Tweezers of God.
Otherwise he's right: ID Theory is as valid and rigorous as Bible Code Theory.
OK, how about this.
Penguins don't live in Chad. Evidence of penguins will never be found in Chad.
Unless, of course, Chad ate a penguin. Maybe I should have used Morocco.
Let's not forget the late lamented Old Man in the Mountain.
Another favorite is ‘we can detect the design, but that tells us nothing about the designer” – then they bang on about SETI and Mt Rushmore.
(1) SETI.
Alrighty let’s see – a signal – in the signal, a message! (Perhaps that’ll tell us who the designer is) – I can triangulate the source of the message and I know the speed of the signal so I can work out when it was sent. I already know a lot a bout the designer. What base does the designer use to construct the message? Is that number culturally significant to them… etc etc etc.
(2) Mt Rushmore
Okay – close examination shows the work of tools. Analysis shows jackhammers, drills, hammers were used. There are still metal pins where swing-seats were installed – telling us about the weight of the designer. Examining the weathering and erosion of the ‘faces’ against the rest of the rock, we can estimate a time period.
Now let me add 2 more.
(3) Oklo nuclear reactor.
Hmm – lets see. Only recently has mankind been able do to this, using lots of science and math and other hard stuff. Brilliant men where involved for years. Designed – says I.
(4) Giants Causeway
So much symmetry – so many perfect angles. Coastal, so should have been weathered and eroded away. See how they make perfect steps into the sea?:
http://www.geographia.com/northe...-ireland/
ukigi…
Definitely designed.
Alright I’ve hand-waved enough. And I am not showing my workings mathematically – If the IDers don’t have to, neither do I.
Id submit this for peer review, but the book I’m writing will be more profitable.
ID christians know that ID is only a religious belief and not science. They only say it is science to sneak it into science classes. These christians are liars and they know they are liars.
Roger, you are a liar.
***
Roger, you are a liar.
JB | 02.20.06 - 11:45 am | #
***
Careful, he's gonna start crying next. 
Roger, you are a liar.
The Dover court transcipt would not seem to support you, sir.
What information does a Pollock painting convey, that is contained in the painting itself?
What information does a bacterial flagellum convey, that is contained in the flagellum itself?
The point about creationists being unable to quantify "design" beyond knowing it "when they see it" is very important - the whole crux of the matter, and of their argument. It's because "design" is an entirely HUMAN concept. They make god in their own image - and with such enthusiasm that they declare that they known "him" "when they see him".
And the first word, "intelligent", is just as vital for the smokescreen as "design". The difference between waves on rock "designing" the seashore, and some supreme being doing the same, is the assumed presence of an intelligence. Something with a plan, deliberately altering the environment in order to produce an outcome (or an organism) to match that designer's motive.
Of course you can't even USE the word "design" properly without implying that there is an intelligence with a motive involved. If there's no intelligence, there can BE NO DESIGN. But creationists tacked on "intelligent" anyway. Why? It very conveniently waters down the meaning of the word "design". Now it can be applied to things that weren't obviously, OBSERVABLY, created by an intelligence. And hey, if we "prove" design, then we've proved an intelligent agent, and therefore god, right?
Here's the problem, and the reason your chase is a pipe dream, you creatonist jerks: You are trying to retrofit science and stick a puppet-head on it, by using the only real tools anyone has ever found that could do such a job: The tools of SCIENCE. You think that by looking at the natural world under a microscope, you can somehow do an end-run around the process of looking at the natural world under a microscope, and declare what you see to be unnatural, impossible, and therefore designed - and therefore the signature of god. Just like some egotistic painter's scrawl in the margin of a painting.
Why do you pursue proof of god via flaws in the structure of nature? You're looking for mistakes, that give him/her away? You presume he/she makes them?! You people need to read more Douglas Adams books.
The only thing you will accomplish - aside from blowing a lot of smoke up your own asses and mocking the hard work and HARD SCIENCE on which our modern society and every device you use each day is built - is to shrink the mysterious area that your creator could have meddled in, just that much smaller, as your observations reveal more and more of what science will always reside in: The natural world.
"Intelligent Design" indeed. Intelligence is a prerequisite for design, not some provable consequence of it. Sorry sparky, but that dog just won't hunt.
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