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Topic: Michael Behe's Mousetrap Revisited
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John A. Davison
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posted 18. December 2004 03:33
If genomes are "capable of coping with a changing environment," why are they becoming extinct at the rate of many thousands per year?
John A. Davison
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Charlie Wagner
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posted 18. December 2004 20:01
John D.
You'll get no arguments from me on any of your points. Having established that evolution is the emergence of pre-formed information, we now must explain the origin of that information. Clearly, information does not create itself, so some entity or some intelligence must have installed it there.
My belief is that the seeds of life came to earth from elsewhere and that life is endemic throughout the universe. But the ultimate question of the origin of life is still a profound mystery.
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John A. Davison
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posted 19. December 2004 11:50
ChArles
Panspermia is an old idea which goes back to Arrhenius. I don't give it much consideration since there is no evidence life exists anywhere except on earth. As to the origin of it all, it obviously required an intelligence far beyond our own. I don't regard that as a hindrance or even subject to any further verification. What we can do is open our minds to that possibility and stop debating the matter of Intelligent Design. Debating Intelligent Design is like debating evolution. Both are self evident. There is much to be learned once both are accepted. Any perceived role for chance is unacceptable, at least to me.
John A. Davison
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Jim Skipper
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posted 29. December 2004 13:18
Charles,
In reviewing your thought experiment, I think there may be a missing piece that has significance to your conclusion, or rather, you describe a specific condition or property of the experiment, but then discard it in drawing your conclusion. Let me quote the pertinent section of your post:
quote:
Experimental protocol:
1. Since the hypothesis can be falsified by demonstrating a complex, highly organized machine that came into existence without intelligent input, a search was launched for such an entity. Thousands of machines of all types were examined and in every case where the origin could be established it was determined that intelligent input was required. No exception was found.
2. Attempts were made to encourage such machines to create themselves. Computer components were stored together in boxes but no assembled computers emerged. A bicycle that I bought for my granddaughter was stored in my shed, but no assembled bicycle emerged. Junkyards were observed before and after tornadoes, but no airplanes emerged from the experience.
Conclusions and discussion:
Every single complex, organized machine, meeting the definition above, whose origin could be determined, was seen to be the result of intelligent input. No complex, organized machine, meeting the definition above, whose origin could be determined was seen to assemble itself without the benefit of intelligent input. The conclusion is that all such machines, including those that have not been specifically examined are likely to be the result of intelligent design.
Living organisms are all found in the third category. They are biochemical machines that are complex and highly organized. Although their origin cannot be determined with certainty. It must be assumed that since all such known machines are the product of intelligent input, they too must have this as a requirement. Of course, this does not preclude the existence of a yet to be understood First Principle that might explain their origin. The nature of the mechanism and/or the intelligence involved remains undiscovered. All known mechanisms are incapable of generating this kind of organization, which requires insight to implement.
Nelson’s Law
Based on these observations and experiments, Nelson’s Law is proposed.
In its simplest form, Nelson’s Law states that "things do not organize* themselves without intelligent guidance".
Let us first consider one phase of your experiment and recast it. Let us take a tool shed and place in it a girl's bicycle and a boy's bicycle, along with a supply of metal ore, rubber, plastics and other essential raw materials. We shall close the shed and leave it unattended for a period of time, perhaps occasionally checking to see that there are plenty of raw materials available. At the end of our experimental period, we shall open the shed. The results are as expected. We still only have two bicycles and all of the original raw materials are still there.
Now let us conduct the second phase of our experiment. We shall now place a girl dog and a boy dog (unspayed and unneutered) in the shed, along with an adequate supply of food and water. We shall leave it unattended for a period of time, occasionally checking to ensure there is adequate food and water. At the end of our experiment, we shall open the shed and behold, in addition to our two original subjects, we have a litter of additional subjects.
The above experiment shows that there is a fundamental difference in the way that new instances of the two types of "complex machines" are created. In the first case, the bicycles (representing man-made machines) must be individually created through a complex process of design, processing of raw materials and manufacture.
In the second case, the dogs (representing organic machines), through an unintelligent process (sexual reproduction), generate a fresh blueprint (fertilize an egg), provide it with raw materials (eat) and the new instances of this class of machine, each one being unique, proceed to assemble themselves from the raw materials supplied.
This second method of "manufacture" is fundamentally different from the first method of manufacture. Imagine if you could simple get the blue prints for your granddaughter's bicycle, drop all the raw materials onto it and it would build itself from scratch. Next imagine that if you wanted a granddaughter, you had to buy all the parts separately, then put them together.
Any comparison of living things to non-living things must take into consideration the fundamental difference in the way new copies are made. Bicycles do not grow and do not reproduce and that fact cannot be trivialized when making comparisons between these two fundamentally different types of machines.
As you clearly state, complex machines, such as bicycles, mousetraps and watches do not self-assemble; they do not organize themselves.
"A waterfall, a mountain, the Grand Canyon, a tornado and an ice crystal" do assemble themselves through known physical processes.
"[A] pear tree, dog and my daughter" do assemble themselves, but are clearly more like complex machines.
Nelson's Law (I do not know who Nelson is) does not apply to man-made complex machines since they do not assemble themselves. Therefore inferences applied to living organisms based on observations about manufactured items are invalid. No part of the your proposed experiment tests that case for things that do organize themselves, and no evidence is presented to show that there are obvious signs of intelligence rather than known physical processes at work in the creation of a living organism.
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Watches do not grow on trees.
[ 29. December 2004, 13:22: Message edited by: Jim Skipper ]
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Charlie Wagner
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posted 03. January 2005 12:21
Thanks for the input, Jim. I was away for the holidays and only returned today.
You wrote:
"The above experiment shows that there is a fundamental difference in the way that new instances of the two types of "complex machines" are created."
and
"This second method of "manufacture" is fundamentally different from the first method of manufacture."
I don't agree that there is any difference, except in degree. Complex machines are created using algorithms, sets of instructions to follow for assembly. These algorithms are created by intelligence in the brain and formalized as "design". They are then stored as "instructions" that are provided with the machine for it's assembly. When you assemble a bicycle, you either deduce this algorithm, because it is relatively simple, directly from the brain, or upon finding that this fails (as it usually does), you resort to reading and following the assembly instructions provided. The actual assembly is carried out by another machine, your human body, which interprets the instructions and creates forces and processes to effect the assembly.
This is no different from the second example of the reproduction of living organisms. There are a set of instructions to follow and those instructions are "written" in the DNA. The cell and its protein synthetic apparatus is the machine that effects the assembly of a new organism, following the directions encoded in the DNA. The only difference I can see is that the technology involved in creating a new living organisms is far more advanced than the technology required to assemble a bicycle, although they are analogous in all other respects.
There are factories in Japan and elsewhere that build cameras and cars with absolute precision using these same methods. A computer algorithm is designed by human intelligence and stored in computers. Robotic machines then interpret these instructions and follow them to build these objects with no human assistance.
In addition, while we know the origin of the design of the bicycle and can deduce how the instructions came to be prepared, we do not have this information with respect to living organisms. This is the main issue: who or what wrote the algorithm that is written in the DNA? Who designed the machine?
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John A. Davison
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posted 03. January 2005 20:19
We cannot answer the question - who or what designed the machine? - but we can acknowledge that it was done. I am of the present opinion that there was an as yet undiscovered genetics, independent of Mendelism, that was instrumental in directing evolutionary change. It is apparently no longer operating. We observe the results of evolution not the process itself. The trick will be to reconstruct a process that is no longer occurring. I am confident that is possible.
John A. Davison
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Jim Skipper
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posted 06. January 2005 15:32
Going to the next level, do we not also need to ask, who designed the Intelligent Designer? Or is the Intelligent Designer less complex and not in need of a designer?
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Charlie Wagner
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posted 06. January 2005 17:15
Jim,
Yes, we can ask who designed the intelligent designer, but it is not critical to our claim. The theists have a simple answer: God does not need a designer, God always existed. My opinion is that if anything at all has always existed, it might just as well be the universe, as God. So, I believe that the universe and the life in it has always existed. I think that the concept of time is a human convention, certainly not even present in lower forms or in plants. We have to get past the notion that everything has to have a beginning.
Of course, the ultimate question is: "why is there anything at all, instead of nothing?"
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Charlie Wagner
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posted 06. January 2005 17:21
John Davison,
I'm still not clear on one point. Do you think that this "undiscovered genetics" is the product of purely natural laws, the product of random, accidental occurrences or of intelligent design? Do you think it's possible for living organisms to emerge without intelligent input?
Charlie Wagner
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John A. Davison
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posted 06. January 2005 18:09
Charlie
Everything in the universe, living or dead, is natural or it wouldn't be there. I believe that must include the genetics of evolution which were not Mendelian in nature. The greatest error that the Darwinians ever made, and they have made plenty of them, was to assume willy nilly that when Mendel's work surfaced in 1900 they had discovered the mechanism for organic evolution. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mendelian (sexual) genetics is anti-evolutionary and stops all further change beyond the production of varieties or subspecies.
William Bateson, the father of modern genetics, with his usual remarkable insight had already realized this by 1924 as indicated by the following:
"By 1924, Bateson had come to realize and told his son in confidence, 'that it was a mistake to have commited his life to Mendelism, that it was a blind alley which would not throw any light on the differentiation of species, nor on evolution in general'."
Davison, J.A. 1993 Rivista di Biologia 86-1: 101-111.
Darwinians have been deliberately oblivious to all the literature that does not support their atheist dogma. And yes, it has been, in my opinion, a shameful conspiracy of silence and denial. It is a scandal of unprecedented dimensions and I am delighted to have been able to disclose it as just that.
John A. Davison
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Jim Skipper
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posted 06. January 2005 19:33
John,
What you say is technically true, but completely irrelevant. I do not think there is a single scientist today who could be called a Darwinian or a geneticist who thinks that Mendel got it right the first time.
Darwin discovered the first piece of the evolutionary puzzle, but a wealth of empirical and experimental data have expanded both the theory of evolution and genetics to create a much broader understanding of how it all works.
The fact that a geneticist would repudiate Mendel shows how the scientific community is able to change their mind when they discover facts that are contrary to current hypotheses or theories.
Modern theories about evolution are much more sophisticated than that proposed Darwin and if you want to argue against them, you should to read up on them. It is said, "Know thy enemy." You cannot successfully argue against someone's statements if you do not understand them. It serves to Intelligent Design Conjecture no good if you argue against ideas that no one actually believes in anymore.
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Jim Skipper
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posted 06. January 2005 20:33
Charlie,
Just a brief reply while I try to get some other thoughts together. The theme of this site and of your posts, at least in this thread, is based on the idea that complexity implies design and design requires a designer. Thus complex machines are designed by humans and complex humans are designed by an unidentified Intelligent Designer. The question of the complexity of the Designer is very important.
If the Designer must be at least as or more complex and intelligent than we are, that complexity must imply a more sophisticated design and thus an even More Intelligent Designer. This is the infinite regression argument often leveled against the Intelligent Design Conjecture.
If, however, the Intelligent Designer can spring forth from nothing, what what does purpose does the ID Conjecture serve? It merely puts another level of complexity between us and the ulitmate question of the origin of life and the Universe without offering any hyptheses that are testable or predictive.
The other side of the coin would be to state that the ID can be less complex and less intelligent than humans and still be capable of designing Life. If that is the case, then how little intelligence is required? Perhaps, in fact, none is required.
Perhaps these issues are addressed elsewhere on this site, but I have never seen anyone address the infinite regression problem, except to say that it is not an issue or is beyond the scope of the Conjecture. Yet if the origin of the ID does not require any explanation, then it is unreasonable to ask that science explain the origin of the Universe as a prerequisite for believing its theories.
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Charlie Wagner
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posted 06. January 2005 20:55
Jim,
Just a quick thought as I'm on my way out the door. I'll have more to say when I get back.
Evolutionary biologists have no problem with saying that evolution has nothing to do with abiogenesis or explaining the origin of life, only what happens after life is generated. So why must I solve the problem of the ultimate origin of the universe in order to argue my simple point: that living organisms as we know them, could not have emerged without intelligent input? This intelligence is required to be more complex and more technologically advanced than any organisms we know about, but it does not rquire me to address the problem of primary cause, or any infinite regression of designers any more than proposing evolutionary theory requires evolutionary biologists to address the problem of abiogenesis.
Sauce for the goose, as they say...
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John A. Davison
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posted 07. January 2005 03:51
I don't think ID conjecture serves any purpose whatsoever and have said so numerous times. I regard Intelligent Design like evolution as a given without which we cannot understand the universe. Of course that is just my opinion.
John A. Davison
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John A. Davison
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posted 07. January 2005 11:00
Jim Skipper
Mendel got it absolutely right the first time. Mendelian genetics is as sound as a dollar and always has been. The error was made by the Darwininans when they assumed in lock step that Mendelian (sexually mediated genetics) has anything to do with evolution. Mendel's factors were all point mutations none of which in any way altered the basic nature of the pea plants on which he worked Furthermore they are reversible mutations. Evolution has never been reversible. Darwinians are still pursuing the phantom of random mutation and Natural Selection, neither of which ever had anything to do with the emergence of new life forms. That is the substance and the reason for the Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis which I note still languishes here on this forum.
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