Agnosticism and Intelligent Design

[Keith&Co.]

By "amazing" I mean a puffer fish that creates something that takes about a week that has been called on many videos/sites "Nature's greatest artist".

I knew what amazing means. What i don't know is how that has any bearing on a discussion about ID. And i don't know how one would scientifically assess amazement. Or measure complexity.

YOU are amazed. That does not offer any objective information about puffer fish.

You seriously think there might be another puffer fish that is better?

you are confusing me with another poster.
Which is ironic, as my first post was critical of the inability to compare some of your examples with other samples...

In a similar way maybe there is a more intelligent animal on earth than humans but I think it is reasonable to assume that humans are the most intelligent.

Well, someone has to be the most intelligent. Humans are probably the most intelligent, by human standards of intelligence, ...so we value intelligence.

If the cheetah has a god, they probably tell each other that speed is the sign of divine action.
Elephants probably use size as a sign of god's favor.
Octopi may think that arms are the sign they were created.

So, what is it about complexity that makes you think an intelligence must be involved?
Or is even just a little more likely?
Why complexity, and not, say, speed? Or feetility?
Height?
Stripes?

 

[Keith&Co.]

. If it was just a heap of sand it would have about 10% or less of the complexity. .

Oooooh!
You can measure complexity!
What units do you use?
Do you have a rubric?
I mean, like, how do i compare the complexity of a pencil to the complexity of a paintbrush?
A flagellum to a mitochondria?

 

[DrZoidberg]

..It doesn't matter if there's 100 000 000 000 detrimental mutations to 1 good one. Given enough time they'll be retained while the detrimental ones vanish. Because of natural selection. It's simply a waiting game. ..

I'll reply to the other things later...

So I disagree with what you're saying here. I read we carry about 3000 mutations, perhaps only recessively. As an example a lot of people have eyesight problems. Do you think that given enough time that that problem will vanish from our species? (not using eugenics though) I think greater selection pressures would result in less detrimental mutations (e.g. in a harsh environment) but I think what they can get away with will remain. I was trying to explain my understanding of how inbreeding results in problems but I couldn't remember all of the terminology. I think the mechanism that helps to stop detrimental mutations passing on (when not inbreeding) would also make it hard for good mutations to be passed on. (it would depend if they were recessive or dominant though). I think detrimental mutations are more of a problem than you think they are.

Traits in humans are sexually selected for. So the problems with eyesight must be so bad that it makes you unattractive to the opposite sex. I know blind people who get laid. If the prime sexual selector is something other than eyesight then chances are that people's eyesight will never change from what they are now.

There is no evolutionary push towards better eyesight. The way evolution works is that weirdness tends to increase. So over time we will get great variety of eye sights. Then once every 300 000 years (on average) there's an environmental disaster that kills off a large proportion of life on Earth. Mass starvation creates a fight for survival on a knife's edge. The animals that make it out alive on the other side will have very similar DNA. They're the winners. And then weirdness increases until the next disaster. It's in those disasters where better eyesight can be selected for

Humans were snack food for lions and hyenas and such for millions of years, in one little valley in East Africa. Our numbers were kept in check and civilisation was never given an opportunity to take root. 70 000 years ago the volcano Toba erupted causing the Earth to be enveloped in a veil of ash leading to years of darkness and year round winter. This pushed all life on Africa to the brink of survival. Humans nearly went extinct at this point. After this humans came out on top, our numbers exploded and we managed to become the apex predator. And then we rapidly spread out all over the planet. We did this in an astonishingly short period of time.

Your body is still adapted to be running around naked in Africa. This is why you need clothes when living anywhere else. Ever wondered why you enjoy sunsets and peering out over vast expanses with trees? Because you're genetically programmed to enjoy open spaces where you can spot tigers far away, while also having somewhere to flee to. We also like the coast. Because we can swim to get away from land predators. And get up on land to avoid sea predators.

The reason why you're so ill adapted to any particular diet is because we were basically cockroaches of the African Savannah, constantly on the run from predators. Eeking out a subsistence on stuff we could salvage from a variety of sources. We had to keep us flexible in order not to become predictable prey.

 

[excreationist]

Traits in humans are sexually selected for. So the problems with eyesight must be so bad that it makes you unattractive to the opposite sex. I know blind people who get laid. If the prime sexual selector is something other than eyesight then chances are that people's eyesight will never change from what they are now.

I guess you're saying that sexual selection isn't the same as natural selection (and you said natural selection would cause detrimental to eventually vanish). In an ideal sexual selection world I'd want to impregnate all the hot girls I can find. And also the fittest guys would do this the most. But in our world the unattractive people can end up having lots of kids with each other.

There is no evolutionary push towards better eyesight. The way evolution works is that weirdness tends to increase. So over time we will get great variety of eye sights. Then once every 300 000 years (on average) there's an environmental disaster that kills off a large proportion of life on Earth. Mass starvation creates a fight for survival on a knife's edge. The animals that make it out alive on the other side will have very similar DNA. They're the winners. And then weirdness increases until the next disaster. It's in those disasters where better eyesight can be selected for....

Ok that kind of cycle makes sense. I've never heard of it before.

 

[excreationist]

. If it was just a heap of sand it would have about 10% or less of the complexity. .

Oooooh!
You can measure complexity!
What units do you use?
Do you have a rubric?
I mean, like, how do i compare the complexity of a pencil to the complexity of a paintbrush?
A flagellum to a mitochondria?

I'm talking about the complexity of a behaviour. A toddler making a pile of sand is a bit complex. Them collecting blue objects and putting it in a pile is a bit more complex. Them trying to make geometrical patterns like the puffer fish is a lot more complex.

 

[excreationist]

....All I see is that sometimes things get weird in your life. Where's the intelligent force?

The main part is the songs that were in the Maundy Thursday service. I see them as being very significant but not really "weird".

You not knowing something means just that. It's bizarre to insert something concrete and specific whenever you can't explain something.

I believe in God in the sense that God is a metaphor for the unknown. I don't actually believe that God exists. But it's a helpful mental tool to help me make sense of the world. Praying is a nice activity that helps center me and focus my thoughts. Why complicate matters by assuming God is real?

I'm not assuming God is real. I'm suspecting that some intelligent force is the cause of the song choice. I'm not specific about how the intelligent force works - whether it involves a simulation or a supernatural entity or information coming from the future or aliens - or chance.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Traits in humans are sexually selected for. So the problems with eyesight must be so bad that it makes you unattractive to the opposite sex. I know blind people who get laid. If the prime sexual selector is something other than eyesight then chances are that people's eyesight will never change from what they are now.

I guess you're saying that sexual selection isn't the same as natural selection (and you said natural selection would cause detrimental to eventually vanish). In an ideal sexual selection world I'd want to impregnate all the hot girls I can find. And also the fittest guys would do this the most. But in our world the unattractive people can end up having lots of kids with each other. (though I've found that sometimes their kids turn out to be pretty attractive)
.

Sexual selection is a type of natural selection. There's many evolutionary mechanics by which to select the survivors. It doesn't matter how sexy you are if a tiger rips off your balls. Sexual selection is only in play if you make it that far.

Sexual fitness doesn't just mean being physically attractive. We're sexually attracted to intelligence, charm and high status. Humans are social creatures. So we rank how popular somebody is very highly. Just look at how much people go on and on about wanting to sleep with celebrities. We also value trustworthiness highly. If somebody is seen as dependable, that will be sexually selected for. We also value people who aren't slutty. We prefer partners who are very selective, or even exclusive with who the have sex with.

This isn't just for humans. It's true for all primates. The alpha male of a chimpanzee troupe is rarely the strongest or the best fighter. It tends to be chimps who are good at forging alliances and excel at peaceful conflict resolution.

There is no evolutionary push towards better eyesight. The way evolution works is that weirdness tends to increase. So over time we will get great variety of eye sights. Then once every 300 000 years (on average) there's an environmental disaster that kills off a large proportion of life on Earth. Mass starvation creates a fight for survival on a knife's edge. The animals that make it out alive on the other side will have very similar DNA. They're the winners. And then weirdness increases until the next disaster. It's in those disasters where better eyesight can be selected for....

Ok that kind of cycle makes sense. I've never heard of it before.

I know. It annoys me. It's often left out of biological text books, since it's technically not part of the biological mechanic. But without including it the way the biological evolutionary mechanic has unfolded on Earth makes no sense. So I think it's a shame it's left out.

It tends to be included in geology class. So students get a fractured picture they'll have to piece together themselves.

There's more like this. Without a firm grasp of organic chemistry and microphysics DNA, and RNA replication looks like magic. I remember being very annoyed about this when I went to school. We had to learn things by heart that made no sense to me. It wasn't until much later, as an adult, when I had the fortune of talking to a molecular biologist who took the time to explain this. With both of the pieces of the puzzle it made perfect sense.

 

[excreationist]

Ok that kind of cycle makes sense. I've never heard of it before.

I know. It annoys me. It's often left out of biological text books, since it's technically not part of the biological mechanic. But without including it the way the biological evolutionary mechanic has unfolded on Earth makes no sense. So I think it's a shame it's left out.

It tends to be included in geology class. So students get a fractured picture they'll have to piece together themselves.

There's more like this. Without a firm grasp of organic chemistry and microphysics DNA, and RNA replication looks like magic. I remember being very annoyed about this when I went to school. We had to learn things by heart that made no sense to me. It wasn't until much later, as an adult, when I had the fortune of talking to a molecular biologist who took the time to explain this. With both of the pieces of the puzzle it made perfect sense.

Thanks you're making sense now. I'll trust you that evolution will make more sense the more I look into it. BTW I have been a fan of the aquatic ape hypothesis though it has been rejected by a lot of scientists
https://i1.wp.com/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Human_Aquatic_Adaptations.png?ssl=1
Things like that make me suspicious of some mainstream science

 

[DrZoidberg]

Ok that kind of cycle makes sense. I've never heard of it before.

I know. It annoys me. It's often left out of biological text books, since it's technically not part of the biological mechanic. But without including it the way the biological evolutionary mechanic has unfolded on Earth makes no sense. So I think it's a shame it's left out.

It tends to be included in geology class. So students get a fractured picture they'll have to piece together themselves.

There's more like this. Without a firm grasp of organic chemistry and microphysics DNA, and RNA replication looks like magic. I remember being very annoyed about this when I went to school. We had to learn things by heart that made no sense to me. It wasn't until much later, as an adult, when I had the fortune of talking to a molecular biologist who took the time to explain this. With both of the pieces of the puzzle it made perfect sense.

Thanks you're making sense now. I'll trust you that evolution will make more sense the more I look into it. BTW I have been a fan of the aquatic ape hypothesis though it has been rejected by a lot of scientists
https://i1.wp.com/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Human_Aquatic_Adaptations.png?ssl=1
Things like that make me suspicious of some mainstream science

Why suspicious? I think it's the exact opposite. Because science is so open to new idea we all got exposed to the aquatic ape theory even though it's highly speculative. The biggest problem with it is that it's essentially argument from ignorance. We don't have fossils from a specific period of human evolution, and then conclude that it's the period when we went aquatic.

Any surviving ancestors of this aquatic ape is mysteriously missing from the sea. If they were so good at surving at sea, where are the survivors? Evolution isn't usually this neat.

Humans being coast or lake dwelling could just as well explain the physical adaption to sea, without us having to go fully aquatic. Which would explain why there's no aquatic humans today. This is one of the hypothesis still in play within the scientific community.

Me personally, if the scientific community frowns at an idea, they usually have good reason to. Whenever I've mistrusted a mainstream scientific idea it usually just means that I've yet to learn something. Sooner or later I'll learn it and I put my mistrust to the side. Overall I trust scientists a lot.

 

[excreationist]

DrZoidberg:
I misunderstood what the AAH is about. Based on the diagram I linked to, I thought it was just saying that humans have adaptions because they are partly aquatic. I wasn't aware that the AAH is about ancestors of ours that are a lot more aquatic than ourselves.

 

[Keith&Co.]

. If it was just a heap of sand it would have about 10% or less of the complexity. .

Oooooh!
You can measure complexity!
What units do you use?
Do you have a rubric?
I mean, like, how do i compare the complexity of a pencil to the complexity of a paintbrush?
A flagellum to a mitochondria?

I'm talking about the complexity of a behaviour.

Yes! And you gave a percentage! Very exciting. Creationists have been using relative complexity claims for years. Too complex to be an accident, or more complex than, etc.

So you have some way to quantify complexity. That'll be ever so useful.

Unless you're just making up numbers...?

Then it's not as exciting, it's just empty claims.

A toddler making a pile of sand is a bit complex. Them collecting blue objects and putting it in a pile is a bit more complex. Them trying to make geometrical patterns like the puffer fish is a lot more complex.

bit, more, lot.

How do you determine this? How is the toddler's pile of sand automatically less complex than the puffer fish's pile? You haven't seen it, but you KNOW it's less complex?
How? How are you so sure?

 

[DrZoidberg]

DrZoidberg:
I misunderstood what the AAH is about. Based on the diagram I linked to, I thought it was just saying that humans have adaptions because they are partly aquatic. I wasn't aware that the AAH is about ancestors of ours that are a lot more aquatic than ourselves.

As I understand it AAH is that humans went fully aquatic for a bit and came back to land. That's what's been largely rejected. Physical adaption to coastal waters is not rejected.

It may very well be that floating platforms may have been humanity's first man made dwelling. But we'll never know since nature has a way of relentlessly grinding any coastal evidence to fine powder.

 

[DrZoidberg]

How do you determine this? How is the toddler's pile of sand automatically less complex than the puffer fish's pile? You haven't seen it, but you KNOW it's less complex?
How? How are you so sure?

Extremely intricate geometric patterns is not particularly impressive if you know how recursive programming works.

That pattern by the puffer fish is not nearly as impressive as our ability to catch a ball thrown at us, or a sparrows ability to tell worm from twig or a squirrels ability to hide and remember where they've hidden hundreds of nuts. Some things in nature are truly impressive.

The intricacies of the puffer fish is probably sexually selected for. Because only a healthy puffer fish male would have the energy and skill to pull it off. So same deal as with peacock feathers. Which would constantly push puffer fish evolution towards greater and greater intricacies. Until we reach the limit. Which is the point where making the pattern will help kill the fish, due to over expenditure of energy.

 

[phands]

Well said. Plus many of these behaviors result from a general principle seen in many places in nature - "Simple rules applied locally". Conway's Game of Life is non-natural example. Flocking behaviour in Starlings looks remarkably complex, but is a small set of simple rules applied to the nearest 7 neighbours.....it also looks beautiful.

ETA: the Mandelbrot set looks very complex too, but is a very simple rule set.

 

[Keith&Co.]

.

That pattern by the puffer fish is not nearly as impressive as our ability to catch a ball thrown at us,

Yeah.

Thr BIG thing my first bio teacher insisted on was that humans use tools. He got testy about any example of animals using tools, because to him, that set US apart.
So, if we're talking complicated BEHAVIOR, atoddler with a bucket and shovel making sand piles is probably more complicabted than the efforts of a fish. Or not.

Still need details on how to measure complicatery.

 

[DrZoidberg]

.

That pattern by the puffer fish is not nearly as impressive as our ability to catch a ball thrown at us,

Yeah.

Thr BIG thing my first bio teacher insisted on was that humans use tools. He got testy about any example of animals using tools, because to him, that set US apart.
So, if we're talking complicated BEHAVIOR, atoddler with a bucket and shovel making sand piles is probably more complicabted than the efforts of a fish. Or not.

Still need details on how to measure complicatery.

I work in quality assurance. There's methods for measuring complexity. Complexity is just interdependence of parts. A complex system is where If I add something to a system, me adding to it changes it, so next time I add the same amount something completely different happens. That's what it means to have a complex system. It can be expressed mathematically.

But I think creationists are good at this. There's a lot of pure mathematicians who are creationists. It seems to be the only branch of science where it's researchers find ID convincing.

The cynic in me thinks it's because mathematicians find it unbearable with inexplicable systems.

 

[phands]

Complexity theory is a pretty well-established field, and has sub-branches in complex adaptive systems, networks as well as some others. These two can have some bearing on this discussion, but the wooooo peddlers haven't got into misuse of the actual science....yet.

- - - Updated - - -

The cynic in me thinks it's because mathematicians find it unbearable with inexplicable systems.

Not since Godel came up with formal incompleteness.

 

[Keith&Co.]

But I think creationists are good at this. There's a lot of pure mathematicians who are creationists. It seems to be the only branch of science where it's researchers find ID convincing.

I have never run across a creationist with an actual answer.
They always throw out an anecdote or an 'obvious' comparison.'

And they never provide a threshold, the point where a system becomes too complex to be the result of undirected activity.

Complexity is just interdependence of parts.

'kay, so how would that apply to behavior? How to measure the complexity of the fish making patterns in sand to a toddler doing it? 'Cause i still think ExC was pulling that number out of his arse.

 

[DrZoidberg]

But I think creationists are good at this. There's a lot of pure mathematicians who are creationists. It seems to be the only branch of science where it's researchers find ID convincing.

I have never run across a creationist with an actual answer.
They always throw out an anecdote or an 'obvious' comparison.'

And they never provide a threshold, the point where a system becomes too complex to be the result of undirected activity.

Complexity is just interdependence of parts.

'kay, so how would that apply to behavior? How to measure the complexity of the fish making patterns in sand to a toddler doing it? 'Cause i still think ExC was pulling that number out of his arse.

Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, a lot of them are clearly just talking out their ass and throwing big numbers around

 

[steve_bank]

Consider:
"...Complex Organisms are Degenerating – Rapidly..."
http://detectingdesign.com/wp/2018/08/21/complex-organisms-are-degenerating-rapidly/

"...NEWS: Evolutionary Jump from Unicellularity to Multicellularity was Prepared Beforehand..."
http://createdevolution.blogspot.com/2016/10/news-evolutionary-jump-from.html

Earlier this year I had personal experiences that seem like good evidence to me that there is an intelligent force in the universe.

https://talkfreethought.org/showthr...nces-that-suggest-an-intelligent-force-exists
About the intelligent force in the universe idea:

I don't know - it is mysterious and often hard to know if it really even exists. BTW the message from the future in "Interstellar" was very intelligent though. BTW this video from "Quantum Gravity Research" I watched a few months ago is interesting how it talks about the future you influencing the past you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0ztlIAYTCU
There is also an issue of New Scientist magazine from February that has a cover story about the future influencing the past: it says it is like a Sudoku game and that quantum physics isn't actually random if the future is involved.
https://www.newscientist.com/articl...e-how-the-future-can-change-what-happens-now/

Here is a video I saw yesterday:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpdlQae5wP8
It seems unlikely this behaviour could evolve by chance...
The message I get from that is "yes an intelligent force exists"

Same response as to Intelligent Design, a supposed intelligent force did not do such a great job....

You sound like a creationist backing unto an argument against evolution.