Kent Hovind: Broccoli man

[skepticalbip]

"Coding languages, all languages, have an arbitrary value. We can give a hexadecimal sequence of..."

Interesting that Keith&Co used the third person plural. "We can"

Some people can easily get away with using the "Royal We".

As I said. There is intent/design/purpose.

And you would still be unable to support that belief and claim.

 

[Keith&Co.]

"We" is plural, but it is not third person. Where the fuck did Lion learn English?

 

[blastula]

"Coding languages, all languages, have an arbitrary value. We can give a hexadecimal sequence of..."

Interesting that Keith&Co used the third person plural. "We can"
As I said. There is intent/design/purpose.

He wasn't talking about DNA there.

 

[bilby]

. DNA for one of many examples; looks like coding by intelligent-design to some people and not to others.

But does it look like coding to anyone who isn't looking for an intelligent designer?

Coding languages, all languages, have an arbitrary value. We can give a hexadecimal sequence of 0101 the value of CAT or DOG in a program. Command a right turn or left turn. Turn a power supply ON or OFF. Print a 'five' or a 'two.' Whatever our program needs, nothing intrinsic to the sequence demands that it be a command or a noun or a measurement...

DNA is a chemical sequence. Can the sequence for 'feathers' be reassigned to make it the part for 'eyes'?

I've never seen language/coding which didn't have a purpose - intent.

You cannot possibly know that.

 

[none]

bookmark!

 

[Lion IRC]

"Coding languages, all languages, have an arbitrary value. We can give a hexadecimal sequence of..."

Interesting that Keith&Co used the third person plural. "We can"

Some people can easily get away with using the "Royal We".

My point was that Keith&Co invoked personhood - we - as the originator of the code/language.
Computer programmers deliberately create code.
It's a great analogy to use for DNA coded by an intelligent designer.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Its merely a point of view to those who see nothing and those who see something in the same data. DNA for one of many examples; looks like coding by intelligent-design to some people and not to others.

An observation I made elsewhere applies here, too.

Anyone remember the old 'cattle mutilation' scares of a few years back?
Cattle were found in the desert, dead, their organs removed 'with surgical precision.'
People were talking about demons, alien visitors, other shit...

Until someone went and filmed a dead cow in the desert. The body bloats, and the organs swell up, and stick out the cow's anus. Scavengers eat all the soft tissue and then the swelling goes down. The bite marks shrink until they're barely noticeable.

Thing is, all the people that used the term 'with surgical precision' were not surgeons. When actual surgeons examined the wounds, they could point out 'No, see, a scalpel cut looks like this...'

The fact that 'Some' people see DNA as something that must be the product of intelligence is not a compelling observation, no more than some people being seeing alien actions in the cattle mutilations, a stance that did not stand up to scrutiny.

I mean, to ME, it's pretty impressive that putting human DNA into single-celled creatures makes them sweat insulin. The insulin I take to stay alive comes from this process. Certain proteins in certain places will produce certain results. But we have move the proteins, we can't just rewrite the DNA so that proteins that used to react to the presence of food, or to light, are now the proteins that produce insulin.
The 'meaning' of the 'code' in DNA is not malleable in the manner of language.

But maybe there's a linguist somewhere who knows some word that always, always, always means the same thing. The same word conveys the same idea, or object, or verb, in every language? Not like cats being called CAT here, and GATO there.
Or the meaning never changes for that word over time? Buxom used to mean 'obedient,' for example. Or 'gay' used to mean 'lighthearted.' Or a number of people have insisted that we've changed the definition of 'marriage.'

Noting about the words 'cat' or 'marriage' or 'gay' has any intrinsic quality that connects it to the idea being communicated. Which is why DNA is NOT a language or a code.

 

[Learner]

But does it look like coding to anyone who isn't looking for an intelligent designer?

It depends if they eventually see what someone else shows them. Case by case individually.

Coding languages, all languages, have an arbitrary value. We can give a hexadecimal sequence of 0101 the value of CAT or DOG in a program. Command a right turn or left turn. Turn a power supply ON or OFF. Print a 'five' or a 'two.' Whatever our program needs, nothing intrinsic to the sequence demands that it be a command or a noun or a measurement...

DNA is a chemical sequence. Can the sequence for 'feathers' be reassigned to make it the part for 'eyes'?

The fact that you can assign any particular values or units in the first place e.g. observing sequential events to then later compare the data and find consistent repetition, has good reasonable merit to be called a language : "read and predict" various events to happen again according to the very particular rules or to the aptly named "laws" of physics.

 

[skepticalbip]

"Coding languages, all languages, have an arbitrary value. We can give a hexadecimal sequence of..."

Interesting that Keith&Co used the third person plural. "We can"

Some people can easily get away with using the "Royal We".

My point was that Keith&Co invoked personhood - we - as the originator of the code/language.
Computer programmers deliberately create code.
It's a great analogy to use for DNA coded by an intelligent designer.

Mr. &Co was talking about computer coding. Indeed that is done by people.

It is a piss poor analogy for DNA since DNA is not a code but it has a pattern... like snow flakes or a range of sand dunes. You are letting a metaphor pull you away from understanding what DNA is.

 

[Learner]

There is no "theory of non-intelligent design" that I have seen. I would like to see such a theory if you have a link to the model. I have seen a few hypotheses that describe possibilities for some minor steps in a possible process. Getting away from the various ideas for abiogenesis, there is a theory of evolution that has been tested quite a bit and still undergoes testing just as the theory of relativity has undergone testing and is still being tested.

Shouldn't there be a theory of Intelligent design? I mean.. If its still viewed by atheists / sceptics that we don't actually know the details of the origins of the universe then also everything else theory-wise (in the above) is NOT actually theories of non-Intelligent design but granted , can challenge some ideas or versions of creation.

Pattern recognition is a trait in humans that has served us well. Without that trait we likely would have never developed as a species. Some side effects are we see patterns everywhere. Early humans would see a mountain crag, tree trunk, or cloud and can identify a human form in them - early humans "explained" them by assuming they were gods, homes of gods, or omens from gods. For modern humans, identifying human faces or animals in clouds is a childhood game, sometimes even enjoyed by adults.

Patterns in repetiton IS what makes humans (not all) see coding etc.. a program of sorts .. to be able to make charts and tables, knowing what to expect from the data at a later time.
(It does depend on POV's of course of the individual)

 

[skepticalbip]

The fact that you can assign any particular values or units in the first place e.g. observing sequential events to then later compare the data and find consistent repetition, has good reasonable merit to be called a language : "read and predict" various events to happen again according to the very particular rules or to the aptly named "laws" of physics.

It seems like desperate hand waving and wishful thinking to assume that finding consistent repetition implies a language. Identifying the consistent repetition of freezing water in the atmosphere creates snow flakes that have six fold symmetry isn't something that any linguist would identify as a language.

 

[none]

snowflakes are code for piles of snow

 

[Keith&Co.]

The fact that you can assign any particular values or units in the first place e.g. observing sequential events to then later compare the data and find consistent repetition, has good reasonable merit to be called a language.

No, it is not.

Look at it this way. A red stoplight is an instruction. You will respond to the instruction, to stop, or to slow down, or speed through, whatever.
But turning a light switch on is not an instruction to the light. The action produces repeatable results, but not by the transmission of a command. Rather, we change the state of the wires leading to the light and that changes the state of the filament.

We can make this more complicated, a Rube Goldberg machine, but the skillet falling on the bellows is not an instruction to the bellows to blow the sailboat across the bathtub to knock a bowling ball into the pie to drip cherries onto the tracks to lubricate the trolley to roll into the switch... none of that is a language, though we could label it by sequences, or phrases, or codes.. The impact sequence, the compression phrase, the second impact code... but thspat would be for our convenience. It does make the events anything but a chain of reactions.

So, no, there's no real good reason to call DNA a language, because it does not compare favorably to actual languages.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Shouldn't there be a theory of Intelligent design? I mean.. If its still viewed by atheists / sceptics that we don't actually know the details of the origins of the universe then also everything else theory-wise (in the above) is NOT actually theories of non-Intelligent design but granted , can challenge some ideas or versions of creation.

No, that's not how it works.
You don't get a bald asertion qualified as a theory because of a gap in other theories.
To get a 'theory of ID' you need to formulate a hypothesis that explains evidence, then try to see if you can falsify it.
How would you falsify ID?

 

[Learner]

It seems like desperate hand waving and wishful thinking to assume that finding consistent repetition implies a language. Identifying the consistent repetition of freezing water in the atmosphere creates snow flakes that have six fold symmetry isn't something that any linguist would identify as a language.

Its a point of view (putting aside the biblical aspects). Programmers of software have said they see it when they're shown things like the mentioned DNA etc.
Wel in regards to snowflake , the language imo so far..would be far more complex and need more than just the linguist of languages . You would obviously need various fields not forgetting mathmaticians even philosophers perhaps. In a manner of speaking: its more advanced than binary coding.

 

[Learner]

No, that's not how it works.
You don't get a bald asertion qualified as a theory because of a gap in other theories.
To get a 'theory of ID' you need to formulate a hypothesis that explains evidence, then try to see if you can falsify it.
How would you falsify ID?

Well then.. we agree at least, that these other theories merely describe processes and nothing else! If it was to be said that these "other " theories" suggest no Creator then I would then claim ID IS a falsifiable theory by the same notion.

Perhaps not ... does sound silly.

 

[Keith&Co.]

! If it was to be said that these "other " theories" suggest no Creator then I would then claim ID IS a falsifiable theory by the same notion.

Pretty much as usual, then. Creationisn/ID is not a scientific theory, it's just a reaction TO a theory.

You cannot falsify ID, the closest you could come is IFF evo theory said gods did not affect change in the past, you could say, 'Nuh-uh.'

 

[sdelsolray]

Shouldn't there be a theory of Intelligent design?
...

Not until these occur first:

1) A hypothesis of intelligent design is written which comports with standard scientific protocols and procedures, including testing regimens, data collection, a null hypothesis and clear falsifiability indicators.

2) The hypothesis is actually tested and results published to give others a chance to review it.

3) A consensus of scientists within the disciplines over which the hypothesis stretches is reached. That would include at least physics, chemistry and biology.

Your ID pals from the Discovery Institute have yet to do this. Why not?

 

[bilby]

The notion of 'intelligent design' raises more questions than it answers, and is fundamentally useless.

Our understanding of intelligence as we observe it, is that it is the product of biology - no intelligence has been observed that doesn't include biological systems in its generation.

Biology, we observe, requires some fairly specific conditions to arise. It needs an energy source; And it probably needs liquid water; A planetary body with a suitable mean temperature range; And for those conditions to persist in a fairly stable way for at least billions of years.

We know where the heavy elements that are required to make water and planets and all these things can come from - if you have enough hydrogen, it will, due to gravity, collect together in big lumps, and start to fuse under the pressure of its own weight.

If we start out by assuming the existence ONLY of protons and electrons, and the four forces of the Standard Model, then there is a clear and easily understood path from that situation, through at least two generations of stars, to planets some of which can support life, to planets with life, and then, via evolution, to the eventual emergence of intelligence.

From a big problem - "How does something as complex and strange as intelligence come to be?", we have answered the long series of such questions, and are now able to answer that question by appealing only to the far simpler question "How did something as simple as hydrogen come to be?".

Indeed, cosmologists even understand that - and are now left only with the question of how energy came to be, and how entropy came to be so low.

By contrast, 'Intelligent Design' takes the big problem - "How does something as complex and strange as intelligence come to be?", and says "Intelligence was required to make it happen". That's a fucking stupid non-answer.

If you asked me how to make a car, I could answer that by talking about sheet steel, alloy engine blocks, rubber tires, etc., and how to fit those things together. I could go back further, and explain how to mine iron ore, build blast furnaces, tap rubber from trees, and so on. The answer to the question is dependent on how simple the starting conditions are - are you building a car in an existing factory with existing supples of parts; Or do you need to build that factory, or make those parts?

What I could NOT get away with, while pretending to address the question, is starting with "First you need a car...".

Intelligent Design CANNOT answer the question 'Where did intelligence come from'. Not only is it not a good answer to the question; It's not an answer AT ALL.

 

[Learner]

! If it was to be said that these "other " theories" suggest no Creator then I would then claim ID IS a falsifiable theory by the same notion.

Pretty much as usual, then. Creationisn/ID is not a scientific theory, it's just a reaction TO a theory.

You cannot falsify ID, the closest you could come is IFF evo theory said gods did not affect change in the past, you could say, 'Nuh-uh.'

It's not my actual reaction really although I do wonder why the big-bang is a theory by the falsifiable method mentioned here for example ?