Intelligent Design

[zooterkin]

Why are we able to detect the chromosome fusion from chimpanzees to humans?

Strictly speaking, though it doesn’t affect the principle, from a common ancestor, not from chimps.

 

[Thor 2]

Genetics is probably the most elegant of designs.

Self-repairing units, capable of incredible creativity and skill, and designed to maximize their ability to manipulate their environment. As well as create amazing art, music and dance.

The army has copied the mule as a carrier of goods. Robotics are copying humans as example of skillful multi-functional versatile units.

To think otherwise is simply denial by focusing fake perceptions of faults.

Car to speculate PartSkeptic on the motives of the designer of this elegant design? To what purpose? To what final goal?

 

[acbytesla]

So, I take it you've never worked in genetics or looked into it in any detail then?

Even microbial genetics are a cobbled together mess of duplicate genes, non-functional genes, remnant virii, unneeded transposons etc.
Eukaryotic genetics is far worse as it also contains half inserts from mitochondrial DNA, fully non-functional expression systems and a very clunky method to prevent cells from multicellular organisms from dividing unchecked, which when it goes wrong leads to cancer and it can go wrong in a LOT of ways.

Now, evolutionary this is all explainable as natural selection has no goal, no purpose and doesn't care about elegance and we can learn a LOT from it.

But if you examine it as something *designed* by and *intelligent* agency we can only conclude the designer was malevolent, utterly incompetent, high as a kite or a combination of the three when it designed life.

I mean, take a program designed by committee, then run trough a nations government to be adopted by a hostile government, ran trough another committee and then given to corrupt burocrats and you'de still end up with something better designed than the genetics of life as it is.
3.5 billion years of random events acted upon by natural selection can explain that, but design? No.

Thanks for this post.

I find it kind of absurd to think that A designer decided to build this universe. A universe that is mostly inhospitable to life. I mean, what a waste of space.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

For me everything that didn't make sense about evolution "clicked" perfectly when I was introduced to the gene-centered view of evolution.

You are not evolving. People are not evolving. Individual organisms are not evolving. Species are not evolving.

Our genes are.

Yep!

 

[PartSkeptic]

Car to speculate PartSkeptic on the motives of the designer of this elegant design? To what purpose? To what final goal?

Logically there is only one answer.

What does a solitary Cosmic Intelligence think about or do?

Create the Ultimate video game in it's mind. We are all just an illusion. A game that gets more and more complex. There is no limit to the layers on the onion. Perhaps in revision/re-run one gazillion, the "wasteful" genes will be eliminated. Whether the wasteful genes have some purpose or not does not make human any the less miraculous.

As for the suffering and pain - that is part of how mankind rises to greater heights. Atheists like Dawkins do not see the greater grandeur. They focus on the ticks on the legs of mankind.

 

[PartSkeptic]

Thanks for this post.

I find it kind of absurd to think that A designer decided to build this universe. A universe that is mostly inhospitable to life. I mean, what a waste of space.

The chances of humans getting to the point we have is almost beyond measure, even using incredibly large cosmic numbers.

To get to the point humans got to 10,000 years ago took a huge series of serendipitous events. Then to have earth go through a "Goldilocks period" where the climate was just right, with no major asteroid strikes or human extinction events was also required.

You believe in your law of large numbers, with no explanation of the prime cause, and I chose to believe in a Cosmic Intelligence - because 1) I get benefits from doing so, and 2) I have personal evidence (your anecdotes).

 

[Fast Eddie B]

As for the suffering and pain - that is part of how mankind rises to greater heights. Atheists like Dawkins do not see the greater grandeur. They focus on the ticks on the legs of mankind.

I think the belittles and demeans the levels of suffering in play here.

And I would say a profound lack of empathy.

Imagine you were born a caterpillar. A caterpillar that unfortunately had a wasp lay its eggs in you. Now, you’re paralyzed as the eggs hatch and you’re slowly eaten from within.

Too many other examples to even begin to list. What sort of monster would “design” such a scheme?

 

[Fast Eddie B]

The chances of humans getting to the point we have is almost beyond measure, even using incredibly large cosmic numbers.

No.

The odds of it happening are 1 in 1.

Because it happened.

 

[Belz...]

Logically there is only one answer.

What does a solitary Cosmic Intelligence think about or do?

Create the Ultimate video game in it's mind. We are all just an illusion. A game that gets more and more complex. There is no limit to the layers on the onion. Perhaps in revision/re-run one gazillion, the "wasteful" genes will be eliminated.

So you're agreeing that the designer is an incompetent hack?

 

[acbytesla]

The chances of humans getting to the point we have is almost beyond measure, even using incredibly large cosmic numbers.

To get to the point humans got to 10,000 years ago took a huge series of serendipitous events. Then to have earth go through a "Goldilocks period" where the climate was just right, with no major asteroid strikes or human extinction events was also required.

You believe in your law of large numbers, with no explanation of the prime cause, and I chose to believe in a Cosmic Intelligence - because 1) I get benefits from doing so, and 2) I have personal evidence (your anecdotes).

No.

The odds of it happening are 1 in 1.

Because it happened.

I understand a little bit of what Part Skeptic is saying. Eddie's correction though is spot on.

If part Skeptic had said the chances of any specific species of biological organism advancing so far is obviously astronomically rare. I would agree since there are millions perhaps billions of different species in a Universe that is mostly very inhospitable to life as we know it.

That said, the universe is immense estimated to have ten trillion galaxies and our own galaxy is said to have 100 billion stars with an unknown number of planets associated with each star. You do the math. It's one hell of a lot of planets. Personally, I'm of the belief that the universe is filled with life and almost certainly more advanced creatures than man. But admittedly I don't know and I am skeptical that man will ever find out considering the distances involved.

Skeptic is pulling out of his ass the idea of a cosmic intelligence or that the Universe requires a prime cause. To start with, he has NEVER experienced intelligence of any kind outside of living organism with a brain. Second, the prime cause argument is silly because if the universe requires a cause doesn't this cosmic intelligence requires a cause? If he makes the typical argument that this cosmic intelligence is eternal, he then is engaged in special pleading. Third, all the evidence shows that more complex organisms evolved from simpler organisms and that heavier more complex atoms are the result of interactions between lighter less complex atoms. So it is less likely that a complex intelligence can precede simple matter.

 

[PartSkeptic]

No.

The odds of it happening are 1 in 1.

Because it happened.

So when you bet on a horse race, the odds on your horse before the race are 1000 to 1 but when it wins and you go to collect they tell you your odds were actually 1 to 1?

I take it you never took a course in statistics and probability? Ask Pixel 42 to give you some lessons.

And what about the scientists who say the odds of many of the serendipitous values in nature are incredibly unlikely???

 

[Fast Eddie B]

So when you bet on a horse race, the odds on your horse before the race are 1000 to 1 but when it wins and you go to collect they tell you your odds were actually 1 to 1?

No, they were 1,000 to 1 before the race.

They collapsed to 1 to 1 after the outcome was known.

 

[PartSkeptic]

So you're agreeing that the designer is an incompetent hack?

No. Entertainment need not meet an atheists level of expectation of perfection. How boring would that be.

The Cosmic Intelligence is getting a lot of entertainment out of debates about the meaning of perfection.

Let me ask you this question. If you could design a "perfect robotic employee" would you make it perfectly ethical, or would you teach it to be cunning, devious and unethical so as to maximize profit?

 

[Fast Eddie B]

And what about the scientists who say the odds of many of the serendipitous values in nature are incredibly unlikely???

Things simply are as they are.

If they were different, they’d be different.

Seems trivial to say that, but I think your argument is that trivially easy to shoot down.

 

[Dave Rogers]

The chances of humans getting to the point we have is almost beyond measure, even using incredibly large cosmic numbers.

So what? The a priori odds of humanity achieving sapience may be, metaphorically speaking, astronomically large; but the potential number of attempts is, literally speaking, astronomically large.

Dave

 

[PartSkeptic]

No, they were 1,000 to 1 before the race.

They collapsed to 1 to 1 after the outcome was known.

Explain "collapsed"?

What were the odds of humankind getting to where it is now - BEFORE the odds collapsed to 1 to 1? And at each stage BEFORE each stage?

 

[Dave Rogers]

Let me ask you this question. If you could design a "perfect robotic employee" would you make it perfectly ethical, or would you teach it to be cunning, devious and unethical so as to maximize profit?

Based on Christian morality, I should probably design it to be cunning, devious and unethical, then sack it for ethics violations.

Dave

 

[PartSkeptic]

So what? The a priori odds of humanity achieving sapience may be, metaphorically speaking, astronomically large; but the potential number of attempts is, literally speaking, astronomically large.

Dave

So you are a law of large numbers follower, then. It explains anything and everything. Even supernatural events. And miracles too. No limits.

 

[PartSkeptic]

Based on Christian morality, I should probably design it to be cunning, devious and unethical, then sack it for ethics violations.

Dave

And let your competition hire it? And put you out of business?

 

[Pixel42]

I take it you never took a course in statistics and probability? Ask Pixel 42 to give you some lessons.

Fast Eddie is right.

We exist, therefore the probability that the universal constants are compatible with our existence is 1.

This is the point of Douglas Adams' famous puddle analogy. Marvelling that the universal constants are right for us to exist is like the puddle marvelling that the hole it finds itself in is exactly the right shape for it.

The universe is not as it is in order that we can be as we are. We are as we are because the universe is as it is.