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AdR Posts: 6 Joined: May 2007 (Permalink) Posted: May 05 2007,05:38    I recently published 4 peer-reviewed articles that each propose design-based alternative theories to areas of evolutionary research and consider my research the link between ID and hard science. I believe that the detection of design is essential for an understanding of evolution, simply because design aspects are essential for any complex system. In this way, my approach is to reverse engineer Life. Future research should be able to tell whether natural causes or driving forces will be enough to create an intricate molecular machine such as Life. It will be a question for engineers, who in general are much more skeptical about the feasibility of reaching such a complex system in a relatively short time. I consider my use of design patterns as the link between evolutionary science and intelligent design. It is based on the premise that Life is an evolving molecular machine, and when you try to understand how a machine works, you study its design. In case of evolution, which is the continuous expansion of the system, it only seems natural to study engineering and more specifically to study complex systems. If you want to understand complex systems, you need to study designs and design patterns. Although engineering concepts such as modularity have been recognized in evolutionary science , the application of these design patterns to the actual evolution of developmental pathways has been practically inexistent. This has led to the strange phenomenon that evolutionary scientists do accept the concept of an evolving molecular machine, but fail to think in mechanistic terms. I have written several short pieces about the philosophical implications of my theories (below), which should be also interesting for students and engineers. I hope I can further interest you or your co-workers with my studies (see also below). My website also contains information about other articles I wrote. For those interested, here are some links to my articles and opinions: My publications in peer-reviewed journals: Albert de Roos' publication Background on my articles: Evolution and design

Not A Monkey Posts: 24 Joined: May 2007 (Permalink) Posted: May 29 2007,08:04    I have a problem with the agenda that your so-called "peers" are carrying out as part and parcel of their review process.  Clearly they are biased and easily led by the sweet voice of Satan. Leviticus 12:5-7   "If she gives birth to a daughter, for two weeks the woman will be unclean, as during her period. Then she must wait sixty-six days to be purified from her bleeding. When the days of her purification for a son or daughter are over, she is to bring to the priest at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting a year-old lamb for a burnt offering and a young pigeon or a dove for a sin offering. 7 He shall offer them before the LORD to make atonement for her, and then she will be ceremonially clean from her flow of blood. These are the regulations for the woman who gives birth to a boy or a girl."

skeptic Posts: 1163 Joined: May 2006 (Permalink) Posted: May 29 2007,11:55    AdR, I think you may be confusing design and function.  When you study how something works you study what it does because without that information you can not possibly elucidate design.  I plan to review your articles and I look forward to a lively discussion. NaM, I'm not sure if you are sincere or just a hopeless charade but you scripture references are obscure at best and certainly make very little sense to the relevant topics.  You're probably just wasting your time here, just a thought to consider.

Not A Monkey Posts: 24 Joined: May 2007 (Permalink) Posted: May 29 2007,14:27    Please be indulgent, I have OCD.  The Bible quote is a requirement.  I'll try to make them more relevent with all due respects, I do not wish to offend. Genesis 40:15 "For I was forcibly carried off from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I have done nothing to deserve being put in a dungeon."

Quack Posts: 1961 Joined: May 2007 (Permalink) Posted: May 30 2007,09:26    Quote I recently published 4 peer-reviewed articles that each propose design-based alternative theories to areas of evolutionary research and consider my research the link between ID and hard science. I have no reason to doubt the quality of the articles mentioned, except I am very skeptical about the premise upon which they apparently rest. To me, mention of a “link between ID and hard science” lights a warning light. A link between ?? and ‘hard science? Even the link?   Quote Future research should be able to tell whether natural causes or driving forces will be enough to create an intricate molecular machine such as Life. It will be a question for engineers, who in general are much more skeptical about the feasibility of reaching such a complex system in a relatively short time. I consider my use of design patterns as the link between evolutionary science and intelligent design. It is based on the premise that Life is an evolving molecular machine, and when you try to understand how a machine works, you study its design. I don’t know to what degree I may qualify as an engineer, but I have at least been working with engineered machines & electronics most of my life. Firstly, let me say that I object to the implied similarity between manmade – designed, manufactured or built machines – and [an] “intricate molecular machine as Life”. I’d rather limit the validity of such comparisons to be between regular machines and robots. I don’t think manmade machinery and life have anything in common. Otherwise, I believe we have to include the entire universe or solar systems in our definition of designed systems. After all, the solar system behaves like any other machine. Put simply, the premise that Life is an evolving molecular machine is wrong. Whenever I have been studying a machine, I have studied how it works. I never have bothered with thoughts about its design. I have assumed that it was designed and built for a specific purpose and left it at that. So what is the purpose of life? Off the top of my head, I would say ‘to procreate.’ I do in fact believe that is all there is to it. If we consider the fact that all life display this tendency, this drive towards procreation, and also take into consideration that this seems to be of such importance that it takes precedence even before preservation of individual life, that is the most reasonable inference. The higher goal, survival of the genes takes precedence over individual life. A strange purpose for any machine. Machines are made for quite specific purposes. WRT “engineers, who in general are much more skeptical about the feasibility of reaching such a complex system in a relatively short time”, I am rather sceptical about that statement. What does it mean – is 3+ billion years insufficient to account for evolution? In my opinion, the geological and fossil record, in addition to other evidence shows it absolutely sufficient. As long as ID remains an alternative that needs artificial links to science, it will remain simply the argument that it is too complex to have evolved, ergo it was designed.” It doesn’t seem reasonable to believe that we will find any (better) answers about the origins of species by abandoning tried and sound scientific methods. BTW, AdR's homepage is very hard to read - i can't read it. I have tried both Firefox, Opera and MSIE, but the light characters on a black background are too dim. -------------- Rocks have no biology.               Robert Byers.

AdR Posts: 6 Joined: May 2007 (Permalink) Posted: June 08 2007,08:50    quack, thanks for your reply and the suggestion about my website. I changed the colors. Quote Put simply, the premise that Life is an evolving molecular machine is wrong. Whenever I have been studying a machine, I have studied how it works. I never have bothered with thoughts about its design. I have assumed that it was designed and built for a specific purpose and left it at that. This comments amazes me. What else could it be than a molecular machine in a mechanistic world view. My problem with mainstream evolutionary science is that they a) seems to agree that life is just mechanistics, i.e. an evolving, molecular machine, but b) do not seem willing to think in mechanistic terms, i.e. design terms. Of course you are bothered by the design when you analyze a function. Take for instance a car, you won't understand it unless you know what it is for (purpose) and how it works (design). The difference between aq diesel engine and a gasolne engine is in its design. If I analyze windows XP, I study its modular design. If one does not understand object-orientation, it is impossible to understand it. Quote What does it mean – is 3+ billion years insufficient to account for evolution? In my opinion, the geological and fossil record, in addition to other evidence shows it absolutely sufficient. I agree with you that evolution happened in about 3 billion years. I just do not believe that the current evolutionary scenarios are possible in that time-span, and advocate other scenarios. I think it would take 100s of billions of years to get a eukaryote out of a prokaryote, or to develop insect larval stages de novo, or to change a bacterium into a mitochondrion. Instead, a careful analysis of the workings of the molecular machine (and take engineering aspects into consideration) point in my opinion to a complete different scenario, all within a mechanistic view on evolution. What I am trying to convey, is that design aspects are relevant for every complex system. We can easily incorporate feedback mechanisms (=a design pattern) into development, but we have problems by introducing similar deisgn patterns for evolution. Another way to loom at it, is trying to do some reverse engineering: what would be the requirements for an evolving machine, and how could this have been implemented (using RM+NS as driving forces) in evolution. Design does not equal Designer. sceptic, I am looking forward to youyr comments.

Henry J Posts: 5787 Joined: Mar. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: June 08 2007,14:14    Re "but b) do not seem willing to think in mechanistic terms, i.e. design terms." What does that mean? Henry

AdR Posts: 6 Joined: May 2007 (Permalink) Posted: June 08 2007,16:26    "do not seem willing to think in mechanistic terms, i.e. design terms" Further explained here: Design is an integral part of research on evolution Quote I often consider my use of design patterns as the link between evolutionary science and intelligent design. It is based on the premise that Life is an evolving molecular machine, and when you try to understand how a machine works, you study its design. In case of evolution, which is the continuous expansion of the system, it only seems natural to study engineering and more specifically to study complex systems. If you want to understand complex systems, you need to study designs and design patterns. Although engineering concepts such as modularity have been recognized in evolutionary science , the application of these design patterns to the actual evolution of developmental pathways has been practically inexistent. This has led to the strange phenomenon that evolutionary scientists do accept the concept of an evolving molecular machine, but fail to think in mechanistic terms.

Henry J Posts: 5787 Joined: Mar. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: June 08 2007,16:51    Modularity is something human type engineers (both hardware and software) use to make it easier to swap parts from one place to another. From what I've read on PT and this BB, biological systems have a conspicuous lack of modularity in their systems. Re "and when you try to understand how a machine works, you study its design." Yes, and I rather expect that to be exactly what biologist do - study how the parts are arranged and how they interact with each other and their surroundings, and how all this affects the species. Is there some reason to think that's not what they do? Henry

"Rev Dr" Lenny Flank Posts: 2560 Joined: Feb. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: June 08 2007,17:44    This dude seems to have a private language all his own. (shrug) -------------- Editor, Red and Black Publishers www.RedandBlackPublishers.com

"Rev Dr" Lenny Flank Posts: 2560 Joined: Feb. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: June 08 2007,17:46    All I want to know is: (1) what do you think the designer did, specifically (2) what mechanisms did the designer use to do whatever the heck you think it did, and (3) where can we see the designer using these mechanisms now to do. . . . well . . . anything I won't even bother to ask why anyone should think there is just one designer instead of, say, two or five or a hundred of them all working in committee. -------------- Editor, Red and Black Publishers www.RedandBlackPublishers.com

Henry J Posts: 5787 Joined: Mar. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: June 08 2007,23:46    Re "just one designer" I think there've been hundreds of millions of "designers" - the gene pool of each species that ever lived, each "responsible" for that species. Of course, most of those have lost out along the way. Henry

skeptic Posts: 1163 Joined: May 2006 (Permalink) Posted: June 09 2007,11:09    I think it must be pointed out before we go any further that the use of the word "design" is inappropriate in this context.  In an engineering or software design sense when you look at design you are observing the designer's intent.  Why was object-oriented design used in this instance as opposed to top down?  Why was a steam turbine used in this case rather than a gas turbine?  These questions all can be justified by the designer in terms of better efficiency, available resources and so on and that allows the relative value of the design to be assessed. This is not the case in biological systems.  We can only really assess a few things such as function, composition, and process of formation.  We have no context as to why one "design" was preferred over another.  We have no access to the intent of the "designer" and are unable to examine his justifications.  Even in cases where we can compare similiar function across variable design patterns (i.e. wing designs) we still can not, with any great confidence, determine why a particular design was used in one case while another was used elsewhere.  Even where we are somewhat certain as to the process of formation that stills gives us no real information about the intent and justification of the design.  I think this is murky because of the insistance of using the word "design" for the sole purpose of implying the exisitence of a "designer".  There's just no measurable why to evaluate design in a biological system which is why I think it should be left to the sphere of philosophy where it belongs. Lenny, to your point, these questions can not be answered in a scientific sense.

AdR Posts: 6 Joined: May 2007 (Permalink) Posted: June 09 2007,13:18    Skeptic, I never used the word design to imply that there is a designer. Design is an abstract concept and can be used without reference to a designer. In my scientific articles, I use often 'engineering', but honestly, I don't think you can study or understand complex systems without referring to design concepts. Even without a designer, we still have to ask ourselves what the function  or purpose of the system is, even of this is not a higher purpose. Survival of the fittest, or the selfish gene concept both imply a goal, albeit a different one. We can only understand the system if we can relate the functions with the goal. I think that the fitness goal (e.g. an insect evolved the larval stages to obtain a higher fitness by food partitioning) is wrong, because the end result can never be the drive for its evolution. I also think that we can deduce why we see certain wing patterns, if we knew the course of evolution.

AdR Posts: 6 Joined: May 2007 (Permalink) Posted: June 09 2007,13:22    Lenny, were your comments in response to something I wrote? I don't recall implying that there was a designer.

"Rev Dr" Lenny Flank Posts: 2560 Joined: Feb. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: June 09 2007,15:19    Quote (AdR @ June 09 2007,13:22) Lenny, were your comments in response to something I wrote? I don't recall implying that there was a designer. Then, uh, where does the design come from, and how does it get implemented. -------------- Editor, Red and Black Publishers www.RedandBlackPublishers.com

"Rev Dr" Lenny Flank Posts: 2560 Joined: Feb. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: June 09 2007,15:20    Quote (skeptic @ June 09 2007,11:09) Lenny, to your point, these questions can not be answered in a scientific sense. Indeed -- which is, of course, sort of, ya know, my point . . . But then, *I* am not the one here yammering something about "uniting science and ID" . . . . . . . . . . -------------- Editor, Red and Black Publishers www.RedandBlackPublishers.com

AdR Posts: 6 Joined: May 2007 (Permalink) Posted: June 09 2007,16:15    Lenny, you don't understand what a design is. Which proves my point about evolutionists that do not understand how complex systems work. But you guys on this forum seem to believe that " the premise that Life is an evolving molecular machine is wrong" (see 'quack's comment). My world view is about mechanics, what is yours?

Henry J Posts: 5787 Joined: Mar. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: June 09 2007,16:40    The problem (one of them, anyway) is that the word "design" has been overused by scam artists who do use it to imply the presence of a designer (while occasionally denying that they're implying this), and this has attached a whole lot of baggage to the word that gets in the way when somebody else tries to use it to mean simply what parts, how they're arranged, how they interact, and how this affects the future of the "designed" object (or its species). Henry

guthrie Posts: 696 Joined: Jan. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: June 09 2007,18:27    Quote (AdR @ June 08 2007,08:50) This comments amazes me. What else could it be than a molecular machine in a mechanistic world view. My problem with mainstream evolutionary science is that they a) seems to agree that life is just mechanistics, i.e. an evolving, molecular machine, but b) do not seem willing to think in mechanistic terms, i.e. design terms. Thats funny.  I keep seeing ID proponents such as Behe and Dembski talking about mechanical machines in our cells, little outboard motors, etc.  Not the real scientists.

"Rev Dr" Lenny Flank Posts: 2560 Joined: Feb. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: June 09 2007,18:35    Quote (AdR @ June 09 2007,16:15) Lenny, you don't understand what a design is. Nice evasion. Now answer my question. -------------- Editor, Red and Black Publishers www.RedandBlackPublishers.com

Arden Chatfield Posts: 6657 Joined: Jan. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: June 09 2007,18:53    Quote ("Rev Dr" Lenny Flank @ June 09 2007,18:35) Quote (AdR @ June 09 2007,16:15) Lenny, you don't understand what a design is. Nice evasion. Now answer my question. Don't ask don't tell, eh? "Life is designed". Just a little disembodied passive sentence with no agent. La, la la, la la! -------------- "Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

skeptic Posts: 1163 Joined: May 2006 (Permalink) Posted: June 09 2007,23:38    I think we're quibbiling over semantics.  It appears that you, AdR, are using "design" in a context different from what we're used to seeing here.  Are you referring to a pattern or composition?  If so, that's an entirely different conversation and a largely aesthetic one at that. I'm ashamed to add that while I've printed you papers I haven't yet read them.  I'm going to do that right now to get a better idea of the context that you're referencing.

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