JAM
Posts: 517
Joined: July 2007
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| Quote (Daniel Smith @ Oct. 10 2007,03:17) | | Quote (JAM @ Oct. 09 2007,18:19) | | Quote (C.J.O'Brien @ Oct. 09 2007,17:12) | | Quote | | So when I examine the evidence, is that what I find? Yes, that is exactly what I find. I find complex intricate systems analogous (but far superior) to power plants, factories with automated assembly lines, communication networks, super highway systems, waste management (with recycling!), and on and on. |
Bob O'H already made this point, but at some length.
For concision: None of that is evidence in the scientific sense. It's a restatement of the question in explicitly teleological terms. To consider this evidence (the result of empirical investigation beyond a cursory glance) is to beg the question. |
Not only that, but most of it is false.
If our superhighway systems were anything like the cell's, trucks crashing into each other (combining their cargos), useless detours, and multiple tractors on the same cargo trailer pulling in different directions would play an integral role in every journey.
If human-designed waste management systems were designed analogously to the cell's, we'd have 20% raw sewage in our drinking water and call it delicious.
The amazing thing is that when you work in these fields, you see massive teleological biases among the scientists, so that extra data are required to overcome these analogies. |
I've not seen any descriptions of any biological functions that come across as haphazard and random as you describe them. |
1) Descriptions aren't evidence. Why not just be honest and admit that you avoid the actual evidence?
2) My descriptions do not imply that these systems are either "haphazard" or "random." I am accurately describing them as extremely fuzzy, with components that are related to each other with partially-overlapping functions. Therefore, they are in no way analogous to systems designed by humans, which was your preposterously ignorant claim.
| Quote | | In fact I find the opposite to be true. |
But you depend on descriptions, not evidence.
| Quote | | Whenever I learn the details of how a biological system functions, I'm struck by the sheer brilliance of the system's design (and I'm not going to creationist sources for this info). |
Then show me the evidence you've examined for the cell's recycling systems and I'll show you how you are mistaken. What we real biologists find when examining the real evidence is Rube Goldberg-like, partially-overlapping complexity, with everything borrowed from something else. While this is both incredibly complex and amazing, it is in no way analogous to systems designed by humans.
| Quote | | Take the process of protein synthesis for example. |
OK, but you need to explain why you are running away from the examples you initially chose.
| Quote | | Please explain how that process is just a hodgepodge of cobbled together mish-mash that somehow, almost by accident, gets the job done. |
First, you are grossly misrepresenting my position by attributing "almost by accident" to me. This is a fundamentally dishonest way to discuss anything.
Second, it is a cobbled-together mish-mash, given the following evidence.
1) Please explain why ribosomal RNA is at the center of the enzymatic active site, when RNA is so much less stable than protein. Since the "RNA World" hypothesis explains this beautifully, explain how a design hypothesis explains this better.
2) Please explain third-base "wobble" and the viability of bacteria carrying amber, ochre, and opal suppressor mutations.
| Quote | | Or explain how the brain is just a random lucky accident,... |
You are being dishonest. I am not claiming that the brain is "just a random lucky accident." I am claiming that the brain is not analogous to a designed mechanism.
| Quote | | ... or the various visual systems, or the mammalian kidney, or the avian lung, or the central nervous system, or all the various systems of flight, or any other system. In fact, I challenge you to provide details of how any biological system is just a cobbled together hodge-podge. |
As for details, let's use the cell's waste management system. The details show that there is no single pure membranous compartment anywhere in the cell. Even the proteins that help to specify what we call separate compartments overlap with each other.
How's that?
| Quote | | Also, explain to me how the qualities observed in an object are not evidence that can be used to determine the object's origin? |
They are. You're just completely wrong about the qualities because you've not bothered to look at real evidence.
Your need to grossly misrepresent my position speaks volumes about your confidence in your own position, too.
| Quote | | No, it's the organization of the stones and the fact that that organization is analogous to the organization of other designed objects (such as tables, chairs and benches) that leads us to believe that Stonehenge was designed. This organization is a quality of the object in question - the object that needs explaining. Yet we can certainly use these qualities to deduce design here. Why not elsewhere? |
Then tell me about the qualities of the cell's recycling system that lead you to believe that it was designed. You have to go to the primary data, not anyone's interpretation of them.
| Quote | | Are the qualities of "the thing that needs explaining" and analogies excluded also from random or naturalistic explanations? |
Analogies are explanatory devices. They are not evidence.
| Quote | | Do you not observe the makeup of the organism in question when trying to discern its origin? Do you not compare the qualities of one object with another? Do you not say that this sequence is like that one? Is this not analogy? If not, then what is it? |
Mostly, it's homology, not analogy.
| Quote | | In short, analogies are a form of evidence. I'm guessing that you just don't like the fact that I'm comparing biological systems to designed systems. |
We don't like the fact that you are ignoring the actual evidence and promoting fake analogies.
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