Let's study ID (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, July 26, 2021, 06:50 (1004 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: [...] the alternative to the sourceless conscious mind is sourceless materials which chanced to produce the combination that has led to one habitable planet in countless billions, and to rudimentary life and intelligence that gradually evolved into the complexities we know today. I find both explanations equally unsatisfactory, and so my mind remains open to both. You can call this open-mindedness rigid if you like.

DAVID: The bold is very unsatisfactory to me: if nothing existed before the BB, what MATERIALS? These materials became our minds? Wishful thinking. Design requires a designing mind, a statement you can't counter.

I sometimes wonder if you actually read my posts. Let me repeat: I FIND BOTH EXPLANATIONS EQUALLY UNSATISFACTORY. You focus on the unsatisfactory alternative to your fixed belief, and do not even respond to the illogicality of claiming that conscious beings like ourselves must have a source, and the source is therefore a conscious being that does not have a source.

dhw: There is absolutely nothing in my post of yesterday that contradicts the theory of ID! I keep promulgating the theory of the intelligent cell, which is a theory of DESIGN, and I keep reiterating that this allows for God as the designer of the intelligent cell. Common descent would entail cell communities improving on earlier designs.Natural selection simply tells us that an improved model is likely to replace the model it improves. How does this contradict ID?

DAVID: The bold is more unproven wishful thinking. and my theory is taken from pure science and reason.

You claimed that my post contradicted ID. The fact that you regard commonsense natural selection as “unproven” has nothing whatsoever to do with ID. I have no idea why you regard it as pure science and reason to claim that there is a God who either individually dabbled or 3.8 billion years ago preprogrammed every single life form, strategy, solution, natural wonder for the rest of life’s history. This becomes even less scientific and reasonable when you insist that every one was part of his sole goal of designing humans plus food, though the vast majority had no connection with humans and our food.

Taken from: Specific organs protection
DAVID: Design requires an ability to foresee future needs. See new ID entry.

dhw: [...] over and over again you harp on about design needing to foresee the future. You accept the human analogy, and even quote your own experience of design. So are you telling us that your designs were made to solve unknown problems that did not exist at that time? The new ID entry makes no reference to clairvoyance of any kind. The reasoning – with which I agree - is based purely on complexity […] not on clairvoyance.

DAVID: You totally do not understand designing for future use. My designs were made to void problems that might have occurred if I did not anticipate the proper flow patterns necessary in the architecture. Of course clairvoyance isn't mentioned. One is imagining real problems that could occur from poor design. One avoids inventing problems!!!! And the complexity. you see only a part of, is built to easily handle variations of circumstances. It has flexibility.

You’re right. I’m bewildered. Design, you say, requires the ability to foresee future needs. Your pet example of this would be your God anticipating that a bunch of pre-whales asleep on the land would one day need to live in the water, and so he popped in and changed their legs to flippers. (My proposal: conditions changed, and when pre-whales entered the water, the result over time was that legs changed to flippers). Now, though, foreseeing the future apparently means avoiding the problems that might be caused by poor design. Nothing to do with future needs at all! Meanwhile, please point out where in the article you have discovered that ID is based on foreseeing the future and not on complexity.

DAVID: I'm going to use an article as an example of what Darwinist's do to bring in purpose, but no idea how it was really achieved:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2284426-tomatoes-have-a-kind-of-nervous-system-tha...

QUOTE: "Tomatoes that are being eaten by insects use electrical signals to send an alert to the rest of the plant, similar to the way our nervous systems warn of damage.”

DAVID: Note all the assumptions in the final paragraph. Purpose is proposed and solved. How, really? But what mechanism? Darwinism is all magic. This was designed and required thought to do it.

The authors are simply describing what happens and why. What does this have to do with Darwin? You are welcome to add that you think this proves that God popped in and tinkered with tomatoes in order to help them survive such an attack (though you don’t think survival has anything to do with it), or he had to pop in because otherwise the insects he had designed would have stopped us from enjoying tomatoes with our bacon and egg. Offer any theory you like. I would suggest that tomato cells used their (perhaps God-given) intelligence to develop this means of survival. I have no idea how all this is supposed to prove that ID means your God foresaw future needs and therefore designed the defence strategy before tomatoes came under attack.