Quoting the Naturalist's History Of Existence, by I. M. Atheist (an entirely hypothetical future work):
Chapter 1 - Evolution creates male and female humans.
Chapter 2 - A genetic engineer in the year 2113 creates a male and female clone of the pre-existing human population, decides to name them "Adam" and "Eve", and handily owns a lot of property including a garden.
No contradiction. Read the biblical descriptions for precisely what they do say, and do not say.
Your argument is actually only an argument against Adam and Eve being the -first- humans, on which point you would be correct, though theism per se is not to be blamed for whichever underinformed theological "authority" mistaught you.
For reasons requiring rather intricate theological and biological-category presentation, which you wouldn't listen to anyway, though, Adam and Eve not being the first people helps you none at all as an atheist.
That said, Genesis remains largely allegorical in content, and my money would be against this Young Earth Creationist successfully winning a debate from the position it is -entirely- literal and "true" when read as such.
Appreciated. Since Google won't do it for me, though, I'll have to watch the videos to see if this is another instance of "accept questions from Slashdot, respond with editorial/video of loosely-related material" as seems to be becoming the pattern with these Slashdot "ask" threads...
I suppose I was looking for a thread titled something like "Dawkins responds to your questions below". Overly-optimistic me.;)
On the other hand, did Dawkins ever even follow up with answers at all?
Maybe he did and I missed it, but I'm a pretty regular reader, and I haven't seen any answers posted to my (and others') questions from that question thread.
Agreed. Especially given that science utterly fails on simple everyday questions such as whether Mozart is, or is not, the greatest composer in history.
Especially for kids, but also for people with souls, "it makes money" is not a sufficient justification.
And so, given this, the way to avoid the contradiction is to read it "it makes money, -for us-", the "us" being the spokespeople for whom the money clearly is sufficient justification.
Wake me when a software executives are encouraging more enthusiasm for mechanical engineering, and wind-power companies are encouraging more enthusiasm for code. Until then, it's just another play to increase their own bottom-line, in the time-honored "buy low, sell high" corporate tradition. Until then, as you've alluded to, the perception won't be one of an attempt to empower when the real objective is to disempower, by increasing the supply of the "human resource", thereby decreasing the power of each -individual-.
No, 5 is also true. Your description of "caused by" is irrelevant to "logically derived", which is to say, being able to say -therefore- (mental concept) -given- (specific physical description). The state, however, is simply not the concept, as I thought I had made even clearer than is manifestly obvious. "The next prime in the series 2, 3, 5, 7..." does not have as its correct answer an EEG of someone contemplating the problem. The answer is a number. The biochemical activity is not a number. Simple.
"The mountains of evidence" simply say the the brain in involved in the process of cognition around the concept, and nothing else.
And no, "freedom" is what it means, which you can refer to the dictionary to determine. It is not defined by your dubious redefinition, and again that the brain is necessary in utilizing it does not address the issue.
Really. Okay, show me the form of the function of "freedom" (the specific atoms will do, and note that "freedom" here does -not- mean "assumed atoms broadly inferred by EEG readings correlating with a particular selected individual contemplating 'freedom'"--I don't mean that, I mean freedom) as it applies to its presence in biological entities, or deny that "freedom" has functional effect on biology.
That is not to say biological structures do not have effects and are not scientifically useful to know, it was specifically the assumption of the universality of supervenience I was commenting on.
To put it another way, which of these statements is true?
1. The behavior and nature of all systems are exhaustively determined by their constituent parts.
2. Molecules are purely physical entities, interacting only with other physical entities by physical means.
3. People are constituted of molecules.
4. People have mental states constituted of mental concepts, such as "happiness".
5. No mental concept can be logically derived from any purely physical description.
I think the term you are looking for (for the "philosophy-literate") is Supervenience.
One thing you'll discover investigating that is that your hierarchical arrangement does not necessarily apply, so thinking it universally does can be more of an indicator of scientific illiteracy, rather than literacy.
For example, the constituent atoms of paper money do not determine, and one cannot infer from that, the higher-order property of the money's value (as this is dependent on extrinsic factors, such as the economy). Assuming a universal to reality automatically because it is a premise useful to science, is an epistemological error.
Yes, but something has to be done. Next thing you know, these sites offering easy access to all this content they don't own, will be enhanced to become increasingly convenient--starting with putting in a search box and who knows, perhaps even further profiting from this illicit benefit from others' work by, say, something so egregious as putting their own advertisements on the pages. Probably they could even talk a large cross-section of business into using this "search engine to others' content" (to coin a phrase) as an advertising vehicle, and, soon these sites could become multi-billion dollar enterprises, and we'd probably have the owners buying personal jets solely from reaped profits from merely establishing de-facto association with, and redirection to, massive amounts of content they had no part in providing, or investment in creating.
Google obviously could not allow something like that to occur.
Apple should now officially start worrying: Android has cracked a market segment with the stratospheric level of pretentiousness and narcissism that Steve Jobs can now only haunt wistfully from his new no-margin domain.
"...while ignoring the vast body of evidence that runs counter to my hypothesis."
One additional thing. This seems to be pretty clearly an issue of assumption of what a particular piece of evidence means.
Unless you have a specific methodological method by which you would differentiate a given transition as being designed versus not designed--say, a method that would differentiate a present-day genetically-engineered organism from a non-engineered one, going by the fossils or other intrinsic data left by the remains, the analysis performed in the far-distant future, you are saying any given transition was not designed because saying so fits your confirmation bias, and for no other reason. Lacking that, the "vast body" is equally evidence for design as against it.
Interesting. So, why would you formulate your hypothesis as "Intelligent Design has occurred without human involvement", since it doesn't state something scientifically useful (that is, a universal statement about reality) about biology per se?
You can say it.
"No, you have a mechanism to fool people into thinking you're taking a scientific approach while ignoring the vast body of evidence that runs counter to my hypothesis."
Thanks for the bare assertion. Now were you planning to actually rebut the notion of determining the probability of the maximum parsimony transitions, while maintaining survivability, as a test, for the subset of the facts that would apply to the distant past?
Are you drunk? Seriously. Your posts are almost entirely incoherent, and everything you have claimed I have not provided has been provided multiple times, each, now. If you can't effectively reason, at least show some ability to read.
Maybe you're distracted by being covered in the vomit of your animal-spawn. I don't know, but try back tomorrow and see if you're capable of more than incoherent insults and blatant falsehoods regarding the content of the thread.
Your ad hominems are not only tedious, but really getting quite pathetic.
You've spent all this time pontificating your dismissal of intelligent design, and now you're asking me what it is in the first place?
Let's see. "Intelligent Design". Going by the words in the term, as we usually do with... words, it seems that it proposes design by an intelligence is a factor in biology. Note that this doesn't mean, or suggest, nor is it the case anywhere but in your straw-man fixated mind, that this is a denial that evolutionary processes are also a factor. That's a false dichotomy of yours, and not suggested anywhere by the words, and there are no "ID advocates" who deny evolutionary processes occur and explain attributes of biology. You just make up that there are, because you need to for your argument. Along the way, you manage to equivocate "evolution" to mean the only completely-unscientific overextended rendering of it, the untestable notion that "only evolutionary processes are a causal factor"--not because you have any means to determine that, nor because it is in the least testable, and it isn't, but because psychologically, as I said, you don't care about accurate science, you care about attacking your "creationism" conspiracy.
So, concerning biology: intelligent design proposes that design by an intelligence is a necessary factor in explaining the scope of biological characteristics. Given that "biological characteristics" would mean, well, all of them (again, let's just go ahead and try going with words meaning what they mean), and modern-day biological characteristics are indeed in the set of biological characteristics per se, design is provably a factor. It is provably so because we did it, and it is easily provable that we did it.
So, the reality is, if were are going to make any viable statement about "biology" per se...
1. Design by an intelligence is required to explain some characteristics
2. Evolutionary processes are required to explain some characteristics
This is just the facts of reality, easily verified.
Now, you apparently want -also- a test that intelligent design is also required for biology in the distant past, not because that matters in terms of statements about reality and biology, but because you've got some notion -in your own mind- that we should only consider design "back then", because -in your own mind- you don't care about making scientific statements, you care about attacking this spectre of "creationism", and that's what drives your inappropriate scoping of the question, not to reality, but to the time period in which your stance stands against the "creationism" that is central to this discussion only -in your own mind-. I am making no statement about, when we go into that subset of reality you demand we do for your mental narrative, what the entity might be other than the plausibility of the characteristic of intelligence. I don't care, nor is it relevant to the question of intelligent design (again, read the words), whether that was a supernatural agency or an extraterrestrial intelligence or some hypothetical lost advanced human civilization. All, and more, are in-scope of "intelligent" and all are worthy of scientific consideration insofar as possible, though, yes, I understand you want to declare the future of science by psychic fiat and censor (and when you can't do that, as demonstrated, mock) any opposing ideas and thereby damage the progress of science. The question at hand, though, is whether there was design, when we are making statements about biology. There unquestionably was, in terms of recent years of our reality that we would be making scientific statements about, there plausibly was, in regards to the distant past which you demand we focus exclusively on not for scientific, but for personal reasons.
-When we subset the question to the distant past-, though it is -again not relevant to statements about biology per se-, we have a mechanism to test the plausibility of design there as well. When the p
"The hell with me"... is that supposed to be humor, irony, or a prediction for you and I to compare notes on later?
Hypothesis of intelligent design: Directly provided for two sucessive posts now.
Test of intelligent design: Directly provided for two successive posts now.
Prediction of intelligent design: Directly provided for two posts successive posts now, demonstration that the prediction is verified fact provided as well.
I know you want to subset "intelligent design" to mean not what scientific statements about reality strive to, that is, applicable to reality in totality, but to subset the issue down, scientifically inappropriately, to considering only the timeframe that fits your narrative of rather circuitous "creationism" conspiracies--when you can manage focus enough to avoid complete redefinition of basic words, but...
Intelligent design per se is direct fact. It is only "intelligent design in the distant past" that is under contention. For that subset from what would be an assertion of a scientific nature (scoping to all time, that is to say, reality) down to what you feel like you want the scope of time to be for your personal rationalization and/or political reasons, a test was -also- provided. You provided no rebuttal to that either, and your fanciful sputtering is only underscoring your failure to do so.
You have a lot of sites and cited scientists to inform they don't have the slightest idea about epigenetics and the appropriateness of this parallel, then...
And, "completely wrong" would be inclusive of him being wrong that behavior can alter what is propagated genetically. In other words, he wasn't "completely wrong".
If my question was a mere assertion rather than fact you would have provided a scientific hypothesis for Intelligent Design.
You were just given a scientific hypothesis for intelligent design, that observable cases of it exist and are required for explanation of the scope of biological characteristics within the scope of biology. Any number of empirical cases can be called up by your at the cost of googling "genetic engineering". Those cases are the test, the test is based on purely empirical factors of genetic engineers doing it, and intelligent design is therefore, quite simply, renderable as a scientific hypothesis, and is quite simply scientific fact.
Intelligent. Design. That's what the concept is, that's what the words mean. That you want to make up the meaning as something it clearly is not, is quite irrelevant.
But let's leave aside what you are adding on to and/or distorting the plain words as "really meaning", and focus on the issue you care about, rejecting theism, rather than scientific accuracy as pertains to biology. That the characteristics of biology qua biology cannot be fully explained by evolutionary processes isn't an open question or subject to handwaving that no hypothesis can be formed regarding it. It obviously can be formed, obviously can be tested merely by googling the history of genetic engineering, and "intelligent design" is simply fact when applying the terms across biological history.
Though your colorful language is rather amusing, this remains the case, it isn't "creationism" simply because you declare that intelligent design means what it simply doesn't mean, as a matter of simple English, and it isn't the case that I'm "competing against unknown". There is no "competition" here, and if an intelligent agent (of any origin) is demonstrably involved in distant history -as well-, that in no way is dependent on "creationism" (really, it's just two or three logical thoughts you need to string together here--the set of A isn't the set of B, and the sets indicated are directly indicated by the words--you can do it), and would be a scientific determination of great scientific interest. Your content-free rant doesn't address anything and does not alter this.
A question that was a question rather than an assertion would be more useful.
Since you seem to have difficulty with the question of the capitalization, let's go with the fully-scientific hypothesis that intelligent design has occurred. The hypothesis is tested and validated by checking history, noting that it has been done extensively starting in the mid-20'th century, and we can thereby note it can be rendered as a scientific hypothesis and (in the general sense of what the term means, as one might guess by reference to the words) as such, scientifically validated.
For the subset of the question referring to distant history, we can fairly infer that the present-day fact also has applied if we find cases where the transitions of maximal parsimony remains extremely improbable. You can however, take comfort in the notion in the fact that even if transitions are absurdly improbable given the premise of essentially-random mutations, you can still weasel out of any quantified improbability. However, realistically, it will be tested and the test determinative, to reasonable minds.
You may wish to follow up with the standard assertion that this still wouldn't indicate design in particular. Probably, nobody has asked you to enumerate the set of alternatives you consider reasonable that are not that, and why. I will, because it's the answer to that question that is the fun one to deconstruct for self-contradiction.
Randomness is a fundamental property of reality...
Really. Demonstrate that. Something demonstrably random, rather than pseudorandom, that is, something having no actual causal determinants. Flipping a coin isn't random, "random" number generation in computers isn't random, it's merely an inability or choice not to specify the deterministic factors that produce specific results. How does "truly random" work?
...and the application of statistics to population genetics and biology is no different than any other application.
And the "application" is in no way an explanation. If 29% of people take one course of action, and 71% another, what is thereby "explained" in terms of why the decision was made? Nothing. Show me a counterexample of where statistics provide an explanation of the outcome, rather than simply quantifying what the outcomes were.
You doubtlessly would not raise these objections to other applications of statistics even though logical consistency would demand it of you.
I would, and have, raised the exact same objections. In no way are statistics pertaining to an event an explanation of the event, in biology or any other domain.
As such, further conversation is pointless.
True enough, though that is entirely owing to your evasion of the question at hand. Perceptive point at which to cut off communication on your part, though.
Statistics do not provide any causal explanation of anything. They don't even address the "why" or "how", simply the distribution of the outcomes.
That there is a distribution I'm not contending with, and it isn't relevant to a theory that addresses the specific mechanisms for biological change, on a genetic level. The theory proposes that the mechanism for change is "randomness". Okay, give me all the causal factors that lead to the outcomes, so I can test each step and verify it is a scientific explanation, as one would with a step in a causal chain of any other scientific explanation.
In other words, the factors which can predictably and testably (as a scientific matter) result in each observable specific result of this "randomness". E.g. a mutation happens here, it doesn't happen there. Show me the steps of the randomness that predictably and testably leads to each possibility.
Otherwise, invoking "random" as a causal factor is no different from invoking a pseudoscientific explanation. You do not understand what's happening, if you cannot state the steps of what is happening, and "random" isn't nearly enough resolution of those steps for the context at hand.
Yes, I understand this poses a dilemma of contradiction in terms of the question of whether what you are calling "random" is, or is not, actually random. After you've clarified your stance on that, we could take a look at the appropriateness of the term being included at all in a "scientific explanation".
You've been told quite authoritatively and many times, I'm sure, that "random" is a valid term in the scope of science. Let's test that assumption.
Interpretations are in the realm of science only if they are testable.
I understand, but...
No, not at all. Inferences support from scientific knowns are also science, and a notion of "science" in which testability is an absolute requirement is unimplementable. You could not find me a single scientific paper that does not, at some point, rely on an untestable or axiomatic premise. And, you've just eliminated most of the fields of anthropology, psychology and theoretical physics, and vast tracts of all of the social sciences and all the formal sciences. It's also procedurally impossible--a hypothesis always predates determination of tests, and does so often by years. If a hypothesis cannot be a hypothesis without a test, and tests must follow in time the hypothesis, no hypotheses can be formed. Parse this however you like by redefining what a "hypothesis" is, you still cannot construct a procedure which remains "science" that avoids this fact.
I understand many would agree with your criterion of testability, but still, knowing quite a bit about what actually determines the scope of science, Philosophy of Science...
I understand the mechanism. However, I can also alter these baseline "let's say" rules, and create a different outcome. Your analogy does not demonstrate I'm not there to do that.
So that we don't have a second point of confusion as to what I know, let me be perfectly clear on this, as well--I know precisely what "random" means. Having said that, please provide the exhaustive testable scientific causal factors that produce predictable values for the "randomness" you've referenced. Apart from that, there is no reason for me to think you know what your term means, scientifically. It is otherwise simply a placeholder word for "I don't know the causal factors", and I'm not sure that you actually intended for a core term in your presentation of the theory to specify "I don't know what happens here".
Slashdot Mirror
Quoting the Naturalist's History Of Existence, by I. M. Atheist (an entirely hypothetical future work):
Chapter 1 - Evolution creates male and female humans.
Chapter 2 - A genetic engineer in the year 2113 creates a male and female clone of the pre-existing human population, decides to name them "Adam" and "Eve", and handily owns a lot of property including a garden.
No contradiction. Read the biblical descriptions for precisely what they do say, and do not say.
Your argument is actually only an argument against Adam and Eve being the -first- humans, on which point you would be correct, though theism per se is not to be blamed for whichever underinformed theological "authority" mistaught you.
For reasons requiring rather intricate theological and biological-category presentation, which you wouldn't listen to anyway, though, Adam and Eve not being the first people helps you none at all as an atheist.
That said, Genesis remains largely allegorical in content, and my money would be against this Young Earth Creationist successfully winning a debate from the position it is -entirely- literal and "true" when read as such.
Appreciated. Since Google won't do it for me, though, I'll have to watch the videos to see if this is another instance of "accept questions from Slashdot, respond with editorial/video of loosely-related material" as seems to be becoming the pattern with these Slashdot "ask" threads...
I suppose I was looking for a thread titled something like "Dawkins responds to your questions below". Overly-optimistic me. ;)
+1 Snarky
On the other hand, did Dawkins ever even follow up with answers at all?
Maybe he did and I missed it, but I'm a pretty regular reader, and I haven't seen any answers posted to my (and others') questions from that question thread.
Agreed. Especially given that science utterly fails on simple everyday questions such as whether Mozart is, or is not, the greatest composer in history.
Especially for kids, but also for people with souls, "it makes money" is not a sufficient justification.
And so, given this, the way to avoid the contradiction is to read it "it makes money, -for us-", the "us" being the spokespeople for whom the money clearly is sufficient justification.
Wake me when a software executives are encouraging more enthusiasm for mechanical engineering, and wind-power companies are encouraging more enthusiasm for code. Until then, it's just another play to increase their own bottom-line, in the time-honored "buy low, sell high" corporate tradition. Until then, as you've alluded to, the perception won't be one of an attempt to empower when the real objective is to disempower, by increasing the supply of the "human resource", thereby decreasing the power of each -individual-.
To correct my wording for precision, that should read "5 is also plausible". Which are -true- is the dilemma at the core of the Mind-Body Problem.
No, 5 is also true. Your description of "caused by" is irrelevant to "logically derived", which is to say, being able to say -therefore- (mental concept) -given- (specific physical description). The state, however, is simply not the concept, as I thought I had made even clearer than is manifestly obvious. "The next prime in the series 2, 3, 5, 7..." does not have as its correct answer an EEG of someone contemplating the problem. The answer is a number. The biochemical activity is not a number. Simple.
"The mountains of evidence" simply say the the brain in involved in the process of cognition around the concept, and nothing else.
And no, "freedom" is what it means, which you can refer to the dictionary to determine. It is not defined by your dubious redefinition, and again that the brain is necessary in utilizing it does not address the issue.
Really. Okay, show me the form of the function of "freedom" (the specific atoms will do, and note that "freedom" here does -not- mean "assumed atoms broadly inferred by EEG readings correlating with a particular selected individual contemplating 'freedom'"--I don't mean that, I mean freedom) as it applies to its presence in biological entities, or deny that "freedom" has functional effect on biology.
This is a much older, much less tractable problem than your aphorism would suggest.
That is not to say biological structures do not have effects and are not scientifically useful to know, it was specifically the assumption of the universality of supervenience I was commenting on.
To put it another way, which of these statements is true?
1. The behavior and nature of all systems are exhaustively determined by their constituent parts.
2. Molecules are purely physical entities, interacting only with other physical entities by physical means.
3. People are constituted of molecules.
4. People have mental states constituted of mental concepts, such as "happiness".
5. No mental concept can be logically derived from any purely physical description.
I think the term you are looking for (for the "philosophy-literate") is Supervenience.
One thing you'll discover investigating that is that your hierarchical arrangement does not necessarily apply, so thinking it universally does can be more of an indicator of scientific illiteracy, rather than literacy.
For example, the constituent atoms of paper money do not determine, and one cannot infer from that, the higher-order property of the money's value (as this is dependent on extrinsic factors, such as the economy). Assuming a universal to reality automatically because it is a premise useful to science, is an epistemological error.
Yes, but something has to be done. Next thing you know, these sites offering easy access to all this content they don't own, will be enhanced to become increasingly convenient--starting with putting in a search box and who knows, perhaps even further profiting from this illicit benefit from others' work by, say, something so egregious as putting their own advertisements on the pages. Probably they could even talk a large cross-section of business into using this "search engine to others' content" (to coin a phrase) as an advertising vehicle, and, soon these sites could become multi-billion dollar enterprises, and we'd probably have the owners buying personal jets solely from reaped profits from merely establishing de-facto association with, and redirection to, massive amounts of content they had no part in providing, or investment in creating.
Google obviously could not allow something like that to occur.
Oh wait.
Apple should now officially start worrying: Android has cracked a market segment with the stratospheric level of pretentiousness and narcissism that Steve Jobs can now only haunt wistfully from his new no-margin domain.
"...while ignoring the vast body of evidence that runs counter to my hypothesis."
One additional thing. This seems to be pretty clearly an issue of assumption of what a particular piece of evidence means.
Unless you have a specific methodological method by which you would differentiate a given transition as being designed versus not designed--say, a method that would differentiate a present-day genetically-engineered organism from a non-engineered one, going by the fossils or other intrinsic data left by the remains, the analysis performed in the far-distant future, you are saying any given transition was not designed because saying so fits your confirmation bias, and for no other reason. Lacking that, the "vast body" is equally evidence for design as against it.
Interesting. So, why would you formulate your hypothesis as "Intelligent Design has occurred without human involvement", since it doesn't state something scientifically useful (that is, a universal statement about reality) about biology per se?
You can say it.
"No, you have a mechanism to fool people into thinking you're taking a scientific approach while ignoring the vast body of evidence that runs counter to my hypothesis."
Thanks for the bare assertion. Now were you planning to actually rebut the notion of determining the probability of the maximum parsimony transitions, while maintaining survivability, as a test, for the subset of the facts that would apply to the distant past?
Are you drunk? Seriously. Your posts are almost entirely incoherent, and everything you have claimed I have not provided has been provided multiple times, each, now. If you can't effectively reason, at least show some ability to read.
Maybe you're distracted by being covered in the vomit of your animal-spawn. I don't know, but try back tomorrow and see if you're capable of more than incoherent insults and blatant falsehoods regarding the content of the thread.
Your ad hominems are not only tedious, but really getting quite pathetic.
You've spent all this time pontificating your dismissal of intelligent design, and now you're asking me what it is in the first place?
Let's see. "Intelligent Design". Going by the words in the term, as we usually do with... words, it seems that it proposes design by an intelligence is a factor in biology. Note that this doesn't mean, or suggest, nor is it the case anywhere but in your straw-man fixated mind, that this is a denial that evolutionary processes are also a factor. That's a false dichotomy of yours, and not suggested anywhere by the words, and there are no "ID advocates" who deny evolutionary processes occur and explain attributes of biology. You just make up that there are, because you need to for your argument. Along the way, you manage to equivocate "evolution" to mean the only completely-unscientific overextended rendering of it, the untestable notion that "only evolutionary processes are a causal factor"--not because you have any means to determine that, nor because it is in the least testable, and it isn't, but because psychologically, as I said, you don't care about accurate science, you care about attacking your "creationism" conspiracy.
So, concerning biology: intelligent design proposes that design by an intelligence is a necessary factor in explaining the scope of biological characteristics. Given that "biological characteristics" would mean, well, all of them (again, let's just go ahead and try going with words meaning what they mean), and modern-day biological characteristics are indeed in the set of biological characteristics per se, design is provably a factor. It is provably so because we did it, and it is easily provable that we did it.
So, the reality is, if were are going to make any viable statement about "biology" per se...
1. Design by an intelligence is required to explain some characteristics
2. Evolutionary processes are required to explain some characteristics
This is just the facts of reality, easily verified.
Now, you apparently want -also- a test that intelligent design is also required for biology in the distant past, not because that matters in terms of statements about reality and biology, but because you've got some notion -in your own mind- that we should only consider design "back then", because -in your own mind- you don't care about making scientific statements, you care about attacking this spectre of "creationism", and that's what drives your inappropriate scoping of the question, not to reality, but to the time period in which your stance stands against the "creationism" that is central to this discussion only -in your own mind-. I am making no statement about, when we go into that subset of reality you demand we do for your mental narrative, what the entity might be other than the plausibility of the characteristic of intelligence. I don't care, nor is it relevant to the question of intelligent design (again, read the words), whether that was a supernatural agency or an extraterrestrial intelligence or some hypothetical lost advanced human civilization. All, and more, are in-scope of "intelligent" and all are worthy of scientific consideration insofar as possible, though, yes, I understand you want to declare the future of science by psychic fiat and censor (and when you can't do that, as demonstrated, mock) any opposing ideas and thereby damage the progress of science. The question at hand, though, is whether there was design, when we are making statements about biology. There unquestionably was, in terms of recent years of our reality that we would be making scientific statements about, there plausibly was, in regards to the distant past which you demand we focus exclusively on not for scientific, but for personal reasons.
-When we subset the question to the distant past-, though it is -again not relevant to statements about biology per se-, we have a mechanism to test the plausibility of design there as well. When the p
"The hell with me"... is that supposed to be humor, irony, or a prediction for you and I to compare notes on later?
Hypothesis of intelligent design: Directly provided for two sucessive posts now.
Test of intelligent design: Directly provided for two successive posts now.
Prediction of intelligent design: Directly provided for two posts successive posts now, demonstration that the prediction is verified fact provided as well.
I know you want to subset "intelligent design" to mean not what scientific statements about reality strive to, that is, applicable to reality in totality, but to subset the issue down, scientifically inappropriately, to considering only the timeframe that fits your narrative of rather circuitous "creationism" conspiracies--when you can manage focus enough to avoid complete redefinition of basic words, but...
Intelligent design per se is direct fact. It is only "intelligent design in the distant past" that is under contention. For that subset from what would be an assertion of a scientific nature (scoping to all time, that is to say, reality) down to what you feel like you want the scope of time to be for your personal rationalization and/or political reasons, a test was -also- provided. You provided no rebuttal to that either, and your fanciful sputtering is only underscoring your failure to do so.
You have a lot of sites and cited scientists to inform they don't have the slightest idea about epigenetics and the appropriateness of this parallel, then...
https://startpage.com/do/search?query=lamarck+epigenetics
And, "completely wrong" would be inclusive of him being wrong that behavior can alter what is propagated genetically. In other words, he wasn't "completely wrong".
If my question was a mere assertion rather than fact you would have provided a scientific hypothesis for Intelligent Design.
You were just given a scientific hypothesis for intelligent design, that observable cases of it exist and are required for explanation of the scope of biological characteristics within the scope of biology. Any number of empirical cases can be called up by your at the cost of googling "genetic engineering". Those cases are the test, the test is based on purely empirical factors of genetic engineers doing it, and intelligent design is therefore, quite simply, renderable as a scientific hypothesis, and is quite simply scientific fact.
Intelligent. Design. That's what the concept is, that's what the words mean. That you want to make up the meaning as something it clearly is not, is quite irrelevant.
But let's leave aside what you are adding on to and/or distorting the plain words as "really meaning", and focus on the issue you care about, rejecting theism, rather than scientific accuracy as pertains to biology. That the characteristics of biology qua biology cannot be fully explained by evolutionary processes isn't an open question or subject to handwaving that no hypothesis can be formed regarding it. It obviously can be formed, obviously can be tested merely by googling the history of genetic engineering, and "intelligent design" is simply fact when applying the terms across biological history. Though your colorful language is rather amusing, this remains the case, it isn't "creationism" simply because you declare that intelligent design means what it simply doesn't mean, as a matter of simple English, and it isn't the case that I'm "competing against unknown". There is no "competition" here, and if an intelligent agent (of any origin) is demonstrably involved in distant history -as well-, that in no way is dependent on "creationism" (really, it's just two or three logical thoughts you need to string together here--the set of A isn't the set of B, and the sets indicated are directly indicated by the words--you can do it), and would be a scientific determination of great scientific interest. Your content-free rant doesn't address anything and does not alter this.
A question that was a question rather than an assertion would be more useful.
Since you seem to have difficulty with the question of the capitalization, let's go with the fully-scientific hypothesis that intelligent design has occurred. The hypothesis is tested and validated by checking history, noting that it has been done extensively starting in the mid-20'th century, and we can thereby note it can be rendered as a scientific hypothesis and (in the general sense of what the term means, as one might guess by reference to the words) as such, scientifically validated.
For the subset of the question referring to distant history, we can fairly infer that the present-day fact also has applied if we find cases where the transitions of maximal parsimony remains extremely improbable. You can however, take comfort in the notion in the fact that even if transitions are absurdly improbable given the premise of essentially-random mutations, you can still weasel out of any quantified improbability. However, realistically, it will be tested and the test determinative, to reasonable minds.
You may wish to follow up with the standard assertion that this still wouldn't indicate design in particular. Probably, nobody has asked you to enumerate the set of alternatives you consider reasonable that are not that, and why. I will, because it's the answer to that question that is the fun one to deconstruct for self-contradiction.
Randomness is a fundamental property of reality...
...and the application of statistics to population genetics and biology is no different than any other application.
Really. Demonstrate that. Something demonstrably random, rather than pseudorandom, that is, something having no actual causal determinants. Flipping a coin isn't random, "random" number generation in computers isn't random, it's merely an inability or choice not to specify the deterministic factors that produce specific results. How does "truly random" work?
And the "application" is in no way an explanation. If 29% of people take one course of action, and 71% another, what is thereby "explained" in terms of why the decision was made? Nothing. Show me a counterexample of where statistics provide an explanation of the outcome, rather than simply quantifying what the outcomes were.
You doubtlessly would not raise these objections to other applications of statistics even though logical consistency would demand it of you.
I would, and have, raised the exact same objections. In no way are statistics pertaining to an event an explanation of the event, in biology or any other domain.
As such, further conversation is pointless.
True enough, though that is entirely owing to your evasion of the question at hand. Perceptive point at which to cut off communication on your part, though.
Statistics do not provide any causal explanation of anything. They don't even address the "why" or "how", simply the distribution of the outcomes.
That there is a distribution I'm not contending with, and it isn't relevant to a theory that addresses the specific mechanisms for biological change, on a genetic level. The theory proposes that the mechanism for change is "randomness". Okay, give me all the causal factors that lead to the outcomes, so I can test each step and verify it is a scientific explanation, as one would with a step in a causal chain of any other scientific explanation.
In other words, the factors which can predictably and testably (as a scientific matter) result in each observable specific result of this "randomness". E.g. a mutation happens here, it doesn't happen there. Show me the steps of the randomness that predictably and testably leads to each possibility.
Otherwise, invoking "random" as a causal factor is no different from invoking a pseudoscientific explanation. You do not understand what's happening, if you cannot state the steps of what is happening, and "random" isn't nearly enough resolution of those steps for the context at hand.
Yes, I understand this poses a dilemma of contradiction in terms of the question of whether what you are calling "random" is, or is not, actually random. After you've clarified your stance on that, we could take a look at the appropriateness of the term being included at all in a "scientific explanation".
You've been told quite authoritatively and many times, I'm sure, that "random" is a valid term in the scope of science. Let's test that assumption.
s/inferences/inferential
Interpretations are in the realm of science only if they are testable.
I understand, but...
No, not at all. Inferences support from scientific knowns are also science, and a notion of "science" in which testability is an absolute requirement is unimplementable. You could not find me a single scientific paper that does not, at some point, rely on an untestable or axiomatic premise. And, you've just eliminated most of the fields of anthropology, psychology and theoretical physics, and vast tracts of all of the social sciences and all the formal sciences. It's also procedurally impossible--a hypothesis always predates determination of tests, and does so often by years. If a hypothesis cannot be a hypothesis without a test, and tests must follow in time the hypothesis, no hypotheses can be formed. Parse this however you like by redefining what a "hypothesis" is, you still cannot construct a procedure which remains "science" that avoids this fact.
I understand many would agree with your criterion of testability, but still, knowing quite a bit about what actually determines the scope of science, Philosophy of Science...
No, not at all.
I understand the mechanism. However, I can also alter these baseline "let's say" rules, and create a different outcome. Your analogy does not demonstrate I'm not there to do that.
So that we don't have a second point of confusion as to what I know, let me be perfectly clear on this, as well--I know precisely what "random" means. Having said that, please provide the exhaustive testable scientific causal factors that produce predictable values for the "randomness" you've referenced. Apart from that, there is no reason for me to think you know what your term means, scientifically. It is otherwise simply a placeholder word for "I don't know the causal factors", and I'm not sure that you actually intended for a core term in your presentation of the theory to specify "I don't know what happens here".