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Talk:Intelligent design
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The Quotations Are Very, VERY Condescending[edit]
| A brave puppet-master, controlling us all by saying stupid shit |
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My personal favorite... "Now tell me how intelligent design works." Easy, tell me how natural design works. That is, create your own version of Conway's Game Of Life, on a much more grand scale, and show us that natural design/evolution is possible. A computer should easily be able to simulate billions, or even trillions of years worth of evolution and should be able to randomly create self-evolving virtual life and pretty well anything else you like.... except... oh, it can't actually. No, unfortunately we have to actually hire programmers and we have to actually code things from scratch. We haven't even been able to create intelligent virtual life, let alone naturally evolving intelligent virtual life. The presumed argument works just as easily with our computer systems as it does with nature. If "life" can naturally be created, then so can virtual "life" within a computer system... except it can't. The attempted argument/rebuttal with nature is the 'ol, "well it would take billions of years for it to happen, that's why we can't recreate it"... but that excuse doesn't hold up in simulated virtual environments where time is the equivalent of processing power. If you can't create it virtually... you cannot prove natural evolution any more than the other side can prove intelligent design. This entire article is rather biased in that it focuses too much on the crazy end of the spectrum whilst completely ignoring actual rational discussion and debate on the subject. In short, this is more of an attack article than anything. --Onideus (talk) 17:01, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
A million years can be a very large number of generations - and most species do not start from scratch ('Tomorrow, apefolk, we are going to go onto the plains and turn into super-apes, so everybody start deconstructing like (well known brand of building toy) - this time we turn the FOXP2 brick round etc... oh, we have we here now - humans not super-apes') or go back to the beginning (as with the Edgar Rice Burroughs books). Evolution tends to operate on 'what there is and can be adapted to work for what is required however badly it does work in practice' (see list of badly designed intelligent design on RW). 82.44.143.26 (talk) 18:56, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
There is no 'theory' to mimicry on one level - a creature that 'looks like' something that is poisonous or inedible (eg a fallen leaf) is more likely to survive than one which does not. On this superficial level parts of the theory of evolution can be understood (along with eg 'here is an environment/potential food source - can we exploit it?'). The only answer to 'Intelligent design' is 'Goddidit, Goddidit, Goddidit, and whatever I say three times is true (but only if it involves the Bible and no other system of religious belief including the Apocrypha). 31.51.113.179 (talk) 22:55, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
Onideus, let me make sure I understand your argument - it summary, you think life is so complicated, it must have been designed, it could not originate by random chance - is that correct? Further, your evidence is that you could not personally design life, so it must be designed, not originated by random chance? Hipocrite (talk) 15:55, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
Always playing the devil's advocate isn't static so long as you never choose a single devil to advocate for. Advocate probably isn't the right word choice though. You seem pretty fixated on wanting to determine my particular belief set, so I guess I can humor you. To be perfectly blunt, I see you as humans as rocks. Some are brightly colored and kind of interesting to look at, some I might keep/collect... but yer all seriously just a bunch of fuckin rocks to me. I have a hard time recognizing most people as a sentient presence in and of themselves, largely due to their before mentioned single point sagacity and linear thinking, so a lot of times I'll think of MULTIPLE people as a SINGLE entity and then it's kind of like you have an actual sentient presence. Which is why I very rarely keep track of people's names, unless I find them especially interesting. Otherwise I tend to think of all the people I interact with as being the exact same entity... it's less lonely that way. I consider the nature of what it is that I am to be the present living God of humanity's demons, whether you want to take that to be a literal description of what I do to people, or if you'd like to interpret it as a metaphor is entirely up to you, but in either capacity I can breed hatred and infuriation in you and use it to my advantage. As to the other part, about knowing the "purpose" of reality, I don't think it's as simple as that. I think it's possible to derive any number of potential purposes or drivers and you can perceptually quantify them using any number of forms. The point of scientific experimentation should be to actively attempt to influence or control specific hypothetical drivers and then to observe how various systems react to those changes to determine a potential sense of will or want. Of course keeping in mind all the fun little tricks like the observer effect and so forth. To quote Kyubey, "If we could observe it, we could interfere with it. And if we can interfere with it, we can control it." That's what I'm seeking... to control the nature of reality itself on a grand level. To be perfectly blunt, if your fixed perception holds true, that reality isn't governed or controlled by any sense of reason or want... it becomes all that much easier to take control of that reality. So on a personal level I actually hope your side is the correct one. --Onideus (talk) 21:23, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
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My further argument against Intelligent Design (at least i think it's mine)[edit]
It's all bollocks! Exactly which 'Intelligent' designer would design organs such as testicles that only work properly when outside the body they belong to, yet are so delicate that they cause extreme pain to their owner when even slightly knocked or bruised? QED
Ps. I'm very new here and tried to add this once already but it disappeared, no idea what i did wrong, just the fates punishing me for hubris i guess...hope you don't mind my temerity, i've been reading here a long time and like what i see. Changeling (talk) 23:41, 4 August 2017 (UTC)
- Better question: why would a perfect Intelligent Designer create external sexual organs only for humans to cover them? Why not hide them to begin with? --It's-a me,
LeftyGreenMario! 03:47, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
Reverend Black Percy (talk) 14:51, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
Indeed, it's a very quirky not to say perverse designer that will do that for whales and delphines, that apparently have no sense of shame, but not for humans, whose sense of shame is seriously over-developed.Changeling (talk) 04:57, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
- Maybe it's the whales that are God's chosen people... Reverend Black Percy (talk) 14:51, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
- I like it! Perhaps Noah was merely an oversight, and the whole Ark story was made up by the accidental survivors to cover up their marginal position in the great scheme of things. Changeling (talk) 18:50, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
It's pretty obvious that design is really pretty unintelligent. Everything is based on things that came before. A God "intelligent designer" would have been able to uniquely design every beast to uniquely fit it's role without any consideration of the designs of other organisms. (Yes, I understand that that's a better argument against the "Young Earth" version of ID.)--Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 16:38, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
Trial and Error Design[edit]
We know that some 99% of all species that ever existed are now extinct. If god is in charge, that means he made a species, later decided he could do better and wiped out that species, replacing it by better. Then he later decided he could do even better so wiped out the improved species and made better, and so on, for species after species after species. This is not Intelligent Design but Design by Trial and Error.(184.22.101.203 (talk) 04:15, 30 January 2018 (UTC))
- It all depends upon how you define 'better' - and often there is a transition between one species and the next. (Sometimes there #is# a significant change - as with the Great Oxygenation Event, Dinosaur Asteroid, creation of the Deccan Traps etc - or a species suddenly moves into a totally new environment and has to evolve rapidly to survive.) Anna Livia (talk) 18:04, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
Reverse engineering[edit]
If 'the design' is 'intelligent' what can be deduced about the intelligence - were the construction plans peculiarly incomprehensible (we all know the feeling)? Anna Livia (talk) 18:04, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
another possiblity[edit]
The gods of the various planets are involved in a game of exquisite corpse/consequences - they have to make the best they can of the entities they are presented with. Anna Livia (talk) 17:23, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
Moving the goal post[edit]
the page makes this claim:
"One problem with finding evidence for intelligent design is the inability to distinguish "naturally" evolved mechanisms from "designed" mechanisms. Nobody knows what the "design" of a supernatural creator looks like; how can we tell what was and was not designed?"
And then a few sub sections latter brush off the floundering of abiogenisis as not their problem.
It would seem to me that as time goes on the idea of a self replicating chemical that can form the basis for life spontaneously forming get's more and more unbelievable as we learn of all the things that need to go right for it to form. The difference between the mechanisms is That the naturalistic one would seem to tell us that probability against the formation of life is literally beyond astronomical while the design hypothesis does have any such implication. If a thing is highly improbable to exist it makes more scenes to ascribe it dissing rather than chance. If someone came up to you handing the complete works of Shakespeare then puts a gun to your head saying "if you get question right i'll let you live. Was this book produced by humans or a million monkey's at typewriters?" What would you answer? If you play poker with your friend and he always has a royal flush would you expect him of cheating? The answers should be obvious to any rational person so why then when we are presented with even greater odds do you insist their must be a naturalistic cause? — Unsigned, by: Jkevo / talk / contribs
- You're missing the point of the quote, and removing it from the context of the paragraph leading to it makes it sound as if it's asking a different question than it is. Intelligent design fails to construct its own explanatory description of what design actually entails. It merely sets itself as "that which cannot be explained any other way(and please ignore the theory with a ton of explanatory power for exactly the things we're claiming)".
- So the quote is asking that intelligent design proponents propose a theory of what attributes designed things would have.
- For human design there's a number of dead give aways.
- Modularity: when humans design useful objects, we design them to be modular with components that can interconnect on specific interfaces. As an example, take a look at the many devices that plug into a computer via usb.
- Right angles: Useful for storage and organization, objects with right angles(possibly with smoothed corners) are incredibly common in day-to-day life.
- Perfect circles: whether for wheels or ease of construction or uniform lighting, things with a perfectly circular cross section are extremely common aspect of human designed objects.
- Interchangable parts: like, but not the same as modularity, this is a recent(only 2 centuries old) expansion of human design, but being able to replace a broken component with an identical one from elsewhere is huge, and as result of purposeful design
- Fixed sizes and ratios: All the gears in my watchmakers watch, they're all different numbers of milimeters accross, predictable and useful for getting exact timing.
- Solid materials: making a consistent material for construction of each component gives huge advantages in terms of predictable characteristics. This is useful when designing objects so you can know how they'll work.
- All of these things are things one can look for(and indeed archaeologists do look for) when identifying human designed objects. Notably, not a single one of these apply to supposedly intelligent-designed organisms. So the challenge should fall to the theory's owners to craft such elements. And they don't because they're just creationists under shallow cover. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 15:43, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
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Modularity: DNA, RNA, and protein are all modular. By arranging DNA/RNA in different ways you can code for many different things using only four bases. Proteins Similarly can be arranged and folded to form many different nanomachines from only a handful of parts. Many animals can separate a part of their body to get away from predators and then grow it back Right angles: And the golden ratio is common in nature. right angles are design aesthetic and the lack of it in a design aesthetic does not make it any less designed. Perfect circles: Leg provide better all-terrain locomotion and are harder to design which is why we are only now designing robots. I fail to see how our technological limits imply no design. As far as "perfectly" circular cross sections go that is once again a design aesthetic. What of symmetry which is rarely made by random forces. Interchangeable parts: All the cells in your body are regularly replaced with the same cells types unless something goes wrong. On a more macroscopic size we do organ transplants and blood transfusions all the time Fixed sizes and ratios: Once again we see the golden ratio everywhere, also while body size may differ between members of the same sex and species we see a ratio between parts. Solid materials: Spider silk is stronger than steel. Humans can survive the traumatic amputation of limbs. For the same wight bone is 5 times stronger than steel and for the same size 3 times lighter. So life shows all of your criteria for design you laid out except for some specific design aesthetics. So it would seem to be reasonable to believe it was designed. — Unsigned, by: Jkevo / talk / contribs |
You set forth a set of criteria that would show something was likely designed and I showed that life met those criteria. We have one theory that rest on "chance" and just so stories which makes few predictions with what few it does beggars belief and another one that make predictions like there should be apparent design witch seem to be born out by the evidence. It would seem to me that the only reason to hold the former theory and not the latter is an irrational denial of non-materialistic things.Jkevo (talk) 23:04, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
- Believe me this is more effort than anyone affiliated with ID or the discovery institute has ever put towards that kind of attempt. Suffice it to say, I appreciate the effort, but there's some big problems, like right angles and the golden ratio having jack shit to do with each other. And wheels not being the only circles in designed things. Look at any given object on your desk, and tell me there's no circular components. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 18:35, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
- Let us suppose we land on another planet and we find a relatively large amount of object that are equilateral triangles and perfect octagons which include buildings and tools. Would It be reasonable to deny the possibility of design because it lacks circles or right angles? There are a myriad of reasons it could be that other intelligences could choice not to use right angles and perfect circles maybe they are ascetically displeasing or perhaps they don't fit in with their technology. Unifying design choices are whats important not specific ones so I would argue that the golden ratio suffices for at least weak proof of design.Jkevo (talk) 20:15, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
- Different numbers of digits on each limb (3, 4 and 6 are probably more practical than 7+) or 'millipede-oids' would probably cause such differences. Anna Livia (talk) 20:27, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
- I would find their engineering suspect, as octagons don't fucking tessellate. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 20:35, 15 November 2019 (UTC)