Friday, July 05, 2013

Barry Arrington to the Rescue! And Sal Cordova, Breathless Liar

How cute! Lawyer and certified public accountant Barry Arrington thinks that there is something called "design theory", and furthermore, I am just too stupid to understand it.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Barry, but there's no such thing as "design theory". Yes, there's the pseudoscience of intelligent design, but there's no coherent body of knowledge (much less science) about intelligent design that remotely approaches a "theory". That's why intelligent design advocates like yourself are unable to respond to even the most basic challenges concerning your pretend "theory" and why even your own vanity "journal" can hardly find anything to publish, even though it almost exclusively publishes the droolings of its creationist editorial board.

As for understanding, Barry, let me just note that I have published an article (with Elsberry) in a philosophy journal on intelligent design in which we spell out, in detail, what's wrong with it, and why the math is bogus. You could try reading it. I know it's a bit of intellectual effort, but heck, knock yourself out.

While you're at it, you may want to admonish your friend Sal Cordova (who for some strange reason is sometimes referred to as "Slimy Sal") for lying on the same blog entry. Dembski did not "dedicate" his first book to me. Yes, it's true that he tried to gain some intellectual respectability by dropping a whole bunch of names and thanking them, but that's not the same as a dedication; it's an acknowledgment.

59 comments:

Diogenes said...

Why don't these ID pussies show some guts and comment HERE?

Those ID pussies hide out at Uncommon Descent where they can ban and purge everyone who presents evidence to expose their fraud.

By the way, Jeff, it'd be great if you could again stop by the Sandwalk thread where we are giving the Egnoramus a pounding.

RBH said...

C'mon. Sure there's a design theory, and I can summarize it in just one sentence:

Sometime(s) or other, something(s) or other designed some biological thing(s) or other, and then somehow or other manufactured the thing(s) in matter and energy, all while leaving no independent evidence of the design process, no independent evidence of the manufacturing process, and no independent evidence of the presence, or even the existence, of the designing and/or manufacturing entity(ies).

See? Easy-peasy.

Tom English said...

Arrington is rewriting inconvenient history at IDSoc's Ministry of Truth. He claims:

Perhaps Shallit means that it would be “completely unsubstantiated” to conclude that design – and only design – is the explanation for the 500 heads in a row. If that’s what he means, he is certainly correct. He is also certainly attacking a strawman, because no ID proponent has ever, as far as I know, said that when one makes a design inference one is obliged to conclude that only design could have caused the effect.

But Dembski long claimed no false positives for the explanatory filter. Here's the earliest example I can find [http://www.arn.org/docs/dembski/wd_explfilter.htm]:

I argue that the explantory [sic] filter is a reliable criterion for detecting design. Alternatively, I argue that the Explanatory Filter successfully avoids false positives. Thus whenever the Explanatory Filter attributes design, it does so correctly.

Arrington also yaps on about design inference as abductive inference, no matter that Dembski emphasized time and again that his approach was eliminative. When probabilities are involved, abduction is Bayesian. Dembski understands that the very last thing ID creationists want to address is the prior probability of a design hypothesis. Although I'm a charitable guy in my day-to-day, I won't say that Arrington is merely ignorant of

Design by Elimination vs. Design by Comparison. [28Sep05] Chapter 33 of The Design Revolution. This chapter demonstrates the inadequacy of a purely Bayesian/likelihood approach to drawing design inferences.
[http://designinference.com/dembski-on-intelligent-design/dembski-writings/]

As one of God's Own Prevaricators, he's highly mendacious. Now that Stephen Meyer's star is on the rise, inference to best explanation is the order of the day. However, the "theory" of ID creationism "advances" strictly by accretion. That is, its advocates cannot acknowledge that what they pushed in the past is incongruous with what they push in the present. So we see regularly an unholy mishmash of the argument from specified complexity and inference to best explanation. Here's a particularly repugnant example from Kairosfocus:
http://www.uncommondescent.com/education/the-tsz-and-jerad-theread-iii-900-and-almost-800-comments-in-needing-a-new-thread/

Jeffrey Shallit said...

Tom:

Yes, it should have been obvious to anyone with 7th-grade reading skills that my post was about the incorrectness of going directly from a mathematical observation (namely, defeating a 50%-heads, 50%-tails hypothesis on the coins) to a conclusion about "design". Somehow lawyer and CPA Arrington missed that.

RonnyJamesDNA said...

I'm afraid Barry won't read it for the same reason Dembski wouldn't:

http://www.uncommondescent.com/evolution/jeffrey-shallit/

Jeffrey Shallit said...

RonnyJames:

Yes, I know. Convincing arguments, aren't they?

Robert Byers said...

The design theory is as famous as the modern rise in science in the last 400 years.
Everybody said the same thing.
The universe in its complexity and of that in great order with great purpose could only be seen as designed by a thinking being.
ID folks just flesh it out in modern terms.
On the other hand WHAT claim does evolutionary biology have to being a theory in science as opposed to a hypothesis /wishful thinking???
What scientific theories are needs a refresher course.

Jeffrey Shallit said...

Byers, you are really insane!

At any university you can find dozens of textbooks about evolutionary biology, complete with explanations of the theory in great detail - not to mention dozens of journals of evolutionary biology.

But you won't find a single textbook about "design theory". Nor will you find any journals. Heck, the vanity journal Bio-complexity can only publish 4 articles a year, nearly all by the 30-strong editorial board.

KeithB said...

While Mount Rushmore was clearly designed, what about something like (the late) Old Man in the Mountain? Was that intelligently designed.

Robert Byers said...

Mr Shallit
Insanity aside I assure you none of those texts or groups dealing with evolutionary biology actually present biological evidence for evolution. Unless in very minor matters they may attempt.

Design is about a bigger equation behind the natural world.
Its not so mechanical as about the origins of its great mechanical operations and reality.
Design books could only deal with a few aspects of the natural world.
In fact one might say human understanding is so limited on how nature works before our eyes that going to the more complicated equations of nature is still beyond us.
YEC and ID people simply can and do a little bit on these things.

Jeffrey Shallit said...

I assure you none of those texts or groups dealing with evolutionary biology actually present biological evidence for evolution.

You're a liar. But then, creationists have to lie, because the evidence is all against them.

I'd be willing to bet you have never read a single textbook on evolutionary biology. But, feel free to prove me wrong. Name a textbook you have read, and then explain why the abundant evidence presented there is not really evidence at all.

Gut check said...

Anonymous KeithB. Why do you say Mount Rushmore "clearly" designed? Forget the historical records. The answer is because our gut tells us so. True, our gut is sometimes wrong, such as with the Old Man in the Mountain. But if Mount Rushmore was clearly designed, why not say that something that is 1000 times more complex and functional is also designed? Why not say that a creature that consists of thousands of features, each of which is thousands of times more complex and functional, is also designed?

Jeffrey Shallit said...

Because we don't decide whether something is designed based on whether it is "complex and functional"; we make our decisions based on whether it is an artifact - the characteristic product of human activity.

The weather system is complex and functional, but it does not appear to be designed.

KeithB said...

My gut doesn't tell me, but tool marks and evidence of blasting does.

Our gut is not a good indicator of scientific truth. It fails pretty badly with quantum mechanics and relativity.

Robert Byers said...

Mr Shallit
I know the subject to death and read zillions of evolutionary biology books, textbooks, articles, and more and more.
I can't remember any names.
Well how about Darwins first book.

I say they don't invoke biological scientific evidence even though they think they do.
Save on minor things about speciation its bone dry.
As it only could be if it was not only a false idea but couldn't possibly, if thats so, have enough evidence to make it a theory as opposed to a hypothesis.

Whats your top three biological evidences for the great conclusion that evolutionary mechanisms created the great biology?
I mean killer points and not about sickleback fish getting bigger or smaller.

Jeffrey Shallit said...

I know the subject to death and read zillions of evolutionary biology books, textbooks, articles, and more and more.
I can't remember any names.


Byers, you can't even lie convincingly.

Gut Check said...

"My gut doesn't tell me, but tool marks and evidence of blasting does." -- C'mon, let's assume that we're looking at Mount Rushmore from afar, and our eyes are our only source.
Are we not left with our gut?
I think our gut is a better indicator than you think.

Takis Konstantopoulos said...

Who on earth is this Barry Arrington? I looked into the religious site http://www.uncommondescent.com/ but the links under his name are always dead.

Indeed, he doesn't seem to be very intelligent. In one of his posts he wrote:

"This is what Karl Popper says about this principle in The Logic of Scientific Discovery (which, as far as I know, is the only scientific text with the force of law in the United States)"

Scientific text with the force of law? Huh?

Diogenes said...

Arrington is a lawyer of questionable ethics who works for Michele Bachmann's campaign and had some ethical lapses. Bug Eyes Bachmann is the dumbest mammal in the US Congress, so Arrington scrapes the bottom of the right wing barrel. I'll get links for this later.

He also banned nearly all evolutionists from UD, including myself.

Diogenes said...

Gut Check - there is no structure in any living species, anatomical nor genetic, analogous to the faces of US presidents. DNA has no face of George Washington. So without a valid analogy, there's no reason to see life as intelligently designed.

OTOH life has many structures analogous to known, OBSERVED products of evolution, as OBSERVED in the lab. That's a valid analogy.

KeithB said...

"Are we not left with our gut?
I think our gut is a better indicator than you think. "

Defense attorneys must love you!

Diogenes said...

Treasurer for MICHELEPAC, Bachmann’s PAC, which didn’t report its contributions.
Arrington incorporated C&M Strategies in Colorado, a consulting firm run by Guy Short, who used to be paid by Michele Bachmann from taxpayer funds, and whose consulting firm was later paid from her campaign funds.

A reference on Arrington's shady ethics.

According to House expense reports, Bachmann and three conservative GOP colleagues — Reps. Tom Price (Ga.), Steve King (Iowa) and [rape philosopher] Todd Akin (Mo.) — each paid $3,407.50 that day, a total of $13,630, to a sound and stage company called National Events, apparently for the sound system used at the rally.

The money came from the Members' taxpayer-funded office accounts, despite House rules prohibiting the use of these funds for political activities. Bachmann's office insists the expense was a proper use of official funds.

Bachmann billed the event as a "press conference," which can be funded from official accounts. But no questions were taken from the press and, unlike most press conferences, it opened with a prayer, the national anthem and a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.

And the story says Bachmann has occasionally spent money out of her office account for things closely tied to her political activities:

But as with the rally, it is not clear whether she has violated any rules.

For instance, in June 2010, Bachmann added to her Congressional payroll a "senior advisor" named Guy Short... According to Congressional pay records, Bachmann paid Short $5,000 for the month.

On June 3, 2010, Short established C&M Strategies in Colorado. Records on file with the Colorado secretary of state list Short as the "registered agent" of the firm; the incorporator was Colorado certified public accountant Barry Arrington.

In July, Short dropped off Bachmann's payroll, but Bachmann's campaign began paying C&M Strategies for fundraising consulting services.


[Source]

Another source on Arrington and Bachmann:

In response to an FEC inquiry, MICHELEPAC Treasurer Barry Arrington acknowledged in a letter today that the PAC “erroneously omitted credit card contributions” that should have appeared on its monthly disclosure report in February. (The PAC has filed an amended report including nearly $52,000 in missing contributions.)

The FEC, in a July 7 letter, dinged MICHELEPAC for what it says is incomplete employer or occupation information for some of its donors. “You must provide the missing information, or if you are unable to do so, you must demonstrate that ‘best efforts’ have been used to obtain the information,” FEC Senior Campaign Finance Analyst Edward Ryan wrote.

Arrington wrote back today to say that information about several donations have been amended, and that in general, MICHELEPAC has made “best efforts” to obtain identifying information.


[Politico.com]

Gut check said...

Diogenes, in case you forgot, Darwin didn't know from DNA. There is a structure in living species, anatomical or genetic, analogous to the sculpted faces of US presidents. It's called the human face.
If the Old Man in the Mountain could talk, sneeze, snicker, and roll its eyes, you would -- by force of your reasoning -- conclude that it was designed. It should be a reasonable endeavor to apply a fortiori reasoning to conclude that a human was designed. Not proof, for sure, but reasonable.

Gut Check said...

Here's an attempt to call your bluff, assuming it's a bluff. Diogenes, can you kindly name one body part or enzyme or cell type, etc, found in an animal in the lab where the animal's parents or great-grandparents did not have that part?

KeithB said...

Gut Check:
Here you go:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/information/apolipoprotein.html
Will you shut up now?

Gut Check said...

I asked for a new part, enzyme or cell type, not a mutant protein with a beneficial feature, in keeping with Diogenes' claim of many "structures". I have no issue with mutations with beneficial features (though I think the percentage of such mutations is really low.) Also, Diogenes did claim "many" structures analogous to known, OBSERVED products of evolution, as OBSERVED in the lab.
I'll keep talking until you get things right, KeithB. But frankly, I'm much more interested in a response to my prior comment about the a fortiori idea.

Jeffrey Shallit said...

I asked for a new part

If you think new body parts form in a single generation, then there's really not much anyone can do to educate you, I think.

Gut Check said...

Of COURSE not! That's why I said "great-grandparents". And when I say "great-grandparents", I don't mean literally 4 generations. I mean, say, thousands. However many were observed in a lab, as per Diogenes' claim.

Jeffrey Shallit said...

That's why I said "great-grandparents"

Liar. You said "parents or great-grandparents".

And when I say "great-grandparents", I don't mean literally 4 generations

This is not Alice in Wonderland. Words have meanings. Quit playing games.

Diogenes said...

Gut check, I don't bluff. The Italian wall lizard evolved a new cecal valve in its gut in a few generations, after isolation on an island in Slovakia.

There are a number of examples of proteins evolving new functions, in the process becoming components of irreducibly complex pathways, supposedly impossible. There are newly evolved binding sites on proteins, e.g. the HIV protein vpu-1, as blogger ERV pointed out to Mike Behe. The apolipoprotein example given above is a newly evolved binding site. These are all significant gains in complexity.

There are examples of de novo protein evolution, e.g. T-urf 13 in maize.

Your assertion that there is something in biology analogous to the human face-- the face itself-- is infantile. Biological structures resemble themselves, therefore they are intelligently designed? Brilliant that.

Tautology is not proof of magic intervention. To put it into terms an IDer might understand, you have drawn the bullseye after shooting your arrow (as Dembski would say, it's a fabrication.)

Let me rephrase. Your gut tells you that Mt Rushmore is human designed because

1. We know natural forces rarely create faces, not never but rarely, so 4 in a row is low probability if due to natural forces; and

2. Certain kinds of art have an artistic grammar geared towards the viewer, a grammar analogous to verbal grammar

So here is why the "gut feelings" of 99.99% of all biologists tell biological structures are evolved:

1. Nowhere in biology is there ANYTHING resembling the visual grammar of human arts directed at a viewer, nor any grammar anything like human spoken or written languages, nor any digitally encoded information. Nowhere, never, ever, not one example, NEVER, NOT ONE, EVER.

2. We know natural processes produce structures analogous to biological complex structures because we've seen it.

This "gut check" of biologists is in addition to the mountains of classical evidence for evolution: all our transitional fossils, DNA comparisons, biogeography, ring species, and homology, both or orthology and paralogy.

"Gut feelings" vary from person to person. The gut feelings of biologists are different from yours, and will always be opposite yours. Always. Forever. And ever.

We have the fossils. We win.

Diogenes said...

And now it's my turn, Gut Check. Can you name one body part or enzyme or cell type present in humans but not our ape ancestors?

As for Darwin not knowing about DNA, the fact remains that DNA phylogenetic analyses produce a tree congruent with that produced by anatomical comparisons. Darwin would have been delighted.

His 19th century opponents would have been horrified. Anti-Darwinists knew nothing of DNA, and would have cringed at modern phylogenetics. His 21st century opponents have learned nothing about DNA, are still pig-ignorant of phylogenetics, and their arguments never changed, except for the strange insertions of modern jargon that today's creationists use without knowing or caring what it means.

Rolf Aalberg said...

Robert Byers said:I mean killer points and not about sickleback fish getting bigger or smaller.

Science is not abolut killer points, it is like saving dollars in the bank, After 150 years you have a fortune. Care to count?

But you must have killer points, please show one.

Gut Check said...

"Liar. You said "parents or great-grandparents".
That, and your subsequent sentence are pathetic attempts to avoid admitting your lack of reading comprehension skills which manifest themselves when you've already reached a conclusion.

And Diogenes, "As for Darwin not knowing about DNA, the fact remains that DNA phylogenetic analyses produce a tree congruent with that produced by anatomical comparisons. Darwin would have been delighted. " -- He may have been delighted, and pissing in his pants.
Are you familiar with Nature? http://www.nature.com/news/phylogeny-rewriting-evolution-1.10885

Jeffrey Shallit said...

That, and your subsequent sentence are pathetic attempts to avoid admitting your lack of reading comprehension skills which manifest themselves when you've already reached a conclusion.

My conclusion is that, like most creationists, you're dishonest and refuse to admit it and ignorant and refuse to learn.

It's interesting how religion can warp the mind and character so completely.

Gut Check said...

It's interesting how hatred of religion can warp the mind and character so completely.

Jeffrey Shallit said...

I don't hate religion, I hate what it does to people like you.

Gut Check said...

Fine, but that doesn't explain why you didn't read my shorthand "great-grandparents" comment charitably. You just assumed what I meant, a la Miss Olam.

Diogenes said...

Gut check--

I answered your question. You can't answer mine.

Again I asked: "Can you name one body part or enzyme or cell type present in humans but not in our ape ancestors?"

To this I'll add a second question:

"Can you name one body part or enzyme or cell type that was observed in the lab to be created by an intelligence that was not human?"

Afraid to answer my question, Gut Check asks me another:

Are you familiar with Nature?

I am, that's why I don't trust their News and Views articles. They're shite. They don't seem to be peer-reviewed. I trust research articles because they describe data and protocols.

http://www.nature.com/news/phylogeny-rewriting-evolution-1.10885

This is not a research article, it is a News and Views type article in which Peterson says he has some data on microRNA phylogenetics in preparation that he has not published yet. Possibly not written yet. So there's no way I, or anybody else, can evaluate the accuracy of the claims. That is not a peer-reviewed published research paper.

We've known that DNA phylogenies match anatomical phylogenies since the 1980's, so that's 40 years you've had to refute it.

After 40 years, this is still the best you can do: "the check is in the mail."

Before you comment again, please read Douglas Theobald's 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution as it is written at an introductory level.

You lost this one. Just be man enough to admit it. Maybe you'll win on the next one... geocentrism or HIV doesn't cause AIDS or something.

Gut Check said...

Oh, I see my mistake. I should have used the word "great" four times instead of just once, as in this sentence from the Science Museum of London: "Firstly, we didn’t evolve from chimps and gorillas – we just share some great-great-great-greatgrandparents with them." - http://tinyurl.com/oum2bcb Unless you want to tell the Science Museum that they should learn that words have meaning and they should stop playing games.

Jeffrey Shallit said...

I should have used the word "great" four times instead of just once, as in this sentence from the Science Museum of London:

You dishonestly refuse to quote yourself fully and correctly, and you argue by doing web searches to find single examples of things you think support your claims.

You refuse to take into account the full body of knowledge (e.g., with respect to evolution and phylogenies).

You hide behind pseudonyms.

In short, the typical dishonest creationist.

Gut Check said...

"Before you comment again, please read Douglas Theobald's 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution as it is written at an introductory level."

Not only did I read that years ago, I read the rebuttal, Theobald's counterrebuttal, and the counter-counterrebuttal. Read those!

"Afraid to answer my question,"

Right, not answering an annoying man's question can only be attributed to fear. Got it.

Concerning the cecal valve: Could it be that the lizard had its "switch" switched from off to on over the course of its residence on the island? (Sorry for my inexact wording; I'm not strong on epigenetics.) If so, it's as if the lizard always had this valve, and the valve "was just waiting to be expressed." Similarly, if I owned eye-less cavefish and in 40 years some of its offspring had eyes, I would not be proclaiming that I found examples of eyes evolving. In other words, don't get so excited about this valve.

"Can you name one body part or enzyme or cell type present in humans but not in our ape ancestors?"

If the ancient apes are identified only through bones, then I'm unable to conclude what soft tissues they had. (I'm not sure where you were heading with this question, and I had different ways to answer it, so I just picked one.)

"Can you name one body part or enzyme or cell type that was observed in the lab to be created by an intelligence that was not human?"

You need to amend your question, for it to be an honest question. Change it to this:
"Can you name one new body part or enzyme or cell type that was observed in the lab that was not guided by any sort of intelligence?"

"I don't trust their News and Views articles. They're shite. They don't seem to be peer-reviewed. I trust research articles because they describe data and protocols."

Good. Then read the damn footnotes! 3-8, especially.

"and you argue by doing web searches to find single examples of things you think support your claims. "

I did that search for one reason only: to defend myself from your ridiculous charge that was based on an incredibly quick tendency to judge unfavorably.

Finally, concerning your "complex and functional" weather comment, I would like to see your fisking of http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/03/jeff_shallit_on_signature_in_t032811.html Seriously, while I'm skeptical of how good this example is, I'm not against hearing your defense of it.

Gut Check said...

"Why don't these ID pussies show some guts and comment HERE? "

I love this question. How about this one: "Why don't these pricks who share a name with a genus of hermit crab show some guts and comment here?"

If such a person were to comment here, would he be admitting that he's a prick?

Jeffrey Shallit said...

Anonymous Coward Gut Check:

My response to Nelson appeared years ago, as you would know if you made the slightest effort to look for it.

I teach information theory for a living. Nelson knows nothing about it at all. The fact that you take his response as serious shows you are not serious yourself.

Gut Check said...

"The fact that you take his response as serious shows you are not serious yourself. "

You've proven that yet again, you've jumped to an unfavorable conclusion. You're quite a winner. I never said or even implied that I took Nelson's answer as serious. The fact is that I'm not so knowledgeable about information theory so I wasn't able to evaluate your and his arguments with the adeptness that I'd like to have.

One of these days, you're gonna jump off the edge of the world.

Jeffrey Shallit said...

I never said or even implied that I took Nelson's answer as serious.

Sure you did. But since you've already proven yourself to be a liar, why should anyone believe you?

If you are unable to express yourself clearly, consider taking a course on English composition.

Diogenes said...

Gut Check shifts the goal posts: Concerning the cecal valve: Could it be that the lizard had its "switch" switched from off to on over the course of its residence on the island? (Sorry for my inexact wording; I'm not strong on epigenetics.) If so, it's as if the lizard always had this valve, and the valve "was just waiting to be expressed."

Anything is possible, but this hypothesis is unscientific because it is non-falsifiable. The creationist, in order to salvage a hypothesis of an invisible Intelligent Designer, is forced to hypothesize that all species additionally contain a invisible, vast sea of (possibly infinite) occult information waiting to be expressed in response to... what? Some kind of signal?

This invisible sea of occult "information" could be of any size and could mediate any change, so creationist becomes non-falsifiable.

The creationist first argues: "Name one NEW anatomical or genetic feature in a species..."

Then you name a few and they say, "No, no, I meant name one anatomic or genetic feature that was NOT present in an invisible sea of occult information I hypothesize but cannot prove."

You shifted the goal posts. Since you can't prove the existence of this infinite sea of occult "information", you have no evidence that the information pre-existed in any species.

Incidentally, the invisible information you're talking about is not "epigenetics". Epigenetic changes are not propagated for more than a few generations and are not permanent on geological time scales.

The kind of occult information you're talking about is hypothesized by creationists-- they don't have a standard name for it-- but YECs often call it "mediated design" while IDers call it "autogenous variation" or "apparent specified complexity."

The same idea was embraced by crackpots in the late 19th, early 20th centuries. They called it "orthogenesis" or "bathmism."

Gut Check: Similarly, if I owned eye-less cavefish and in 40 years some of its offspring had eyes, I would not be proclaiming that I found examples of eyes evolving.

That is not similar at all. It's trivially easy to show that the ancestors of eyeless cave-fish really had eyes. There are several ways to show this, NONE of which applies to the new cecal valve in the lizard!

1. You can do a phylogenetic analysis, comparing the cave-fish to many other fish species, and show that the eye loss must be a recently evolved feature in the tree of common descent. Trivially easy to show that.

2. Analyze their genetics. The genes for vision and eye structure are trivially easy to find, and well understood, and would stand out like a sore thumb.

3. Observe the embryological development of cave fish: as embryos they develop eye-buds, which later get absorbed.

At any rate this business of hypothesizing a possibly infinite sea of "invisible", occult information is non-falsifiable and it's desperate goalpost shifting.

Diogenes said...

I asked Gut Check a simple question relevant to his beliefs and he would not answer it.

I asked: "Can you name one body part or enzyme or cell type that was observed in the lab to be created by an intelligence that was not human?"

Gut Check's non-response: You need to amend your question, for it to be an honest question.

NO. I ASKED AN HONEST QUESTION. YOU ARE NOT HONEST ENOUGH TO ANSWER IT.

I'll answer it because Gut Check is afraid to: There are no examples of a non-human intelligence creating any organ, cell type, enzyme, new enzymatic function, or even a SINGLE POINT MUTATION in any experiment ever. NEVER, EVER, NOT ONE, EVER.

Instead Gut Check tries to substitute this question:

"Can you name one new body part or enzyme or cell type that was observed in the lab that was not guided by any sort of intelligence?"

Irrelevant-- but yes, new enzymatic functions and enzymes appear in lab experiments that are not rationally designed by the experimenters.

However, ID creationists today shift the goal posts and say, that since lab experiments are carried out by humans, nothing that goes on in a lab can be genuinely natural.

According to ID creationists today, whenever a scientist does any lab experiment, "specified complexity" like invisible cooties jumps off the scientist and infuses into his chemicals, invisibly. According to ID creationist logic, if a scientist burns hydrogen in oxygen, the resulting water cannot be claimed to be the result of a natural process because the scientist somehow infused "specified complexity" into the water.

Until ~1990's all creationists said, "Hey scientists can't reproduce life in a lab! That proves it was created supernatuarlly!"

But then scientists started to be successful at engineering life, so creationists shifted their goal posts.

After ~1990's all creationists said, "Hey scientists CAN reproduce life in a lab! That proves it's intelligently designed!"

Creationists pre-1990's: "If a process occurred naturally, scientists could reproduce it in a lab."

Creationists post-1990's: "Oh uh, scientists CAN reproduce it in a lab, so it is NOT a natural process."

Goal post shifting.

Jeffrey Shallit said...

Diogenes:

I am more and more convinced that there are no honest creationists at all.

Gut Check said...

Jeffrey, I must say that your critique of Nelson's essay was razor sharp, with excellent argumentation, and was a brilliant rebuttal of a distortion of what he wrote. It'll take some time to write it up. But I figure you won't listen to me. Rather, why don't you have a friend of yours who isn't so anti-ID as you are to review the two pieces and to critique your rebuttal?

Jeffrey Shallit said...

Gut Check:

Since you're too scared to use your real name, and since you've already proven yourself a liar, why should anyone be interested in anything you have to say?

Diogenes said...

Gut Check,

Nelson's rebuttal of Shallit's "weather prediction" argument was pathetic. Pathetic. This is not complicated. It's very easy to understand.

Dembski says people can create info shminfo but computer programs can't, EXCEPT for the FIXED, FINITE amount of info shminfo that the programmer "smuggles" into the program. This is a simple argument.

Dembski refuses to use HIS OWN EQUATIONS for "specified complexity" to measure the amount of info shminfo that scientists "smuggle" into their programs. Instead, Dembski sneers and smears and insinuates and basically accuses computer scientists of fraud. However, Dembski is quite clear on one point: whatever amount of info shminfo is "smuggled" by scientists into their programs, it is a FIXED, FINITE AMOUNT. It CANNOT increase even a bit after the programmer is done writing his program.

Nelson's pig-ignorant, evasive "rebuttal" basically says: "Wah, the weather prediction program was intelligently designed by a programmer." DUH. We know that. The point is that even if Dembski's insinuations of "smuggled" info shminfo are correct, the programmer has "smuggled" a FIXED, FINITE amount of info shminfo into the program. Nelson does not address this point.

Meanwhile, the amount of functional information coming out of the weather prediction program increases every day. It's conceivably infinite-- thus, there MUST be a time, if you wait long enough, when the functional information coming out vastly exceeds the info shminfo that Dembski alleges was "smuggled" in.

It's simple, but if you want math:

Call X = the amount of info shminfo which Dembski alleges was "smuggled" in by the programmer when he wrote the weather prediction program.

Call Y = the amount of functional information output by the program every day.

Call T = (X / Y) = the number of days you need to wait until the functional information coming out exceeds the info shminfo that Dembski alleges was "smuggled" in.

Now just wait T days, and Dembski's "Law of Conservation of Information" is dead, dead, DEAD.

Note that Paul Nelson does not get anywhere close to addressing the real problem here. Why do you think he totally evades the most important issue?

Gut Check, do you suppose maybe you're trusting authorities who aren't very bright-- or are at best evasive and sneaky?

Gut Check said...

"Gut Check, do you suppose maybe you're trusting authorities who aren't very bright-- or are at best evasive and sneaky?"
No, my first instinct is to distrust. And I've got plenty of people on both sides of the debate to distrust.

SLC said...

Re Diogenes

Bug Eyes Bachmann is the dumbest mammal in the US Congress, so Arrington scrapes the bottom of the right wing barrel

Unfortunately, there are a few Congresscritters who are even dumber then Bachmann. Prime Example: Louis Gohmert of Texas who provides Ed Brayton over at the Dispatches blog with endless amusement.

Barrty Arrington said...

Sorry it took me so long to post this. I just saw this post today. I notice that you do not address the substance of my arguments in the post to which you link. Why? Because you were wrong and I was right.

Jeffrey Shallit said...

Barry or Barrty, I don't know which: indeed I did address some of your "substance", but there wasn't much there. Try reading it again.

Barrty Arrington said...

I looked at it again. Your post is the blogging equivalent of a second grader going neener, neener neener. You do not even address my arguments, far less refute them.

Jeffrey Shallit said...

I can't help improve your reading comprehension, I'm afraid. You'll have to work on that yourself.

You can start by answering the challenges here.

Get back to me when you have a response, ok?

Barrty Arrington said...

Here's my response:

http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/jeffrey-shallit-second-grader/

Jeffrey Shallit said...

Congratulations, Barry! You've destroyed me with your deep reasoning ability.

Never argue with a creationist - they object when you point out how silly they are, and then they call you names.