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With SETI, we are comparing radio signals to radio signals. Radio signals certainly have well understood natural sources, and artificial sources (us). Its an apples to apples comparison.

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This is quite a far stretch from looking at the way a computer works, for example, and saying its evidence that DNA was designed.

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think ID may come of age eventually, perhaps.. but not in the way I think you imagine. There may be a time when our genetic engineering has progressed, and we can then look at patterns in our genetic designs and derive if an organism was designed/tampered with by humans, or resulted from natural causes. Then perhaps if we ever discovered life on another planet we might be able to directly compare the patterns in our genetic engineering with patterns in the alien organisms (assuming they run on DNA) and perhaps infer if they were designed by another intelligence or from natural causes. Just like SETI attempts to do with radio signals. This would also make ID more like systemic flaking, which you described in another thread.

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But as ID stands now, it bears no resemblance to either. Just because we understand enough about DNA/RNA to manipulate it, I still don't see why this is grounds for us making the assumption that it was designed. By that logic, any natural thing that mankind learns to manipulate and control we should infer design by default.

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We can make good guesses on the natural/artificial causes of radio waves simply because we have good understandings of what the end products of each 'look like' and we have intimate knowledge of most of the processes that form them, not because of the specified complexity formula. Again, we are comparing radio waves to radio waves. ID is comparing apples to..... well i don't even know what.

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ORIGINAL: drj11
By that logic, any natural thing that mankind learns to manipulate and control we should infer design by default.

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Jhud: by default anything no natural cause has ever been observed to do, and which only humans through intelligence can be understood to do, can be inferred to be designed

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How true. The only diamonds of which we are certain of their origin were designed by intelligent agents. Untested uniformitarian naturalistic theories of pressure and millions of years are obvious claptrap when compared to the theory of intelligent adamantogenesis.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

This is an overt admission that a fundamental premise of ID is correct - that we can detect intelligent activity in the organization of genetic material.

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Well, no, by default anything no natural cause has ever been observed to do, and which only humans through intelligence can be understood to do, can be inferred to be designed; certain stone tools, radio signals, and genetic material. It's all the same scientific premise.

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Well, yes, yes, again exactly; our inference about radio signals is based on probability and out understanding about how those signals are produced, exactly like ID.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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How true. The only diamonds of which we are certain of their origin were designed by intelligent agents. Untested uniformitarian naturalistic theories of pressure and millions of years are obvious claptrap when compared to the theory of intelligent adamantogenesis.

Actually, this is somewhat wrong on a couple of different counts.

When we create diamonds, it is a result of studying the natural processes, and then emulating them - not so with stone tools, radio signals, and genetic modification.

Also, in terms of its material make-up, an uncut diamond wouldn't require intelligent design because it is the product of a straight forward arrangement of a single type of atom; it is neither irreducibly complex, nor is there high CSI present.

But there is one aspect whereby the application of ID could be widely agreed upon to apply; that is in the case of a precisely cut multi-faced stone. No materialist, regardless of their dedication to naturalism, would claim that such a thing could arise naturally; and an IDist would agree because of the high CSI content of the facets.

So thanks for an excellent example that provides a primer for understanding the application of ID!

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Well, yes, yes, again exactly; our inference about radio signals is based on probability and out understanding about how those signals are produced, exactly like ID.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud
Actually, this is somewhat wrong on a couple of different counts.

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Its me waxing poetic about how it may be possible one day, assuming that someone could take an unknown organism and compare its genetics with patterns that we may one day develop, to determine if the organism came about or was tampered with by humans (or a similar intelligence). For this to be possible it will take a much greater amount more knowledge of natural processes that can give rise to life and the patterns they produce, and that those patterns would be distinguishable between genetic alterations produced by humans. Thats not anything like ID as it stands today. ID is trying to claim that we can take the results of a poorly understood process and infer design by default by applying ambiguous formula's for which we have no reason to assume could be applicable to the material at hand. In my example, this would be at a time where natural causes of life are well understood, and because of that, we are able to distinguish 'artificiality' from natural causes to a reasonable degree of certainty.

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In all those examples, the natural causes of those phenomena are well understood. I think its incorrect to make the assertion that no natural cause can give rise to life. Who knows.. maybe one day we will come to realize life couldn't have formed naturally, or that its nearly impossible? But we aren't even close yet, and any assumption of design here is a few steps removed from proper problem solving when attempting to find the answer.

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Except for a few well educated hypothesis, the origin of life is a big mystery.

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When you find a DNA strand shaped like my wife's wedding ring, let me know!

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Glad you agree your original statement was wrong.

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Are you guys seriously arguing about SETI as if it's a hard science? It's a bunch of geeks who read too many comics and sci-fi books as kids hoping against hope that we're not alone in the universe. (For anyone who's inclined to get offended at that remark, I include myself among those geeks.)
Sure they have the Drake equation (and following Fermi Paradox), but for the most part it's just a random experiment with a vanishingly small chance of success.
From what I can find, it no longer receives public funding. It's a hobby for the ubernerd.
Though there is this to be said for it: It was the first program to truly utilize and explore the ability of distributed computing.

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This did not start as an ID thread. Can we relegate ID talk to the dozens of other science/origins threads and leave one alone for fun scientific thought without dragging in the endless debate?

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That's an interesting contention.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

The problem with this sort of logic is that it’s not particularly scientific; we don’t just sit around waiting for something that there is no evidence exists to be found before we confirm our regular observations. I mean, it could be that some life form does spontaneously generate; how long should we hold off on germ theory until we agree it is so unlikely as to be not worth considering?

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These are of course absurd examples, but with a point; science isn’t about endless searches for highly improbable things, it is about making repeatable observations, preferably in a controlled environment, and making inferences based on those observations.

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Every observation we have made to date about the origin of information systems, the chemistry of genetics, and the origin of micro-machinery indicates that it can’t happen unguided – wasting our time on fruitless explorations of fantasy scenarios when we have robust explanations that actually work is a waste of time, and ultimately, hinders the actual work we could be doing in biology and our complete understanding of the cell.

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A paradigm that recognizes the cell as an engineered structure will bear much more fruit in terms of research and practical application than a paradigm which see it as an incidental occurrence. And you yourself have already conceded the fundamental power of ID to detect design.

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You are missing the forest for the trees. The natural causes are ‘well understood’ for those other phenomena because natural causes for those phenomena exist; no natural phenomena for producing life exists. I mean, how many ‘natural phenomena’ occurred on earth that you know of that were completely unique? Why would such chemistry happen only once in earths history? You are doing exactly what creationists are accused of doing – you are arguing based on what we don’t know rather than what we do know – it is essentially ‘naturalism of the gaps’.

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Sure, the origin of the pyramids used to be a big mystery too, but we didn’t ignore the reasonable explanation (that they were the product of intelligence) because of the completely unlikely proposition that they were the product of natural events.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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When you find a DNA strand shaped like my wife's wedding ring, let me know!

Certainly.

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I knew that would happen... its a nice illustration and all, but what does the real thing look like?

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ID is based upon completely different principles than SETI, and your other example of systemic flaking. In each of those other cases, we are comparing the same objects all of which have known natural origins and artificially generated sources by humans.

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Systemic flaking: rocks shaped by natural causes vs. rocks shaped by man

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ID: Computers, assembly lines, etc vs. self replicating biological organisms
Sorry, this is unlike the others... its not similar nor based on the same techniques at all. A gross categorization error of lumping biological organisms with man made 'information systems' and drawing out incorrect inferences based on that faulty comparison. With SETI we're comparing radio signals to radio signals, with systemic flaking we're comparing rocks to rocks. With ID we're comparing computers to oranges.

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We don't understand the natural causes of life, because it extremely complicated and we have only recently had the technology to dig deep enough to begin to address the question. You're suggesting we just skip ahead over years of research that will be required to determine possible natural causes for life and say its intelligently designed and be done with it? Right now we dont have an adequate explanation and many are working on finding one. ID would halt all this research and jump to the conclusion that its designed... ID would be very destructive to ongoing research in all areas of science this touches.

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We know a lot about ancient Egypt, and that there has been civilization there for thousands of years. We always knew the Egyptians built the pyramids, we just did'nt know how given what we assumed about their technological competence.

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Again you are conflating human designed information systems with DNA, the cell etc. Humans haven't produced anything like them.

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You need to wake up and smell the coffee. DNA production is big business.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud
Actually, in the cases of SETI we are comparing the case of radio signals produced by human intelligence to the case of radio signals produced by a presumed alien intelligence, based on the asumption that intelligence=intelligence; exactly like ID.

Actually we are looking for certain indicators that can only be the product of intelligence because they are too improbable to be the result of natural forces - exactly like ID.

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Information systems are information systems; biologists may disagree about the cause of life, but no biologist claims that living systems don't contain information systems.

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Actually, what we have recently understood is the sophistication of the information systems and nano-machinery found in living cells. This doesn't bode well for unguided processes.

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So you are arguing that if we knew nothing about Egyptian civilization we would be forced to conclude the pyramids arose naturally? What if we found the exact same structures on another planet?

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Not that simple. Another indicator context. It is quite possible for rocks to form naturally that look like primitive human designed tools. However, if they are located on a top of a steep mountain peak in great numbers, with no other signs of human civilization, it casts some serious doubt on the origin of those rocks.

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Same with SETI. They also look at context and would be extremely suspect of any signal that comes from a system where we don't think there would potentially be a habitable planet even if it matched their other parameters. We know what to look for because human beings modified/used these things in ways which differ from nature. ID would be like SETI/systemic flaking if we created modified organisms, and then later tried to determine if it was man made or not

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. Life is a system that has no such contexts, and we lack the essential knowledge to even begin to consider the possibility of a designer, scientifically.

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So? It still does not follow that you can infer design of living information systems, because we have invented 'information systems' that if you paint them with broad enough of a brush, kind of, sort of operate similarly... in very very loose analogous ways. Cause and effect run amuck.

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It means we have a lot more to explain... simply dodging those questions and jumping to the conclusion that design happened is extremely premature, at best. This is exactly what ID encourages. I suspect you also know this, but it seems to me ID is driven by the notion that if we can just scientifically prove God, then all of societies problems will be solved... from teen pregnancy to drug use and immorality. Those evil secular humanists won't have any excuse to keep Him out of schools anymore! Along with a hatred of science, this certainly seems to be Ben Steins motivation. He's now on record for saying "Science leads to killing people".

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Of course not... even if we didn't know about the Egyptians, I think we are quite familiar with the types of structures man kind tends to build, and the structures inherently found in nature. Unfortunately, this doesn't translate over to biological organisms in any meaningful way just because humans manage and create information... computers vs oranges...

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I'm sure there is an extremely minute possibility that a structure like the pyramids actually could form naturally... it would be so improbable I'm sure that we would consider it impossible. We could probably figure out a reasonable probability value for the pyramids forming naturally vs built by man. However, we don't even understand enough about life's origins to make any reasonable guesses as to the probability of life forming naturally. As such, you simply cannot say with any authority that it is improbable, and must be a product of intelligence. Therefore, the only rational assumption to make, given the lack of knowledge is natural causes. Maybe the evidence will take us to design one day... unfortunately, its not there.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud
Actually, the scientific methodology of determining whether a rock is a geofact (a natural product) or artifact (the product of intelligence) has nothing to do where it is found; it has to do with the nature of the flakes that formed the shape of the rock; it is considered to improbable for a rock to have multiple flakes forming an edge on both sides to have been done by natural forces. Perhaps you simply didn’t understand how this works.

Again, what SETI looks for has little to do with ‘location’ and much to do with the nature of an artificially manipulated signal.

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Well, obviously, not ever having found an alien civilization before we have no context for that either; but we do know what it takes to manipulate radio signals in certain ways, and consider those indicators of intelligence; ID is exactly the same in this regard.

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It’s not at all ‘loosely analogous’; the genome has every specific aspect an information system requires; biologists understand this. It may be you simply aren’t all that familiar with information systems to understand this.

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No, ID encourages the exploration of identifying the activity of intelligence, and in every case the criteria offered are wholly falsifiable; prattling on and on about irrelevancies doesn’t change this.

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Perhaps you missed the ‘other planet’ reference, if we found such structures in a place where no humans existed, would the same understandings apply?

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You are finally showing a smidgeon of comprehension here; we would consider the origin of a pyramidal structure to be so unlikely to have formed naturally that we would infer the work of intelligence. Bravo! That is intelligent design in a nutshell.

Now having conceded the logical methodology of ID, your only hold up seems to be our lack of understanding of biological structures – this of course is a relative consideration. As long as we know the criteria are valid, it is simply a matter of being confident in our knowledge of how the cell works – I am simply a little ahead of you on this.

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The folks at SETI disagree with this:

"Context is important, crucially important. Imagine that we should espy a giant, green square in one of these neighboring solar systems. That would surely meet our criteria for artificiality. But a square is not overly complex. Only in the context of finding it in someone's solar system does its minimum complexity become indicative of intelligence.

In archaeology, context is the basis of many discoveries that are imputed to the deliberate workings of intelligence. If I find a rock chipped in such a way as to give it a sharp edge, and the discovery is made in a cave, I am seduced into ascribing this to tool use by distant, fetid and furry ancestors. It is the context of the cave that makes this assumption far more likely then an alternative scenario in which I assume that the random grinding and splitting of rock has resulted in this useful geometry."

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This assumes other intelligence is similar enough to human intelligence that it would care to manipulate and use radio signals in a similar way to humanity. All of our methods for reliably detecting intelligent design rely on the designer using human design principles.. characteristics of the designer are known or assumed.

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I'm familiar enough with information systems, at least in the IT world. On cell biology and genetics, I admit I am not formally trained, but simply a laymen with keen interest. Needless to say, what I have seen of human information systems and biological information systems don't compare, in my mind.

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It assumes the causation of life couldn't be natural, and any endeavor to explore that realm is fruitless and a waste of time.

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Possibly, if the structures could be assumed unlikely enough to form through natural causes. But this assumes the geology of said planet is similar enough to Earth, or the structure is distinct enough from its environment to rule out natural causes. We also assume that, should intelligence exist and it is equal or greater than our own, it would build structures for shelter/worship/whatever. But there is no evidence to suggest life in any way cannot happen naturally.

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Can you show some real world examples where specified complexity has been applied and proven that his formula is correct for detecting intelligence?

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ORIGINAL: Jhud
Yes, I am familiar with Seth Shostak’s criticisms, indeed, I think I have answered them before in this thread. I don’t see that this as contradicting what I said at all.

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Exactly; the comparison between a known designer and unknown one is valid because what is at issue is not ‘humanity’ but the effect of intelligence on the design of structures and systems.

What would be fruitless and wasteful about intentionally designing highly efficient, optimized, and adaptable programmable micro-machinery?

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Well, there is no evidence to suggest unicorns can’t exist either, but absent evidence that they do, I would say it is reasonable to assert they don’t.

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Well, I brought up context before, but never quoted anyone from SETI on the idea. You addressed my assertion, but I provided some evidence to back up my claim.

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Well, according to human standards, many biological systems arent that efficient. Some are orders of magnitude more efficient, sure, but it's by no means the rule. We have developed some machinery that is far more efficient than nature for our needs. Just out of curiosity.... say human design of genomes provides more efficiency than what is found in nature... does that disprove ID?

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Well, the difference here is we know life exists. We don't know exactly how it came to be. We have never seen a unicorn, therefore have no reason to believe one exists, by natural causes or otherwise.