Not quite, that is still half the picture. Merely being highly improbable is not enough. The feature must also correspond to the highly specified independent pattern.
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Aye Mervin. Where do they get off scientifically, going forward in evolution from abiogenesis, reading that? As Jacques Monod said, they appear to be missing out on necessity.
“They” are right here in the room with us, Martin, so you can address your question straight to them. Let’s not be rude to other forum participants.
Eric, thanks for the correction. “highly specified independent pattern” is probably the main ID challenge to define, right?
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That’s what people say. Actually, both components, complexity and specificity, are supposedly too hard or even impossible to calculate scientifically. I disagree, but don’t know enough biological terminology to avoid looking like a fool discussing the details.
Anywho, that is the only solid criticism of ID theory I see, that it maybe is impractical. Everything else I’ve seen is mischaracterization or misunderstanding well accepted mathematical theory. My recent Bio-C paper details a number of the equivalent theories in mainstream mathematics.
The challenge of recognizing information fascinates me too - but I’m pretty sure I’m less up on that than you are. I read one of Dembski’s books years ago, but can’t even remember the title at this point. So at one time I was more informed about things like “Shannon Information” theory and its practical applications in things like data compression. My hat’s off to the mathematicians and statisticians in that field.
“Looking like a fool” is easily one of our top ten themes around here, so you shouldn’t stand out too much even if you did. Nothing ventured, nothing learned.
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True, although I’ve spent a very long time on similar forums doing my best to explain and understand, while getting mostly unthought out flak in return. As a man with a family of five and full time job, it is not a great return on investment I’ve experienced. My brief experience here does not indicate matters will be much different.
that’s a really interesting question. I am not sure, but if we posit that evolution was the method by which the creators of these cars came to be…in a very roundabout way, it’s sort of what happened, right? Complex processes, even if we can’t find a uniquely God influenced stage, are not the less marvelous that they are processes, though–isn’t that right?
@DOL Denis Lamoureux has a unique insight into ID that I’d like him to discuss sometime. I am not sure I am up to his interpretation enough to discuss clearly yet. He’s talked with Stephen Meyer on stage in Toronto.
His illustration of the divine pool player who can shoot all the balls into each pocket with one stroke is an interesting one.
Thanks for your discussion.
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Yes, or for that matter we can just say “physics did it” and let all questions end there. A physics of the gaps, if you will.
Or, I can solve all murder cases with that logic by saying “evolution did it”.
Personally, that sort of answer is not super satisfying, but I can see why people find comfort in such claims because it seems like they’ve got everything figured out.
Less tongue in cheek, regardless of what the aliens or we think about the origin of humans (aliens don’t even know about us in this scenario), I would argue the aliens are justified in inferring a very atypical process created the artifact, and furthermore if they possess technology built by composing many parts into highly specific functional wholes, they would be justified in inferring whatever created the artifact must bear a strong resemblance to their own technology creating intelligence. I am curious to know where you would disagree with the validity of these alien inferences.
My apologies for not being inclusive to those of the ID faith and to yourself as moderator Melvin.
A “highly specified independent pattern” is apophenia when it isn’t real.
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I concur with what @EricMH noted about complexity + specificity. some observations…
Firstly, I imagine a scenario where our hypothetical intelligent aliens come to our planet, far in the future, after human life is extinct, to do their research, and, say, find hundreds of stone arrowheads in some locations. A debate breaks out within their society, between those who are convinced this world never had intelligent life, embrace “methodological naturalism,” and thus they insist the arrowheads must have a natural explanation… and those that allow “intelligent agency” as a possible mechanism.
but in this hypothetical case, the ID faction of the aliens are looking at the functional specificity of said arrowheads as their reason for embracing intelligent design, not extraordinary complexity. in theory, they acknowledge that there isn’t anything so extraordinary about the arrowheads that inherently defy natural explanation… their essential shape is in principle perfectly explicable by natural formation or erosion.
And, as i’ve constructed this illustration, of course, i observe that the methodological naturalism of the one faction of the alien scientists has guaranteed that they would reach a false conclusion.
so concurring with @EricMH ‘s take… it isn’t simply “this is too complex to have ever happened naturally” … that is only half the story.
Secondly, and with great respect, i must observe what appears to me a willingness to deny the very obvious… that any alien life worthy of the adjective “intelligent” should be unable to distinguish a car or a computer from “weird rock formations “caused by “some obscure combination of planetary processes”? . even if they knew nothing about its origin, purpose, or function, i can imagine no “intelligent life” mistaking a car or computer for a naturally occurring rock or crystal formation. this seems absurd in the extreme. But at the same time, and again with greatest respect, this does seem to me the kind of thought process that a commitment to methodological naturalism requires. and hence deepens my overall skepticism.
yes, I’d grant that a solid shiny ball, something at that level, may or may not be… there just might not be enough evidence… e.g., if i changed my illustration to be that the aliens found a cache of ball bearings… they might be justified in thinking them a naturally occurring phenomenon (even though still they’d be wrong). but if they dissect a computer, or pull apart a car, even with no knowledge of what it does or how it works, the dullest of our aliens should be able to recognize this isn’t the result of natural processes creating an odd rock or mineral formation. This just isn’t what natural processes do.
this epistemological method seems deeply problematic, but at the same time it is one i run into here often, which serves to maintain my overall skepticism… i end up sincerely doubting atheists, or Christians committed to MN, would or could ever recognize design if it was right there for all the world to see… just like your “intelligent” aliens that couldn’t determine any categorical differences between a geode and an iPad.
(and all this notwithstanding my concurrence with you on the sci-first trope about jumping aboard an alien ship and instantly using all their controls.)
edit… gave it further thought and realized… if some of the aliens were committed to methodological naturalism as they studied a car or a computer, in that case i would concur that they very well would look at a car or computer and conclude it must have been a weird rock formation caused by some natural, planetary process. But this only further shows me the problem with said method.
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or let me toss in one thing to further illustrate. when i was a child, maybe 9 or 10, i found a rusty metal object in my yard… i had (and to this day have) no idea of its purpose. it is as unknown to me as if it were an alien object. it had a cylindrical opening on one side, the other side a metal extension with two prongs fading away from the opening and one that turned back inwards. to this day i have no clue what it is for.
and i can clearly and obviously tell, it was designed, and so could you. the fact that you or i might not be able to recognize its function is if very little significance to our ability to recognize it as a “not naturally occurring” phenomenon.
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I remember reading through “Country” magazine in some waiting room somewhere and being fascinated with their monthly feature “What is this?” where somebody had some old rusty doohickey they had found on their farm, with no ideas anymore what it was for … making a challenge for all their country readers to help them out. One can only imagine as we all get further and further removed from our agrarian past, how the number of such objects we no longer recognize will continue to multiply.
This highlights what must surely be a fascinating intersection of anthropology and philosophy. “Intelligence” itself must be a slippery thing to pin down. What if our alien beings were so advanced (which they must be if they are traveling between star systems, right?) that they consider terrestrial-bound creatures to be mere ‘animals’ in comparison? It strikes me that even if they knew the use of arrowheads for hunting and bows and arrows - even finding the arrowheads firmly mounted together with all those tell-tale artifacts - that even then the aliens might have no more regard for that as ‘intelligence’ than we would regard an anthill or an intricate honeycomb. It’s well-known by now that non-human animals do make use of tools such as sticks or rocks to do things - even fashioning those tools to their purpose to some extent.
So it seems to me that in order to catalog what must qualify as ‘intelligence’ in the universe, one would have to have a platform of observation above and outside our own human ways of thinking. Otherwise, all we’re really doing is just looking for others that are merely like-minded to ourselves - and assuming that as such, we must surely be the most intelligent animals around. And perhaps we are … I’ll even concede I think we probably are. But that is a fatally self-referential conclusion, and I can’t know it even about our planet, much less the cosmos! How is such a thing objectively measured? If we simplistically said, the most intelligent life is that which sustains itself the longest … then on that measure any number of bacteria or cockroaches and who knows what all else may probably prove to be ahead of humanity on that measure.
There are just too many ill-defined or subjectively anthropomorphic assumptions laying around for me to be comfortable laying claim to any epistemic certainty on these questions. You may be right that aliens ought to recognize some signature of “intelligent workmanship” on a car. But I still can’t share your certainty on that. Take it to this extreme if you will: you can’t get much more intricate in workmanship than an IC (computer chip). And yet if a person from a mere two centuries ago found a little black, square CPU chip laying on the forest floor with its hundreds of pokey little connectors sticking out of all sides, it may hold their fascination for a bit as the most oddly shaped rock or (fossilized creature?) they had ever seen, and they may keep it as a curiosity. But one thing is certain: they would never, ever, have a clue as to just how much ‘intelligence’ was packed into that little bauble they now had hanging on their necklace. And yet we know our ancestors to have been intelligent. How an entirely alien race would go about distinguishing them from the rest of the fauna they share this world with, I’m far less sure about. Shiny cars and rocketships ought surely to do the trick, right?! But that’s just you and me presuming to know how aliens think, or what universally objective ‘intelligence’ can be recognized as such (and recognized by whom?).
As a Christian, I have no problem with answering that last question: by God, of course. But that’s a whole 'nother level of intelligence I should guess. And I’m far from sure how impressed God is by shiny cars and rocket ships. Those may prove to be the cosmic signature of the spiritually / mentally retarded as likely as signs of the advanced. After all, nobody admires a spreading cancer, right? Only God knows at this point.
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True enough. But also - to say that some such things may exist only in the imagination is not a convincing argument that all such things originated there.
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Indeed “highly specified independent patterns” - whatever they might be, I can’t think of any, apart from in sewing, certainly not in nature - would be perceived by pattern recognition software if they were real.
It looks like you’re trying to run some math around origins of life, and your 22^50 for possible polypeptides of length 50 is acceptable. As long as we spell out our assumptions and agree on some Drake-like equation, we can go back and refine assumptions. This discussion is “Chemical evolution,” not the same natural processes as biological evolution, but also an important topic.
Some assumptions that may need revisiting:
- 50AAs is really short for a functioning protein!
- the early Earth did not have a reducing atmosphere. Direct evidence from zircons indicates an oxidizing, atmosphere, not a reducing one (Earth's Early Atmosphere: An Update | News | Astrobiology), and any pre-biotics would be introduced by meteorites at vastly lower concentrations. The old Miller and Urey experiment is no longer considered relevant to early Earth.
- the number of conditions needed for life on a planet to even be possible is significant. So ten million Earths in our galaxy is probably several orders of magnitude too high. Nevertheless, I’m willing to work with your number to move forward. 10 million Earths puts a “10^7” term in the numerator for this galaxy.
- “every … organic compound you can think of” includes molecules that would inhibit or destroy emerging polypeptides.
- formation of chain molecules is endothermic, so polypeptides need help to form.
Let’s see where this goes.
like a key and a lock, or ATM PIN
we have a) possible combinations (eg sequence of numbers) and b) separate configuration that must be matched
in biology A is a nucleotide sequence and B is some important protein
Independent how? Of what?
That’s where the argument gets tricky when it comes to biology, and is beyond me.
However, in the ATM PIN example, the PIN is picked independently of whatever someone types into the console, so the odds of some random joe typing in your PIN and accessing your account is miniscule.
Math is irrelevant, to the power of math applied backwards.
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50AAs is fine for a polypeptide.
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Well fancy that. “Though most scientists conceive of the early atmosphere as reducing, a 2011 article in Nature found that cerium oxidation in zircon—which comprises the oldest rocks on Earth at roughly 4.4 billion years of age—was comparable to that of present-day lava. This observation implies that Hadean atmospheric oxygen levels were similar to those of today.[3] The results do not, however, run contrary to existing theories on life’s journey from anaerobic to aerobic organisms. The results quantify the nature of gas molecules containing carbon, hydrogen, and sulphur in the earliest atmosphere, but they shed no light on the much later rise of free oxygen in the air.[4]” - Wiki - Not that it makes the slightest bit of difference. Here we are after all.
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As there are ten trillion OOM - 10^13 - denominator worlds in our insignificant galaxy in our insignificant universe, 1:1,000,000 having life is less than reasonable.
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Aye. And?
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Divine?
None of which has any relevance one way and the other to the rational fact of abiogenesis. So no, no rational assumptions whatsoever need revisiting.