A "Design Inference" in Science magazine!

You better watch it, Andrea. Dembski will probably use this article as proof that ID is indeed being published in the mainstream literature, despite the irrelevance of his own so-called methodology. (But he may include you in the acknowledgements of his next book (due out any hour now) for having brought it to his attention.)

LOL.
He should then include all the anthopological literature dating back to a century ago or so!

Some creationists in fact make the comparison to archeology and paleoanthropology, stating that if one can infer that an arrowhead is designed, then why can't one infer that an organism is designed?

Don't pass over this nugget from the first link in Andrea's post:

"Ironically, faith-based candidate Garrick was passed over for claiming he had a Ph.D. when he didn't, and the search for a superintendent has been reopened."

Garrick was the guy with the "strong spirtuality." I'm sure he wasn't really lying about his credentials. It was all just an honest "mistake."

Walnut Rob:
I think you are referring to a link in Timothy Sandefur's "Montana Shenanigans" post. You may want to repost your comment there.

Taking a broader perspective, the progression of hominid artifacts roughly parallels the evolution of their makers.

Homo habilis - Oldowan tools

Homo erectus - Acheulean tools

Neanderthals, etc. - Mousterian tools

Cro-Magnons (present-day Homo sapiens) - Fanciest tools with the most regional variation; also decorative and symbolic artifacts.

In particular, while the Cro-Magnons had made lots of cave paintings, there is no clear evidence that the Neanderthals or other previous species had painted their caves.

Those African beads are interesting because they are consistent with the "Out of Africa" hypothesis, that our present species had emerged in Africa, had spread out from there, and had driven other hominid species into extinction. The "Out of Africa" hypothesis is supported by several lines of genetic evidence, and it easily fits the more usual hypotheses of how speciation happens.

Where is Joe Carter when we need him to tell us that science has no way to discern intelligent causes from non-intelligent causes, or to tell us that since this involves a mind, it's "supernatural".

Andrea Bottaro wrote:

"In other words, the authors inferred intelligent agency because they were able to make specific hypotheses about how the perforated shells may have been generated, ruled out the hypotheses that indicated non-human activities, and found empirical confirmation for the hypotheses that pointed to design. Sounds easy, uh? It should be."

Here's one that shouldn't be too hard for you either.

Science, Vol 304, Issue 5671, 694-695 , 30 April 2004

"A pre-mRNA synthesized by RNA polymerase II needs to associate in a dynamic fashion with different components of the splicing machinery. These components are small nuclear RNAs that serve as guides for the proteins that help the pre-mRNA adopt a structure suitable for splicing to take place. Indeed, mutations in genes encoding splicing proteins have been shown to alleviate or bypass the requirement for RNA helicases. During these dynamic rearrangements, dissociation of many protein-RNA and RNA-RNA interactions are absolutely required in order for other mutually exclusive interactions to take place. Once processed, the mature mRNA will be guided by proteins to the nuclear pore, through which it needs to pass and where it may interact directly or indirectly with components of the pore complex. Some of the guiding proteins will remain in the nucleus, and others may pass to the cytoplasm together with the mRNA. Upon its arrival in the cytoplasm, the mRNA is commandeered by the translation machinery. In many different systems it has been shown that secondary structures and RNA binding proteins impede the scanning of the small ribosomal subunit for the initiator codon. And finally, nucleases must be able to degrade the mRNA, again a process that is inhibited by either RNA binding proteins or secondary structures. All of these steps need proteins that can undo RNA duplexes and disrupt RNA-protein interactions (otherwise mRNA would not be able to serve as a template for translation)."
"

Multiple processes, multiple structures performing multiple functions and integrated in such a way that they support each other and the overall function of the system. Clearly, well beyond the realm of random, accidental or fortuitous occurrences as evolutionists would have us believe. And just as clearly, the product of intelligent input and guidance.

"Multiple processes, multiple structures performing multiple functions and integrated in such a way that they support each other and the overall function of the system. Clearly, well beyond the realm of random, accidental or fortuitous occurrences as evolutionists would have us believe. And just as clearly, the product of intelligent input and guidance."

Yes, sure. In fact, I heard that the first version of the paper Henshilwood submitted consisted solely of a picture of the beads, and the bold statement: "Clearly, these are beads!". Alas, it was rejected and the reviewers asked him to do some real work instead. ;-)

Seriously, Charlie, the only clear thing here is that you and I have different interpretations regarding the meaning of "clearly".

So, going back to that sentence of mine you quoted and your example, I'd appreciate if you could tell us what exactly are the specific hypotheses you can make about how the system in question may have been generated, how you are going to rule out those hypotheses that do not involve intelligent agency, and how do you plan to find empirical confirmation for the hypotheses that point to design. That's the kind of work ID gotta do if it wants to be taken seriously. Just saying "clearly" does not cut it in science (or Science).

Andrea Bottaro wrote:

"So, going back to that sentence of mine you quoted and your example, I'd appreciate if you could tell us what exactly are the specific hypotheses you can make about how the system in question may have been generated, how you are going to rule out those hypotheses that do not involve intelligent agency, and how do you plan to find empirical confirmation for the hypotheses that point to design.

Well, one advantage that Henshilwood and his co-workers had was that they understood human behavior, and they could make comparisons between what they observed and what might be expected from human intelligence. Unfortunately , we have no knowledge of the nature of the intelligence that created life, so we cannot use that kind of comparison. But that doesn't mean that we can't make a strong circumstantual case for intelligent input.
One way to approach the problem would be to make observations and try and determine if there are any non-intelligent processes that are capable of generating this kind of organization. Clearly there are not. In every case in which we have a complex, highly organized system, it was the result of intelligent input. There are no exceptions (of course, this does not rule out some yet to be discovered first principle that might be responsible). Since living organisms are the subject of our inquiry, we cannot use them as examples, either for or against intelligent guidance.
Obviously we are not able to provide empirical evidence, either observational or experimental to confirm our hypothesis but then there is no similar evidence for evolution by mutation and selection. It seems to me that if evolutionists want to be taken seriously, they have a great deal of work to do also, starting with providing an empirically supported nexus between random mutations and changes in gene frequency due to selection and the emergence of highly organized, complex systems made up of multiple processes and multiple structures performing multiple functions all integrated in such a way as to support each other and the overall function of the system. ID is one step ahead of you in that regard because we can show that all such systems that exist on earth are the result of intelligent input and we can show that no non-intelligent process can generate such organization. What do you have that compares to this?

One way to approach the problem would be to make observations and try and determine if there are any non-intelligent processes that are capable of generating this kind of organization. Clearly there are not.

Since living organisms are the subject of our inquiry, we cannot use them as examples, either for or against intelligent guidance.

Obviously we are not able to provide empirical evidence, either observational or experimental to confirm our hypothesis but then there is no similar evidence for evolution by mutation and selection.

It seems to me that if evolutionists want to be taken seriously, they have a great deal of work to do also, starting with providing an empirically supported nexus between random mutations and changes in gene frequency due to selection and the emergence of highly organized, complex systems made up of multiple processes and multiple structures performing multiple functions all integrated in such a way as to support each other and the overall function of the system.

ID is one step ahead of you in that regard because we can show that all such systems that exist on earth are the result of intelligent input and we can show that no non-intelligent process can generate such organization.

Since living organisms are the subject of our inquiry, we cannot use them as examples, either for or against intelligent guidance.

A supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, especially one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained. (Emphasis added)

RBH wrote:

"That's simply bizarre. There's no other word for it but "bizarre.""

There's nothing bizarre about it at all. If you're trying to decide whether living organisms are the product of random processes or intelligent guidance, you can't use living organisms as an example of a system that resulted from random processes any more than you can use it as an example of a system that resulted from intelligent guidance. After all, that's the question that's being considered. It's not ruling out evidence from the actual area of inquiry, it's disallowing the use of the subject of the inquiry as evidence for either position. It's perfectly acceptable to do this.

There's nothing bizarre about it at all. If you're trying to decide whether living organisms are the product of random processes or intelligent guidance, you can't use living organisms as an example of a system that resulted from random processes any more than you can use it as an example of a system that resulted from intelligent guidance. After all, that's the question that's being considered. It's not ruling out evidence from the actual area of inquiry, it's disallowing the use of the subject of the inquiry as evidence for either position. It's perfectly acceptable to do this.

Charlie,

So by your logic, when attempting to determine whether disease is caused by germs or by, say, bad air, it would be inappropriate to study actual diseases and to conclude that they were caused by viruses or bacteria? All in the name of "disallowing the use of the subject of the inquiry as evidence for either position"? Interesting.

Your objection to "us[ing] living organisms as an example of a system that resulted from random processes" involves a couple of errors. First, only mutation is random. Selection is very much non-random. But more importantly, you seem to be claiming that biologists accept darwinian evolution on a more or less a priori basis. This is simply not the case. We accept evolutionary explanations because there is a wealth of data supporting such explanations, a claim which cannot be made regarding ID. Why do creationists persist in asserting otherwise?

RBH wrote:
"First, no one I know (except intelligent design creationists) is "trying to decide whether living organisms are the product of random processes or intelligent guidance." That's a false statement of the problem.

And what is the true statement of the problem?

RBH: "Evolutionary theory does not claim that living organisms are the product of random processes any more than quantum mechanics claims that the solidity of the ground on which I just walked the dogs is the product of random processes, in spite of the fact that quantum mechanics has an irreducibly random base. The "random processes" claim is a blatant misrepresentation that intelligent design creationists use to avoid the genuine content of evolutionary theory."

No it isn't. It's perfectly correct. I've explained this several times before so perhaps you can provide my with the reasoning as to why it is not random. And while you're at it, I would appreciate hearing the "genuine content of evolutionary theory".

RBH: "Second, there's a difference between "example" and "evidence." In contrast to intelligent design creationists, genuine scientists do not merely point at examples and exclaim "evolved!"

Examples *are* evidence. And by the way, I am *not* an intelligent design creationist. Intelligent design has nothing to do with creationism in the science domain. It has to do with explaining the origin of living things using the scientific method.

RBH: "Even if Chariie's formulation were a genuine statement of the problem (and I re-emphasize that it is not),"

Again, I ask how you would state the problem.

RBH: "if one could demonstrate via systematic research (not merely assert) that a given biological system could in fact result from so-called "random processes," that would constitute evidence directly relevant to the question. Since we can demonstrate, directly and indirectly, in field and laboratory research and in computer models, that complex functional structures can arise via the mechanical processes invoked by evolutionary theory under the conditions that theory assumes, we have actual evidence bearing on the genuine question resulting from research in the appropriate domain of inquiry."

Complexity is a non-issue. It's not what we're talking about. I can generate massive complexity with simple, random processes. What I cannot generate with random processes is organization or functionality. Could you give me an example of a complex *functional* structure that "can arise via the mechanical processes invoked by evolutionary theory under the conditions that theory assumes..."

RBH: "It is "perfectly acceptable" only if one so distorts the meaning of "evidence" as to render it unrecognizable. I repeat: that's a bizarre caricature.

The only distortion is in your perception. It's perfectly straighfoward and clear.

Smokey wrote:

"So by your logic, when attempting to determine whether disease is caused by germs or by, say, bad air, it would be inappropriate to study actual diseases and to conclude that they were caused by viruses or bacteria? All in the name of "disallowing the use of the subject of the inquiry as evidence for either position"? Interesting.

Wrong. What would be wrong would be to present me with a patient with a disease and use his disease as evidence that diseases can be caused by bad air. Obviously we aren't allowed to do that because we don't know the actual cause of his disease. This is how the scientific method works.

Smokey: "Your objection to "us[ing] living organisms as an example of a system that resulted from random processes" involves a couple of errors. First, only mutation is random. Selection is very much non-random."

As I explained (very patiently) on several occasions, NS can only act on pre-existing variation. It has no power on its own to create, assemble or integrate structures or processes. If these adaptations are present, it can select them, but it takes no part in their creation. Why do evolutionists continue to claim that NS is a non-random process when they know this?

Smokey: "But more importantly, you seem to be claiming that biologists accept darwinian evolution on a more or less a priori basis. This is simply not the case. We accept evolutionary explanations because there is a wealth of data supporting such explanations,..."

There is no data, no observational evidence, no experimental evidence that supports the notion that changes in gene frequency can result in the emergence of highly organized structures, processes and systems. Why do evolutionists keep making this claim without presenting the alleged evidence? (That's a rhetorical question. We both know the answer).

Smokey: "a claim which cannot be made regarding ID. Why do creationists persist in asserting otherwise?"

I wouldn't know, I'm not a creationist.
But there is more evidence for ID than there is for unguided evolution, as I explained elsewhere.

Charlie Wagner wrote: (that's me)

"Wrong. What would be wrong would be to present me with a patient with a disease and use his disease as evidence that diseases can be caused by bad air. Obviously we aren't allowed to do that because we don't know the actual cause of his disease. This is how the scientific method works."

I may not have made it clear that the scenario described above is occurring *before* we knew that bacteria and viruses cause disease. Since we know the origin of automobiles, the question of whether they are designed is moot: we know they are. But the key is, we don't know the origin of living organisms. That precludes us from using them as examples for any hypothesis about their origin.

We know automobiles are designed? How?

If we do the Paley exercise, and ask how we could tell that a watch found on the moor did not occur there naturally, we might actually get to some real criteria about how to tell whether something is designed or not. That is, we can look at designed things, note their characteristics, and then go see if we can find similar characteristics in things about which we are unsure whether they are designed or not. At its root, this is what Dembski's "complex specified information" hoo-haw is about, though he immediately leaps off on the assumption that there is information in DNA that is perfectly analogous to information transmitted either digitally or analog through a wire -- but we don't need to note all of Dembski's errors to find some real design criteria.

Here are some criteria I've found to work time and time again, and may tell us whether an automobile is, in fact, designed.

First, do we know the process by which the thing came to be? With automobiles, we do. And we know where the designers are in that process, and often we know the designers (or can know them) by name.

Second, if we don't know the exact process, do we have a blueprint? Is the blueprint external to the device, so we can study the design separate from the thing? If we do not have blueprints, can we reverse-design them?

Third, once we have a blueprint, can we duplicate the thing exactly? If we can duplicate it, does it meet Paley's other criteria for not having occurred there naturally? (That is, the stuff it's made from doesn't occur in that form, the things are not dropping from the flowers of trees nor popping out of the ground, etc., etc.)

Fourth, can we reverse engineer the entire thing? Everything we know for certain to have been designed is subject to the reverse-engineering rule, as we sadly discover whenever some brilliant new product escapes beyond the bounds of patent law. (Or maybe we happily discover that, if we want to screw the designer out of her royalties.)

Fifth, in the reverse engineering exercise, can we disassemble the device on our workbench, and then reassemble it and have it run as well as before?

Sixth, can we disassemble the device on our workbench, leave it when the Dear Spouse calls us to dinner, forget about it while we watch a re-run of Hill Street Blues, fall asleep on the couch, get up and go to work, and then remember it the next afternoon -- and still reassemble it and have it run "good as new?"

Seventh, can we substitute the energy supply? Watches, for example, were spring wound when Paley thought about finding them on the moors. Now such a watch might be battery operated, electricity substituting for the energy of the spring. Hypothetically, almost all things we know to be designed from scratch by intelligence can have its energy supplies completely switched out in such a fashion. Nota bene that I am not yet talking about substituting the actual machinery, such as by putting a quartz watch mechanism in place of the gears and cogs found in a mechanical watch.

Eighth, does the device go get its own "fuel" if left to its own devices? My experience is that no designed object will, but most living things do. If we don't feed the Dachsund, for example, she discovers she can counter surf for a meal, and has been known to polish all the toppings off of two large pizzas left otherwise unprotected on the counter -- not to mention cheese pockets from Stein's Bakery in North Dallas. If the object can get its own cheese pockets from inside the workshop, it's probably not designed.

Ninth, can we improve the design? (Here's where we introduce the quartz mechanism.) Especially, can we improve the design by making it more simple, rather than making it more complex? Simplicity, not complexity, is the usual hallmark of design among professional designers who don't have graduate degrees in theology or philosophy and a philosophical axe to grind. For this instrument we wish to whether it is designed or not, can we perform the analogous operation to substituting an electrically driven quartz crystal vibration and tiny electrical motor for all the regulatory gears and spring wound mechanism, thereby making fewer parts to gang aft agly, and also making the manufacture and operation more efficient?

Tenth, does the thing fail to reproduce itself? For every thing we are certain is designed by an intelligence, we have failed to make any of them reproduce themselves. This may be a function of the external blueprints; a computer, if it were completely programmed to be able to manipulate its own design, might make some strides in that direction. But generally, life goes on without any help, and we must intelligently intervene to stop living things from reproducing in their natural habitats.

This last criteria is rather soft, I think. I'd be willing to sacrifice it if someone could demonstrate how it could be done. Heck, if someone could demonstrate how to do it with a dollar bill, I'd be willing to pay several thousands of dollars for it. (I am not one who subscribes to the hypothesis that coat hangers reproduce in dark closets. My experience is that the cheap, shirt hangers tend to accumulate, but the expensive, wooden suit hangers never do -- and I have some good working hypotheses about the non-reproductive origins of the shirt hangers.)

Automobiles meet all of these criteria; no living thing does.

Darrell's Rules, or Darrell's Ten Commandments of Intelligent Design, say that designed things really must appear to be designed things, generally by meeting at least eight of the criteria I've listed above (I may have left out one or two criteria that I've pondered in the past, and I reserve the right to add them in if, like Howard Gardner and his views of intelligence, I get convinced of it later).

Notice that my proposal requires that the entire beastie be designed from scratch. There are ways we can distinguish Humulin-producing E. coli from the purely natural kind, I suspect -- but I haven't reverse engineered them yet to figure out how to tell.

Mr. Wagner's arguments are all tangential to determining whether something is designed or not. His arguments assume that complex things are equal to designed things, and I don't think that's been demonstrated anywhere. Without that assumption, he has no other criteria which can be described to a graduate student who could be turned loose in a parking lot to find which automobiles are intelligently designed and which are not, or which organisms in the agar are intelligently designed and which are not.

Mr. Wagner's arguments are all tangential to determining whether something is designed or not. His arguments assume that complex things are equal to designed things, and I don't think that's been demonstrated anywhere. Without that assumption, he has no other criteria which can be described to a graduate student who could be turned loose in a parking lot to find which automobiles are intelligently designed and which are not, or which organisms in the agar are intelligently designed and which are not.

What would be wrong would be to present me with a patient with a disease and use his disease as evidence that diseases can be caused by bad air. Obviously we aren't allowed to do that because we don't know the actual cause of his disease. This is how the scientific method works.

As I explained (very patiently) on several occasions, NS can only act on pre-existing variation. It has no power on its own to create, assemble or integrate structures or processes. If these adaptations are present, it can select them, but it takes no part in their creation. Why do evolutionists continue to claim that NS is a non-random process when they know this?

I wouldn't know, I'm not a creationist. But there is more evidence for ID than there is for unguided evolution, as I explained elsewhere.

Charlie

I think it is very clear from Ed's post that he was NOT saying a blueprint was necessary for designing something.

Ed was saying that if you designs for something (e.g., a blueprint) it is good evidence that the thing was designed.

Tell me again what your former occupation was, Charlie? On the other hand, please don't. I just ate.

Here's an EASY question for you, Chuck. You should be able to answer this in less time than it takes for Zimmy to sing "Wiggle Wiggle"!

Imagine you are walking through the forest and you spot a river. You walk along the riverside for a short while when suddenly you enter an area where the water isn't flowing as quickly. At this point in the river, near the middle of is a bunch of sticks and grass and rocks which is partially blocking the water flow, but not completely. But it has blocked it enough so that now people can swim in this area and indeed, there are people swimming in the cool relatively still water. In one area of the river, the water is sufficiently deep that people can dive in. You see people doing so. A tree near the river has a branch that serves as a diving board. People are diving off the branch into the tree. A bank near the river is sloped such that people can rest there, and so they are doing. At one portion of this section of the river, there are less trees. The sun shines brightly there, allowing blackberries to grow. People are eating the blackberries. The combination of the blackberries and the still water and the depth of the water and the sloped bank has attracted many people to this place. Finally, there is a hot spring on the other side of the river which prevents the water in the swimming hole from getting too cold. People love to hang out near the hot spring and even take their clothes off from time to time. Occasionally people who tire of swimming wander off into the forest to copulate on the soft grass which grows near the swimming hole, then they return to the pool for a final swim before going home.

Charlie, you said that a system which included processes performing functions, structures performing functions, all integrated in such a way that they support each other and they support the overall function of the system
must necessarily be intelligently designed.

The swimming hole system I've just described MUST have been intelligently designed.

Is the last sentence true or false, Chuck? If it's false, please free to offer another definition of organization which fits your pre-ordained conclusion about intelligent design.

On the contrary, I've made it very clear that there's a big difference between complexity and organization. All automobiles are intelligently designed so the graduate students have an easy task. In addition, if it can be demonstrated that living things are designed, it would apply to all living things. Your list of criteria is interesting, but flawed. Things can be designed without us knowing the process or the designer. Things can be designed without leaving blueprints. (you must be an engineer). We may not be able to duplicate designed things because we lack the technology. The same applies to reverse engineering and disassembly/reassembly. What you really should look for is organization. By organization I mean processes performing functions, structures performing functions, all integrated in such a way that they support each other and they support the overall function of the system. This kind of integrated system cannot arise without intelligent guidance.

Charlie,
If one cannot use living systems to evaluate living systems then it follows that one cannot use intelligence to evaluate intelligence.

My favorite thought example is Mount Rushmore vs New Hampshires late "Old Man in the Mountain."

It is pretty clear that Mt Rushmore was designed. We have plenty of "side information" to determine that.

Was the Old Man designed? How could we tell if some Native American did not take an interesting outcropping and carve a picture of his Mother-In-Law?

While you could look for tool marks and things, there is a good possibility that they may have weathered away.

"Charlie,
If one cannot use living systems to evaluate living systems then it follows that one cannot use intelligence to evaluate intelligence."

Uhmmm... you may have hit on something there, qbusch. That may explain how many ID "inferences" work. ;-)

"Since living organisms are the subject of our inquiry, we cannot use them as examples, either for or against intelligent guidance."

"If we do the Paley exercise, and ask how we could tell that a watch found on the moor did not occur there naturally, we might actually get to some real criteria about how to tell whether something is designed or not. That is, we can look at designed things, note their characteristics, and then go see if we can find similar characteristics in things about which we are unsure whether they are designed or not."

"I missed where you differentiate between complexity and organization. In any case, you seem to dismiss the reality that many things self-organize. Hydrogen and oxygen, for example, always combust to water. Most of the processes of life, especially at the chemical and subcellular levels, are of this nature. Chemicals self-organize into the building blocks of life. No intelligence is required to make them work."

Ed, there's one problem: all of your criteria refer to things made by humans. How can these same criteria apply to living things, which obviously are not made by humans?

You also said (in response to Charlie): "I missed where you differentiate between complexity and organization. In any case, you seem to dismiss the reality that many things self-organize. Hydrogen and oxygen, for example, always combust to water. Most of the processes of life, especially at the chemical and subcellular levels, are of this nature. Chemicals self-organize into the building blocks of life. No intelligence is required to make them work." But what does this prove? Why do certain processes of life self-organize? How did ability to self-organize come about?

I often ask them if they are familiar with the precesses by which a human fertilized egg develops into a baby. If they "believe" that a human can develop from one fertilized cell to a billions-of-cells baby in just 281 days or so, why is it such a stretch to understand that process developed over a billion years, let alone 3 billion?

Charlie,

In the Objective Origins thread you made a distinction between "simple" systems such as eye color and neck length which you claimed were "obvious" results of gene frequency changes due to selection VERSUS "complex" "organized" structures such as the human eye which constitute the "proof" that evolution is myth, I asked you: "What is the simplest biological system that you are aware of that is nevertheless too "organized" to have evolved by natural selection?"

You haven't answered this question, Charlie, nor did you explain the obviously contradictory statements you raised.

It's courteous to clean your earlier messes up before creating new ones (or re-creating new ones, as the case may be).

In the Objective Origins thread you made a distinction between "simple" systems such as eye color and neck length

which you claimed were "obvious" results of gene frequency changes due to selection VERSUS "complex" "organized" structures such as the human eye

which constitute the "proof" that evolution is myth,

I asked you: "What is the simplest biological system that you are aware of that is nevertheless too "organized" to have evolved by natural selection?" You haven't answered this question, Charlie,

nor did you explain the obviously contradictory statements you raised.

It's courteous to clean your earlier messes up before creating new ones (or re-creating new ones, as the case may be).

Ed, how did you determine that I was "worrying"?

I'll get back to you later re: your questions.

Chemicals self-organize into the building blocks of life. No intelligence is required to make them work.

"In fact, apart from intelligence using selected chemicals and controlling conditions, amino acids have not been collected in the laboratory."

----Kenyon and Davis, Of Pandas and People, 2d ed., 1993, p.56.

That's a bizarre statement: of course in the laboratory one cannot obtain aminoacids without purposefully setting up precise experimental conditions! Duh! Unless of course Kenyon and Davis would have expected complex abiotic chemistry to occur spontaneously on lab benches... (in which case, I modestly propose that my very messy bench, especially in its lower strata, would represent an excellent candidate site)

On the other hand, that aminoacids can relatively easily form abiogenically in natural conditions is pretty much an established fact at this point, considering that aminoacids of extraterrestrial origin are found in meteorites and comets.

There are no biological systems that can be explained by mutation and natural selection.

These examples are not systems.

That you see this as a 'mess" is only a perception problem on your part. It's a clear as glass to me.

To me, it does not look like Kenyon and Davis' statement is "bizarre" at all, Andrea, particularly in light of Thaxton's points.

Specifically, you say "purposefully setting up precise experimental conditions," and that's understandable in and of itself, IF that is how far it goes. However, folks go ~beyond that~ to get their amino acids, proteinoid microspheres and etc.

(Which that's their prerogative, but then there's no experimental basis for a claim that chemicals can ~~self-organize~~ into the building blocks of life.)

For example, to get his amino acids, Miller used a cold trap. Not a problem, except that cold traps happened to be in really really short supply on the pre-biotic Earth.

Likewise, to get his microspheres, Fox used mixtures containing only protein-forming L-amino acids, again something you couldn't buy at the Primordial Wal-Mart.

Thaxton et al. suggested the following:

"Since all experiments are performed by an experimenter, they must involve ~investigator intervention~. Yet experiments must be disqualified as prebiotic simulations when a certain class of investigator influence is ~crucial~ to their success.

This is seen by analogy to the generally held requirement that no outside or supernatural agency was allowed to enter nature at the time of life's origin, was ~crucial~ to it, and then withdrew from history.

We can apply this principle through a careful extension of the analogy. In the preparation of a prebiotic simulation experiment, the investigator creates the setting, supplies the aqueous medium, the energy, the chemicals, and establishes the boundary conditions.

This activity produces the general backgournd conditions for the experiment, it is quite legitimate because it simulates plausible early earth conditions. The interference of the investigator becomes ~crucial in an illegitimate sense, however, whereever laboratory conditions are not warranted by analogy to reliably plausible features of the early earth itself."
(pp 108-9.)

So, for Thaxton, things like "dilute solutions mixed together" and "concentrated solutions where law of mass action is validly extrapolated" are acceptable experimental techniques involving intelligent investigator intervention.

But things like "photosensitization", "traps", "concentrated solutions where reactions depend on concentrated conditions like HCN polymerization", "selected chemicals, isolated from other soup ingredients", "sparks or shockwaves isolated from other energy souces", specific constraints (freon synthesis, nylon synthesis) or speical constrains (insulin synthesis) passes the threshold of illegitimate investigator interference. (pg 107.)

I guess what I'm trying to say in all this is that I believe that Kenyon/Davis is correct.
In other words, nobody has yet created amino acids in the laboratory without doing SOME kind of tweaking or intelligent intervention that passes the Thaxton threshold, therefore nobody can yet say experimentally that chemicals self-organize into the building blocks of life.

And so, what about those amino acids you mentioned, hitching a ride on that stray meteor(s) or comet(s) there?

Well, I've read about those, but----
I'm still waiting to read an explanation or experiment for how even THOSE amino acids, were created ~~without~~ intelligent intervention.

And the rest of the known problems with this abiogenetic stuff (chirality, instability, etc) still apparently remain with the discovery of those outer-space amino acids as well, to my understanding.

But you know, Andrea, if the lower strata of your bench DID spontaneously create a lving functioning cell just off of whatever motley debris is plopped around down there, you'd probably get a delicious Nobel Prize for it (if the cell didn't mutate into a monster and eat up half your hometown like they do on the late-nite movies!)

FL

"And so, what about those amino acids you mentioned, hitching a ride on that stray meteor(s) or comet(s) there?

Well, I've read about those, but------
I'm still waiting to read an explanation or experiment for how even THOSE amino acids, were created ~~without~~ intelligent intervention. "

FL, you are of course entitled to believe that an Intelligent Designer continuously liberally sprinkles interstellar space with intelligently designed aminoacids. It does however sound like a rather unparsimonious hypothesis (not to mention rationally inexplicable - why would a designer keep doing that?), considering that there is reasonable evidence that complex organic chemistry can occur in space under bombardment from light and solar radiation. If you do have an open mind on the subject, I suggest you try updating your sources first (much has happened in the abiogenesis field since Thaxton, 1984).

This is no different from the assumption that William Dembski uses --- except that he doesn't bother to look at the characteristics of design, but instead assumes that DNA is exactly like a telephone signal in a wire. Go ask Dembski why he assumes his criteria, which are based on human designs, would work for a supernatural creator.

Do you have any reasons --- or even better, any data --- to suggest that these are NOT valid criteria? Why should we not understand these criteria to apply to all things designed by any intelligence?

It's all we have right now. Do you seriously think we should ignore all of what we know about design?

First, do we know the process by which the thing came to be?

Eighth, does the device go get its own "fuel" if left to its own devices? My experience is that no designed object will, but most living things do.

Ninth, can we improve the design?

Tenth, does the thing fail to reproduce itself? For every thing we are certain is designed by an intelligence, we have failed to make any of them reproduce themselves.

"But the question remains, how did all the "naturally occurring" stuff get here?"

I put it there.

"But the question remains, how did all the "naturally occurring" stuff get here?" I put it there.

The Muffin Men of M-31 may have been detected! These are the most likely designers to date. Charlie, I hope you're reading this. Beelzebub, eat your heart out!

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/americas/05/11/mexico.ufos.ap/index.html

Anybody know of a biology/evolution site where they don't let creationists overrun the comment sections?

Anybody know of a biology/evolution site where they don't let creationists overrun the comment sections?

Giant pandas are classed as bears by most scientists. Unlike other bears, they vocalize by bleating rather than roaring. Until recently, giant pandas were grouped with raccoons and lesser pandas (i.e., the Procyonidae (raccoon) family). This decision was based primarily on physiological evidence. In the late 1980's, DNA/serological studies clearly established that giant pandas are clearly more bear than raccoon. Some scientists want to place giant pandas in their own grouping; but for most bear researchers, this does not seem warranted. http://giant-panda.com/pandacool.html

I think there exists good reason to disagree with those statements. Intelligent interference or intervention appears to be a requirement.

Chemicals self-organize into the building blocks of life. No intelligence is required to make them work.