On Tue, 27 Feb 1996 13:07:18 -0500 you wrote:
>DT>Kurt contrasts the lack of evolutionary explanations for the
>observations with that supplied by ID. By analogy with human
>creativity, a nested hierarchy is expected.....
>SJ>I am not sure that Kurt's argument is sound here. Humans almost
>never create in a nested hierarchy of form. They classify things
>after the event in a nested hierarchy (eg. a library) but books are
>not written in in such a pattern. Books transpose topics, eg.
>Theology - Philosophy - Science, and they have to be cross-
>referenced in any library index.
BH>Interesting point. I think "almost never" is an exaggeration. If
you look
>at products which have been around for a while and optimized for various
>functions by a number of generations of designers, you'd find nested
>hierarchies. Internal combustion engines might be a good example.
Actually I really mean "never"! :-) You are the engineer, but I doubt
that "internal combustion engines" are created in a nested hierarchy.
I am sure there is much transposition. To make sure we understand
Walter's point, here is what he says in TBM:
"Transposition is Ordinary Design Practice
We expect an ordinary designer to use the same design for the same
purpose in different organisms. Any designer can easily do this by
transposing designs. This is perfectly reasonable, commonplace
design practice-we expect it from a designer.
Yet this expectation itself constrains a biomessage sender to do the
unexpected. A biomessage sender is no ordinary designer. Rather, a
biomessage sender must take conscious steps to make life look unlike
the work of an ordinary designer. This is required if life is to be a
message.
A transposition pattern would not look like a message at all, but
would look precisely like the product of the typical designer doing
typical design. It would look like the product of a designer who has
no intention of sending a message.
Moreover, a transposition pattern would look like the casual product
of an entire civilization. It could look like the product of multiple,
separate designers sharing only a common technology base, but
sharing no common design goal. By transposing entire technologies,
one into another, our human cultures have enormously accelerated
their development. Arduini points out that innovative design is
contagious, it gets transferred by designers into other diverse
created
objects:
`[A]ircraft have evolved since Orville and Wilbur Wright took their
first flights at Kittyhawk-but not in a manner that would allow
construction of a phylogenetic tree.' (Arduini, F. I., "Design,
Created Kinds, and Engineering," Creation/Evolution, Issue XX,
Spring 1987, p23)
and
`Grumman, Northrop, and McDonnel Douglas may be designing three
individual air superiority fighters, but, if the specific design
criteria so
dictate, they can use the identical Pratt and Whitney engines for all
three aircraft. This is not convergent evolution, but it is a fact of
contemporary design.' (Arduini, 1987, p21)
A transposition pattern is a major identifying feature of a common
technology base. For one broad example, consider books from a
library. Many features of books are transposed from one to another,
for example indexes, page numbers, tables of contents, photographs,
formulas, footnotes, paragraphs, sentences, words, and grammar.
These interlinking features show that the books are from a common
civilization. Yet the books are the product of multiple designers
working independently with no common goal.
Widespread transposition is a major indication that nothing out of the
ordinary is happening. Transposition is the expected result of
independent, multiple designers who are using a common technology
base
In summary, a transposition pattern would not look like a message,
nor would it unambiguously look like the product of a single
designer. It would not meet the requirements of the biotic message.
This is a second reason why a transposition pattern should be avoided
by a biomessage sender."
(ReMine W.J., "The Biotic Message: Evolution Versus Message
Theory", St. Paul Science: Saint Paul Minn., 1993, p357)
God bless.
Stephen
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