>FMAJ: Why not? If natural selection is an intelligent designer for
instance, why are there limits to evolution.
>DNAunion: That sounds like an oxymoron to me. If you have any kind of
intelligence and design involved in the selection process, then it is not
NATURAL selection, be definition. What am I missing?
>FMAJ: One of the fundamental problems of ID: Wesley Elsberry:…
> DNAunion: You didn't address my actual question. Here, let me provide some
background information. Let us see what Darwin had to say about this.
>FMAJ: Irrelevant. You have to show that Darwin is using the same definition
of intelligence as is used by ID. The equivocation of terms leads to a
confusion of intelligence ala ID which cannot eliminate natural selection as
being an intelligent designer and the use of intelligence by Darwin.
DNAunion: What a load of bull! Let me set you straight on a couple of
things. First, you are totally wrong about Darwin. He does eliminate
intelligence and design from NATURAL selection. It would be YOU who would be
using equivocation of terms in order to state otherwise. And you have not
provided us with anything that shows my statement to be wrong.
Second, it is YOU who needs to show that Elseberry is using the same
definitions (such as those for intelligence and design) as are Dembski and
Behe. Elseberry drew personal conclusions from Dembski's statements that
Dembski himself apparently does not draw (to the best of my knowledge): that
is where the problem lies, and it needs to be resolved before you can make a
valid claim that Elseberry's conclusion follows directly from Dembski's and
Behe's statements (had so many anti-IDists who are well-known scientists not
already have misrepresented Behe's claims, then this might not be a problem:
but the history of this debate is that the statements of Behe (and Dembski?)
are frequently mangled - either intentionally or not - such that the
conclusions reached do not represent those that Behe would have).
> DNAunion: It seems clear to me that Darwin excludes from natural selection
both external conscious choices (as in the intervention by a Deity) and
internal conscious choices (as in the organism directing its own evolution).
What kind of conscious choice remains?
>FMAJ: Now you are conflating intelligence as used by ID with conscious
choice.
>DNAunion: Then please, all-mighty and all-knowing oracle of definitions,
please please please provide us all with the true definitions so that we,
your humble servants, might be better able to understand the wells of
knowledge that flow from thine lips.
>FMAJ: Where does it follow from ID that the intelligent design requires
conscious choice?
DNAunion: I never said that ID did REQUIRE conscious choice: I said the
NATURAL selection excludes it. Get it yet? I doubt it. As far as
intelligence, note that while intelligent direction is excluded from NATURAL
selection, the word INTELLIGENT is in Intelligent Design.
>DNAunion:: None that I can think of. The only "choice" I see that fits into
Darwin's definition is that of the environment acting upon the pheontype:
this is neither intelligent nor designed (unless you are going to claim that
someone did it the hard way, indirectly, and modified the environment to
obtain the desired organismal results).
>FMAJ: Ah, you now assert that it is neither intelligent nor designed.
DNAunion: No, that is basically what I have been correctly stating all
along: that NATURAL selection cannot involve intelligence and design.
>FMAJ: But is that correct?
DNAunion: Of course it is!
>FMAJ: It surely does not follow from the definitions of ID as proposed by
Dembski or Behe.
Behe on Design: "Purposeful arrangement of parts."
Ignoring the potential equivocation of purposeful, indeed natural selection
can lead to purposeful arrangement of parts.
DNAunion: No, we should definitely NOT ignore the very real equivocation.
What unusual definition of purposeful are you forced to use here to twist
Behe's statement to fit your point?
>FMAJ: What about intelligence? What is meant by intelligent design ala
Dembski?
Wesley Elsberry wrote on talk.origins:
DNAunion: There's that problem of yours again! You claim to be stating what
Dembski means, but you do so by quoting another individual who opposes
Dembski's views! And you do this continually. You need to start telling the
truth - starting telling us something like "This is what Elseberry believes
Demski means…."
>FMAJ [parroting, er, uhn, I mean quoting Elseberry}: "I 've read it.
Dembski merely claims that one can *detect* "design". Detection is not
explanation. Dembski's "design" is just the residue left when known
regularity and chance are eliminated. Dembski's arguments that natural
selection cannot produce "specified complexity" are, to say the least, highly
unconvincing. If "specified complexity" exists at all, …"
DNAunion: Problem #1. Specified complexity does exist. Leslie Orgel states
that all living things possess specified complexity, and that it sets them
apart from inanimate objects, such as crystals and random pools of biological
macromolecules. In fact, my last sentence is an example of specified
complexity. But Elseberry doesn't even acknowledge that specified complexity
exists? Is this equivocation of terms. If Elseberry is addressing Dembski's
CSI and not specified complexity (which Dembski himself does not distinguish
between properly all the time), he should state so.
But even this does not solve the riddle as Elseberry claims elsewhere that
the solution to the "100-city-travelling-salesman" problem is an example of
CSI. So just what is Elseberry saying here?
>FMAJ: [quoting Elseberry]: Dembski has not yet excluded natural selection
as a cause of events with that property."
So is intelligence logical consequence of the design inference or just a name
for that which falls through the filter? It's the latter.
DNAunion: No, you've done it again. DESIGN is what would fall out of the
filter, not INTELLIGENCE. If one could then go from design to intelligent
agency is a separate question.
>FMAJ: How does ID intend to eliminate natural selection as the intelligent
designer?
DNAunion: I have omitted this part of FMAJ's post as it is nothing but the
latest in his long series of parroting the same Elseberry's posts from
elsewhere. If anyone wants to read what I clipped, feel free to read just
about any one of FMAJ's posts. And since I already informed FMAJ several
times that I would not address the topic, well, I won't address the topic.
> DNAunion: In addition, I believe it safe to say that Darwin also excluded
from natural selection any idea of its knowing the future and directing
evolution to a predetermined fixed goal (I don't have a quote handy, but I
think we all accept this). There is no blueprint guiding selection, and there
is no particular end to which it is striving, and there is not intended
purpose to its actions. So what atypical defintion of the word "design" must
be used to fit in here?
>FMAJ:Again you are playing with words that have many meanings.
DNAunion: Could you explain which definition of playing you are using?
(1) Do you mean that I am taking advantage of something, as in "PLAYING on
one's fears"?
(2) Or do you mean that I am firing repeatedly to make a stream, as in "hoses
PLAYING on a fire"?
(3) Or do you mean that I performing music, as in "He is PLAYING his trumpet"?
(4) Or do you meant that I am emitting noise, as in "the radio is PLAYING"?
(5) Or do you mean that I am having sexual relations with someone I
shouldn't, as in "He is PLAYING around with another women"?
Or any one of the many other meanings of the word "PLAYING"?
On top of that, the word "MEANING" has 4 definitions in my dictionary. Could
you better define each ot the terms in your sentence so that I might be able
to understand it? (I love sarcasm).
PS: FMAJ, why don't you provide us with material from Darwin where he DOES
allow both intelligence and design into NATURAL selection. Go ahead - I bet
you can't. Yet I did - despite your whinings to the contrary - support my
position that Darwin does not allow intelligence and design into NATURAL
selection. Go ahead - time to put up or shut up - show me to be wrong!
>FMAJ:Is there a purpose to its actions ?
DNAunion: As was already stated, YOU are using equivocation on the term
"purposeful". Why not give us your abnormal definition?
>FMAJ: Is there a purposeful arrangement of parts ? Is there a predetermined
fixed goals? These assertions are all begging the question.
DNAunion: How? I like how everything your opponents say is either "begging
the question", "non sequitor", a "strawman", "irrelevant", or "equivocation".
You don't have the mental tools needed to properly defend your position, so
you resort to mild-name calling and accusatory claims. And yet the only
support you have shown in any of this is your continual parroting of
Elseberry, which even then, you continually incorrectly claim is Dembski's
views.
>FMAJ: Does ID require all these? Please show how this follows logically from
either Dembski's or Behe's arguments? But you have caught on to the fact that
ID is indeed using a somewhat atypical definition of the word "design" but
that's its problem. It's through equivocation of the meaning of the word
design that
ID tries to eliminate natural selection but as Wesley has shown, it cannot do
this.
DNAunion: Polly want a cracker?
> DNAUnion: Since no conscious choice - either external or internal - is
allowed, nor is a future template/blueprint/purpose allowed as a target to
strive for, I don't see how both intelligence and design can be fitted into
Darwin's definition of NATURAL selection. In view of this, let us take
another look at my original statement:
>FMAJ: Your definition of ID is strangely enough not the same as the common
usage.
DNAunion: Pay attention. My statements have been about whether or not
intelligence and design are allowed in NATURAL selection: they aren't. ID is
a separate issue, and I have not provided a definition of ID either.
>FMAJ: Although ID can include conscious choice, future goals, templates and
purpose, it does not logically follow that this is a requirement for ID.
DNAunion: Please provide us all with your (obviously
more-accurate-than-mine) definition of ID. Until your equivocation of this
term is handled, you will never be able to have a meaningful discussion of ID
with us IDists.
>DNAunion: "If you have any kind of intelligence and design involved in the
selection process, then it is not NATURAL selection, b[y] definition."
Sounds right to me.
>FMAJ: Sure, I understand that it sounds that way, which shows why ID is
having such problems because it is a logical consequence of the ID thesis.
>DNAunion: No, that is a Elseberry's conclusion, not ID's. Until you stop
conflating the two, you are just making false statements left and right. If
you are going to state what ID says, then quote a leading IDist. If you want
to state what an anti-IDist says an IDist says, then you can quote Elseberry.
>FMAJ: It does not identify the designer, merely design. That people then
confuse ID with purpose, blueprints etc to eliminate natural selection as the
designer is an ad hoc step, not one that follows logically from the design
inference.
DNAunion: Not one that follows from Elseberry's version at least!
>FMAJ:Wesley Elsberry did a great job at showing this.
DNAunion: Elseberry did a great job of telling us what Elseberry concludes.
>FMAJ: I understand that you are waiting for Dembski to address this but his
argument is not limited to Dembski but in general to ID.
DNAunion: Then why does Elseberry keep mentioning Dembski and his EF in the
quotes you keep posting?
>FMAJ: If you want to define ID to be a purposeful, conscious choice of a
pathway requiring intelligent choices and a look towards the future
DNAunion: No, I never defined ID as such.
>FMAJ: … then this ID for all practical purposes although similar in name
is quite different in origin and Dembski and Behe's arguments for design
inference cannot be used to support this new version of design.
DNAunion: You just can't seem to understand that "your" definition is
Elseberry's, not Behe's and Dembski's. Until you acknowledge this, you will
continue to make false statements repeatedly.
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