All eyes evolved from a common ancestor!

Originally posted by KellyJay
So unless you know the designer you cannot see design?
Kelly

A snowflake has a complex microscopic geometric structure with symmetry and thus appears to have at least in part a non-random structure and thus appears to be designed -therefore its designer must be an intelligent supernatural deity 😛

Originally posted by PBE6
That's the problem. You can see design anywhere you like. Whether or not it actually is design is a different story.

You do not think the same can be said about common ancestors?
Kelly

Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
A snowflake has a complex microscopic geometric structure with symmetry and thus appears to have at least in part a non-random structure and thus appears to be designed -therefore its designer must be an intelligent supernatural deity 😛

Patterns and designs, we have had this discussion before.
You play with the word design meaning as you do many other words,
I've limited it to something made with intent, you apply to anything
watering down the word;s meaning, and only choose to do that when it
suits you and do not when it doesn't fit your world view.
Kelly

Originally posted by DeepThought
If it doesn´t matter who did the design, it doesn´t matter that I assumed you meant a specific one.

If something was done with intent, that would not or could not happen
on it's own without over coming great odds over and over again, I'd
say it does not matter who did it.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
Patterns and designs, we have had this discussion before.
You play with the word design meaning as you do many other words,
I've limited it to something made with intent, you apply to anything
watering down the word;s meaning, and only choose to do that when it
suits you and do not when it doesn't fit your world view.
Kelly

….Patterns and designs
.…

People often design patterns into their products (e.g. a regular pattern of circuitry in a ROM chip etc) therefore a design is often also a pattern. I may observe a non-random pattern of circuitry in a ROM chip and conclude that it must be designed with intent but that is ONLY because there is no natural process to account for how it got that pattern.

….I've limited it to something made with intent,
..…

Ok -if the non-standard meaning of the word “design” offends you so much, lets substitute the word “deign” with “pattern” and the word “designer” with the words “pattern maker” and see what difference it makes to the argument:

A snowflake appears to have a non-random pattern -therefore its pattern maker must be an intelligent supernatural deity 😛

-no difference -and I guess you have no answer to this.

If you like, I can reword it without using the word “pattern”:

A snowflake appears to have a non-random physical structure -therefore what made its non-random physical structure must be an intelligent supernatural deity 😛

-again, it makes no difference to the argument.
And this is using exactly the same ‘logic’ that you are using to justify the claim that the non-random physical structure of life forms (which you insist on calling “design” to imply intent in order to make a circular argument) are made by an intelligent supernatural deity.

You could say:

A life form appears to have a non-random physical structure -therefore what made its non-random physical structure must be an intelligent supernatural deity 😛

-same illogic -different words.

Lets take this to the Spirituality forum 🙂

Originally posted by KellyJay
You do not think the same can be said about common ancestors?
Kelly

And you wonder why you've never been hired as a scientist... 🙄

Originally posted by PBE6
And you wonder why you've never been hired as a scientist... 🙄

Nope, never wondered that!
Kelly

Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
[b]….Patterns and designs
.…

People often design patterns into their products (e.g. a regular pattern of circuitry in a ROM chip etc) therefore a design is often also a pattern. I may observe a non-random pattern of circuitry in a ROM chip and conclude that it must be designed with intent but that is ONLY because there is no natural process ...[text shortened]... al deity 😛

-same illogic -different words.

Lets take this to the Spirituality forum 🙂[/b]

You have a link that defines 'design' the way you are pushing it, I can
produce more than a few showing it defined the way I do. Take what
you will the Spiritual forum.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
If something was done with intent, that would not or could not happen
on it's own without over coming great odds over and over again, I'd
say it does not matter who did it.
Kelly

Stop playing the Sophist. The point of that last post of mine was that if it does not matter to your argument who did the designing then it doesn´t matter if we assumed you meant the Christian God. You still haven´t provided a satisfactory answer to my arguments.

In any case your probability argument fails for two reasons. The first is that all we have to explain is the existence of what we can see. You have to explain all we can see as well as your hidden designer. What statistical problems does a universe designer have to overcome to exist?

Your argument is fallacious. For one thing it is similar to the gamblers fallacy - your argument is essentially that because it is improbable that we exist there must be a hidden cause. While there may be a hidden cause, your argument does not support that conclusion. If someone rolls doubles a few times in a row playing backgammon do you accuse them of selling their soul to the devil - or loading the dice in some other way?

Also, you have not shown that it is that improbable that we should exist. There is an entire universe for us to exist in, We know that there are exo-planets, so what is the probability of a species coming into being on a planet, dodging all the extinction events along the way, that wonders how they came to be? Probably quite high in a universe the size and age ours is.

Originally posted by DeepThought
Stop playing the Sophist. The point of that last post of mine was that if it does not matter to your argument who did the designing then it doesn´t matter if we assumed you meant the Christian God. You still haven´t provided a satisfactory answer to my arguments.

In any case your probability argument fails for two reasons. The first is that all we ...[text shortened]... , that wonders how they came to be? Probably quite high in a universe the size and age ours is.

"Just so I know, how do you know it isn't because of a common design
and not a common ancestor?
Kelly"

This is the long and short of my conversation! This is the only thing
to date that has come just from me! Others have brought up Noah's
Ark, God and other topics which I have repeated said had nothing to
do with the quesiton I asked. I don't care who you assumed did the
designing correct! As far as I'm concern, singling out God or anyone
as "the designer" is off topic, compared to common ancestors how
do you know the difference between the two?
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
"Just so I know, how do you know it isn't because of a common design
and not a common ancestor?
Kelly"

This is the long and short of my conversation! This is the only thing
to date that has come just from me! Others have brought up Noah's
Ark, God and other topics which I have repeated said had nothing to
do with the quesiton I asked. I don't care ic, compared to common ancestors how
do you know the difference between the two?
Kelly

If you have to distinguish between two theories which explain what you observe, then you choose the one which does not rely on a hidden variable which you can´t observe, since you have no reason to believe that it exists.

Originally posted by DeepThought
If you have to distinguish between two theories which explain what you observe, then you choose the one which does not rely on a hidden variable which you can´t observe, since you have no reason to believe that it exists.

You assume either way do you not? Simply not seeing something does
not mean there isn't something there. No reason to believe, is just an
excuse to justify a side in this case IMO. I do believe I like your
response nonetheless, it is at least a starting point. I can see how like
creatures could be seen as common ancestors in say the fossil record,
but can you assume unlike creature are too, without doing what you
just rejected design for? Since today we have both complex and the
simple and they are unique life forms to assume one came from
another would just be assuming something when we have no reason
too, outside it is the belief we wish to justify.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
You have a link that defines 'design' the way you are pushing it, I can
produce more than a few showing it defined the way I do. Take what
you will the Spiritual forum.
Kelly

….You have a link that defines 'design' the way you are pushing it
.…

Now you are just pretending that I didn’t take the word “design” out of your “argument” in my last post to expose the fact that it makes NO difference to the arguments -so sorry! you cannot use that rhetoric again -your argument has been debunked.

As I said in my last post:

You could say:

A life form appears to have a non-random physical structure -therefore what made its non-random physical structure must be an intelligent supernatural deity 😛

Are you now going to say that “non-random physical structure” implies intent? -answer, no -that’s settled then -no more avoiding the point;
-same illogic -different words -no word “design” in the above -sorry!

Originally posted by KellyJay
You do not think the same can be said about common ancestors?
Kelly

Common ancestry implies certain empirically verifiable characteristics. "Design" implies nothing.

Originally posted by KellyJay
You assume either way do you not? Simply not seeing something does not mean there isn't something there. No reason to believe, is just an excuse to justify a side in this case IMO. I do believe I like your response nonetheless, it is at least a starting point. I can see how like creatures could be seen as common ancestors in say the fossil record, But can y ...[text shortened]... suming something when we have no reason to, Outside it is the belief we wish to justify.
Kelly

I think there are two points in your post. An abstract one about the nature of knowledge, and a more concrete one about actual evidence. Abstract first:

Since physics has posited dark matter to explain the rotation rates of galaxies I cannot simply say ¨If you can´t see it it´s not there.¨. However in this case there was a discrepancy between the observations and the theory. Now, as it happens, I have some problems with the dark matter hypothesis as when you have that kind of discrepancy you really should be looking at the theory first and not assuming the observations are wrong, but there you are. In this case you have a hypothesis which can be tested - there are various astronomical observations, other than the rotation speeds of galaxies, which have been made which provide supporting evidence for dark matter.

From this point of view there are two problems with your design hypothesis: necessity and verifiability. There is no discrepancy between the fossil record and the theory of evolution by natural selection strong enough to warrant an addition to the theory of the nature you are suggesting. The fact that there are gaps in the fossil record is more easily explained by them simply not having been found yet than by introducing a designer. It is difficult to think of a way of testing your design hypothesis - essentially it is unverifiable.

In the case of dogs we do have a species that has evolved through artificial selection - in this case there has been design - but comparing dogs with naturally evolved species we can detect differences, There is a very large variation in forms within one species which you simply do not get in naturally evolved species.

On to the concrete point: Well yes I can. The theory of evolution by natural selection is based on evidence. You´ve simply stated that, for example. a human and a fish are very different. What you´ve ignored are the intermediate forms which link them.

The fossil record is not the only source of evidence. It is possible to find ¨genetic fossils¨ which tell us how closely related extant species are, and extinct species where it is possible to extract viable DNA - Neanderthals have recently been sequenced. Based on theories of genetic drift we can see the relationships between species and put bounds on when the last common ancestor lived.

There are two problems with your conclusion. First no one is claiming that one contemporary species evolved from another contemporary species (in general) - the claim is one of common ancestry. More importantly I really think that your statement that assuming one species evolved from another when we have no reason to is false, since there is evidence that links these species. At what stage you can claim conclusive proof is an open question, but once there is evidence for it it is more than just an assumption.