HT: Mike Gene

In my not so humble opinion, (IMNSHO?) J. Craig Venter just conceded the game to ID:

Venter also points to what the cells–powered by genomes made in a lab from four bottles of chemicals, based on instructions stored on a computer–reveal about what life is. "This is as much a philosophical as a technological advance," he says. "The notion that this is possible means bacterial cells are software-driven biological machines. If you change the software, you build a new machine. I'm still amazed by it." (my emphasis)

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I believe that prior to Darwin, teleological explanations were accepted in biology. (If I'm mistaken about this, somebody please correct me). So it’s only been for the last 150 years that teleology has been considered non-scientific. Now suppose, as a thought experiment, that before Darwin came along we had already discovered the inner workings of the cell—a world that resembled carbon-based nanotechnology, where complex systems of complex molecular machines—guided by a complex storage, retrieval and translational coded information system—worked in coordination to keep the cell functioning and reproducing.

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Assuming that our universe is infinite, would it be possible to infer reliably that something was designed, if we had no independent evidence of a designer?

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I've written previously on what I thought the problem was with Paley's watch: The person finding the watch in the heather would already be familiar with complex machines and metallurgy, and from that evidence would easily infer that the watch had been designed. Read the rest of this entry »

I'm discovering that anytime I need an easy target, I can just go over to Biologos.org. For example, this week Gordon J. Glover has offered this as an argument against intelligent design. But I improve his argument below.* Read the rest of this entry »

Intrinsic intentionality and inherent goal-directedness of eukaryotic cells is defended by Tecumseh Fitch and minimal molecular autonomous agents are characterized in "On emergence, agency, and organization" (by Stuart Kauffman and Philip Clayton).

The "aboutness" and "goal-directedness" of eukaryotic cells and how it relates to nano-intentionality is defined as follows (p14):

The crucial pre-mental properties of a cell are that it can
1) respond to (somewhat) novel circumstances, eventualities for which it is not specifically-prepared by the evolutionary "memory" instantiated in its DNA.
2) discover, through an individual process of trial and error, some "adaptive" (in the physiological sense) response or solution.
3) in various ways incorporate the results of this discovery into its own structure, thus "recording" or "remembering" (in a non-mental sense) this past, individual history.

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Reading Bradley Monton's book, Seeking God in Science; an Atheist Defends Intelligent Design, was a fascinating, thought-provoking experience. I recommend it highly for ID proponents and critics alike. There's much you'll like and dislike, regardless of which side of the debate you're on.

Since the objection that ID is just a God-of-the-gaps argument keeps coming up, I thought I would share Monton's thoughts about it. I'm copyng from his book without his permission. I hope he doesn't mind. I hope it will inspire sales. Professor Monton, if you object, just let me know, and I'll delete this thread. Read the rest of this entry »

Over at his blog, Mike Gene has written about Specified Information.

In response to my comments, Mike wrote: Read the rest of this entry »

I've been looking for a way to sum up Stephen Meyer's argument from his book, Signature in the Cell; DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design. So many topics are covered, including a discussion of the criteria of historical science, the various attempts to provide a materialistic explanation of the origin of life and why Meyer thinks they fail, and why he thinks intelligent design is the best explanation. I think the following passage (unfortunately not in the preview) comes close to summarizing it. Read the rest of this entry »

Over at UD, Clive Hayden has a fascinating post on the watch mechanism known as the Tourbillon. And he quoted Paley, which I gratefully copied: Read the rest of this entry »

I was just over at UD, where I chanced upon derwood (kirby?) wishing for positive evidence of ID. I left a comment asking what he (she?) would count as positive evidence for ID. I can't take credit for asking an original question. Mike Gene has asked it rather often over the years. Read the rest of this entry »

Rob Sheldon recently put up a couple of blog posts about intelligent design that I'd like to call attention to. One of his papers generated some discussion over at Uncommon Descent a while back, and I think his approach to the question of evolution is interesting to say the least. Rob also completed a 39 day fast during this past Lent, so if you thought you were impressing anyone by swearing off Pabst Blue Ribbon during weekdays, sorry – you were outdone.

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Over at his blog, Mike Gene has commented on recent work by Nick Matzke and others on finding that two of the flagellum's proteins share homology with three of the proteins of F-ATP synthase. These discoveries have caused Mike to give a negative score for Discontinuity for the bacterial flagellum. Read the rest of this entry »

Bradley Monton, an atheist professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado at Boulder (his blog), is much maligned by Intelligent Design critics, though I'm not sure why. He has written a paper, "Design Inferences in an Infinite Universe," criticizing design inferences from the origin of life and irreducible complexity. I would think that would place him squarely in the ID critics' camp. But I'm not interested in psychologizing the critics. I'm interested in his paper. Read the rest of this entry »

Functional information and the emergence of biocomplexity is an interesting paper from a design perspective. I was going to add some commentary but was advised to await the reactions of TT group members. I'll heed that advice and see what you think.