I'd go for the +1, but my gut reaction is to be skeptical of using human-designed proteins as an analog since humans design proteins only by first studying, characterizing, and mimicking natural proteins.

I understand your reaction, but I'm not sure it holds up. Suppose we discover some alien technology — say Cap't. Kirk of the U.S.S. Enterprise has left his phaser (faser? come to think of it, I've never known the correct spelling) behind on one of their time travelling visits. We don't know where this object came from, but we study it and eventually learn how to make them. Is it improper to reason by analogy that the first one we studied was also designed?

So you would give proteins a 0 in the Analogy category? Hmmm"¦how about this: the substance protein resembles the human designed substance plastic, for a score of +1? Further, we design proteins, now, so the Analogical has become Identical (how would you distinguish between human designed proteins from non-human designed proteins?), for a score of +5. This gives us an average of +3. Buying it?

I'd go for the +1, but my gut reaction is to be skeptical of using human-designed proteins as an analog since humans design proteins only by first studying, characterizing, and mimicking natural proteins.

As for the uncertainty about the Analogy score, there is a category for that "“ 0.

So you would give proteins a 0 in the Analogy category? Hmmm…how about this: the substance protein resembles the human designed substance plastic, for a score of +1? Further, we design proteins, now, so the Analogical has become Identical (how would you distinguish between human designed proteins from non-human designed proteins?), for a score of +5. This gives us an average of +3. Buying it?

Mike:

Does this mean I now have to cite you?

Hmmm…pseudonymuos author citing pseudonymous blogger. Now there's credibility for you.

Raevmo:

Well, I'm sorry, but it doesn't piss me off.

You're just saying that to piss us off, aren't you?

It just puzzles me a little. What does the score really add to saying that your gut feeling tells you it's designed?

Start by asking yourself how you would know — or at least suspect — if something was intelligently designed, if you had no independent evidence of a designer. Mike attempts to answer that in The Design Matrix. He comes up with four qualities that we closely associate with designed phenomena: Analogy (it resembles our designs); Discontinuity (with natural or non-intelligent ways of producing it); Rationality (it makes sense to design it that way); and Foresight (it demonstrates that the designer would have had the future in mind).

And we associate the opposite qualities with non-designed phenomena: Disanalogy; Continuity with nature; Irrationality; and Lack of foresight.

Most of us think these qualities, though difficult to quantify, have real objective meaning. So why not try to quantify them on a scale, ranging from -5 (closest to evidence of non-design) to +5 (closest to evidence of design)? If both critics and proponents of ID find that they are getting roughly the same sort of scores for things, then perhaps at bottom we agree more than we might think. Of course, if ID critics demand that we must have independent evidence of a designer before we can have evidence of design, then there will probably be no way to satisfy them. However, for those of us who think that this isn't necessarily an obstacle to evaluating phenomena for design or non-design, we'll go on asking if it's a duck or a rabbit. And I think Mike may have a rabbit up his sleeve or under his hat, but we'll have to wait for book II or III to find out.

Meanwhile, how would you score proteins? I'm curious if your score would be dramatically different from mine.

That rabbit sure is damn cute

I can't help but smile back every time:smile:

And kornbelt888, yes, that's gotta be the cutest bunny to show up on TT yet. Shall we give the bunny a Cuteness score?

What is the point of this kind of subjective scoring?

chunkdz:

Just to piss you off.

Well, yes, pissing off Raevmo might be a benefit to some, but hopefully there are some additional benefits. If we come up with an idea of what was designed and what wasn't, we may be able to piece together the story of the rabbit, which might lead to ideas for further research.