NationStates Jolt Archive

Grossly. :)

The meaning I referred to (but neglected to state) is non-literal.
Um....

Doesn't that imply, then, that the need for a designer is entirely local to the observer rather than an inherent property of the thing itself?
ooh! Good question. Two issues: "need" and "inherent".

Need is something we do; inherency is to a particular, so cannot be considered to be something we do. A need is never inherent to a thing (in my belief).

The need for a designer is local, I would agree with that. A consciousness is necessary in order for there to be a non-literal understanding, which includes an intuitive grasp of *why* a thing is as it is.

However, if there is an intuitive grasp of why a thing is (a non-literal interpretation) can that be considered to be evidence of a designer? If the consciousness in question is not ours, then we cannot say for sure.

(I should warn you that I'm drinking at the moment, so my responses might make less and less sense as time goes on.)

Um....
Yeah, my bad.

Alternatively, it reminds me of Thieves' Cant.
What is 'Thieves' Can't'?

What is 'Thieves' Can't'?
Thieves' cant (also called flash lingo, gibberish, patter flash, and slang) is a secret language (or cryptolect) formerly used by thieves, beggars and hustlers of various kinds in Great Britain and to a lesser extent in other English-speaking countries. The classic, colorful argot is now mostly obsolete, and is largely relegated to the realm of literature and fantasy role-playing.
Now, why an artefact of "thieves, beggars and hustlers", designed to obfuscate their intentions to those in authority, came to my mind when thinking about my IT suppliers, I really cannot say.:D

Now, why an artefact of "thieves, beggars and hustlers", designed to obfuscate their intentions to those in authority, came to my mind when thinking about my IT suppliers, I really cannot say.:D
Darn, those thieves, beggars and hustlers.

LOL :)

Dude, what is a design? Is it something made? Or is it something someone made?


I'm not sure what difference you see in both of those questions, but asking what is design is a good question.

I guess I'd start with something that required some active/intelligent direction to arrive at it's state.

I spent some time this spring at a First Nations dig site in SW Ontario and was fascinated at how the archeologists there were able to determine which flakes of rock were natural and which were the discarded trash from the creation of stone tools and able to indicate where people were or were not.
I'd expect that some of their definitions might be usable/adaptable.

No, once again, They DO NOT have to assume that an entity capable of design exists, they have to assume that it is possible that an entity capable of design exists.
That's it.
If they FIND actual EVIDENCE of design, that would lead to a conclusion that a designer entity exists.

What you fail to recognize is that you cannot find "evidence of design" unless you first assume a possible designer. There is no "evidence of design" outside of that first assumption. Without that assumption, the conclusion that something was designed cannot be made.

A scientific conclusion is based in the assumptions under which the investigation was carried out. If no possible designer is assumed to exist, it is logically impossible for evidence to point to a designer. It can demonstrate order, but you cannot jump from "order" to "design" without first assuming the existence of something capable of said design.

You can either demonstrate the design, or you cannot. There is no appeal to a designer, because even if you assume that ther eis a designer and that some things are designed, that doesn't prove that the thing under discussion is designed.

You can only "demonstrate design" if something was designed in the first place. Now, you might interpret a given piece of evidence as indicative of design, but this is only logically possible if you have already assumed an entity capable of designing that object. Without that assumption, there is no logical process that will allow you to say something is a design. At most, you'll have, "This is very ordered."

Ah, this must be a new science method I never learned. The one where you don't deal with the theory, you attack the beliefs of the people that support the theory.

We aren't talking about a theory. We are talking about a religious belief that some people want to call a scientific theory.

I'm not sure what difference you see in both of those questions, but asking what is design is a good question.

I guess I'd start with something that required some active/intelligent direction to arrive at it's state.

I spent some time this spring at a First Nations dig site in SW Ontario and was fascinated at how the archeologists there were able to determine which flakes of rock were natural and which were the discarded trash from the creation of stone tools and able to indicate where people were or were not.
I'd expect that some of their definitions might be usable/adaptable.

Of course, those investigations were based on a couple of assumptions: Human beings exist and are capable of designing and fashioning specific pieces of material for specific purposes. Outside of that assumption, every "flake of rock" is just a "flake of rock."

Of course, those investigations were based on a couple of assumptions: Human beings exist and are capable of designing and fashioning specific pieces of material for specific purposes. Outside of that assumption, every "flake of rock" is just a "flake of rock."

... and the fact that animal skeletons were often found in those garbage pits with scratches and cuts on the bone matching those of the 'flakes of rock' also found helps. Either the 'flakes of rock' were spontaneously skinning and cutting the meat off animals, or someone was using them as tools to do so. ;)

Edit: Determining whether objects are created artifacts is done given the context of what is found, how the objects were made (using signs such as tool scrapes, other remains found nearby, and evidence of settlements / people / etc. nearby.), evidence of what the objects were used for, and whether they are analogous in design and utility to currently existing contemporary artifacts.

Yes, it is. It is the very basis of the scientific method. The method is used to disprove hypotheses. If a test does not disprove a hypothesis, we cannot say that the hypothesis is proven, because another test might actually disprove it. At most, we can say it has been supported.




Irrelevant. The fact that a hypothesis does have a truth value does not mean that the scientific method can find that truth value in any case. As it is, the scientific method can only be used to find that truth value if the value is false. Otherwise, we just keep on testing.

OK, I really want to challenge what you're saying here. Again, I will say this, what you claim is an opinion about how science operates -- in its clearest form, it is a philosophical argument put forward by Karl Popper. If you are willing to accept that this is a "programme" and not some dogmatic truth, then we can discuss what you are claiming.
Essentially what the argument you are in support of does is allows logic -- good ol' deductive logic -- in through the back door. That is, a description of science can be put in terms of logic -- that is, a logic which is derived from '~P' and which every wwf and proof will have the negation sign in front of it -- e.g. ~(PvQ), etc, etc. So, you will be able to note and record in a precise fashion, 'it is not the case that hypothesis S is true' and this proposition will be true. Thus, deduction has a place within an inductive system, it tracks what is not the case. I will argue that this is completly vacuous.
Another advantage to the system you propose is this, science never ends, since everything is disproven, there is no correspondence, and the show keeps on going. Again, well done. However, this may be available to another programme, whose advantages, if we accept it, will be greater.
So, to the scientific hypothesis and its disproof that will be subsumed under a system of logic that will consist only of negative statements with its basic rule being MTT. First, you're sneaking truth values in through the back door. You won't allow a hypothesis to be lablled true, but you will allow it to be lablled false -- well, the '~' will output a 'T' or '1', but "truth" under logic is differen from |correspondence truth. From a purely metaphysical point of view -- not from a pragmatic position, so don't get any ideas about using that as an objection here, we can discuss that later -- this seems completely arbitrary. Why is falsity given preference, but truth we can't talk about (correspodence truth). Metaphysicaly -- i.e. ontologicaly -- this needs a justification.
I think one of the main problems here, is that we are talking about 'proof'
and 'disproof' and we don't know what we are talking about, since none of us has defined these terms. If you are talking about proof in a logical sense or mathematical sense (e.g. linear algebra), don't bother because such definitions are strictly applicable to the systems in which thay are applied and are completely foreign to application anywhere else. If you mean 'proof' as 'certainty' and disproof as what? 'Uncertain', then a problem arrises. You, again, gain the advantage that you think you deserve of being able to claim that all scientifc hypothesises are disproven, because all are uncertain and none are certain. Yet, this is meaningless and vacuous. Let's take a walk down the annals of science, all we can say is that a hypothesis is disproven (no matter how you define this word, this objection can be raised. That is, where you mean to define 'disproof' such that no scientific hypothesis can be labelled, 'proven'). The objection: We don't know its likelihood in comparison to another hypothesis. We don't know whether a hypothses approached closely, or whether it did, correspond to reality. Why is this so? Because you seem to be afraid of correspondence, that is, exact correspondence. You need, then, to give an argument as to why a scientific hypothesis cannot correspond to reality 100%, because if it can, then we would agree that is proven -- i.e. certain.
Here's my solution: Forget logic. It is a system unto itself, that does not correspond to science, language or anything else. It is useful and makes computers run. I say that the scientific community gets together and decides at what point (i.e. what degree of probability) can we say that a hypothesis is proven ('proof' is a word nominally used for a numerical value). Anything under that will be disproven. Part of the calculation will depend on the sophistication of methods and their ability to measure precisely. So, perhaps the psychologists and sociologists can go off by themselves away from the physicists whose methods are much more precise. Thus, we can talk of disproof and proof, degrees of correspondence. and we can talk of science approaching truth and not avoiding it.

I hope you understand this.

OK, I really want to challenge what you're saying here. Again, I will say this, what you claim is an opinion about how science operates -- in its clearest form, it is a philosophical argument put forward by Karl Popper. If you are willing to accept that this is a "programme" and not some dogmatic truth, then we can discuss what you are claiming.

The scientific method is, as the name already states, a *method*. It is quite clearly defined, and operates by testing hypotheses for flaws. It purposefully does not seek supporting but negating evidence.
Being a method, it does not claim to be the only possible way to the truth or even that it will arrive at the right answer. However, it is the best we have in a number of ways.

You need, then, to give an argument as to why a scientific hypothesis cannot correspond to reality 100%, because if it can, then we would agree that is proven -- i.e. certain.

There is no reason why a scientific hypothesis coud not correspond 100% to reality. The method however is not capable of stating that you have reached that point, it only has a chance of letting you know that you haven't.

What you fail to recognize is that you cannot find "evidence of design" unless you first assume a possible designer. There is no "evidence of design" outside of that first assumption. Without that assumption, the conclusion that something was designed cannot be made.

A scientific conclusion is based in the assumptions under which the investigation was carried out. If no possible designer is assumed to exist, it is logically impossible for evidence to point to a designer. It can demonstrate order, but you cannot jump from "order" to "design" without first assuming the existence of something capable of said design.


What you fail to recognise is that there is no magical barrier of logic that you reference but never support.
Let's say it again, all you need is to assume the possibilty of a designer.
That's it, that's all.
Someone even said that was a scientific way to phrase it...


You can only "demonstrate design" if something was designed in the first place.

That's no different than saying, "You can only demonstrate you're right, if you were right in the first place".
Of course you can't demonstrate design if something isn't designed.
I also can't demonstrate something is a horse, if it isn't a horse.


We aren't talking about a theory. We are talking about a religious belief that some people want to call a scientific theory.

No, we are talking about a theory, it may be a bad theory, and it's a theory that you personally dislike, that still doesn't mean you ignore the flaws in the theory to attack the proponents of the theory.


I'll grant you one thing, you're damn persistent, even when you straight out contradict yourself, you bulldoze ahead and the facts be damned. That must be good for something in life.

Outside of that assumption, every "flake of rock" is just a "flake of rock."


Not true, because if it were, there would be no way to distinguish flakes of rock that are just there and flakes of rock that are there due to human creativity and industry.
There is a discernable difference that allows the determination to be made.

I'm not sure what difference you see in both of those questions, but asking what is design is a good question.

I guess I'd start with something that required some active/intelligent direction to arrive at it's state.

I spent some time this spring at a First Nations dig site in SW Ontario and was fascinated at how the archeologists there were able to determine which flakes of rock were natural and which were the discarded trash from the creation of stone tools and able to indicate where people were or were not.
I'd expect that some of their definitions might be usable/adaptable.
So, you believe it to be something someone made. Then you have assumed a designer, whether you admit it or not.

Not true, because if it were, there would be no way to distinguish flakes of rock that are just there and flakes of rock that are there due to human creativity and industry.
There is a discernable difference that allows the determination to be made.Indeed there is. We have designed flakes of rock that we can compare them to. Can you give an example of a designed planet we can compare earth to?

So, you believe it to be something someone made. Then you have assumed a designer, whether you admit it or not.


I only assume the designer AFTER determining it to be something someone made.
I don't assume that a village existed there, I examine the evidence, I find artefacts, that leads to the safe conclusion that a village existed there and I can "assume" a designer then for the artefacts.

I have to assume it's possible that a village could have existed where I'm digging.
Same as the ID discussion, I only have to assume that it is possible that a Creator/Designer exists to look for design.

Indeed there is. We have designed flakes of rock that we can compare them to. Can you give an example of a designed planet we can compare earth to?


Nope, not at all.
Of course, I think your scale is too small, but the question is valid and raises an important issue that ID may never be able to satisfactorily answer.

Nope, not at all.
Of course, I think your scale is too small, but the question is valid and raises an important issue that ID may never be able to satisfactorily answer.And there goes any hopes for proving ID correct (or wrong). Without something to compare to, we'll never know whether it was the product of natural development or whether someone or something interfered and "designed" it. Since both "We were definitely designed" and "We were definitely not designed" can and will never be proven, they have no place in science.

Let's say it again, all you need is to assume the possibilty of a designer.
That's it, that's all.


Thats far too much to assume. One could assume the possibility of any number of ridiculous things, that doesnt make it scientific, and it certainly doesnt mean we should teach our children any stupid crap we can make up, based on the possibility of its existence.

Thats far too much to assume. One could assume the possibility of any number of ridiculous things, that doesnt make it scientific, and it certainly doesnt mean we should teach our children any stupid crap we can make up, based on the possibility of its existence.
Yeah, I have to say I agree. It's a bit much to say, "Let's just assume that there is a conscious being capable of designing life, the universe, and everything. And let's just assume, because why not, that this being designed our planet and the life we find upon it."

Cripes, while we're at it why don't we just assume that there's a race of magical space pixies who are capable of controlling time, and that's why the 80s are coming back.

And there goes any hopes for proving ID correct (or wrong). Without something to compare to, we'll never know whether it was the product of natural development or whether someone or something interfered and "designed" it. Since both "We were definitely designed" and "We were definitely not designed" can and will never be proven, they have no place in science.

You may be correct.
But you have presumed that the only way to demonstratre design is to compare to a known design.

"We were definitely designed" and "We were definitely not designed" can and will never be proven, they have no place in science.


this is exactly the position most scientists take. We cant prove anything, in any conceivable way, so we dont claim to know it. However, since a "creator" isnt part of science, it has no place to mention in a scientific theory. I assume children are smart enough to put 1 and one together, and combine any religious classes, like theology, with things they hear at science classes

I repeat this: no where does science assume there is a god, but nowhere does it assume there is not a god.

The only thing science goes against is biblical stories. That is right and proper, cause the fact that something is in a book does not make it true, so people may prove or falsify it as they wish

i know i have more to say, but cant think of it at this moment in time

FS, let's take another direction.

sorry for the delay - weekends in summer, ya know?

anyways,

What empirical evidence could !xu (should he exist) give that would definitively and scientifically demonstrate him to be supernatural? What would he have to do?

definitively, nothing. but after some (possibly arbitrary) number of instances of !xu demonstrating abilities that are contrary to what our naturalistic explanations allow - especially explanations that have been come up with specifically to deal with previously demonstrated abilities - it just becomes reasonable to conclude such. if hypotheses that conclude with "therefore !xu is an entirely natural entity, bound by the same rules as everything" keep failing when tested, then tentatively accepting !xu's supernaturality would be in perfect keeping with standard scientific practice.

we do not refuse to hold some belief because it is possible that sometime later people will come up with a different explanation. we go with what the current evidence appears to show.

Keep in mind, of course, that science does not prove things. It disproves them. So another question would be, what test could science do to attempt to disprove that !xu was supernatural?

that depends on what supernatural abilities !xu claims to have. but if !xu claimed to have some supernatural ability and couldn't perform as advertised, that would be a pretty hefty mark against.

On the watch thing, where does the intelligent designer end and raw material begin? If I see a watch, I don't assume that the metal was created by a designer, I don't assume that the leather strap came from a cow made by a designer, I don't assume that the diamond stud above the 12 was created by a designer.

or to take paley head on - when you are walking along the heath and amongst the rocks and grasses and flowers and such you see a watch on the ground, why would you wonder about the designer of the watch and not the rock? after all, the watchmaker argument is supposed to show that the rock has a designer, isn't it? but the watch is chosen because it looks like an artifact compared to the rest of the world, while the rock is just a rock.

Since both "We were definitely designed" and "We were definitely not designed" can and will never be proven, they have no place in science.

Oh, we can. The most obvious way would be to find the designer [which some claim to have done, see creationism], but that aside, if it can be shown that there was a clear pattern of sudden introduction of new parts to animals when they had evolved in other, dissimilar species [the designer finding a new solution and applying it to the product line] or correction of a flaw in all species when it has been corrected in one [which doesn't happen, since squid have their eyes wired the right way but mammals don't], we could say there is clearly an additional force at work which is applying these changes.

But more to the point, for as long as we have no evidence of what the designer is, how the designer operates or how he / she / it / they influence the design, the concept is a useless violation of parsimony, and must be ruled out by proper science as good theory since it doesn't come close to the scientific method.

Thats far too much to assume. One could assume the possibility of any number of ridiculous things, that doesnt make it scientific, and it certainly doesnt mean we should teach our children any stupid crap we can make up, based on the possibility of its existence.

Making assumptions doesn't make something scientific, of course that's true.

Nor should we teach science to our children that is simply something made up with a possibility of existing, I fully agree with you.

What you fail to recognise is that there is no magical barrier of logic that you reference but never support.

The support is in the very idea of logic.

What evidence, outside the assumption of something capable of designing, can lead to the conclusion of design?

If we do not first assume that something is capable of the design, then no evidence can possibly lead to a conclusion of design. There is no such thing as design outside of the existence of a designer. If we do not first assume something capable of doing the designing (even if we do not assume that it actually designed), there is no way to come to the conclusion that something is designed. All we have is, "Wow, that's really ordered. If I could, I might have designed it."

In every instance of scientific examination of something that "might" have been designed, we have had an example of a creature that could have designed it - ourselves.

Let's say it again, all you need is to assume the possibilty of a designer.
That's it, that's all.
Someone even said that was a scientific way to phrase it...

That is a scientific way to phrase it (sort of, since we don't really assume the possibility of something. It's more that we don't make an assumption either way). However, starting with that assumption cannot lead to the conclusion of design. If we will not assume that something is capable of doing the designing, we cannot come to a conclusion that there is design (or that there isn't, for that matter.)

Edit: By the way, I see where things got a bit confused here. Serves me right for not reading back far enough when I went to reply to one of these posts. I was incorrect when I said it was not your statement. It is not, however, an assumption from which ID can be derived.

That's no different than saying, "You can only demonstrate you're right, if you were right in the first place".

...which is true. And yet you seem to be stating that you can demonstrate that you are right without knowing that you are right - within a system that can, at best, prove you wrong.

No, we are talking about a theory, it may be a bad theory, and it's a theory that you personally dislike, that still doesn't mean you ignore the flaws in the theory to attack the proponents of the theory.

We are talking about a lay-person's theory, not a scientific one. Thus, within a scientific discussion, it is perfectly reasonable to state that ID is not a scientific theory. Its own "scientific" proponents have admitted that the very definition of the scientific method would have to be changed for ID to be considered a scientific theory.

Not true, because if it were, there would be no way to distinguish flakes of rock that are just there and flakes of rock that are there due to human creativity and industry.
There is a discernable difference that allows the determination to be made.

Are you suggesting that we do not operate under the assumption that human beings exist?

We can discern that difference because we know that human beings exist, and are capable of creativity and industry.

I only assume the designer AFTER determining it to be something someone made.

How do you determine it to be made without first assuming that something can make it?

I don't assume that a village existed there, I examine the evidence, I find artefacts, that leads to the safe conclusion that a village existed there and I can "assume" a designer then for the artefacts.

Of course, you are working under the beginning assumption that human beings exist and form villages.


definitively, nothing. but after some (possibly arbitrary) number of instances of !xu demonstrating abilities that are contrary to what our naturalistic explanations allow - especially explanations that have been come up with specifically to deal with previously demonstrated abilities - it just becomes reasonable to conclude such.

In other words, we stop using the scientific method, which would lead us to reexamine the rules themselves, and say, "We already know the rules, and he broke them, so he's supernatural!" Of course, if that is the way science actually worked, we would have determined the movement of electrons to be supernatural a long time ago.

You even said, "Our natural explanations." These are explanations that we know may not be true or complete. In fact, the entire scientific method is based in the fact that these things are always under question - ready to be disproven by new evidence. At no point can we say, "These are the rules and we know that for a fact."

if hypotheses that conclude with "therefore !xu is an entirely natural entity, bound by the same rules as everything" keep failing when tested, then tentatively accepting !xu's supernaturality would be in perfect keeping with standard scientific practice.

How do you test that without first concluding that you know the rules with absolute certainty?

we do not refuse to hold some belief because it is possible that sometime later people will come up with a different explanation. we go with what the current evidence appears to show.

And we make sure that our current explanations are not contradictory with any evidence (and our explanations of the natural world would be, if there were a being constantly being contrary to them). We also make sure that our explanations themselves can later be disproven - and "!xu is supernatural," is, by definition, unfalsifiable.

that depends on what supernatural abilities !xu claims to have. but if !xu claimed to have some supernatural ability and couldn't perform as advertised, that would be a pretty hefty mark against.

Not really. First of all, how could we prove that he "couldn't perform as advertised"? He might just not want to. He might be choosing not to. We might not be able to perceive the power in question, since it is, by definition, outside our realm of measurement by being supernatural. Being supernatural, he could even say, "I did it and you just didn't see it." There would be no way to contradict him unless we assumed that he was not, in fact, supernatural.

The support is in the very idea of logic.


If that were true, you could demonstrate the proof instead of simply repeating that it's logic.

What evidence, outside the assumption of something capable of designing, can lead to the conclusion of design?


The assumption of something capable of designing is not evidence, nor can it lead to a conclusion of design. The existence of a designer, real or possible is not what allows the conclusion of design.

I point you to the Mars example we had earlier. We cannot simply assume that intelligent life exisited there. We know we haven't been there, so, by your view of logic, we can never ever determine that something found buried on Mars was in fact designed, because we must already assume Martians exist.
This clearly flies in the face of actual logic.

We assume that it is possible life existed on Mars and we begin to look for evidence.
If we find evidence, we will debate it's authenticity and how conclusive it is, and when we have found enough conclusive evidence, we will declare that life existed on Mars, and we will be able to do so because we found evidence of design on Mars, NOT because we assumed life exists on Mars, assuming the possibility was enough.


We are talking about a lay-person's theory, not a scientific one. Thus, within a scientific discussion, it is perfectly reasonable to state that ID is not a scientific theory.

Except that is not what you and I are talking about. We're talking about you attacking the proponents beliefs in order to discredit the theory they support.
If the theory is that weak and unscientific, you ought to have no need to attack the beliefs systems of any people, attacking the theory should provide ample ammunition to undermine it.

In other words, we stop using the scientific method, which would lead us to reexamine the rules themselves, and say, "We already know the rules, and he broke them, so he's supernatural!" Of course, if that is the way science actually worked, we would have determined the movement of electrons to be supernatural a long time ago.

You even said, "Our natural explanations." These are explanations that we know may not be true or complete. In fact, the entire scientific method is based in the fact that these things are always under question - ready to be disproven by new evidence. At no point can we say, "These are the rules and we know that for a fact."

so you come up with a set of rules that allows for what has been demonstrated. then !xu says "oh yeah? then watch this..."
lather, rinse, repeat

this is the normal operation of science.

eventually we start tentatively accepting some hypothesis as true, because it seems to have stood up quite well against everything we could think of to throw at it and it does a fine job explaining what needs explaining. the fact that the hypothesis this time would involve a supernatural being does not change this.

i'm not proposing that further inquiry would somehow be declared off-limits

We also make sure that our explanations themselves can later be disproven - and "!xu is supernatural," is, by definition, unfalsifiable.

i figured out what's been really bugging me about this argument. it's some crazy reverse ontological argument. suffers the same flaw too.

Not really. First of all, how could we prove that he "couldn't perform as advertised"? He might just not want to. He might be choosing not to. We might not be able to perceive the power in question, since it is, by definition, outside our realm of measurement by being supernatural. Being supernatural, he could even say, "I did it and you just didn't see it." There would be no way to contradict him unless we assumed that he was not, in fact, supernatural.

i think we've lost sight of where this started. (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11348827&postcount=93)

if !xu was in fact interested in demonstrating supernatural powers, then i doubt anyone would go for cheap trickery or stupid irrational technicalities.



so is james randi just wrong when he challenges people to demonstrate their claimed paranormal or supernatural powers under lab conditions?

If we find evidence, we will debate it's authenticity and how conclusive it is, and when we have found enough conclusive evidence, we will declare that life existed on Mars, and we will be able to do so because we found evidence of design on Mars, NOT because we assumed life exists on Mars, assuming the possibility was enough.

But you could only reach that conclusion because of an initial assumption that objects were capable of being designed.

Let's take the example of, say, an aircraft carrier you find sitting in the middle of nowhere. You've never seen an aircraft carrier before, but you know about modern materials science and production techniques, and you're curious about where it came from. Maybe it grew there. Maybe God made it. Maybe it was built by humans. So, how to proceed?

Firstly, we assume the explanation that multiplies terms the least is the most viable, the principle of logical parsimony. Since we've never seen an aircraft carrier growing anywhere and we can't ask God if he did it, that leaves humans making it [simplifying to these three possiblities]. We therefore assume humans are able to make it, and proceed with investigating the validity of this theory by making predictions of what we should see if they did, and testing them.

As we look around, we find instructions and warning labels in familiar language, bolts and fixings that are operated using tools humans make, materials that show signs of being worked by our own technology, and that everything is curiously human-sized. We slowly figure out how the ship was built up from the keel and fitted out, and flesh out our initial assumption into a working theory, finally testing it by getting some humans together and building one of our own. We succeed, therefore we can safely assume humans built the other one, too.

We could not possibly have arrived at that conclusion if we did not at some stage assume humans were capable of designing and building an aircraft carrier, because we needed an assumption to make predictions from and to compare the evidence to. The problem is that the assumption of a 'designer' is impossible to make unless we know something about the designer. In the above case, we knew roughly what humans were capable of and what they would build to suit themselves, but ID has a mysterious designer with no defined qualities.

This is why ID can never be a remotely scientific theory until it proposes to know something about the designer; you can't look for evidence of something that can do whatever it likes, because you can't make any predictions of what it will do. Any and all evidence can be interpreted as evidence for such an entity, leading to a 'theory' with infinite inclusive power but zero predictive power. Such a 'theory' is impossible to disprove [because it can incorporate any evidence], and also impossible to test [because the mechanism is unknown with no defined characteristics or limits, it is impossible to predict what the designer will do in any given case]. It is therefore useless since the possibility of falsification [ie, the idea that an experiment could be defined which, given a certain set of results, would disprove the theory] is one of the major tests of a scientific theory, and ID fails it miserably. It is not science, it is not a theory in the scientific sense of the term, and it is not and will never be useful until something is known about the designer's mechanisms and methods.

IDers also nail their colours firmly to the mast with constant talk about 'a' designer, because none of them even attempt to justify the assumption that the designer must be singular, aside from the very obvious 'because it's YHWH' that ID is trying to hide. If nature really were designed, it was by a committee including at least one civil engineer. Nobody else would put a sewage outlet next to a leisure centre.

The assumption of something capable of designing is not evidence, nor can it lead to a conclusion of design. The existence of a designer, real or possible is not what allows the conclusion of design.

you are saying the exact same thing, pretty much. You both say you must keep the possibility of a thing in mind if you want to investigate it. It's called a theory which, very important in the scientific method, predicts what you will find. Then you go on to prove you are wrong. Why? Firstly because it is easy to get support for a theory, but mostly because 100 tests may show you right, but if 1 says you are wrong, it is still that 1 test that carries most weight.

the word one of you misunderstands or the other misuses is 'assume'. In this case, 'assuming x' means 'acknowledging the possibility of x', not 'knowing x for sure'. As with the dig site example, you already make a lot of assumtions, even before you start digging.

Except that is not what you and I are talking about. We're talking about you attacking the proponents beliefs in order to discredit the theory they support.
If the theory is that weak and unscientific, you ought to have no need to attack the beliefs systems of any people, attacking the theory should provide ample ammunition to undermine it.

The theory is based on their belief. Belief is almost by definition unscientific. science is where belief should stop because you know, or at least you know a bit. So if their belief is unscientific, it is hard to base a scientific theory on it. And if the theory assumes the thruth of certain beliefs it is entirely corect that this part of the theory can get attacked. That is no attack on the belief, but on it's place in the theory.

As long as a theory has no evidence (other than "it is obvious, just look around you") it should not be taught as a posible thruth. Feel free to include it in religious classes, I think I mentioned that before, but it's not science, perhaps not yet, perhaps it never will be


edit: some psychology

humans always look for patterns... the most wonderfull is mentioned now:
"Isnt it a strange coincedence that we life on such a hospitable planet" ofcourse we do, if it wasnt such a hospitable planet, we wouldnt have lived here. If you evolve in an environment, it is no surprise that said environment suits you

our ability to find patterns helped us survive and developed science. Sometimes the pattern is "we exist because that exists that way". That doesnt mean someone made it that way just to suit us, it just means that we are another logical (well, considering humans, more or less logical) step along chemistry

If the theory is that weak and unscientific, you ought to have no need to attack the beliefs systems of any people, attacking the theory should provide ample ammunition to undermine it.

You overestimate ID. The whole problem with it is that there is nothing else to attack, since it has no basis other than "we believe we were designed". No supporting evidence, no welldefined criteria to determine if something is designed, no links to established knowledge etc. etc. etc. Its supporters are too busy to attack evolution to actually make something of their own litle idea.
The only correct attitude of the scientific community therefor is to snub it... but doing that leads to it being taught in schools and people saying that scientists are too arrogant.

Now, the ironic thing is that it is quite possible we were all designed or created by God. That just doesn't mean that the mockery of ID is scientific.

You may be correct.
But you have presumed that the only way to demonstratre design is to compare to a known design.I took the path on how I would use to find out if something was designed and what I'd need to know. If you have no reference state to refer to, you will not be able to make conclusive statements.

But you could only reach that conclusion because of an initial assumption that objects were capable of being designed.

Let's take the example of, say, an aircraft carrier you find sitting in the middle of nowhere. You've never seen an aircraft carrier before, but you know about modern materials science and production techniques, and you're curious about where it came from. Maybe it grew there. Maybe God made it. Maybe it was built by humans. So, how to proceed?

Firstly, we assume the explanation that multiplies terms the least is the most viable, the principle of logical parsimony. Since we've never seen an aircraft carrier growing anywhere and we can't ask God if he did it, that leaves humans making it [simplifying to these three possiblities]. We therefore assume humans are able to make it, and proceed with investigating the validity of this theory by making predictions of what we should see if they did, and testing them.

As we look around, we find instructions and warning labels in familiar language, bolts and fixings that are operated using tools humans make, materials that show signs of being worked by our own technology, and that everything is curiously human-sized. We slowly figure out how the ship was built up from the keel and fitted out, and flesh out our initial assumption into a working theory, finally testing it by getting some humans together and building one of our own. We succeed, therefore we can safely assume humans built the other one, too.

We could not possibly have arrived at that conclusion if we did not at some stage assume humans were capable of designing and building an aircraft carrier, because we needed an assumption to make predictions from and to compare the evidence to. The problem is that the assumption of a 'designer' is impossible to make unless we know something about the designer. In the above case, we knew roughly what humans were capable of and what they would build to suit themselves, but ID has a mysterious designer with no defined qualities.

This is why ID can never be a remotely scientific theory until it proposes to know something about the designer; you can't look for evidence of something that can do whatever it likes, because you can't make any predictions of what it will do. Any and all evidence can be interpreted as evidence for such an entity, leading to a 'theory' with infinite inclusive power but zero predictive power. Such a theory is impossible to disprove [because it can incorporate any evidence], and also impossible to test [because the mechanism is unknown with no defined characteristics or limits, it is impossible to predict what the designer will do in any given case]. It is therefore useless since the possibility of falsification [ie, the idea that an experiment could be defined which, given a certain set of results, would disprove the theory] is one of the major tests of a scientific theory, and ID fails it miserably. It is not science, and it is not and will never be useful until something is known about the designer's mechanisms and methods.

IDers also nail their colours firmly to the mast with constant talk about 'a' designer, because none of them even attempt to justify the assumption that the designer must be singular, aside from the very obvious 'because it's YHWH' that ID is trying to hide. If nature really were designed, it was by a committee including at least one civil engineer. Nobody else would put a sewage outlet next to a leisure centre.


Well done. You aptly point out ID's lack of predictive power and it's inclusive ability with "evidence".
I have no trouble with the initial assumption that you point that for objects being capable of being designed and I might quibble with your example because choosing an object so closely related to our culture where we will recognise such simple examples as labels means we certainly won't attempt to build one ourselves. Alien designed items fits the bill much better, but regardless, you make your point well and for the reasons you state, ID does not belong in a science class. (I did make my view clear on that pages ago, but it may have been forgotten as the pages wear on)

I do disagree with your comments on ID colours and the singular creator.
If all things have a cause, except the Prime Cause, then the Prime Cause is singular. That happens to fit nicely with Monotheistic religions, but it is the starting position.

Alien designed items fits the bill much better

In this instance, you would have to first demonstrate it could not be designed by humans [our baseline assumption, because we know humans design things], then demonstrate that aliens exist to design it, then examine the aliens' technology to see if they are the particular aliens who designed it. You still need to understand the designer to be able to evaluate the design; it could be the alien artifact is actually a root vegetable from their world designed by nobody, after all.

It's still logically incorrect to jump to the conclusion that unobserved aliens must have designed something just because we didn't, if we don't know there are any aliens and we don't know anything about how they go about designing things. You might as well say 'Gordon' did it, it's about the same level of testability and usefulness.

If all things have a cause, except the Prime Cause, then the Prime Cause is singular. That happens to fit nicely with Monotheistic religions, but it is the starting position.

Why? Why can't the prime cause be several events happening together, each without cause, or a whole series of co-dependant entities? If one type of 'thing' requires no cause, why need there only be one of those things? And why does there need to be a prime cause at all, given the prime cause itself requires no cause and therefore acceptance of a prime cause implies that not all things require a cause? Why does the prime cause have to also be the designer? Couldn't it have caused the designer, or a whole group of designers, to come into being as seperate entities and only be concerned with flitting around causing things?

The very concept of a 'prime cause' is an intellectual conceit; it matters little if you call it 'designer,' 'big bang' or 'basil,' you're merely trying to create a single exception to your own rule to excuse part of your hypothesis that doesn't work within it. If all complex things require a cause and the designer is a complex thing, then under the same logic the designer must have a cause. Thus we get an infinite regress where all things have a cause in turn, which is just as sensible as one thing with no cause that existed for infinity.

Also, by depending on a definition that makes 'designer' and 'prime cause' the same entity you are very clearly using baseless assumptions drawn from religious dogma. There is no reason to suspect designer and cause must be one and the same, other than 'because YHWH is' in the Bible.

So, you believe it to be something someone made. Then you have assumed a designer, whether you admit it or not.
I only assume the designer AFTER determining it to be something someone made.
This is contradictory to what you said earlier: A good design is something that required some active intelligence to arrive at this state.

Intelligence first, design AFTER.

So how then (as Dem asked) can you assume designer only AFTER determining design (design first, intelligence AFTER)?

I don't assume that a village existed there, I examine the evidence, I find artefacts, that leads to the safe conclusion that a village existed there and I can "assume" a designer then for the artefacts.

I have to assume it's possible that a village could have existed where I'm digging.
Same as the ID discussion, I only have to assume that it is possible that a Creator/Designer exists to look for design.
Now, a designer of artefacts is being assumed. Artefacts are, by definition, something created by man. In order to label them artefacts, we assume that someone made them.

The discovery of artefacts leading to the conclusion of a village requires first the assumption that people who makes artefacts leave them in villages.

In this instance, you would have to first demonstrate it could not be designed by humans [our baseline assumption, because we know humans design things],

Easy enough, it exists on world humans have had no known presence.


then demonstrate that aliens exist to design it,

Whoa!
So, I can't find any object that demonstrates aliens existed without first demonstrating that aliens exist to design it??
Your cart is way before the horse.

Whoa!
So, I can't find any object that demonstrates aliens existed without first demonstrating that aliens exist to design it??
Your cart is way before the horse.

Actually you over look the point.

In the matter of science, there is no way to prove or disprove God let alone his involvement so it's a question that is not asked.

The same goes for aliens. Since you have no way to test for them, they are not brought into the equation.

Unless of course you want to roll back time and explain what we don't understand as "God works in mysterious ways"

Why? Why can't the prime cause be several events happening together, each without cause, or a whole series of co-dependant entities?

Several events happening together?? As a prime cause? Well, I guess it can't be ENTIRELY ruled out, but really, it would be something like surmising that a large meteorite struck the Yucatan penisula because of the massive crater-like land formation and responding with, "Wait! what if it wasn't 1 big one? What if it was 278 medium sized meteorites that all impacted at the same moment!?"

Of course, that's difficult if not impossible to rule out, provided they do all strike at the same moment, but we certainly don't expect a coincidence of that magnitude when it is much more likely that a single large one did it.

Whatever the Prime Cause is, if it exists, is almost certainly singular, but I won't deny you your wiggle room if you want it.


If one type of 'thing' requires no cause, why need there only be one of those things?

Because one is all that is required.


And why does there need to be a prime cause at all,

There doesn't. It's a philosophical construct that is one way to explain reality.
You do realise this isn't science, right?


given the prime cause itself requires no cause and therefore acceptance of a prime cause implies that not all things require a cause?

No, that's not true. All things other than the Prime Cause require a cause. That's why it's called the "Prime" cause.


Why does the prime cause have to also be the designer?

It doesn't, unless there is a designer.


Couldn't it have caused the designer, or a whole group of designers, to come into being as seperate entities and only be concerned with flitting around causing things?


Now you're not even putting thought into it now.
If the universe and life are designed, then your designers are in it, without being designed, therefore, the universe and life arent designed and you're no longer talking about design.

The very concept of a 'prime cause' is an intellectual conceit; it matters little if you call it 'designer,' 'big bang' or 'basil,' you're merely trying to create a single exception to your own rule to excuse part of your hypothesis that doesn't work within it. If all complex things require a cause and the designer is a complex thing, then under the same logic the designer must have a cause. Thus we get an infinite regress where all things have a cause in turn, which is just as sensible as one thing with no cause that existed for infinity.


2 things from this;
1) I'm not sure which hypthesis you're talking about anymore, ID, which is not mine, I'm not even a propent of it in the realm of science, or the PRime Cause, which I certainly can't claim, it's a very old school of philosophical thought, and also, not science.
2) You may choose the infinite regress, but it is not sensible either. Please note, I'm not saying it is untrue.


Also, by depending on a definition that makes 'designer' and 'prime cause' the same entity you are very clearly using baseless assumptions drawn from religious dogma. There is no reason to suspect designer and cause must be one and the same, other than 'because YHWH is' in the Bible.

No, that's not true.
Both Designer and Prime Cause, if they exist, must of necessity exist beyond what we know as our universe, and if there is a Designer, that would logically be the Prime Cause. It may be possible in theory to have a Prime Cause without a Designer, but you can't have a Designer without being a Prime Cause.

This is contradictory to what you said earlier: A good design is something that required some active intelligence to arrive at this state.

Intelligence first, design AFTER.

So how then (as Dem asked) can you assume designer only AFTER determining design (design first, intelligence AFTER)?



Cause and effect. We examine the effects in an attempt to determine the cause.
Design is the effect by which we discover the cause, which is intelligence.


Now, a designer of artefacts is being assumed. Artefacts are, by definition, something created by man. In order to label them artefacts, we assume that someone made them.


True.
It would be more accurate to label them items until we have determined they are artefacts.


The discovery of artefacts leading to the conclusion of a village requires first the assumption that people who makes artefacts leave them in villages.


Sure, if the important part is "village". At a minimum, it leads to the conclusion that intelligent beings were there.

This is contradictory to what you said earlier: A good design is something that required some active intelligence to arrive at this state.

Intelligence first, design AFTER.

So how then (as Dem asked) can you assume designer only AFTER determining design (design first, intelligence AFTER)?



Cause and effect. We examine the effects in an attempt to determine the cause.
Design is the effect by which we discover the cause, which is intelligence.


Now, a designer of artefacts is being assumed. Artefacts are, by definition, something created by man. In order to label them artefacts, we assume that someone made them.


True.
It would be more accurate to label them items until we have determined they are artefacts.


The discovery of artefacts leading to the conclusion of a village requires first the assumption that people who makes artefacts leave them in villages.


Sure, if the important part is "village". At a minimum, it leads to the conclusion that intelligent beings were there.

Actually you over look the point.

In the matter of science, there is no way to prove or disprove God let alone his involvement so it's a question that is not asked.

The same goes for aliens. Since you have no way to test for them, they are not brought into the equation.

Unless of course you want to roll back time and explain what we don't understand as "God works in mysterious ways"


You're intertwining aliens and God there, not sure how to take that.
But, I take it then that there is nothing we could ever find should we begin to travel space that would ever convince us we have evidence of long dead alien species, snice we can never actually find the dead aliens, being dead and all.

So, I can't find any object that demonstrates aliens existed without first demonstrating that aliens exist to design it??
Your cart is way before the horse.

No, you're distorting the point. You cannot demonstrate aliens have designed any given object until you demonstrate they existed to design it, much like you cannot demonstrate Skeletor designed the Model T Ford without first showing Skeletor exists. This is because it is possible the aliens existed but did not design the object; the aliens are an independant term and must be demonstrated seperate to the object in order to justify the use of a conclusion based on them existing.

Whatever the Prime Cause is, if it exists, is almost certainly singular, but I won't deny you your wiggle room if you want it.

How do you know it is more likely for a prime cause to be singular than plural, given we've never observed one? For that matter, how do we know if it's even possible for a prime cause to be singular?

Because one is all that is required.

We also do not need more than zero Celine Dions, but we still have one. Why should we assume we only have the minimum number needed?

No, that's not true. All things other than the Prime Cause require a cause. That's why it's called the "Prime" cause.

Why? What makes the Prime Cause exempt from the rule that all things need a cause, other than that you want it to be?

It doesn't, unless there is a designer.

Nonsense, it doesn't even if there is a designer. The prime cause requires the following characteristics, assuming it exists:

1. Equal to or greater energy than the universe
2. A means of triggering itself to form the universe

That's it. The prime cause need be no more than a really big timebomb.

If the universe and life are designed, then your designers are in it, without being designed, therefore, the universe and life arent designed and you're no longer talking about design.

How can you prove that a designer would have to designed when you know nothing about the designer? How is this any different from claiming the designer requires no cause?

More to the point, why should the prime cause be incapable of causing things outside the universe like itself? Are you saying it would be impossible for God to make another God if he felt like it?

Both Designer and Prime Cause, if they exist, must of necessity exist beyond what we know as our universe, and if there is a Designer, that would logically be the Prime Cause. It may be possible in theory to have a Prime Cause without a Designer, but you can't have a Designer without being a Prime Cause.

Of course you can. The Prime Cause could have been a mechanistic process with inevitable results and the designer a simple by-product of that process. Unless you can demonstrate that a 'designer' has certain characteristics and not others, you cannot possibly argue what would be required to make one.

And unless you can demonstrate everything that could be caused by a prime cause must exist within the universe it also causes, you cannot assume a designer caused by a prime cause would be subject to the requirement of being designed. As long as 'being outside the universe' is an excuse for violating causality, the Prime Cause can cheerfully flit around, mindlessly making as many Gods as it feels like without designing them. For that matter, they could make themselves, since out there they don't need a cause either.

Also, you've excluded the possibility that the Prime Cause designed a designer and then designed beer and TV, leaving the designer to do its thing with the universe. Who says the Prime Cause can't delegate?

Cause and effect. We examine the effects in an attempt to determine the cause.

You must first know that the cause is capable of existing. For example, 'magic' could be the cause of any event since it's not defined, but we haven't observed it, so it's pointless theorising that magic may be the cause of a given effect.

Design is the effect by which we discover the cause, which is intelligence.

So if it 'looks like magic' it must be magic, because magic causes things that look like magic. Circular argument; we know nothing at all about the designer, so we cannot say any given thing is what that designer would design. All you end up with is the Appeal to Ignorance fallacy, 'I can't see how this could occur naturally so it obviously didn't' then making a colossal leap in logic over to 'so it must have been designed by a single invisible intelligent being which is also supreme cause of the universe. Let's call him the Designer, because YHWH is so last millenium.'

You're intertwining aliens and God there, not sure how to take that.
But, I take it then that there is nothing we could ever find should we begin to travel space that would ever convince us we have evidence of long dead alien species, snice we can never actually find the dead aliens, being dead and all.

Simple actually. Dembski talks about an Intelligent Designer but then goes right into talking about God. The ID movement basically holds God as the Intelligent Designer.

As to the other comment. If the aliens are dead, more then likely there is evidence of their existence. As such it's ok to start asking questions about them.

However, just because they are there, we still wouldn't say they created us unless there is evidence to suggest it.

Simple actually. Dembski talks about an Intelligent Designer but then goes right into talking about God. The ID movement basically holds God as the Intelligent Designer.


Sure, the ID "movement" does, but the ID Theory doesn't.


As to the other comment. If the aliens are dead, more then likely there is evidence of their existence. As such it's ok to start asking questions about them.


What evidence is there of their existence?
That's been my point all along, that we can find evidence of their existence and you and several others are telling me I can't find evidence of them without first proving they exist, which is what the evidence is supposed to do...


However, just because they are there, we still wouldn't say they created us unless there is evidence to suggest it.

Umm, no one, that I'm aware of in this discussion, is talking about aliens creating us.

No, you're distorting the point. You cannot demonstrate aliens have designed any given object until you demonstrate they existed to design it, much like you cannot demonstrate Skeletor designed the Model T Ford without first showing Skeletor exists. This is because it is possible the aliens existed but did not design the object; the aliens are an independant term and must be demonstrated seperate to the object in order to justify the use of a conclusion based on them existing.



You and I board a starship.
We travel 42 million lightyears and land on an undiscovered by humankind planet. We call the planet Skeletor.
We discover certain things.
We agree we have found both tool-like objects and dwellings. We agree they have been unused for at least 260,000 years.

I conclude that life other than earth life exists/existed in the universe.
I conclude that alien life existed on Skeltor at some point.

What, if anything, do you conclude?

You and I board a starship.
We travel 42 million lightyears and land on an undiscovered by humankind planet. We call the planet Skeletor.
We discover certain things.
We agree we have found both tool-like objects and dwellings. We agree they have been unused for at least 260,000 years.

I conclude that life other than earth life exists/existed in the universe.
I conclude that alien life existed on Skeltor at some point.

What, if anything, do you conclude?

You conclude that natural forces shaped these items into tool and dwelling shape. This is assuming that you find only these tool-like and dwelling-like formations.

Without the physical remains or written records left behind by another species, you do not have evidence for any kind of intelligent life on that planet. You have objects that resemble tools and formations that resemble dwellings, but without the remains of the creatures that used or inhabited them, you must assume other forces at work. You need evidence of the designers before concluding that these remains were desigend by them.

I conclude that life other than earth life exists/existed in the universe.
I conclude that alien life existed on Skeltor at some point.

Your conclusion is not supported by your evidence. The tools could have been dumped there by other aliens not from that planet, they could grow there naturally, their tool-like appearence could be coincidental.

Without evidence of the aliens themselves, finding tools just proves you've found tools. The correct order for this line of inquiry would be to determine first that there were aliens, then examine the tools you found to determine if they were made by those aliens.

For example, if you found tools that depended on a four-armed creature to operate them and the only aliens you found only had one arm, the tools would still not have been made by the aliens. Your conclusion is entirely premature; without knowing anything about the aliens, you cannot know what they would make.

What, if anything, do you conclude?

I conclude you don't know who Skeletor is?

Cause and effect. We examine the effects in an attempt to determine the cause.
Design is the effect by which we discover the cause, which is intelligence.
So... the inherent logical self-contradiction in your stance isn't a problem for you?

Design is the effect of a designer.

Sure, the ID "movement" does, but the ID Theory doesn't.
There's a Theory of Intelligent Design? Can we get it stated? I've never actually seen it stated before.

What evidence is there of their existence?
That's been my point all along, that we can find evidence of their existence and you and several others are telling me I can't find evidence of them without first proving they exist, which is what the evidence is supposed to do...
Not proving they exist, assuming they exist.

You and I board a starship.
We travel 42 million lightyears and land on an undiscovered by humankind planet. We call the planet Skeletor.
We discover certain things.
We agree we have found both tool-like objects and dwellings. We agree they have been unused for at least 260,000 years...
Even a "tool-like" object assumes a creator, since if the "tool" assumes a tool-maker, then things "like a tool" also do.

You conclude that natural forces shaped these items into tool and dwelling shape. This is assuming that you find only these tool-like and dwelling-like formations.


I don't conclude that, you are free to.


Without the physical remains or written records left behind by another species, you do not have evidence for any kind of intelligent life on that planet. You have objects that resemble tools and formations that resemble dwellings, but without the remains of the creatures that used or inhabited them, you must assume other forces at work. You need evidence of the designers before concluding that these remains were desigend by them.


I'm deliberately pegging the example with enough time that finding physical remains is unlikely, if not impossible.

How will "written records" help? It is doubtful we will understand them, and what is to prevent you from telling me those "written records" weren't also shaped by natural forces?

Your conclusion is not supported by your evidence. The tools could have been dumped there by other aliens not from that planet,


That is entirely possible within my conclusion.


they could grow there naturally,

You and I have already agreed we have found tools and dwellings, not growths. I'll leave it to your imagination how complex these items are for you to be in agreement with me.


Without evidence of the aliens themselves, finding tools just proves you've found tools. The correct order for this line of inquiry would be to determine first that there were aliens,


How would we determine that then?


then examine the tools you found to determine if they were made by those aliens.


At that point, you've already proven as much as I care about, which aliens is irrelevant to our line of questioning.


For example, if you found tools that depended on a four-armed creature to operate them and the only aliens you found only had one arm, the tools would still not have been made by the aliens. Your conclusion is entirely premature; without knowing anything about the aliens, you cannot know what they would make.

Knowing what they make will assist us in determing things about these aliens.
If what you say is true, archaeology might as well pack up and just go home entirely.


I conclude you don't know who Skeletor is?

Dude in blue tights and skeleton face, always foiled by He-Man, Master of the Universe shortly after he shouts "I HAVE THE POOOOOOWERR!!!" while holding his sword up high.

So... the inherent logical self-contradiction in your stance isn't a problem for you?


There is no inherent logical self-contradiction.
If there were, yes, I'd have a problem with it.


Design is the effect of a designer.

Yes it is.

I don't conclude that, you are free to.

I'm deliberately pegging the example with enough time that finding physical remains is unlikely, if not impossible.

How will "written records" help? It is doubtful we will understand them, and what is to prevent you from telling me those "written records" weren't also shaped by natural forces?

Without physical remains, you can't even prove there were aliens on this planet, much less relatively sophisticated aliens that could have created tools and dwellings. The only other way to connect aliens to these things you found on Skeletor is by some kind of record left behind, which is why I mentioned it. If you don't have any physical remains in association with the tools, and no records that could be translated, you cannot claim that these things were the result of design.

Further, how do you even judge if these things you found were tools and dwellings? You don't have aliens or their remains, so you don't have any reference as to what kind of dwellings or tools they would have used. The only frame of reference we have, as humans, to separate tools from natural objects are the objects we have modified, or observed being modified. To find objects on a planet that shows little to no evidence of alien life, you have no way of telling if those objects were in their natural state or were modified.

There is no inherent logical self-contradiction.
If there were, yes, I'd have a problem with it.
Denial is the next symptom.

Yes it is.
Then a designer is assumed if something is labelled "design". It is assumed in the very act of labelling it "design".

There's a Theory of Intelligent Design? Can we get it stated? I've never actually seen it stated before.


"The theory of intelligent design (ID) holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process...
...
In a broader sense, Intelligent Design is simply the science of design detection -- how to recognize patterns arranged by an intelligent cause for a purpose. Design detection is used in a number of scientific fields, including anthropology, forensic sciences that seek to explain the cause of events such as a death or fire, cryptanalysis and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI)."
http://www.intelligentdesignnetwork.org/

Note, I'm NOT inagreement with the proponents that they are onto an actual science here, but attacking their belief in God doesn't do anything to demonstrate why the theory is flawed as science.



Not proving they exist, assuming they exist.

In which sense are using the word assume?
I assume it as a possibility, not as a reality.

Without physical remains, you can't even prove there were aliens on this planet, much less relatively sophisticated aliens that could have created tools and dwellings. The only other way to connect aliens to these things you found on Skeletor is by some kind of record left behind, which is why I mentioned it. If you don't have any physical remains in association with the tools, and no records that could be translated, you cannot claim that these things were the result of design.


How can I show a record?
Let's say I find a "record" why is that record not just as likely to have grown there as you seem to think the other evidence has.


Further, how do you even judge if these things you found were tools and dwellings? You don't have aliens or their remains, so you don't have any reference as to what kind of dwellings or tools they would have used. The only frame of reference we have, as humans, to separate tools from natural objects are the objects we have modified, or observed being modified. To find objects on a planet that shows little to no evidence of alien life, you have no way of telling if those objects were in their natural state or were modified.


Let's say one of these "tools" is a best described as vaguely French Horn shaped, constructed with some unknown to us polymer and is covered in lines that seem to intersect at progressively sharper angles.

You're free to stand on Planet Skeletor with me and tell me it is in it's natural state, and I'll keep wondering if we share the same reality at all.

Denial is the next symptom.


It has not been demonstrated, there's nothing to deny except for unsupported assertions.


Then a designer is assumed if something is labelled "design". It is assumed in the very act of labelling it "design".

Once something is labelled as "design" then yes, one must then assume a designer. That's rather the point of it all.

How can I show a record?
Let's say I find a "record" why is that record not just as likely to have grown there as you seem to think the other evidence has.

I never claimed this "record" might not be a natural formation. I'm simply giving a link that might be used to connect tools and a toolmaker.

Let's say one of these "tools" is a best described as vaguely French Horn shaped, constructed with some unknown to us polymer and is covered in lines that seem to intersect at progressively sharper angles.

You're free to stand on Planet Skeletor with me and tell me it is in it's natural state, and I'll keep wondering if we share the same reality at all.

You'll need to show me first that this polymer doesn't naturally occur. Then you'll need to show that this French Horn shape doesn't occur naturally, and whether those lines occur naturally or not. This is an alien planet, and for all we know, French Horns covered with intersecting lines made of an alien polymer occur naturally.

If you can show that the polymer, shape, or covering lines are not naturally occuring, then you'll need to rule out every possible natural occurence that might have created such an object. Remember, we are operating without physical evidence of aliens, so you cannot assert creators as a hypothesis since there is no trace of a creators other than a uniquely shaped object. If you can show that erosion, radiation, sandstorms, etc. had nothing to do with the object, then that leaves the possibility that the object is created, thus implying a creator. But until you rule out all of the natural forces of the planet Skeletor, you cannot assert a designer because evidence exists for the natural forces, but not for a lifeform capable of creation.

"The theory of intelligent design (ID) holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process...
...
In a broader sense, Intelligent Design is simply the science of design detection -- how to recognize patterns arranged by an intelligent cause for a purpose. Design detection is used in a number of scientific fields, including anthropology, forensic sciences that seek to explain the cause of events such as a death or fire, cryptanalysis and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI)."
http://www.intelligentdesignnetwork.org/
Those are statements about the theory. I would like to hear the theory stated.

Note, I'm NOT inagreement with the proponents that they are onto an actual science here, but attacking their belief in God doesn't do anything to demonstrate why the theory is flawed as science.


In which sense are using the word assume?
I assume it as a possibility, not as a reality.
"To take something for granted."

You have already stated that you assume that it is reality; you said this when you said that a design is something created by an intelligence.

It has not been demonstrated, there's nothing to deny except for unsupported assertions.
It doesn't have to be demonstrated; it is assumed.

Once something is labelled as "design" then yes, one must then assume a designer. That's rather the point of it all.
Except that you said, "I guess I'd start with something that required some active/intelligent direction to arrive at it's state."

If a design requires an active/intelligent direction, then active/intelligent direction is the criteria you use to label something a design.

Those are statements about the theory. I would like to hear the theory stated.

"Evillution is baaaaaaaaaaaaad". There you go.

Sadly, this answer is quite accurate.

Those are statements about the theory. I would like to hear the theory stated.

Indeed!

I have requested, repeatedly, that somebody--anybody!--present the testable hypotheses advanced by the so-called Intelligent Design Theory. This will include the practical means of testing various elements of the theory, and will spell out exactly what findings would disprove the hypotheses.

Indeed!

I have requested, repeatedly, that somebody--anybody!--present the testable hypotheses advanced by the so-called Intelligent Design Theory. This will include the practical means of testing various elements of the theory, and will spell out exactly what findings would disprove the hypotheses.

And you'll keep waiting. The usual response is the false dichotomy of "Well this one part of the TOE is contestable so that proves ID/Creationism/BS/etc."

I never claimed this "record" might not be a natural formation. I'm simply giving a link that might be used to connect tools and a toolmaker.


Then your "link" is useless by your own standards.


You'll need to show me first that this polymer doesn't naturally occur. Then you'll need to show that this French Horn shape doesn't occur naturally, and whether those lines occur naturally or not. This is an alien planet, and for all we know, French Horns covered with intersecting lines made of an alien polymer occur naturally.

If you can show that the polymer, shape, or covering lines are not naturally occuring, then you'll need to rule out every possible natural occurence that might have created such an object. Remember, we are operating without physical evidence of aliens, so you cannot assert creators as a hypothesis since there is no trace of a creators other than a uniquely shaped object. If you can show that erosion, radiation, sandstorms, etc. had nothing to do with the object, then that leaves the possibility that the object is created, thus implying a creator. But until you rule out all of the natural forces of the planet Skeletor, you cannot assert a designer because evidence exists for the natural forces, but not for a lifeform capable of creation.


Prove to me that a gun does not naturally occur.

Those are statements about the theory. I would like to hear the theory stated.


No, that's pretty much it for the "theory".
I think you're asking to hear their supporting evidence.


"To take something for granted."

You have already stated that you assume that it is reality; you said this when you said that a design is something created by an intelligence.


No, I was simply defining design, I wasn't assuming any reality.

Then your "link" is useless by your own standards.





Prove to me that a gun does not naturally occur.

The evidence so far is that one has never been discovered that has naturally occured. Every single one has and can be traced to a point of origen. Can you present evidence that one has? If you can, then the theory is thrown out and a new hypothesis devised, observed and tested. Can you say the same for ID or creationism? Where is the evidence for a point of origen? Has it been tested for? observed? repeated?

Indeed!

I have requested, repeatedly, that somebody--anybody!--present the testable hypotheses advanced by the so-called Intelligent Design Theory. This will include the practical means of testing various elements of the theory, and will spell out exactly what findings would disprove the hypotheses.

they did sorta have at least one - behe's irreducible complexity. of course, that was soundly falsified (partially before he even presented it, actually), so behe had to make a choice. and he chose to give up on science - or rather to call astrology 'science', becuase that was the only way he could still be doing 'science' while promoting stupid and false ideas.

It doesn't have to be demonstrated; it is assumed.


Don't be silly, you can't just assume a logical contradiction, you demonstrate it.


Except that you said, "I guess I'd start with something that required some active/intelligent direction to arrive at it's state."

If a design requires an active/intelligent direction, then active/intelligent direction is the criteria you use to label something a design.

For some reason you seem to believe that anything designed is completely indistinguishable from something naturally occuring without being able to walk up and shake the hand of the designer.

Then your "link" is useless by your own standards.

Certainly. Records left behind can be used only once the existence of the toolmakers has been proven and the records shown to come from them. In our example, we seem to have no prior knowledge of any aliens, much less the kind that might have made these tool-like objects, so records are useless here.

Prove to me that a gun does not naturally occur.
Now, in an entirely different situation, like the gun, we can rely upon records because we have a very extensive record of the kind of tools humans make, as well as significantly more data on what is and isn't natural on Earth. You can look at grave goods, websites, books about gunsmithing, even talk to an existing gunsmith.

On Skeltor, we have none of that. No records, no data on what is natural and what isn't, and most importantly, no indication of an alien species beyond oddly shaped objects and structure. On Skeletor, you have to proceed from the assumption that natural forces produced these objects because you have don't have evidence for anything else.

Indeed!

I have requested, repeatedly, that somebody--anybody!--present the testable hypotheses advanced by the so-called Intelligent Design Theory. This will include the practical means of testing various elements of the theory, and will spell out exactly what findings would disprove the hypotheses.


Nobody can, it's just not good enough science, or science at all for that.

Out of curiosity, what are your thoughts on String Theory?
It has no testable hypotheses nor practical means of testing the elements of the theory.
Indeed, it is well known to have no discernable practical application.

I don't point this out to try and allow ID in, I just find it interesting how much bad or weak science is tolerated is it comes from the "right" sources.

Nobody can, it's just not good enough science, or science at all for that.

Out of curiosity, what are your thoughts on String Theory?
It has no testable hypotheses nor practical means of testing the elements of the theory.
Indeed, it is well known to have no discernable practical application.

I don't point this out to try and allow ID in, I just find it interesting how much bad or weak science is tolerated is it comes from the "right" sources.

String theory has mathematical hypothesis supporting it and has from the beginning. It has also been modified as new introductions have been made.

http://www.theory.caltech.edu/people/jhs/strings/

Can you say the same for ID or creationism?

Nope.
That's probably why I'm not a proponent of either of them being included in science.

Nope.
That's probably why I'm not a proponent of either of them being included in science.

Which is a good thing.

The evidence so far is that one has never been discovered that has naturally occured. Every single one has and can be traced to a point of origen. Can you present evidence that one has? If you can, then the theory is thrown out and a new hypothesis devised, observed and tested. Can you say the same for ID or creationism? Where is the evidence for a point of origen? Has it been tested for? observed? repeated?

Well, continuing with the gun example.

A gun is made out of materials that are either naturally found, or made from processing naturally found materials. So in order to design/create, existing material is needed. God, or whatever designer, did not have that. Therefore we cannot equate a theory of origin with a human making a gun.

Certainly. Records left behind can be used only once the existence of the toolmakers has been proven and the records shown to come from them. In our example, we seem to have no prior knowledge of any aliens, much less the kind that might have made these tool-like objects, so records are useless here.


Why then did you suggest records?


Now, in an entirely different situation, like the gun, we can rely upon records because we have a very extensive record of the kind of tools humans make, as well as significantly more data on what is and isn't natural on Earth. You can look at grave goods, websites, books about gunsmithing, even talk to an existing gunsmith.
[/I]

So, if you lacked access to any records, websites, books or gunsmiths, you would be unable to demonstrate that a gun is designed and not not naturally occuring?


On Skeltor, we have none of that. No records, no data on what is natural and what isn't, and most importantly, no indication of an alien species beyond oddly shaped objects and structure. On Skeletor, you have to proceed from the assumption that natural forces produced these objects because you have don't have evidence for anything else.

So, there is NO amount of intricacy, complexity or refinement to these objects or structures that would shake your assumption that they are naturally occuring without actually finding a Skeltorian?

Therefore we cannot equate a theory of origin with a human making a gun.

I'm certainly not trying to.
I'm long past discussing origin theories, I'm focussed on this line of thought that says you cannot ever observe design without knowing the designer.

The acceptance of that boggles me.

ID's big problem is that a Creator is in quite a different pickle that a human creator, which we should call a human craftsman as we don't create so much as craft materials, as you point out. So ID proponents will need to demonstrate design in an overwhelming fashion since if everything IS designed, we don't know what truly undesigned reality would look like, or more likely, if ID is correct, design is crucial to reality, which again leaves nothing to compare to.

Why then did you suggest records?

I was simply listing the ways association can be established without thought for the hypothetical scenario of Skeletor.


So, if you lacked access to any records, websites, books or gunsmiths, you would be unable to demonstrate that a gun is designed and not not naturally occuring?

We also can examine gun factories and workshops for physical evidence of design and creation. In fact you could probably get a tour to see a gun getting made, since our particular civilization isn't extinct.

So, there is NO amount of intricacy, complexity or refinement to these objects or structures that would shake your assumption that they are naturally occuring without actually finding a Skeltorian?
Unless you find a Skeletorian, then there is nothing else that could have made the tool-like objects except for natural forces, irregardless of the complexity, intricacy, or refinement of the objects.

Why attribute the existence of an unusual object to a creator for which you have no evidence instead of natural forces for which you have evidence?

Unless you find a Skeletorian, then there is nothing else that could have made the tool-like objects except for natural forces, irregardless of the complexity, intricacy, or refinement of the objects.

Why attribute the existence of an unusual object to a creator for which you have no evidence instead of natural forces for which you have evidence?


Well, this is the heart of the matter and where I simply cannot agree and find it increasingly strange that you can hold that thought.

I have no evidence for natural forces that can create complex, intricate refined objects.

Now, in an entirely different situation, like the gun, we can rely upon records because we have a very extensive record of the kind of tools humans make, as well as significantly more data on what is and isn't natural on Earth. You can look at grave goods, websites, books about gunsmithing, even talk to an existing gunsmith.

Let us take this further. Can one argue that in order for ID to have scientific value, we must understand *how* the design was done ?

In other words - that if people claim that ID is scientific they are claiming they have knowledge equal to Gods ?

The hubris is hurting my poorly designed eyes...

Well, this is the heart of the matter and where I simply cannot agree and find it increasingly strange that you can hold that thought.

I have no evidence for natural forces that can create complex, intricate refined objects.

Are we talking about Skeletor here, or have we moved out of hypothetics?

In the case of the hypothetical planet, since natural forces have not been described or studied, the tool-like objects could be a product of these forces. The open possibility of forces that are existant but not described seems to be a better candidate than a Skeletorian for which there is no evidence whatsoever.

However, if we are talking about complexity observed in our world, then maybe there is evidence for natural forces. Certainly science has found natural explanations for previously unexplainable phenomena before. Do you have any specific examples of this unexplainable complexity, intricacy, and refinement?

Are we talking about Skeletor here, or have we moved out of hypothetics?

In the case of the hypothetical planet, since natural forces have not been described or studied, the tool-like objects could be a product of these forces. The open possibility of forces that are existant but not described seems to be a better candidate than a Skeletorian for which there is no evidence whatsoever.

However, if we are talking about complexity observed in our world, then maybe there is evidence for natural forces. Certainly science has found natural explanations for previously unexplainable phenomena before. Do you have any specific examples of this unexplainable complexity, intricacy, and refinement?

have you ever seen naturally refined metals?

have you ever seen naturally refined metals?

Me? No, but I've never known much about geology, metallurgy, or how to tell refined from non-refined metal.

Are we talking about Skeletor here, or have we moved out of hypothetics?

In the case of the hypothetical planet, since natural forces have not been described or studied, the tool-like objects could be a product of these forces. The open possibility of forces that are existant but not described seems to be a better candidate than a Skeletorian for which there is no evidence whatsoever.


Do you imagine that natural forces will be somehow magic-like to our terran sensibilites on undiscovered planets?

A Skeletorian is a much better candidate than new unknown FORCES.

Do you imagine that natural forces will be somehow magic-like to our terran sensibilites on undiscovered planets?

A Skeletorian is a much better candidate than new unknown FORCES.

We are talking about a completely different planet. Change any number of variables and you change how life develops. Since we haven't found any other life-bearing planets to study, the effects of these changes could lead to anything.

For example, change the distance from the star the planet orbits. Put it farther away and you reduce both heat and solar radiation, removing a lot of energy from the planet's ecosystem and either slowing growth on the planet relative to Earth, or else forcing life on the planet to adapt to different sources of energy. Put the planet closer, and you gain more heat and greater radiation, leading to increased growth, or not. We don't have any information on what kind of change that could produce.

If you really wanted to open a can of worms, change the composition of the planet and mess around a bit with the distribution of elements. Make uranium more common than carbon and you get a highly radioactive planet with life radically different from that of Earth. It would have to be, as that amount of radiation would kill anything from Earth not wearing lead.

My point is that your earlier French Horn shaped object of a polymer with lines on the surface could easily be produced through natural forces much different to that of Earth. We may not know what those natural forces are now, but having access to the planet means that they can be studied and used to explain tool-like objects. As you said earlier, there are no Skeletorian remains, meaning that the existence of Skeletorians is impossible to prove. All you have is an unknown planet with oddly shaped objects on it and no traces of a species intelligent enough to have made them. It simply seems to me that these objects were much more likely produced by natural causes, which can be studied and measured over time, than by Skeletorians, that we can never observe, study, or even confirm exist. Complexity does not imply design, after all, anymore than it implies God or Brahma.

We are talking about a completely different planet. Change any number of variables and you change how life develops. Since we haven't found any other life-bearing planets to study, the effects of these changes could lead to anything.

For example, change the distance from the star the planet orbits. Put it farther away and you reduce both heat and solar radiation, removing a lot of energy from the planet's ecosystem and either slowing growth on the planet relative to Earth, or else forcing life on the planet to adapt to different sources of energy. Put the planet closer, and you gain more heat and greater radiation, leading to increased growth, or not. We don't have any information on what kind of change that could produce.

If you really wanted to open a can of worms, change the composition of the planet and mess around a bit with the distribution of elements. Make uranium more common than carbon and you get a highly radioactive planet with life radically different from that of Earth. It would have to be, as that amount of radiation would kill anything from Earth not wearing lead.

My point is that your earlier French Horn shaped object of a polymer with lines on the surface could easily be produced through natural forces much different to that of Earth. We may not know what those natural forces are now, but having access to the planet means that they can be studied and used to explain tool-like objects. As you said earlier, there are no Skeletorian remains, meaning that the existence of Skeletorians is impossible to prove. All you have is an unknown planet with oddly shaped objects on it and no traces of a species intelligent enough to have made them. It simply seems to me that these objects were much more likely produced by natural causes, which can be studied and measured over time, than by Skeletorians, that we can never observe, study, or even confirm exist. Complexity does not imply design, after all, anymore than it implies God or Brahma.

There's nothing more I can say to you.
If faced with any complexity imaginable you continue to insist that natural forces are more likely than our unknown Skeletorians, then we diverge.
I can't fathom how you hold that belief, but you do, so I'll leave you to it.

There's nothing more I can say to you.
If faced with any complexity imaginable you continue to insist that natural forces are more likely than our unknown Skeletorians, then we diverge.
I can't fathom how you hold that belief, but you do, so I'll leave you to it.

I insist on natural forces because we can study and understand natural forces. Even if the forces in question are currently impossible to study, science advances and so will our understanding of these forces. Eventually, a method of study may be found that allows for an explanation.

But, if you explain the complexity by claiming a designer, you create a new problem, the nature of the designers. Especially since you can only define the designer by what was designed, you end up at a dead end unless you can produce more evidence of the designer independent of the designed. Otherwise, you are left defining designer by designed with no chance for further study.

But, if you explain the complexity by claiming a designer, you create a new problem, the nature of the designers. Especially since you can only define the designer by what was designed, you end up at a dead end unless you can produce more evidence of the designer independent of the designed. Otherwise, you are left defining designer by designed with no chance for further study.


Yup.
If our Skeletorians are dust now, the only way we to study is to examine the dead end of what they designed and left behind.

Pretty much the same as how we only understand dinosaurs by the fossils they left behind.

Yup.
If our Skeletorians are dust now, the only way we to study is to examine the dead end of what they designed and left behind.

Pretty much the same as how we only understand dinosaurs by the fossils they left behind.

Actually, this would be more like studying the dinosaurs based on the fossilized excrement and footprints they left behind, not by their fosiilized remains.

Actually, this would be more like studying the dinosaurs based on the fossilized excrement and footprints they left behind, not by their fosiilized remains.

That's possibly a better analogy.
The point is still that we can study and learn about things we have no direct evidence for by examining what they left behind and distinguishing those things from naturally occuring things.

There's nothing more I can say to you.
If faced with any complexity imaginable you continue to insist that natural forces are more likely than our unknown Skeletorians, then we diverge.
I can't fathom how you hold that belief, but you do, so I'll leave you to it.

Why is it necessary to hold either belief?

In the absence of compelling evidence either way, shouldn't we all simply remain uncertain about what caused whatever phenomenon we observe? Until we actually learn something, drawing baseless conclusions doesn't serve any useful purpose.

If you have some irrational need to believe in something, go ahead, but don't try to pass it off as teh smart thing to do.

Why is it necessary to hold either belief?

In the absence of compelling evidence either way, shouldn't we all simply remain uncertain about what caused whatever phenomenon we observe? Until we actually learn something, drawing baseless conclusions doesn't serve any useful purpose.

If you have some irrational need to believe in something, go ahead, but don't try to pass it off as teh smart thing to do.

Because it's not baseless.
If I've landed on Skeletor and found objects and structures, I will conclude something intelligent other than us has existed and it was on Skeletor at some point.

Because it's not baseless.
If I've landed on Skeletor and found objects and structures, I will conclude something intelligent other than us has existed and it was on Skeletor at some point.

Why would you conclude that? Because you've observed objects and structures that have been built and designed. Similar to refined metals. Would you conclude the same about plants or animals that have never had an observable "designer" but have been observed to evolve and grow w/o one??

Because it's not baseless.
If I've landed on Skeletor and found objects and structures, I will conclude something intelligent other than us has existed and it was on Skeletor at some point.

Unless the structures closely resemble structures with which you are already familiar, you're inducing far too much. You don't know what might have created the structures. Perhaps they're the ancient remains of some massive root system.

Unless the structures closely resemble structures with which you are already familiar, you're inducing far too much. You don't know what might have created the structures. Perhaps they're the ancient remains of some massive root system.

If they are organic, that is a possible hypothesis. If they are mineral, and there are absolutely no construction marks, that is a possible hypothesis. If they are not, then all observable evidence supportst that they've been constructed.

Why would you conclude that? Because you've observed objects and structures that have been built and designed. Similar to refined metals.

Are you asking or telling?


Would you conclude the same about plants or animals that have never had an observable "designer" but have been observed to evolve and grow w/o one??

Would I conclude this? No, not really.
But growing is not pertinent, no one believes that animals spring into life full grown and created.
Evolving? Maybe, but if so, I think the theory is far from complete.

The real point though I've been arguing is your first paragraph, that it is possible to draw conclusions of a designer by observing design.
Once we bring that argument to the origins of life, demonstrating the design is a different kettle of fish.

Are you asking or telling?
Would I conclude this? No, not really.
But growing is not pertinent, no one believes that animals spring into life full grown and created.
Evolving? Maybe, but if so, I think the theory is far from complete.

The real point though I've been arguing is your first paragraph, that it is possible to draw conclusions of a designer by observing design.
Once we bring that argument to the origins of life, demonstrating the design is a different kettle of fish.

Sorry, did't mean that towards you, but meant as a continuation of yours.

However, the discourse lay in what is defined by ID as "observed design" when the evidence for design is not there or contradictory to empirical testing.

Unless the structures closely resemble structures with which you are already familiar, you're inducing far too much. You don't know what might have created the structures. Perhaps they're the ancient remains of some massive root system.


I'll allow you to scale the imaginary structures to whatever amount of complexity or refinement you would require to say with certainty that it was designed and built, and it not naturally occuring.

Or do you not have such a point in your frame of thought?

I'll allow you to scale the imaginary structures to whatever amount of complexity or refinement you would require to say with certainty that it was designed and built, and it not naturally occuring.

Or do you not have such a point in your frame of thought?

Let's assume there is such a point.

That in no way suggests I see such a level of complexity within the universe broadly, or in plant or animal life.

Let's assume there is such a point.

That in no way suggests I see such a level of complexity within the universe broadly, or in plant or animal life.


That's fine. I'm not trying to get you to.
Again, I'm just saying that proving designer from design evidence is possible and not some kind of contradiction.
Whether they is any design evidence for ID to point to? That's a different question.

No, that's pretty much it for the "theory".
I think you're asking to hear their supporting evidence.
No, just asking to hear the theory.

Except that you said, "I guess I'd start with something that required some active/intelligent direction to arrive at it's state."

If a design requires an active/intelligent direction, then active/intelligent direction is the criteria you use to label something a design.
For some reason you seem to believe that anything designed is completely indistinguishable from something naturally occuring without being able to walk up and shake the hand of the designer.
How do you get any of that from what I said? And howcome you didn't address what I said?

No, just asking to hear the theory.


You can say you have then.
It's a simple theory, not too much to it.


How do you get any of that from what I said? And howcome you didn't address what I said?

Because you refuse to label anything as design unless we begin at the designer. If we have a designer, the question of whether we have designs is moot.
If we don't know if we have a designer or not, finding design will answer the question, which means that we don't typically use the designer as the criteria to label design.

That is entirely possible within my conclusion.

No it's not, because you concluded there must have been life on the planet itself. An alien battlecruiser flying overhead and offloading a box of bent spanners could place the tools there without there ever being any life on the planet itself.

You and I have already agreed we have found tools and dwellings, not growths. I'll leave it to your imagination how complex these items are for you to be in agreement with me.

No, we have found what appear to be tools and dwellings. We cannot conclude they are actually tools and dwellings without first demonstrating something existed which was capable of using the tools or living in the dwellings. If no such being existed, they cannot be tools and dwellings regardless of how much they resemble what we would regard as tools and dwellings.

After all, we can only evaluate that they are tools based on their resemblance to what we know as tools, and it could be the Skeletorian Hammer Snail happens to make a shell that looks just like a hammer.

Further, your analogy is broken. If this is an analogy for ID, what we have found is some bits of stuff that you think look like dwellings and tools and I say are just natural formations and coincidentally shaped objects; incidentally, I can demonstrate working models and theory for how they could have formed, whereas you cannot produce any evidence of your aliens save the artifacts themselves. Is it still reasonable to suppose the dubious objects we have demonstrate a requirement for aliens to have made them?

How would we determine that then?

By locating remains of the aliens themselves, written records, testimony from other aliens that they existed, finding the same aliens alive on other planets, cultural artifacts and so on.

At that point, you've already proven as much as I care about, which aliens is irrelevant to our line of questioning.

Not to your second conclusion, and not to ID. It shows that no specifics about the entity are possible to determine without analysing the entity. For all we know, the tools and dwellings on Skeletor were created by God to confuse us. In much the same way, for all we know about ID, the prime cause could be this conversation when in a few posts' time you go 'Yeah? Well watch THIS!'

Knowing what they make will assist us in determing things about these aliens.
If what you say is true, archaeology might as well pack up and just go home entirely.

Archaelogy can say artifacts were made by humans because we know humans exist and we know what materials they can engineer, what tools they can use to work them, what they look like and how strong they are.

If we knew nothing about humans, then yes, archaelogy could only tell we had found interesting bits of stuff that didn't look like they were natural. You can make a very vague hypothesis about the possible gross characteristics of a theoretical being that might potentially have created it, but since you don't know if any being created it at all, you do not have a workable explanation until you find evidence of the being in question actually existing.

You're apparently unfamilar with the underlying logic here:

I am saying that in a situation where we have articles X and Y, and the only things we know of that could potentially have created them are natural forces or humans, natural forces and humans are the only available explainations for them.

You are saying that we can explain them by adding the term 'aliens.' Awesome. What do we know about that term, though? Nothing, other than your aliens apparently made X and Y. Your aliens are like solving the equation 237+892 = X+Y by replacing 'X' and 'Y' with 'A' and 'B' where A and B 'the right answers' but have no known values. Ie, just a more complicated way to say 'I don't know.'

Your aliens have zero proof; they are therefore no better an explanation than that Dargo the Invisible Wizard stowed away aboard our ship and is screwing with us, or that we're dreaming or hallucinating and the tools don't actually exist at all.

If we have a designer, the question of whether we have designs is moot.

Not really. Henry Ford designed the Model T Ford, but that doesn't mean Henry Ford designed the battleship New Jersey and it certainly doesn't mean Henry Ford designed Niagra Falls.

The fact that there is a designer does not mean any given item must have been designed by them.

If we don't know if we have a designer or not, finding design will answer the question

No, it won't, since we can't define the work of the designer when we know nothing about them. Without any way to define what 'design' actually is, you're looking for something so vague you could find it wherever you want. The best definition ID ever comes up with is that design 'looks a bit complicated,' but complexity isn't actually a common design goal, since it leads to poor reliability.

No it's not, because you concluded there must have been life on the planet itself. An alien battlecruiser flying overhead and offloading a box of bent spanners could place the tools there without there ever being any life on the planet itself.


1. I would then suppose that their scatter pattern might lead us to the idea that our aliens were travelling past Skeletor rather than natives, that's fine.

2. I'm not sure that's a good explanation though for the structures we are calling dwellings.


No, we have found what appear to be tools and dwellings. We cannot conclude they are actually tools and dwellings without first demonstrating something existed which was capable of using the tools or living in the dwellings. If no such being existed, they cannot be tools and dwellings regardless of how much they resemble what we would regard as tools and dwellings.


The tools and dwellings ARE what demonstrates something existed capable of using tools and dwellings.


After all, we can only evaluate that they are tools based on their resemblance to what we know as tools, and it could be the Skeletorian Hammer Snail happens to make a shell that looks just like a hammer.

Further, your analogy is broken. If this is an analogy for ID, what we have found is some bits of stuff that you think look like dwellings and tools and I say are just natural formations and coincidentally shaped objects;

So, to be clear, there is NO level of complexity or refinement these objects could possess that would allow you to independently conclude they are tools and dwellings of some sort?

Oh and no, this is NOT an analogy for ID. I've said that a few times now I think. I'm simply addressing whether finding design can lead to the conclusion of a designer.


incidentally, I can demonstrate working models and theory for how they could have formed, whereas you cannot produce any evidence of your aliens save the artifacts themselves. Is it still reasonable to suppose the dubious objects we have demonstrate a requirement for aliens to have made them?


You can demonstrate working models for how the tools and structures I find on Skeletor formed naturally?
No, I don't accept that you can. I think you're talking about ID now, not planet Skeletor.


By locating remains of the aliens themselves, written records, testimony from other aliens that they existed, finding the same aliens alive on other planets, cultural artifacts and so on.


The aliens have been dead too long to find remains.
We can't understand their language, besides, why do you accept written records? They could simply be natuarally occuring by your hypothesis.
There are no other aliens, discovering aliens is the entire point of the exercise. These aliens are extinct, long long ago, there are not on other planets to chat with. And why are you accepting cultural artefacts? If you do, then substitute that for tools.


Not to your second conclusion, and not to ID. It shows that no specifics about the entity are possible to determine without analysing the entity. For all we know, the tools and dwellings on Skeletor were created by God to confuse us. In much the same way, for all we know about ID, the prime cause could be this conversation when in a few posts' time you go 'Yeah? Well watch THIS!'


My second conclusion is just fine still. This isn't about ID.
I'm not interested in the specifics about these entities, just that they existed.
Since this conversation had a cause, it can't ever be the Prime Cause, that's more than a bit obvious, don't you think?



Archaelogy can say artifacts were made by humans because we know humans exist and we know what materials they can engineer, what tools they can use to work them, what they look like and how strong they are.

If we knew nothing about humans, then yes, archaelogy could only tell we had found interesting bits of stuff that didn't look like they were natural.

Archaelogy is more than just humans and artefacts. It also examines flora and fauna now extinct with no way to directly observe them.


You can make a very vague hypothesis about the possible gross characteristics of a being that might potentially have created it, but since you don't know if any being created it at all, you do not have a workable explanation until you find evidence of the being in question actually existing.


The evidence of them existing IS the tools and dwellings. I'm not looking for anything less vague than, "They, and we shall call "them" Skeletorians, existed"
Anything more specific will depend entirely on what precisely we found.


Not really. Henry Ford designed the Model T Ford, but that doesn't mean Henry Ford designed the battleship New Jersey and it certainly doesn't mean Henry Ford designed Niagra Falls.

The fact that there is a designer does not mean any given item must have been designed by them.

Now you're echoing a point I've made at least twice in this thread, so I completely agree.
We're not attempting to prove who designed what, just that it is possible to conclude some designer exists because we find what we agree is design.

Now you're echoing a point I've made at least twice in this thread, so I completely agree.
We're not attempting to prove who designed what, just that it is possible to conclude some designer exists because we find what we agree is design.

No. You have a hypothesis that a designer exists but how do you disprove it?

How do you prove it?

Define a test and you will go down in history.

1. I would then suppose that their scatter pattern might lead us to the idea that our aliens were travelling past Skeletor rather than natives, that's fine.

How do you know scattering tools wasn't the traditional method of storing them?

2. I'm not sure that's a good explanation though for the structures we are calling dwellings.

How in the hell do you know what a creature would dwell in if you don't know what size or shape it is or what its needs are? You can't possibly call something a dwelling until you know some traits of the potential dweller.

The tools and dwellings ARE what demonstrates something existed capable of using tools and dwellings.

Utterly circular logic. By this reasoning, my flat demonstrates that spiders designed my flat because spiders can use it as a dwelling, and woodlice living under a hammer demonstrate that woodlice can design hammers and that a hammer is a device for making the area under it moist and safe for woodlice.

You cannot possibly evaluate tools and dwellings without any idea of the capabilities of their builders, much less that they were designed rather than made by simple imprinted behaviour like termite mounds.

So, to be clear, there is NO level of complexity or refinement these objects could possess that would allow you to independently conclude they are tools and dwellings of some sort?

No, none whatsoever. Without knowing of a creature that could use the objects as tools or dwell in the dwellings, they can be as intricate as you please and still only prove that very intricate things can form here.

Also, after a point complexity would suggest the opposite, since the goal of a home or tool is not to be as complicated as possible. You know, that's why you don't have a computer in your screwdriver?

Oh and no, this is NOT an analogy for ID. I've said that a few times now I think. I'm simply addressing whether finding design can lead to the conclusion of a designer.

And since you haven't yet defined what design is, how can you possibly look for it?

You can demonstrate working models for how the tools and structures I find on Skeletor formed naturally?

Sure, if this is even tangentally related to the actual question of the 'designer' it comes from, I should indeed be able to do just that.

The aliens have been dead too long to find remains.

How impossibly contrived. The idea of a tool-using species leaving no remains of themselves whatsoever is so utterly at odds with our knowledge of our own planet's fossil record that your lack of any remains would severely weaken any theory about the prescence of aliens.

We can't understand their language, besides, why do you accept written records? They could simply be natuarally occuring by your hypothesis.
There are no other aliens, discovering aliens is the entire point of the exercise.

You have therefore theorised there is only one living sentient species and one dead one in the entire universe? I'd love to see you cite your reasoning for that.

These aliens are extinct, long long ago, there are not on other planets to chat with. And why are you accepting cultural artefacts? If you do, then substitute that for tools.

I am accepting a whole series of things that would collectively demonstrate the potential for life to have existed here; fossils, writing, painting, testimonies of additional aliens, and so on. A few ambigous articles don't even begin to approach what we'd need to have to even judge what the artifacts we have found actually are, let alone who created them.

Since this conversation had a cause, it can't ever be the Prime Cause, that's more than a bit obvious, don't you think?

No. The prime cause is by your own admission immune to causality and therefore can occur after its own effect, or could cause the illusion of existence previous to it. This is why it is impossible to have an inscrutible divine cause and also demonstrate with any degree of certainty that the universe is more than one second old.

This conversation could have appeared with the illusion of a cause just to annoy you.

Archaelogy is more than just humans and artefacts. It also examines flora and fauna now extinct with no way to directly observe them.

That's odd, because last I checked that was paleontology. Archaeology only studies humans. Paleontology studies fossils, which your planet apparently magically lacks.

The evidence of them existing IS the tools and dwellings. I'm not looking for anything less vague than, "They, and we shall call "them" Skeletorians, existed"

But that is not evidence of anything. As I edited above before seeing your post, an untestable hypothesis created merely to include the evidence is completely useless.

I am saying that in a situation where we have articles X and Y, and the only things we know of that could potentially have created them are natural forces or humans, natural forces and humans are the only available explainations for them.

You are saying that we can explain them by adding the term 'aliens.' Awesome. What do we know about that term, though? Nothing, other than your aliens apparently made X and Y. Your aliens are like solving the equation 237+892 = X+Y by replacing 'X' and 'Y' with 'A' and 'B' where A and B 'the right answers' but have no known values. Ie, just a more complicated way to say 'I don't know.'

Your aliens have zero proof; they are therefore no better an explanation than that Dargo the Invisible Wizard stowed away aboard our ship and is screwing with us, or that we're dreaming or hallucinating and the tools don't actually exist at all.

Object do not prove aliens made the objects, objects can only prove there are objects.

We're not attempting to prove who designed what, just that it is possible to conclude some designer exists because we find what we agree is design.

And I repeat:

No, it won't, since we can't define the work of the designer when we know nothing about them. Without any way to define what 'design' actually is, you're looking for something so vague you could find it wherever you want. The best definition ID ever comes up with is that design 'looks a bit complicated,' but complexity isn't actually a common design goal, since it leads to poor reliability.

What is 'design,' Snow Eaters? How is it identified, how is it measured, and how can we tell it from non-design consistantly and accurately? You can't look for something you can't define.

You can say you have then.
It's a simple theory, not too much to it.
No, sorry, I can't. I can only say I have heard about the theory.

Because you refuse to label anything as design unless we begin at the designer. If we have a designer, the question of whether we have designs is moot.
If we don't know if we have a designer or not, finding design will answer the question, which means that we don't typically use the designer as the criteria to label design.
My opinions and definitions have not even entered this conversation. They could be identical to yours, for all you know.

Could you address the point that I made, please?

Out of curiosity, what are your thoughts on String Theory?
It has no testable hypotheses nor practical means of testing the elements of the theory.
Indeed, it is well known to have no discernable practical application.

I don't know about "no practical application," but you're right that (as far as I know) there's no current means of empirically testing String Theory. The thing is, physics/mathematics kind of play by a different set of rules than the natural sciences when it comes to testing hypotheses, and I'm gonna just admit that I don't get most of them. I don't feel qualified to say whether or not they have a means of "testing" String Theory.


I don't point this out to try and allow ID in, I just find it interesting how much bad or weak science is tolerated is it comes from the "right" sources.
I don't think it's "bad science" to have an idea that you can't test yet, so long as you freely admit that. If it's true that String Theory is untestable, then I'll bet you a carton of smokes that the theory's proponents will be more than willing to admit that fact. They won't blather about how evolution is wrong and therefore String Theory is right. They won't point their little fingers at the other guy and pretend like the incompleteness of his theory means that their own theory MUST be right.

Furthermore, ID isn't "bad science." ID is no science at all. There is absolutely nothing whatsoever that is scientific about ID. It is a pack of transparent, unimaginative, recycled lies. I beg you all, please do not degrade my chosen profession by giving the slightest credit to the mendacious, lazy bastards who want their random superstitions to be associated with the pursuit of real science.

I have requested, repeatedly, that somebody--anybody!--present the testable hypotheses advanced by the so-called Intelligent Design Theory. This will include the practical means of testing various elements of the theory, and will spell out exactly what findings would disprove the hypotheses.
I still want an answer to this. As far as I am concerned, until somebody answers this question the debate is over, and ID is summarily dismissed as superstitious dreck.

How do you know scattering tools wasn't the traditional method of storing them?


So now you're arguing in favour of my Skeletorians??


How in the hell do you know what a creature would dwell in if you don't know what size or shape it is or what its needs are? You can't possibly call something a dwelling until you know some traits of the potential dweller.


Sure I can. There may be some possible dwelling concepts that we wouldn't recognise unless we were told, just as there would be some that would be not so difficult to recognise. I don't care what it's needs are in this case, but if we can recognise dwellings (refined as opposed to raw materials, geometric patterns, obvious shelter from the prevailing natutral elements, groupings, etc.), we can then begin to assemble possiblities for what the dwellers must have been like.


Utterly circular logic. By this reasoning, my flat demonstrates that spiders designed my flat because spiders can use it as a dwelling, and woodlice living under a hammer demonstrate that woodlice can design hammers and that a hammer is a device for making the area under it moist and safe for woodlice.


It's only circular where you circle back on yourself.
Your examples here are complete nonsense. You're drawing unwarrented conclusions that have nothing in common to what I'm supposing.
Your flat demonstrates that SOMETHING designed it as a dwelling, it doesn't say ANYTHING about spiders.
The woodlice one is even more wrong if that's even possible.


You cannot possibly evaluate tools and dwellings without any idea of the capabilities of their builders, much less that they were designed rather than made by simple imprinted behaviour like termite mounds.


Termite mounds? OK, let's say for the sake of argument that these tools are at a minimum, equivalent to a pipe wrench.


No, none whatsoever. Without knowing of a creature that could use the objects as tools or dwell in the dwellings, they can be as intricate as you please and still only prove that very intricate things can form here.


If you are willing to hold that position, then we won't have anything left to say but to disagree.
I certainly won't accept that ANY intricate thing will just form on it's own.


Also, after a point complexity would suggest the opposite, since the goal of a home or tool is not to be as complicated as possible. You know, that's why you don't have a computer in your screwdriver?


LOL, I do.
Or maybe I have a screwdriver in my computer? Hard to say, but I know my Blackberry is pretty complex and if you were an alien that found it and presumed it formed naturally, then I would doubt your observational skills.


How impossibly contrived. The idea of a tool-using species leaving no remains of themselves whatsoever is so utterly at odds with our knowledge of our own planet's fossil record that your lack of any remains would severely weaken any theory about the prescence of aliens.


Of course it's contrived, I contrived it to demonstrate a point. Since we have no defintion of the biology of this species nor the climate of the world, perhaps fossilisation just doesn't occur. Or maybe it does, but since we just landed, we haven't excavated to know.

You seem to pick and choose when it matters how close this alien world/race is to our own.


You have therefore theorised there is only one living sentient species and one dead one in the entire universe? I'd love to see you cite your reasoning for that.


I didn't theorise that. I contrived a situation to demonstrate a point.
How many living sentient species do we know of now?
Only one, right?
I'm simply outlining a possible scenario when we begin exploring space. Maybe the first race we find will be a dead race. Maybe not, doesn't matter, it's just an example.


I am accepting a whole series of things that would collectively demonstrate the potential for life to have existed here; fossils, writing, painting, testimonies of additional aliens, and so on. A few ambigous articles don't even begin to approach what we'd need to have to even judge what the artifacts we have found actually are, let alone who created them.


Why are they ambiguous?
And fine, let's substitute "paintings" for "tools" if you like.
If you find "paintings" you'll accept that something was there to intelligently paint them, correct?


That's odd, because last I checked that was paleontology. Archaeology only studies humans.

Apologies, you are correct, I'm including both in my usage, which was incorrect.

Could you address the point that I made, please?


I thought I did.
Which one did I miss?

It is a pack of transparent, unimaginative, recycled lies. I beg you all, please do not degrade my chosen profession by giving the slightest credit to the mendacious, lazy bastards who want their random superstitions to be associated with the pursuit of real science.

You take this all a little too personally I think, for someone that is going into a profession that places little weight on emotional biases.

You take this all a little too personally I think, for someone that is going into a profession that places little weight on emotional biases.
Are you kidding me?!

It's true that scientists are supposed to leave their emotions at the lab door, for the good of their experiments. But this does not in any way mean that science is meant to be devoid of emotion! Most scientists feel very passionately on this subject, since ID is a direct insult to the most fundamental principles of science and yet there are a pile of lying jerks trying to insist that their lies are science! They spit on everything science accomplishes, and all its most useful methods, but simultaneously expect to be welcomed into the fold as collegues.

On the whole, I think scientists are extremely passionate people. You have to be, if you're going to be in a profession that requires at least a decade of focused study before you even advance to the rank of "novice." :)

Are you kidding me?!

It's true that scientists are supposed to leave their emotions at the lab door, for the good of their experiments. But this does not in any way mean that science is meant to be devoid of emotion! Most scientists feel very passionately on this subject, since ID is a direct insult to the most fundamental principles of science and yet there are a pile of lying jerks trying to insist that their lies are science! They spit on everything science accomplishes, and all its most useful methods, but simultaneously expect to be welcomed into the fold as collegues.

On the whole, I think scientists are extremely passionate people. You have to be, if you're going to be in a profession that requires at least a decade of focused study before you even advance to the rank of "novice." :)


I didn't accuse you of being too passionate. Passion is great.

You are extremely emotionally invested and take things personally that you don't need to.
Rather than accept that some people are misguided, you leap to a conclusion of lies, personally attacks these "jerks" and make baseless accusations.

Frankly, you devalue your input by doing so.

I thought I did.
Which one did I miss?
The second half of this one.
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11398034&postcount=321

Rather than addressing the point, you spent some time setting up a strawman about my beliefs.

You are saying contradictory things: in one instance you say that a designer can only be safely assumed after a thing can be labelled "design", and in the other you admit that a designer is required in order for a thing to be labelled "design".

I didn't accuse you of being too passionate. Passion is great.

You are extremely emotionally invested and take things personally that you don't need to.

Like what? These people lie, so I call them liars. They're lazy, so I call them lazy. They're sloppy thinkers, so I call them sloppy thinkers. None of that is any less true if I happen to state it passionately.


Rather than accept that some people are misguided, you leap to a conclusion of lies, personally attacks these "jerks" and make baseless accusations.

ID Creationists who claim their work is "science" are lying. ID Creationists who whimper about meanie scientists picking on them, while still refusing to present a single reason why their views should be regarded as science, are acting like jerks. Calling them what they are is just called "honesty."


Frankly, you devalue your input by doing so.
Meh. You think so, others have told me exactly the opposite. Good thing that my goal isn't merely to have my ego stroked by the maximum number of annonymous internet forum-goers.

ID Creationists who claim their work is "science" are lying. ID Creationists who whimper about meanie scientists picking on them, while still refusing to present a single reason why their views should be regarded as science, are acting like jerks. Calling them what they are is just called "honesty."
Well, technically it's called "honest opinion". :)

The second half of this one.
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11398034&postcount=321

Rather than addressing the point, you spent some time setting up a strawman about my beliefs.

You are saying contradictory things: in one instance you say that a designer can only be safely assumed after a thing can be labelled "design", and in the other you admit that a designer is required in order for a thing to be labelled "design".

I've addressed that point repeatedly, but I'll do so again then.

Those are not contradictory things.

For design to exist, there must be a designer. I think we agree on that, yes?
What you are then asking is that in order to ever label something as designed, you have knowledge of the designer. That just does not follow. Sure, it would help simplify the question, but it is just not necessary.

There are many objects we can label as designed, without ever having knowledge of the designer, there are other objects we can recognise as naturally occuring, and then we have some that might be in a grey, "difficult to say for certain" area.

If we find easy to label as designed objects, we can then safely conclude a designer(s) exists/existed, because we know that design can't exist without a designer.

Just because a designer comes first in a cause and effect point of view, our investigation can work backwards by identifying an effect and applying our knowledge of what can cause that effect.

Like what? These people lie, so I call them liars. They're lazy, so I call them lazy. They're sloppy thinkers, so I call them sloppy thinkers. None of that is any less true if I happen to state it passionately.


ID Creationists who claim their work is "science" are lying. ID Creationists who whimper about meanie scientists picking on them, while still refusing to present a single reason why their views should be regarded as science, are acting like jerks. Calling them what they are is just called "honesty."


Meh. You think so, others have told me exactly the opposite. Good thing that my goal isn't merely to have my ego stroked by the maximum number of annonymous internet forum-goers.


They are only liars if they are aware that they are wrong, yet you seem quite comfortable presuming what they know.

If I called you a bitch, would it simply be honesty, or something else less valued than being honest?

I'd be curious to know how many, if any, of the people that have been on the opposite side of a debate with you found your input valued based on how you present yourself. Being valued by those that already agree with you is no feat.

I've addressed that point repeatedly, but I'll do so again then.

Those are not contradictory things.

For design to exist, there must be a designer. I think we agree on that, yes?
Yes.

What you are then asking is that in order to ever label something as designed, you have knowledge of the designer. That just does not follow. Sure, it would help simplify the question, but it is just not necessary.
Not asking that, no. I am only asking you to address the self-contradiction in things you've said in this thread.

To address your point, it is not necessary to have "knowledge of the designer" in order to recognize a design; it is only necessary to assume the designer exists. "For design to exist, there must be a designer," says this in other words. If he doesn't exist, then there can be no determination of something being designed.

You can assume things exist without having knowledge of them. You really can.

There are many objects we can label as designed, without ever having knowledge of the designer, there are other objects we can recognise as naturally occuring, and then we have some that might be in a grey, "difficult to say for certain" area.
Right.

If we find easy to label as designed objects, we can then safely conclude a designer(s) exists/existed, because we know that design can't exist without a designer.
This is a self-contradictory sentence. If we find easy-to-label-as-designed objects, and if the criteria that we used to label it "a design" is the recognition that intelligence was used to make it, then the intelligence (the designer) is not a conclusion but an assumption. A conclusion *follows* from other things, an assumption *leads* to them.

Just because a designer comes first in a cause and effect point of view, our investigation can work backwards by identifying an effect and applying our knowledge of what can cause that effect.
"Identifying an effect" is observation. "Identifying a cause" by looking at an effect is assumption, because it requires knowledge that that cause might exist. This is the "possibility it exists" you were talking about.

However, "labelling it as an effect" already assumes a cause; it is inherent in the label itself, because all labels come with meaning. The label of an effect includes the meaning of its cause.

Let's take another example: exploded. The word describes an effect that leaves bits of things scattered all over the place in a pattern where they travelled out from a centre place. That is all inherent in the word. That a force caused that, then, is also assumed in the word "exploded" itself, because forces are the things that a) break other things down into smaller bits, and 2) spread them out.

The force is not a conclusion of "exploded", it is assumed in the very idea of exploding.

I've addressed that point repeatedly, but I'll do so again then.

Those are not contradictory things.

For design to exist, there must be a designer. I think we agree on that, yes?
What you are then asking is that in order to ever label something as designed, you have knowledge of the designer. That just does not follow. Sure, it would help simplify the question, but it is just not necessary.

There are many objects we can label as designed, without ever having knowledge of the designer, there are other objects we can recognise as naturally occuring, and then we have some that might be in a grey, "difficult to say for certain" area.

If we find easy to label as designed objects, we can then safely conclude a designer(s) exists/existed, because we know that design can't exist without a designer.

Just because a designer comes first in a cause and effect point of view, our investigation can work backwards by identifying an effect and applying our knowledge of what can cause that effect.


Ok prove a "designer" of humanity exists.

This is a self-contradictory sentence. If we find easy-to-label-as-designed objects, and if the criteria that we used to label it "a design" is the recognition that intelligence was used to make it, then the intelligence (the designer) is not a conclusion but an assumption. A conclusion *follows* from other things, an assumption *leads* to them.


The sentence is not contradictory.
If what you propose is true, then there are NO easy to to label as designed objects that you previously agreed to.
There will only be those things which we know a designer designed.

Ok prove a "designer" of humanity exists.


What makes you think I believe I can?

What makes you think I believe I can?

You are arguing for one.

You are arguing for one.


No, I'm not.

The sentence is not contradictory.
If what you propose is true, then there are NO easy to to label as designed objects that you previously agreed to.
There will only be those things which we know a designer designed.
How do you figure that there are no easy-to-label-as-designed objects? Those objects that are designer-designed are one example of such. Why would we be inhibited from labelling them?

"Designer designed" is a redundancy. That's like saying there are only exploded explosions. In the same way, concluding that a design has a designer is a redundancy --it's already assumed, you don't *have to* conclude it. Concluding it is just extra effort (and wasted breath).

How do you figure that there are no easy-to-label-as-designed objects? Those objects that are designer-designed are one example of such. Why would we be inhibited from labelling them?


We're on different wavelengths.
I'm talking about objects for which we can't or don't have a designer to point at, which is why I made up the Planet Skeletor example.
Just because you and I don't know the designer doesn't mean an object was NOT designed. I'm suggesting that it is more than just knowing the designer that allows us to make the call that something is designed.


"Designer designed" is a redundancy. That's like saying there are only exploded explosions. In the same way, concluding that a design has a designer is a redundancy --it's already assumed, you don't *have to* conclude it. Concluding it is just extra effort (and wasted breath).

Oh, I heartily agree.

So now you're arguing in favour of my Skeletorians??

No, I'm pointing out you're making huge numbers of entirely unwarranted conclusions.

Sure I can. There may be some possible dwelling concepts that we wouldn't recognise unless we were told, just as there would be some that would be not so difficult to recognise. I don't care what it's needs are in this case, but if we can recognise dwellings (refined as opposed to raw materials, geometric patterns, obvious shelter from the prevailing natutral elements, groupings, etc.), we can then begin to assemble possiblities for what the dwellers must have been like.

No, we can't. Your logic is entirely ass-backwards; until we find something that could dwell in them, regardless of how much we think they look like dwellings, they are just interesting formations of materials.

You cannot presuppose something you have no evidence for or knowledge of and claim it explains something else you have no knowledge of. No knowledge plus no knowledge only makes a more elaborate nothing.

Your examples here are complete nonsense. You're drawing unwarrented conclusions that have nothing in common to what I'm supposing.
Your flat demonstrates that SOMETHING designed it as a dwelling, it doesn't say ANYTHING about spiders.

Wrong. A dwelling is defined by the fact that something dwells in it. I dwell in my flat. Spiders dwell in my flat. Neither myself or the spiders designed my flat. Now, let's imagine you know nothing about spiders above the fact that there's an entity called 'spider' that can live in a flat. You know I didn't design my flat. Is it therefore logical to conclude spiders did, rather than investigating if another known phenomenon did?

Moreover, since humans can live in caves, does that demonstrate humans designed caves?

The woodlice one is even more wrong if that's even possible.

No, it's not. You can only evaluate that something is a tool once you have found something that could use it as such. Since the woodlice can use the hammer as a dwelling, if you had only seen ever seen a hammer with woodlice living under it, your logic would force you to assume assume the woodlice designed the hammer, and that the hammer was a dwelling, not a tool.

Termite mounds? OK, let's say for the sake of argument that these tools are at a minimum, equivalent to a pipe wrench.

That doesn't help you any. No matter how complicated the item, you cannot simply say 'unknown entity called aliens did this, I have just solved everything!' and call it an explaination.

I certainly won't accept that ANY intricate thing will just form on it's own.

You're obviously ignoring the point by the way you have for the second time evaded my request for you to define 'design' in terms that would allow us to analyse things for it, and my demonstration of the logic behind this position. For the third time...

You cannot simply place a new name on an unknown and call it a solution. Changing 'I don't know' to 'Aliens I don't know anything about' is just an attempt to hide the concession of no knowledge.

For example, for centuries we did not know how the sun worked. We knew this because we had analysed it with regard to all the chemical reactions we knew of and realised it was still far too powerful and long-lived to be any of them. We therefore only knew how it didn't work. When nuclear fusion was discovered, we examined our figures for the sun again and realised it explained how the sun was operating.

By you reasoning, we should have declared it was the 'sun phenomenon' back when we didn't know about nuclear fusion and called that an explanation, despite that it didn't actually propose a mechanism for the sun's workings or produce any useful or testable predictions.

Such is the same with your aliens. No matter how complicated the object we find is, we can only test it for what we know of. We can therefore easily determine how it wasn't made, but until we have found independant validation that aliens are a possible explanation for the origin of an object, we cannot know that anything could possibly be made by aliens. We therefore have no reason to assume aliens are a more valid theory for the origin of the object than magic or that we're seeing things and the object isn't there.

Of course it's contrived, I contrived it to demonstrate a point. Since we have no defintion of the biology of this species nor the climate of the world, perhaps fossilisation just doesn't occur. Or maybe it does, but since we just landed, we haven't excavated to know.

In which case it is as yet entirely premature to claim there are aliens. If you found a book about talking otters, would you assume the talking otters were real even though there's no evidence of talking otters except the book?

You seem to pick and choose when it matters how close this alien world/race is to our own.

No, you just don't understand the principles of investigation. We assume the rules we have observed and repeatedly demonstrated work until we find a place they don't, then we work to refine the theory to incorporate this.

In this case, we would assume that any advanced alien race would leave some kind of remains beside objects resembling tools and formations resembling dwellings. We know intricate and orderly objects can form without outside influence [snowflakes, convection patterns, sand dropping to form an orderly cone, etc], so it is entirely incorrect to assume 'complex orderly objects must be designed' is a universal rule.

I'm simply outlining a possible scenario when we begin exploring space. Maybe the first race we find will be a dead race. Maybe not, doesn't matter, it's just an example.

If the first race we find is so dead we cannot demonstrate with any certainty it ever existed at all, we will keep looking and still not regard aliens as a useable hypothesis for the origin of an item. Only when we have found adequate proof that aliens can exist at all would we consider 'aliens made it' as a plausible reason for something existing.

Why are they ambiguous?

Because tools are defined by use and dwellings by being dwelled in. They can also be interchangable; a car is potentially both a tool and a dwelling. Since you can only guess at the function of any of the things you think are tools and dwellings, they are utterly ambiguous.

And fine, let's substitute "paintings" for "tools" if you like.
If you find "paintings" you'll accept that something was there to intelligently paint them, correct?

No. A monkey can throw paint at a canvas, that does not mean the result is designed. You are again playing a question-begging; the thing you see is only a painting rather than an interesting pattern if you have already assumed something existed to paint it.

We're on different wavelengths.
I'm talking about objects for which we can't or don't have a designer to point at, which is why I made up the Planet Skeletor example.
Just because you and I don't know the designer doesn't mean an object was NOT designed. I'm suggesting that it is more than just knowing the designer that allows us to make the call that something is designed.
I agree with much of what you say. Objects for which we don't have a designer to point at, but are obviously designed, can be labelled 'design'. I have no problem with that, because the designer can be assumed --because it's possible for us to assume a designer. We are just that talented.
(Note, that's different than "...assume a possible designer". By assuming a designer, we make it impossible that the designer cannot not exist. Sorry for the triple-negative.)

I wasn't paying attention to your other discussion in this thread, sorry; just wanting to get the point about assuming the designer cleared up. But what makes it possible for us to make the call that something is designed is that we have other known designed things to compare it to. It is not NECESSARY to have a specific designer to point to, because the designer is assumed; but we MUST assume that the designer does exist or cannot move forward logically on the whole issue.

Oh, I heartily agree.
We just disagree on *why* it is a redundancy, then. It is a redundancy because the cause is assumed, so it doesn't have to be stated.

Maybe a re-stating will help.

When we find something and determine that it is "designed", the way we do so is to look for signs that are recognizably of design.

We can recognize these signs because we've seen them before in other things, things that have been designed. We know these other things have been designed because we know their designers.

When we find a sign, and then label the thing "designed", it is not necessary to "conclude that a designer exists," because that idea is already included in the whole concept of design --designers make designs. Drawing that conclusion is a redundancy. The designer, whoever it might be, is assumed.

Now, let's look at what started this:

Originally Posted by Dempublicents1:
You have to assume that a possible designer exists in order to interpret evidence to mean that something was designed. Otherwise, there is no way to make the logical leap to "design".

The designer that is assumed exists only because "design" is concluded. When we conclude design, we can if we like turn that around into an assumption on which to build more conclusions. In order to do this, though, we have to maintain the existence of the designer.

With the interpretation of design, an assumed designer comes along for the ride. Without the assumed designer, we can't even have a concept of "design". The assumed designer is a part of the concept of design.

That is what is meant by the designer is "possible.. in order to interpret evidence to mean something was designed".

That's not the same thing as saying "we assume it's possible the designer exists". It is necessary the designer exists, if we conclude design.

No, I'm pointing out you're making huge numbers of entirely unwarranted conclusions.


I made 2. Hardly huge numbers.


No, we can't. Your logic is entirely ass-backwards; until we find something that could dwell in them, regardless of how much we think they look like dwellings, they are just interesting formations of materials.

You cannot presuppose something you have no evidence for or knowledge of and claim it explains something else you have no knowledge of. No knowledge plus no knowledge only makes a more elaborate nothing.


The structures and the objects ARE the evidence.


Wrong. A dwelling is defined by the fact that something dwells in it. I dwell in my flat. Spiders dwell in my flat. Neither myself or the spiders designed my flat. Now, let's imagine you know nothing about spiders above the fact that there's an entity called 'spider' that can live in a flat. You know I didn't design my flat. Is it therefore logical to conclude spiders did, rather than investigating if another known phenomenon did?


I don't care whether it is actually a dwelling or a storage structure or anything beyond the fact that I can ascertain that the structure is there as a result of intelligent design and intent.
I also don't care whether whatever dwelt within it was the designer or not, it can be you, super intelligent spiders or whatever else you want to imagine. You keep running off on tangental details that are not relevant to the simple question of, did we find something that was obviously DESIGNED by something.


Moreover, since humans can live in caves, does that demonstrate humans designed caves?


No, and thank you, that's a good reason NOT to rely on having the dwellers to establish design.


No, it's not. You can only evaluate that something is a tool once you have found something that could use it as such. Since the woodlice can use the hammer as a dwelling, if you had only seen ever seen a hammer with woodlice living under it, your logic would force you to assume assume the woodlice designed the hammer, and that the hammer was a dwelling, not a tool.


No, that's YOUR logic, which seems to rely entirely on finding the woodlice before making any conclusions, even though you demonstrate how relying on that can lead to bad conclusions.


That doesn't help you any. No matter how complicated the item, you cannot simply say 'unknown entity called aliens did this, I have just solved everything!' and call it an explaination.


I never said I have solved everything, where are you drawing that ridiculous assertion from?
I "solved" ONE thing, that at some point in the past, some kind of intelligence was on Skeletor and left behind evidence of itself.

You're obviously ignoring the point by the way you have for the second time evaded my request for you to define 'design' in terms that would allow us to analyse things for it, and my demonstration of the logic behind this position. For the third time...


Of course I am. Until we have agreement that design exists, I'm going to continue to.


You cannot simply place a new name on an unknown and call it a solution. Changing 'I don't know' to 'Aliens I don't know anything about' is just an attempt to hide the concession of no knowledge.


No, it is not anything like that. Knowing there were aliens there would be a significant leap in our knowledge and give us a reason to pursue knowledge of what they may have been like based on the evidence we have found.


For example, for centuries we did not know how the sun worked. We knew this because we had analysed it with regard to all the chemical reactions we knew of and realised it was still far too powerful and long-lived to be any of them. We therefore only knew how it didn't work. When nuclear fusion was discovered, we examined our figures for the sun again and realised it explained how the sun was operating.

By you reasoning, we should have declared it was the 'sun phenomenon' back when we didn't know about nuclear fusion and called that an explanation, despite that it didn't actually propose a mechanism for the sun's workings or produce any useful or testable predictions.


But I'm not trying to provide either an explanation nor mechanism.
For your Sun example, I'm concluding nothing more than, "Hey, we're getting energy from that bright thing up there" while you are telling me I can't possibly know that without knowing HOW it is producing energy and providing you with testable mechanism.


Such is the same with your aliens. No matter how complicated the object we find is, we can only test it for what we know of. We can therefore easily determine how it wasn't made, but until we have found independant validation that aliens are a possible explanation for the origin of an object, we cannot know that anything could possibly be made by aliens. We therefore have no reason to assume aliens are a more valid theory for the origin of the object than magic or that we're seeing things and the object isn't there.


Magic.
I'm sorry, I thought we were trying to be rational. If we're going to have to eliminate magic as a conclusion, we can just throw out all science.


In which case it is as yet entirely premature to claim there are aliens. If you found a book about talking otters, would you assume the talking otters were real even though there's no evidence of talking otters except the book?


No, once again, I'm NOT drawing any conclusions about the NATURE of the Skeletorians.
If I found a book about talking otters, the only thing analagous that I would conclude is that an author exists. I wouldn't feel obligated to go and FIND the author in order to decide that an author exists. The fact that the book exists is all the proof I need that an author exists.


No. A monkey can throw paint at a canvas, that does not mean the result is designed. You are again playing a question-begging; the thing you see is only a painting rather than an interesting pattern if you have already assumed something existed to paint it.

Monkeys don't have paint to throw or canvasses to throw it at without someone intelligent enough to give them to the monkeys.

Maybe a re-stating will help.

When we find something and determine that it is "designed", the way we do so is to look for signs that are recognizably of design.

We can recognize these signs because we've seen them before in other things, things that have been designed. We know these other things have been designed because we know their designers.


Re-stating might be good now, because from your previous post, I'm pretty hazy on where we disagree.

I want to stop you here though and I want to insert the Skeletor example. If we are unfamiliar with the designers and their methods, are you saying there is no amount of complexity to an object we could find from them that would allow you to conclude that you have evidence of a previously unknown, intelligent designer of objects on planet Skeletor?

I'm not talking about clubs here, let's say we're talking about something with a Skeletorian equivalent to a PDA or a Blackberry device. We may be unable to decide how it functions or be familiar with their design, but would you not agree that it would be possible to conclude that intelligent Skeletorian life existed there based on objects we could find?

Re-stating might be good now, because from your previous post, I'm pretty hazy on where we disagree.

I want to stop you here though and I want to insert the Skeletor example. If we are unfamiliar with the designers and their methods, are you saying there is no amount of complexity to an object we could find from them that would allow you to conclude that you have evidence of a previously unknown, intelligent designer of objects on planet Skeletor?

I'm not talking about clubs here, let's say we're talking about something with a Skeletorian equivalent to a PDA or a Blackberry device. We may be unable to decide how it functions or be familiar with their design, but would you not agree that it would be possible to conclude that intelligent Skeletorian life existed there based on objects we could find?
Any amount of complexity to an object that would determine design includes everything that we know of our own design. Period. If we see something familiar --any familiar design --then we can declare it designed.

We are pretty darned familiar with reality as we know it, and design *is* defined within that context. We're doing a pretty good job of discovering and defining the world. There is probably very little they could design that we could not recognize as design, as something we, or someone we know, have done. If it *is* something entirely new, we could not recognize it as design --we have no criteria upon which to determine design.

Any indication of design at all is design. If we find design, then included in that idea is the designer, who comes along for the ride (assumed, taken for granted). It may or may not be native Skeletorian life, but it is a designer.

Any amount of complexity to an object that would determine design includes everything that we know of our own design. Period. If we see something familiar --any familiar design --then we can declare it designed.

We are pretty darned familiar with reality as we know it, and design *is* defined within that context. We're doing a pretty good job of discovering and defining the world. There is probably very little they could design that we could not recognize as design, as something we, or someone we know, have done. If it *is* something entirely new, we could not recognize it as design --we have no criteria upon which to determine design.

Any indication of design at all is design. If we find design, then included in that idea is the designer, who comes along for the ride (assumed, taken for granted). It may or may not be native Skeletorian life, but it is a designer.

Ok, so where, if at all, do you see us disagreeing?
I see some wiggle room for you possibly not entirely agree, but I can't say I disagree with what you're saying there.

Ok, so where, if at all, do you see us disagreeing?
I see some wiggle room for you possibly not entirely agree, but I can't say I disagree with what you're saying there.
I only saw us disagreeing on the concept of the designer assumed.

I only saw us disagreeing on the concept of the designer assumed.


OK, are we clear on that now? I'm unsure if there's anytthing left for me to respond to.


Also, are you deliberately using the wrong witch/which in your sig?

OK, are we clear on that now? I'm unsure if there's anytthing left for me to respond to.
I don't know, as you haven't really confirmed that you agree with what I said.

And if you do, maybe you can go back 12 pages and tackle what Dempublicents said again, this time without disagreeing with her. :)

Also, are you deliberately using the wrong witch/which in your sig?
Yes. It's a play on words.

I don't know, as you haven't really confirmed that you agree with what I said.


I don't disagree with anything you have posted in this thread recently.


And if you do, maybe you can go back 12 pages and tackle what Dempublicents said again, this time without disagreeing with her. :)


I did tackle it, I've been tackling it again with GMC. I still disagree.


Yes. It's a play on words.


I thought that was likely... it does read a tad awkward though.

The structures and the objects ARE the evidence.

No, they are evidence purely for themselves. The aliens have no known traits and may not even be here, so we cannot possibly conclude we are looking at the results of alien action with no idea if aliens exist to perform actions.

I don't care whether it is actually a dwelling or a storage structure or anything beyond the fact that I can ascertain that the structure is there as a result of intelligent design and intent.

Which you can't, without establishing an intelligent creature existed to design it. Termite mounds are huge, complex structures, but termites themselves build them through simplistic route behaviour, not 'design' in the manner we know it.

Your assumption that anything complicated must be the result of intelligence is utterly unwarranted; are we to believe that someone intelligent designed geodes and frost patterns just because they're complicated?

I also don't care whether whatever dwelt within it was the designer or not, it can be you, super intelligent spiders or whatever else you want to imagine. You keep running off on tangental details that are not relevant to the simple question of, did we find something that was obviously DESIGNED by something.

And we can't ever work that out without finding a designer. We're only aware of what we make, and simply saying 'that looks like something humans would design, therefore aliens must have designed it' is farcical logic when we don't yet know aliens can exist, let alone what traits they have.

Let's say we continue our expedition, with you imagining traits of your aliens while I look at the objects themselves; is there a pattern to how they're distributed? Do they occur more frequently in some places than others? Is there anything that appears to be a source or focus of them, where many are congregated? This would, after all, indicate that there was some process by which they were formed and then distributed.

The following morning, while you're busy sketching a three-armed gorilla with a mohawk and tank treads, I return with a small blue kitten with cute little antennae. It turns one of your equipment cases into a couple of pipe wrenches and purrs. It turns out it has the natural ability to transmute matter and just happened to pick that particular shape. It has no use for the object; in fact, it has paws and can't even lift it, so the 'tool' has zero application, and application is an important aspect of design, and the definition of a tool.

In other words, aliens can exist, still not be intelligent, and still create things without designing them that look like they're designed. You can't make a huge series of leaps in logic to get to where you want to go no matter how much you'd like to find intelligent aliens here.

No, and thank you, that's a good reason NOT to rely on having the dwellers to establish design.

You think it's bad because it's possible to falsify it by analysing the dweller's traits? Look at your aliens again; is there anything on the planet you couldn't conclude they designed? You could use them to explain an object that looks like a tool, the orderly structure of a line of cliffs, the planet itself, the whole star system, or even Earth! What kind of theory is it that can include any evidence, besides a worthless one?

No, that's YOUR logic, which seems to rely entirely on finding the woodlice before making any conclusions, even though you demonstrate how relying on that can lead to bad conclusions.

A false but falsifiable conclusion is better than a conclusion that cannot be tested at all. If we can disprove the ability of woodlice to build the hammer, we know one way it was not built.

However, by ID's thinking we should develop an 'intelligent woodlouse theory' where unseen woodlice we haven't found yet are responsible for building all the hammers. Maybe they're bigger or something, and they're intelligent, and designers. No, we can't find one, but that's not important because we have the hammer and that proves woodlice make hammers.

I "solved" ONE thing, that at some point in the past, some kind of intelligence was on Skeletor and left behind evidence of itself.

You have yet to demonstrate intelligence is necessary to design objects that you have assumed are tools, or that the objects are the result of design. The blue kitten mewls and turns you into a screwdriver for this.

Of course I am. Until we have agreement that design exists, I'm going to continue to.

Define it as something above the term 'design,' then. If you want to look for design, define a test which can show an object to be designed or not designed clearly and does not involve searching for direct evidence of the designer. You're ignoring it because you can't do it; if you could, you'd be busy publishing it.

No, it is not anything like that. Knowing there were aliens there would be a significant leap in our knowledge and give us a reason to pursue knowledge of what they may have been like based on the evidence we have found.

But it isn't evidence of aliens because you have to assume the aliens existed and were intelligent and designed things in order to come to your pre-ordained conclusion that intelligent beings designed the tools. It turns out the blue kitten made the tools simply because it could, and while it's huggable, it isn't intelligent the way you want it to be.

But I'm not trying to provide either an explanation nor mechanism.
For your Sun example, I'm concluding nothing more than, "Hey, we're getting energy from that bright thing up there" while you are telling me I can't possibly know that without knowing HOW it is producing energy and providing you with testable mechanism.

False. You are claiming to know the origin of the object when that is not known, and not only that, you are making additional conclusions about the properties of the origin; namely, that the origin is intelligent and that it designed the object. That is exactly like claiming the sun operates using the 'sun effect' without having the slightest idea how it works.

I am saying 'There are objects here which we do not know the origin of.' This is exactly like saying 'This energy is coming from that thing but we don't know how.'

Magic.
I'm sorry, I thought we were trying to be rational. If we're going to have to eliminate magic as a conclusion, we can just throw out all science.

Your conclusion is no better. We are there to evaluate if the term aliens [A] is able to have a non-zero value. Let's go through it.

What we know:

We know that on Earth, there are objects. [O]
We know that some of these objects are designed [O(d)]
We know some of these objects are not designed [O(-d)]
We know to design an object requires another object with the property of being a designer [Ds]
We know that we have only observed humans [H] having the property of being a designer [H(Ds)] and that not all humans have this property, so it is possible to be [H(-Ds)]
We know that all other objects are the result of natural forces [N]

Therefore, all objects [O(d)] are required, as far as we are aware, to have been designed by humans [H(Ds)]. All other objects are required to be the result of [N].

Ok, now we're here to evaluate if the unknown [A] has a value which is not zero. On all worlds we have so far explored, we have found [A]=0, ie there are no aliens. We have also found the same for the unknown [M], magic.

Let's get to our planet. We believe there's nothing here with value [H] other than ourselves, and we have found objects. You believe that these are [O(d)] objects and conclude that the item [A(Ds)] must therefore be able to exist. There's a slight problem here: we neither know that [A] has a non-zero value anywhere in the universe, nor that [A] is capable of having the property (Ds).

What you have done is presupposed that [A] can have a non-zero value and the property (Ds) to explain the objects. But we know complex and regular objects can form without the property (Ds) being present if the item [N], natural forces, can account for them. You are also ignoring that the only known items with the property (Ds) are humans and we don't know if anything else can even have that property, and that you have no idea if the objects really have the property (d) or just look like they do.

Since the term [A] still has no known nonzero value, you can gain an equal explanation by using any other term not known to have a nonzero value, including the unknown value [M].

Your aliens are absolutely identical to magic as an explanation.

No, once again, I'm NOT drawing any conclusions about the NATURE of the Skeletorians.

Yes you are, you are drawing the conclusions that they are intelligent and that they designed these things deliberately. Neither is valid given the current evidence, you can't start piling up assumptions on top of a premise that may not exist at all and call it a reasonable explaination, anymore than you could use Yetis to explain quantum superposition just because nobody knows what properties Yetis have.

If I found a book about talking otters, the only thing analagous that I would conclude is that an author exists. I wouldn't feel obligated to go and FIND the author in order to decide that an author exists. The fact that the book exists is all the proof I need that an author exists.

False analogy. You would also have to conclude traits of the author from the book for it to be a valid analogy.

Monkeys don't have paint to throw or canvasses to throw it at without someone intelligent enough to give them to the monkeys.

You think the only thing you could paint something with is manufactured paint? What about tar, mud, oil, plant pulp or blood? What about parched skin or rock walls instead of canvas?

<stuff I'm not going to bother responding to>

Look, I'm really not interested in trying to discuss with you if we have magical blue kittens that transmute matter as some kind of rational point and if you are are going to make analogies then call them false analogies when I use your own analogy.

Your first post on this thread was quite good, I'm rather sorry now you kept going.

Look, I'm really not interested in trying to discuss with you if we have magical blue kittens that transmute matter as some kind of rational point

And so you must have the same feeling towards ID's unseen 'designer' which influences nature through magic and has no known or knowable properties? Concession accepted.

The blue kitten was an example of another possible explanation of the objects which was equally unknown to be their cause. Until we find [A] is able to have a nonzero value, it is just as likely as [A] to have been their cause. Also, it was telekinesis, not magic.

This is the problem; you want to give the unknown certain properties but eliminate the possibility it may have other properties, even though the likelihood of it having either property is not known. We don't know of any non-human species with the property (Ds), so assigning that property to a non-human species is as much a leap in logic as assigning the ability to arbitarily transmute matter to a species without the property (Ds). In both cases, you assign an unknown to an unknown as an attempt to rationalise a known. It was only because I found the kitten in the example that it became a rational explanation, because now we know it exists the probability of it having a nonzero value is 1 no matter how bizarre and unlikely it seems.

The only way you could rationally establish [A] as a cause here would be if we went elsewhere to look for somewhere [A] definately has a nonzero value. If we found live aliens or remains elsewhere, we could return to Skeletor with this information and see if [A] was a sensible explanation for the evidence there. Until then, [A] cannot explain anything, because [A] is not known to be capable of having a value.

We would still have to study if creatures of type [A] can have the property (Ds) after that before we can reach your horrendously premature conclusion that there were aliens on this particular planet, the aliens were intelligent, and they designed things.

and if you are are going to make analogies then call them false analogies when I use your own analogy.

If you extend someone's analogy to the point it becomes false, it becomes a false analogy. The book example was demonstrating that your drawing the specific identity [A] and traits (Ds) of the origin of known objects [O] was poor reasoning since when reading a book you do not automatically assume that one of the characters was the author, despite that they are likely to be described in detail. Why? Because you know authors exist independant from their characters, you've observed it. For all your talk, the only reason you don't assume talking otters may write books is because you have observational evidence of human authors.

In the case of the aliens, this would mean you could assume human designers might have somehow got here and made the objects and test for that, but assuming alien designers would still not be valid because we have no way of knowing if 'alien designers' can exist at all, or even if any aliens can exist at all. What you are doing is precisely like assuming that because humans can have the trait 'author' then otters can also have the trait 'author' and therefore since the book is about otters and not humans it was written by an otter-author.

We can only say this is a silly conclusion because we know something about otters. If we didn't, we'd be unable to evaluate whether human or otter was a more likely author, and would therefore by my reasoning conclude human until otters and otter authors could be demonstrated, since human authors are known while otter authors are not. By your standards of evidence knowing nothing about otters would mean they were a good explanation!

And so you must have the same feeling towards ID's unseen 'designer' which influences nature through magic and has no known or knowable properties? Concession accepted.


Perhaps you've missed it through out the thread, I'm not a proponent of ID.


If you extend someone's analogy to the point it becomes false, it becomes a false analogy.

Please demonstrate how I extended the analogy. If anything, I retracted it to the only position it can show.


The book example was demonstrating that your drawing the specific identity [A] and traits (Ds) of the origin of known objects [O] was poor reasoning since when reading a book you do not automatically assume that one of the characters was the author, despite that they are likely to be described in detail. Why? Because you know authors exist independant from their characters, you've observed it. For all your talk, the only reason you don't assume talking otters may write books is because you have observational evidence of human authors.

In the case of the aliens, this would mean you could assume human designers might have somehow got here and made the objects and test for that, but assuming alien designers would still not be valid because we have no way of knowing if 'alien designers' can exist at all, or even if any aliens can exist at all. What you are doing is precisely like assuming that because humans can have the trait 'author' then otters can also have the trait 'author' and therefore since the book is about otters and not humans it was written by an otter-author.

We can only say this is a silly conclusion because we know something about otters. If we didn't, we'd be unable to evaluate whether human or otter was a more likely author, and would therefore by my reasoning conclude human until otters and otter authors could be demonstrated, since human authors are known while otter authors are not. By your standards of evidence knowing nothing about otters would mean they were a good explanation!

Please demonstrate where I made ANY conclusions on the nature of the author. I certainly never claimed the author was a talking otter, and I also never claimed the author was human.

The book allows me to conclude that there is an author.
In order to conclude that there is an author, I need to find a book. I don't need to find the author, interview the author, pretend the author is a 3 armed gorilla nor a magical blue kitten, I don't need to smell the author or attempt to ascribe any characterisitcs to the author, but, I KNOW that an author exists, because I have a book.

Perhaps you've missed it through out the thread, I'm not a proponent of ID.

You seem to have a remarkable interest in defending its underlying assumptions for someone who doesn't support it.

Please demonstrate how I extended the analogy. If anything, I retracted it to the only position it can show.

I just did explain how you extended the analogy, through ad-hoc re-writing of your own position relative to the analogy. Did you read my post? Your conclusions regarding 'intelligent designer aliens' require you to also be capable of assuming 'talking otter authors' as a sensible reason for a book about talking otters.

Please demonstrate where I made ANY conclusions on the nature of the author. I certainly never claimed the author was a talking otter, and I also never claimed the author was human.

You made the conclusion that the author of the tools was an intelligent alien designer, depite no evidence an 'intelligent alien designer' is a valid item. This is exactly like concluding a 'talking otter author' wrote a book with no evidence a 'talking otter author' is a valid term. You could only prove or disprove a talking otter author by analysing otters and finding if they can talk or write. If it is impossible to do this, the 'talking otter author' should be put away until it becomes possible, and so should the 'intelligent designer aliens.'

The book allows me to conclude that there is an author.
In order to conclude that there is an author, I need to find a book.

Wrong. If this is the first book you have ever found it would be wrong to assume books require authors. You only know books require authors because you have observed the existence of authors independant of books, and know that in all known cases a book requires an author.

You also only know of authors that are human. Were you in a situation where you found a book on an alien world, you could test if there was a human author, but since you have no idea if aliens exist or can be authors, you couldn't conclude an alien author simply because you couldn't find a human one.

You seem to have a remarkable interest in defending its underlying assumptions for someone who doesn't support it.


I have this odd quirk, I defend things that are correct whether or not it's to support a position I want to take.

I see it as a much needed counter balance to the people that attack things that are correct just because it does not support a position they want to take.


I just did explain how you extended the analogy, through ad-hoc re-writing of your own position relative to the analogy.

My position hasn't changed in the slightest and it is consistently relative to the analogy, if I find a book, I conclude there must be an author. If I find a design, I conclude there must be a designer.

You can add in your terms and magic to your heart's content, but that is YOUR argument, not mine.


Did you read my post? Your conclusions regarding 'intelligent designer aliens' require you to also be capable of assuming 'talking otter authors' as a sensible reason for a book about talking otters.


Utter rubbish. Now, if I proposed that magical transmuting blue kittens were a sensible conclusion, then you could accuse me of needing to accept talking otter authors, but since you are the only one of making these wild conclusions, I'm under no obligation to accept either of them as valid.


You made the conclusion that the author of the tools was an intelligent alien designer, depite no evidence an 'intelligent alien designer' is a valid item.

I conclude intelligent designer (we could simply say designer since the intelligent part is redundant) because the objects are evidence of design.
I conclude "alien" as a simple way of saying, "not human" since we know in this example that we are the first humans on Skeletor.


Wrong. If this is the first book you have ever found it would be wrong to assume books require authors.

If it's the first book I have ever found, then I don't know that I have found a book and your point fails.

I see it as a much needed counter balance to the people that attack things that are correct just because it does not support a position they want to take.

Well, since randomly assuming traits of an unknown just because it would be conveniant for it to have those traits isn't correct, I'm hardly guilty of that.

My position hasn't changed in the slightest and it is consistently relative to the analogy, if I find a book, I conclude there must be an author. If I find a design, I conclude there must be a designer.

No, you conclude in this case there must be a designer, the designer must be an alien, and the alien must be intelligent. This is precisely like concluding there must be an author, the author must be an otter, and the otter must be able to talk. In both cases, you assume the precise identity and one quality of the author in addition to concluding the simple fact of their existence. In the first case, since the object only appears to be designed, you can't even validly conclude that without further study.

Utter rubbish. Now, if I proposed that magical transmuting blue kittens were a sensible conclusion, then you could accuse me of needing to accept talking otter authors, but since you are the only one of making these wild conclusions, I'm under no obligation to accept either of them as valid.

They're not a sensible conclusion. However, if they exist, they are a true conclusion. Once something is demonstrated to exist, no matter how strange, it is rational.

You're assuming that everything in nature must be rational. I suggest you familiarise yourself with, say, the two-slit experiment. Photons are subatomic particles that know when you're watching them; they're capable of passing through both slits at once when you're not, but when you are they're forced to only pass through one. That is insane, but it's also absolutely true. We can't rule out nature doing things we think are stupid if we can test for them.

In the example, it turned out during the course of my inquiry there was an exception to a known. You want the same; you want an exception to 'all designers are humans,' despite that there is the same evidence both for this and for 'all apparently designed things require a designer.' The kitten is an exception to the latter, the aliens an exception to the former.

I conclude intelligent designer (we could simply say designer since the intelligent part is redundant) because the objects are evidence of design.
I conclude "alien" as a simple way of saying, "not human" since we know in this example that we are the first humans on Skeletor.

Interesting. How do you know intelligence is always a prerequisite of 'design' but 'human' is not? You've never seen a non-human designer, a non-human intelligence, or a non-human anything away from Earth, so how can you leap to the conclusion that all these things can exist with just one piece of ambiguous 'proof?'

Shouldn't we first examine the planet to ensure there are no means by which human designers may have arrived there before us? Examine the tools to ensure they're not from our own ship as part of a hoax by one of us? Search the planet for any means by which the objects might be forming naturally as the result of some unexpected process?

You must assume the 'tools' to be designed to arrive at your conclusion of design. Since we are here to test if aliens can exist, we should go through all other explanations that do not require aliens to exist before we run to any mode of inquiry that requires us to presuppose they do before we even start examining the data.

Don't you realise this is why we don't conclude 'aliens' as a valid explanation for crop circles or alleged UFO footage, even when we can't directly explain them?

If it's the first book I have ever found, then I don't know that I have found a book and your point fails.

Of course you know you've found a book. You don't necessarily know anything other than that the object has a name and you choose the name 'book' for it until something better comes along, but you know it exists.

It's also interesting that you would say that, given your position is based on being able to recognise the first alien tools you find as alien tools despite having never found alien tools before.

They're not a sensible conclusion. However, if they exist, they are a true conclusion. Once something is demonstrated to exist, no matter how strange, it is rational.


You haven't demonstrated magical blue kittens nor talking otters authoring books, yet you want me to consider them as possibilities...

Hmm, one of us is definitely sounding more and more like a creationist here.


You're assuming that everything in nature must be rational. I suggest you familiarise yourself with, say, the two-slit experiment. Photons are subatomic particles that know when you're watching them; they're capable of passing through both slits at once when you're not, but when you are they're forced to only pass through one. That is insane, but it's also absolutely true. We can't rule out nature doing things we think are stupid if we can test for them.


Thanks for the lesson, but I was familiar with that more than a decade and a half ago. To make it even more fun, it only works if you do not measure which slit the photon is passing through. If you do, it suddenly ceases the whole pass through both slits at once behaviour.


Interesting. How do you know intelligence is always a prerequisite of 'design' but 'human' is not? You've never seen a non-human designer, a non-human intelligence, or a non-human anything away from Earth, so how can you leap to the conclusion that all these things can exist with just one piece of ambiguous 'proof?'


There can be as many pieces as you desire, I never said anything about "one", and it is only ambiguous if you lack imagination. Make the objects as complex and refined as you need to see that they are designed.

I've already said this though, and you keep coming back with termite hills and snow flakes as if that is the most complex design you're capable of imagining.

Shouldn't we first examine the planet to ensure there are no means by which human designers may have arrived there before us?

Yes, that's why I made it clear we are the first humans to arrive.


Examine the tools to ensure they're not from our own ship as part of a hoax by one of us?

We just landed, we're not hoaxing ourselves.
Interestingly enough, the only way you can even suggest we are hoaxing ourselves somehow though is that you do realise that actually finding these objects does prove designers were here and you're now suggesting that they are not what we believe we are observing because of another unknown intelligence interacting with the objects.


Search the planet for any means by which the objects might be forming naturally as the result of some unexpected process?


If they might be naturally formed, then you have not imagined something complex enough, or maybe you really do want to go looking for blue kittens that blink particle accelerators into existence.


Don't you realise this is why we don't conclude 'aliens' as a valid explanation for crop circles or alleged UFO footage, even when we can't directly explain them?


Now you've changed the analogy, and it doesn't work.

You haven't demonstrated magical blue kittens nor talking otters authoring books, yet you want me to consider them as possibilities...

Which is odd, since you haven't demonstrated aliens either. All of the above have no known value greater than zero anywhere, and are therefore equally as valid as explanations of a thing until we find some evidence that allows us to define them better. Then they can be regarded as the cause of something, when they have some actual characteristics.

We know humans can design things because we have found humans and can see them designing things. We don't know aliens can exist or design things, because we have found neither such thing. We don't know blue kittens with telekinetic powers can exist or make things, because we have never seen either such thing. We don't know talking otters can exist or write books, because we have never seen either such thing.

I don't want you to consider such things as possibilities, I want you to realise your 'aliens' are absolutely identical as an assumption to blue telekinetic kittens or talking otters that write books. The fact you realise two of these things are absurd is only due to your familiarity with natural forces, which you believe preclude the kitten, and with otters, which you believe preclude an otter that can talk or write.

So why should we assume aliens are a valid cause without finding them when you exclude other possibilities because of the exact same criteria you want your aliens to be exempted from, direct proof and knowledge of properties?

Hmm, one of us is definitely sounding more and more like a creationist here.

Yes, you. Assuming the answer to the question you're supposed to be asking to explain evidence isn't how science tends to proceed. Appealing to an invisible cause we can't evaluate before searching for something we can isn't either.

Thanks for the lesson, but I was familiar with that more than a decade and a half ago. To make it even more fun, it only works if you do not measure which slit the photon is passing through. If you do, it suddenly ceases the whole pass through both slits at once behaviour.

Correct. If you were to conjecture that without carrying out the experiment people would think you were insane, but it actually happens and can be demonstrated repeatedly to happen. You therefore can't rule out the possibility of a bizarre exception to existing theories on this planet before you've even bothered to check for it.

There can be as many pieces as you desire, I never said anything about "one", and it is only ambiguous if you lack imagination. Make the objects as complex and refined as you need to see that they are designed.

I need a designer in order to assume design. We don't know a designer is capable of existing here and it is what we are here to find out, therefore we cannot certainly say anything on the planet, no matter how complex, is the result of the action of a designer yet. When we have reason to believe intelligent life existed to design the objects, we can see if the characteristics of our intelligent life match the characteristics of our objects to see if that life designed these objects.

Until then, it explains nothing because we don't know anything about the creator of the things. It is as likely to be the telepathic kitten or an as-yet unknown natural process as it is to be an intelligent alien designer, because neither of those have ever been observed anywhere.

I've already said this though, and you keep coming back with termite hills and snow flakes as if that is the most complex design you're capable of imagining.

It doesn't matter how complicated or regular the things are if you don't know anything is capable of existing to create them. We know of no explicit limit to the complexity of naturally-formed objects, therefore we cannot rule out natural forces as an explanation without analysing the objects and their surroundings for them.

Yes, that's why I made it clear we are the first humans to arrive.

You mean 'we assume we are the first humans to arrive.' I seriously doubt you've examined the universe closely enough to be absolutely sure of that.

Interestingly enough, the only way you can even suggest we are hoaxing ourselves somehow though is that you do realise that actually finding these objects does prove designers were here and you're now suggesting that they are not what we believe we are observing because of another unknown intelligence interacting with the objects.

No, I would suggest it because you clearly believe objects appearing to be tools on an alien planet are proof of aliens and want to sell your story of 'alien proof' to the press and get rich. There is a very clear reason here for your persona to believe he has a lot to gain from faking such a find, regardless of whether it actually proves anything. See Piltdown and Nebraska Man for examples of a deliberate fake and something taken to the press far, far too early in the investigation, respectively.

Since I know you exist and hoaxes are hardly conjecture, this is actually a very valid line of thought and something that would have to be investigated before we came anywhere near the idea of aliens.

If they might be naturally formed, then you have not imagined something complex enough, or maybe you really do want to go looking for blue kittens that blink particle accelerators into existence.

No matter how complex an object is, from a shoe to a fully-formed car, we can and should still examine the planet for natural explanations of it before ruling out such. It is simply ridiculous to pursue logical inquiry on the basis of getting to the conclusion you want rather than being in any way methodical.

Now you've changed the analogy, and it doesn't work.

Why? Aren't crop circles big and complicated too? Doesn't UFO footage show what appear to be complex vehicles from space?

I heard this on The Simpsons tonight. Thought it was hilarious:

TV Host: "'So you are calling God a liar? An Unbiased Comparison of Evolution and Creationism.' Let's say hi to two books. One, The Bible, was written by our Lord. The other, The Origin of Species, was written by a cowardly drunk named Charles Darwin."

Yep. If the message stands up to attack, the next step is obviously to attack the messenger. :cool:

Which is odd, since you haven't demonstrated aliens either. All of the above have no known value greater than zero anywhere, and are therefore equally as valid as explanations of a thing until we find some evidence that allows us to define them better. Then they can be regarded as the cause of something, when they have some actual characteristics.

We know humans can design things because we have found humans and can see them designing things. We don't know aliens can exist or design things, because we have found neither such thing. We don't know blue kittens with telekinetic powers can exist or make things, because we have never seen either such thing. We don't know talking otters can exist or write books, because we have never seen either such thing.

I don't want you to consider such things as possibilities, I want you to realise your 'aliens' are absolutely identical as an assumption to blue telekinetic kittens or talking otters that write books. The fact you realise two of these things are absurd is only due to your familiarity with natural forces, which you believe preclude the kitten, and with otters, which you believe preclude an otter that can talk or write.

So why should we assume aliens are a valid cause without finding them when you exclude other possibilities because of the exact same criteria you want your aliens to be exempted from, direct proof and knowledge of properties?



Your telekinetic blue kittens, would be aliens. This is a substantial difference between what we are saying that you don't seem to recognise.

You are ascribing ridiculous traits to the designers of our objects and the author of our book and are somehow equating that to concluding that a designer/author exist.
I'm NOT ascribing any traits to our designers/author. Perhaps using the word "alien" confuses you or has too many specific connotations. We can drop it then and say instead that we have found objects that provide proof of non-terran/non-human designers.


You mean 'we assume we are the first humans to arrive.' I seriously doubt you've examined the universe closely enough to be absolutely sure of that.


It's a fictional scenario.
We are indeed the first humans to arrive here. We took the first, the only faster than light drive ship and travelled significantly beyond where any human has ever been.



No, I would suggest it because you clearly believe objects appearing to be tools on an alien planet are proof of aliens and want to sell your story of 'alien proof' to the press and get rich. There is a very clear reason here for your persona to believe he has a lot to gain from faking such a find, regardless of whether it actually proves anything. See Piltdown and Nebraska Man for examples of a deliberate fake and something taken to the press far, far too early in the investigation, respectively.

Since I know you exist and hoaxes are hardly conjecture, this is actually a very valid line of thought and something that would have to be investigated before we came anywhere near the idea of aliens.


You got off the ship either with me or before me. I have had no access to be able to hoax you.


No matter how complex an object is, from a shoe to a fully-formed car, we can and should still examine the planet for natural explanations of it before ruling out such. It is simply ridiculous to pursue logical inquiry on the basis of getting to the conclusion you want rather than being in any way methodical.


Fine.
Since you seem to miss the point of the thought exercise, you can explore as much or as long as you wish.
You find nothing.
You are as methodical as you wish.
No blue kittens are found.
No natural explanations are found.

Your telekinetic blue kittens, would be aliens. This is a substantial difference between what we are saying that you don't seem to recognise.

They would not be 'intelligent designer aliens,' however. A tree would also be an alien, so why are we staring at inert objects when we're looking for living ones? The objects are nice, but we haven't even shown an alien cell can exist yet, it's nothing short of obscene to proceed from that right to higher life forms on the basis of an interesting formation with no immediate explanation.

You are ascribing ridiculous traits to the designers of our objects and the author of our book and are somehow equating that to concluding that a designer/author exist.

That would be because you are ascribing equally unknown traits. For the last time, we do not know the objects have a designer. We do not know aliens can exist. We do not know aliens can be intelligent in the sense we are. We do not know if an alien designer is possible. All of these things may be as ridiculous as telekinetic control of matter.

We are supposed to be here to find out if aliens can exist. Any conclusion that assumes the existence of aliens as one of its premises is not valid because you can't assume the answer to the question you're supposed to be here to ask. It's a purely circular argument:

Aliens existed here AND aliens can be intelligent AND aliens can be designers AND these objects demand a designer THEREFORE aliens existed here.

Even if your objects could somehow be demonstrated to demand a designer, until we can demonstrate aliens are capable of existing anywhere at all, we cannot assume they did in order to conclude they did. It's nonsense.

I'm NOT ascribing any traits to our designers/author.

Brilliant, you say it and immediately contradict yourself. You are ascribing the traits alien, intelligent and designer to the unknown cause of the items. You have no proof any of these are valid without first finding out if the first trait is able to exist anywhere in the universe, and then finding out if it is able to combine with the second and third traits.

We can drop it then and say instead that we have found objects that provide proof of non-terran/non-human designers.

No difference. According to the description of the scenario, we haven't found any life apart from our own on other planets, because you said:

'I conclude that life other than earth life exists/existed in the universe.'

It wouldn't be much of a conclusion if we knew 'life other than Earth life' already existed, so this would have to be at a time we had discovered no living things whatsoever on other planets. A single find of objects that might be tools does not allow us to make a huge leap in logic to 'intelligent designer aliens' when we haven't even found an alien cell yet.

We are indeed the first humans to arrive here. We took the first, the only faster than light drive ship and travelled significantly beyond where any human has ever been.

So in this fictional universe we can know things with absolute certainty, have a planet with no fossil record for no apparent reason, and you think a telekinetic kitten doesn't fit?

You got off the ship either with me or before me. I have had no access to be able to hoax you.

In which case you should be examining if it is a hoax perpetrated by me before you approach any other conclusion, possibly to discredit you or as some kind of practical joke. Since you apparently readily recognise the objects as being like tools humans would make, their most likely origin is human.

Since you seem to miss the point of the thought exercise

The point appears to be for me to watch while you try to find a position where you can be right regardless of how much you have to mutilate the initial description of the planet and the items to do so.

You find nothing.

Nothing? No bodies of water, no traces of plant life or lower animals, no single-celled or early multicellular organisms like colonians, no fossils or other items? That would seriously undermine your conclusion and lead to the objects being labeled as anomalies, you realise?

No natural explanations are found.

I thus severely doubt your hypothesis about aliens, since you only have a handful of items and a few terrain features, appearing in just one area of the planet. I conclude we require more data to provide any meaningful answer to the initial question of whether life can exist on any planet but our own, and we should look for another planet to continue our research into this matter, cataloging and photographing the items so they can be evaluated later, and taking back those that can be removed safely for further study.

I do not make the ludicrous leap from a planet which apparently lacks even the most basic single-celled organisms [because, you know, those would be aliens too] to imagining that this planet once supported intelligent life on the basis of a handful of anomalous objects.

They would not be 'intelligent designer aliens,' however. A tree would also be an alien, so why are we staring at inert objects when we're looking for living ones? The objects are nice, but we haven't even shown an alien cell can exist yet, it's nothing short of obscene to proceed from that right to higher life forms on the basis of an interesting formation with no immediate explanation.


Really.
So you've made the leap that alien life is celluar?


That would be because you are ascribing equally unknown traits. For the last time, we do not know the objects have a designer. We do not know aliens can exist. We do not know aliens can be intelligent in the sense we are. We do not know if an alien designer is possible. All of these things may be as ridiculous as telekinetic control of matter.


For the last time? Do you promise?
If I have a book, I conclude there must be an author. Whatever is required by being an author is what I can ascribe to this author. So, I can say the author must be sentient and if the book is in English, the author understands the English language.

This is entirely different than deciding the author is an otter or that otters can talk. EVEN if I knew that otters could talk, I still could NOT make the assumptions you arte trying to equate to the concusions I'm drawing.

If there is truely no amount of physical evidence that will ever allow YOU to draw the conclusion that a designer exists without touching the designer or the remains of a designer, then we disagree and may as well just drop it then.


We are supposed to be here to find out if aliens can exist. Any conclusion that assumes the existence of aliens as one of its premises is not valid because you can't assume the answer to the question you're supposed to be here to ask. It's a purely circular argument:

Aliens existed here AND aliens can be intelligent AND aliens can be designers AND these objects demand a designer THEREFORE aliens existed here.


No.
It is possible that non-earth life exists in the universe.
It is possible that non-human intelligent life exists in the universe.

Skeletor is in the universe, therfore, it is possible that both non-earth and non-human life existed on Skeletor.

Possible, but I draw no conclusion nor do I assume it to be true.

I find objects.
Upon examination of these objects, I conclude that they were designed based on the complexity of the structure and the refinement of the materials. They are clearly not of natural origin.

Because I am the first human here, I know that these are not human designed objects.

So, I know I have evidence of a designer, I know tha thumans are not the designer.
Therfore, I conclude that designers other than humans existed on Skeletor.

Nothing circular, you simply disagree that any amount of complexity and refined items can ever allow us to decide that something is designed. Everything else you keep bringing up is merely a distraction that I'm skipping over in the thought experiment to get to real question we've been discussing.


So in this fictional universe we can know things with absolute certainty, have a planet with no fossil record for no apparent reason, and you think a telekinetic kitten doesn't fit?


I don't know with certainty that YOU exist.
We know as well as we know anything else, that we are the first humans to arrive on Skeletor. We are confident of this fact because we are the first humans that have had this faster than light travel spaceship.

So, unless you want to invoke the blue kittens and propose that the kittens teleported humans here, we know we are here first.

I don't know why you even expect a fossil record when you don't know anything about the life or ecology on this world, perhaps it just isn't conduicive to fossils? Perhaps we can't recognise their fossils or perhaps this world breaks down whatever life it had more completely than ours.


In which case you should be examining if it is a hoax perpetrated by me before you approach any other conclusion, possibly to discredit you or as some kind of practical joke. Since you apparently readily recognise the objects as being like tools humans would make, their most likely origin is human.


You landed and disembarked with me, I don't trust you, so I kept a watchful eye on you.


The point appears to be for me to watch while you try to find a position where you can be right regardless of how much you have to mutilate the initial description of the planet and the items to do so.


I'm not mutilating anything, but since you invoked the magic blue kittens to try and wiggle out, I don't believe you have room to comment.
The point is that I'm deliberately limiting our evidence to these objects but granting the freedom to make the objects whatever the reader wishes for them to accept that they have designed objects.

If you are truly bothered by the description of Skeltor and it's lack of a fossil, then we land, find objects and structures in any amount, any sizes, and complexity or refinement. We record them and we take a shipful with us, but we leave Skeletor immediately because our instruments warn us that Skeletor's sun is about to go supernova. We leave the system and have nothing to examine now, other than our collected objects and records we made. The planet is gone now.


Nothing? No bodies of water, no traces of plant life or lower animals, no single-celled or early multicellular organisms like colonians, no fossils or other items? That would seriously undermine your conclusion and lead to the objects being labeled as anomalies, you realise?


No it wouldn't.
It might lead me to wonder if Skeletor was not a homeworld, and perhaps a colony though.


I thus severely doubt your hypothesis about aliens, since you only have a handful of items and a few terrain features, appearing in just one area of the planet.

I never said anything about a handful, a few or just one area of the planet. If that is troublesome to you, then find as many as you'd like in as many places on the planet as you'd like.

I recognise that some will make the design conclusion easier than others, but I believe that even you will make it with enough of these objects, with enough complexity and refinement. And that is the only point I'm trying to make.

If I have a book, I conclude there must be an author.
In the same way that the designer of the design was a redundant conclusion because the designer is assumed, concluding an author for a book is a redundancy.

If you have a book, it has an author. Period.

Whatever is required by being an author is what I can ascribe to this author.
Yes; the ability to write a book.

So, I can say the author must be sentient and if the book is in English, the author understands the English language.
You don't draw those conclusions from the fact of a book, though, you draw them from the contents of the book. So now we're looking at two scenarios: a book as evidence of an author, and the contents of the book as evidence of the author's attributes.

In the same way that the designer of the design was a redundant conclusion because the designer is assumed, concluding an author for a book is a redundancy.

If you have a book, it has an author. Period.


Quite right.
I fully agree that it is redundant, but I've been arguing throughout this thread against people that tell me I don't know if I have a book until I can point to the author. I'm saying I don't need to find the author, as long as I can show the book, the author must exist.

Substitute design and designer.

Yes; the ability to write a book.


You don't draw those conclusions from the fact of a book, though, you draw them from the contents of the book. So now we're looking at two scenarios: a book as evidence of an author, and the contents of the book as evidence of the author's attributes.


Err, what is "the ability to write a book" then?
I'm presuming that requires sentience.

Quite right.
I fully agree that it is redundant, but I've been arguing throughout this thread against people that tell me I don't know if I have a book until I can point to the author. I'm saying I don't need to find the author, as long as I can show the book, the author must exist.

Substitute design and designer.
And I agree with you. While I haven't read the entire thread (perhaps I should), I would suspect that by "point to" they are referring to the assumption that an author exists.

1. We know that an author exists, because we have a recognizable book. The book evidences an author.
2. We recognize it as a book, because we recognize authorship. Authorship evidences it as a book.

Err, what is "the ability to write a book" then?
I'm presuming that requires sentience.
The ability to write a book is authorship. We don't have to recognize what is written to recognize writing (Egyptian hieroglyphs before the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, for instance).

And I agree with you. While I haven't read the entire thread (perhaps I should), I would suspect that by "point to" they are referring to the assumption that an author exists.

1. We know that an author exists, because we have a recognizable book. The book evidences an author.
2. We recognize it as a book, because we recognize authorship. Authorship evidences it as a book.


The position I've been against is the one that tells me I cannot know that I have a book unless I first prove the author exists.
My response has been that if I have a book, THAT proves an author exists.

The position I've been against is the one that tells me I cannot know that I have a book unless I first prove the author exists.
My response has been that if I have a book, THAT proves an author exists.

You know a book has an author because you have been told books have authors, have never encountered a book without an author, and the very definition of book implies author.

You can know a book has an author because every book you have seen has an author. We have never seen another universe, nor have we seen a designer. If you had never seen a book, and had no concept of words, how would you know a book has an author?

You know a book has an author because you have been told books have authors, have never encountered a book without an author, and the very definition of book implies author.

You can know a book has an author because every book you have seen has an author. We have never seen another universe, nor have we seen a designer. If you had never seen a book, and had no concept of words, how would you know a book has an author?


I'm not claiming the universe has a designer.
I'm saying that if we find design, we know then that a designer exists.

Proving we have found design is another matter entirely.

I'm not claiming the universe has a designer.
I'm saying that if we find design, we know then that a designer exists.

Proving we have found design is another matter entirely.

Erm...well ok, fair enough. if we find something that can conclusivly and irrefutably be indicated as DESIGN, then this will indicate a designer.

I can agree with that.

As you say however, proving something to be design, when you have nothing else to compare it to, is another story. Short of peeking into a telescope and seeing "god was here" in the stars, that's gonna be difficult.

The position I've been against is the one that tells me I cannot know that I have a book unless I first prove the author exists.
My response has been that if I have a book, THAT proves an author exists.

I think one can more accurately summarise it like this:

The fact that this book exists implies an author also exists, since books are written by authors.

You can only infer the existence of the author because you already know that books are written by them.

One of these days I am going to have to pick that book up. I hear it's really bad.
You can "buy" it online (license) and read it there.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0914513400/ref=sib_dp_pt/103-4366824-9221469

I think one can more accurately summarise it like this:

The fact that this book exists implies an author also exists, since books are written by authors.

You can only infer the existence of the author because you already know that books are written by them.


That's fine, there's nothing there contradicting what I'm saying.

I also infer the existence of a designer because I already know that designs are designed by designers.

I also infer the existence of a designer because I already know that designs are designed by designers.

Agreed. As long as we remember this:

Erm...well ok, fair enough. if we find something that can conclusivly and irrefutably be indicated as DESIGN, then this will indicate a designer.

I can agree with that.

As you say however, proving something to be design, when you have nothing else to compare it to, is another story. Short of peeking into a telescope and seeing "god was here" in the stars, that's gonna be difficult.

Really.
So you've made the leap that alien life is celluar?

Red Herring. Have you made the leap that alien life would have no simplistic forms, regardless of what it is?

If I have a book, I conclude there must be an author. Whatever is required by being an author is what I can ascribe to this author. So, I can say the author must be sentient and if the book is in English, the author understands the English language.

But you cannot know the object is a book without knowing an author can exist. You can know it is an object that appears to be a book, but until the possibility of an author is demonstrated seperate to the object, that is the only rational conclusion available to you.

This is entirely different than deciding the author is an otter or that otters can talk. EVEN if I knew that otters could talk, I still could NOT make the assumptions you arte trying to equate to the concusions I'm drawing.

It's exactly the same, actually; in your alien example you want the object's creator to be an alien, a term not known to be capable of existing, an intelligent creature, a property not known to be associated with aliens since they have no known properties, and a designer, a term not known to be associated with aliens either.

Without demonstrating 'aliens' as capable of existing at all, you cannot assume them. We can show dinosaurs existed because we can find their bones, and we know of living creatures with bones in similar configurations, so we can work out how those bones went together. If we had nothing but a few fossilised trackways with areas that looked a bit like footprints, would you regard it as valid to assume that since only a big creature called a dinosaur could make those footprints, dinosaurs must have existed?

If there is truely no amount of physical evidence that will ever allow YOU to draw the conclusion that a designer exists without touching the designer or the remains of a designer, then we disagree and may as well just drop it then.

No amount of objects with no obvious physical explanation is enough to justify pulling out something we haven't shown capable of existing, assuming it to be capable of existing and concluding it is capable of existing to form a 'theory' about the objects. You explain absolutely nothing that way, since you can include any evidence you find and make up the characteristics of your 'designer' as you go, never generating a single testable prediction along the way.

No.
It is possible that non-earth life exists in the universe.

You have assumed the conclusion, again. We are here to find out if it is possible that non-Earth life exists in the universe, not assume it is. Why did we bother to leave Earth at all if you've already convinced yourself that aliens can exist before we test if they can?

It is possible that non-human intelligent life exists in the universe.

Massive leap in logic. Since we don't currently know if it's possible for any life to exist away from Earth, we can't possibly assume this.

Skeletor is in the universe, therfore, it is possible that both non-earth and non-human life existed on Skeletor.

And here we are, back at the premise again. I don't know how this was supposed to disprove your argument was circular.

Also, it's a somewhat amusing argument if you change one term:

It is possible that non-earth life exists in the universe.
It is possible that non-human intelligent life exists in the universe.
My refrigerator is in the universe, therefore, it is possible that both non-earth and non-human life existed in my refrigerator.

Would an argument that allows 'aliens in the fridge' strike you as logically sound? No, me neither; in addition to being entirely circular it's also a fallacy of division. Just because something is possible in the entire universe does not mean it is possible on a given planet, or in my fridge, despite that they are part of the universe.

Possible, but I draw no conclusion nor do I assume it to be true.

You concluded it is possible for life to exist on another planet. That is a conclusion, since we have no evidence it is possible and all current evidence suggests, according to the terms you set out, that it is not possible.

I find objects.
Upon examination of these objects, I conclude that they were designed based on the complexity of the structure and the refinement of the materials. They are clearly not of natural origin.

You have made another massive leap in logic, then. You cannot conclude an object to be designed without concluding a designer certainly did exist as a premise. We are here to determine if alien life can exist at all, anywhere. Therefore you cannot simply assume it did in order to prove it did.

Because I am the first human here, I know that these are not human designed objects.

You assume you are the first human here. If the objects are so familiar to you that you can categorically claim them to certainly be tools, you should attempt to test the assumption that we are the first humans present before proceeding, as the evidence suggests it may be flawed.

So, I know I have evidence of a designer, I know tha thumans are not the designer.

You don't have evidence of a designer, you have evidence an object exists with no apparent natural mechanism to explain it. Until aliens are demonstrated to be capable of existing in even the simplest possible forms, leaping all the way to 'aliens that are intelligent designed these things because they look like other things humans designed' is unjustified and unjustifiable.

Nothing circular, you simply disagree that any amount of complexity and refined items can ever allow us to decide that something is designed. Everything else you keep bringing up is merely a distraction that I'm skipping over in the thought experiment to get to real question we've been discussing.

No, it's mostly to do with your asserting that it's logically valid to assume the conclusion you want to reach as a premise. We are here to determine if it is possible for aliens to exist, and your premise #1 is 'it is possible for aliens to exist.' You somehow managed to write that down without seeing you're assuming the very thing we're attempting to analyse. You have to assume it to arrive at the conclusion of design, and it is invalid because we are here to find out if it is true or not, and cannot possibly make conclusions based on the assumption it is true before we do that.

I don't know with certainty that YOU exist.

Or that you exist, but you have not been presented with any evidence causing you to doubt either assumption.

We know as well as we know anything else, that we are the first humans to arrive on Skeletor. We are confident of this fact because we are the first humans that have had this faster than light travel spaceship.

But we [or rather just you] have reason to doubt this assumption because you believe you have found evidence of designed objects, and the only known designers are humans.

I don't know why you even expect a fossil record when you don't know anything about the life or ecology on this world, perhaps it just isn't conduicive to fossils? Perhaps we can't recognise their fossils or perhaps this world breaks down whatever life it had more completely than ours.

In which case we should attempt to test for such conditions existing, since they shouldn't be too difficult to find. Regardless, arguing higher forms of life existed on a sterile world purely on the basis of interestingly-shaped objects and odd geological formations is ludicrous.

You landed and disembarked with me, I don't trust you, so I kept a watchful eye on you.

So watchful you don't bother examining the objects you believe to be tools at all for signs of human origin?

I'm not mutilating anything, but since you invoked the magic blue kittens to try and wiggle out, I don't believe you have room to comment.

I didn't invoke them for that, I invoked them to note a possible explanation for the objects not involving a designer, and equally unknown to be the cause of the items. This was to demonstrate that at the current stage of investigation it was impossible to justify the assumption the objects were designed just because the explanation for them hasn't leapt out and bitten you. You are unaware if an object of arbitary complexity certainly requires a designer, so it isn't valid to completely rule out a process not requiring intelligence or design being the cause of the objects just because you haven't yet seen such a process.

The kitten merely served as an example of an unknown process that causes objects of arbitary complexity without design or intelligence. It was also a valid example of how to conduct such an investigation, since I waited until I found it before making any conclusions requiring it to exist, rather than concluding the objects to be the result of it without ever bothering to find it first.

The point is that I'm deliberately limiting our evidence to these objects but granting the freedom to make the objects whatever the reader wishes for them to accept that they have designed objects.

No objects alone could ever do that. Until aliens can be demonstrated to be a valid assumption anywhere, we cannot assume them in order to prove they exist. Again, if I assume blue telekinetic kittens existed here at some point I can also explain the objects by saying blue telekinetic kittens must have made them because to our knowledge only humans can design things, so the creator of the objects can't have designed them.

If you are truly bothered by the description of Skeltor and it's lack of a fossil, then we land, find objects and structures in any amount, any sizes, and complexity or refinement. We record them and we take a shipful with us, but we leave Skeletor immediately because our instruments warn us that Skeletor's sun is about to go supernova. We leave the system and have nothing to examine now, other than our collected objects and records we made. The planet is gone now.

In which case we share our findings with other scientists and continue our research on other planets, labelling the objects as anomalies with no current explanation and storing them where they can be analysed and studied carefully. We find another planet, and continue to attempt to evaluate if aliens are capable of existing, since no theory requiring them to exist will ever be valid until we have demonstrated they are capable of doing so.

No it wouldn't.
It might lead me to wonder if Skeletor was not a homeworld, and perhaps a colony though.

You think a colony would lack the most primative forms of life and only have the most complex? Where does that assumption come from?

I never said anything about a handful, a few or just one area of the planet. If that is troublesome to you, then find as many as you'd like in as many places on the planet as you'd like.

I recognise that some will make the design conclusion easier than others, but I believe that even you will make it with enough of these objects, with enough complexity and refinement. And that is the only point I'm trying to make.

No amount of supposedly designed objects that are not alien life can prove alien life is a valid premise. Only evidence of alien life itself would allow it to be used as an assumption, and we cannot conclude design of anything alien without making such an assumption. Until we find some kind of evidence that living things not from Earth are capable of existing, we cannot validly assume they are capable of existing to explain anything else.

Until we find aliens in even the most basic form, it is not valid to assume them as the premise of an argument; any such argument would be a simple case of begging the question, much like ID itself.

The position I've been against is the one that tells me I cannot know that I have a book unless I first prove the author exists.
My response has been that if I have a book, THAT proves an author exists.
I understand, and I think you were tilting at windmills in the case of Dempublicents. She was saying the exact same thing that you and I have said. She was talking about the designer who is assumed in the meaning of design. In order to infer design, we need to know that authorship is possible. I can't speak for GMC; only got to page 14 so far.

This is what she said:

The only way you can possibly have design, under any circumstances, is if there is a designer. Therefore, in order to say that evidence leads to the conclusion of design, one must first assume that a designer capable of creating the object exists. The very concept of design necessitates a designer.

The ID people reject that position because they believe that they see an ordered universe that they believe implies design and then necessarily a designer.
Actually, you've got it backwards. You see, something cannot imply design unless you first assume the existence of a possible designer. Those who support ID do not support it because they have seen evidence of a design which then implied a designer. That would be logically backwards. Instead, they see evidence of design because they have assumed the existence of a designer.
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11356598&postcount=177

Then you launched into how that means we have to "prove the designer exists", and she explained, No, you have to demonstrate that "a possible designer exists".

Just as the way to recognize that 'something is a book' is to know about authors, the way to recognize that 'something is a design' is to know about designers.

...my stance on the ID theory is that it is a positive step forward for the religious to accept that Genesis may not be a literal account of creation. I don't believe it is a scientific theory even if it may be "true", so, if taught in a classroom, it may be casually mentioned in science class as what some people believe, but it's proper setting should be a philosphy class of some kind, or perhaps social studies for the younger crowd.
Okay, now I have a question for you: How does ID promote a nonliteral account of Genesis? It doesn't - it strengthens the literal one.

While I agree wholeheartedly that a positive step forward for religion would be to throw off the shackle of literalism, ID is still very much literalism. It sees evidence of the Creation in design.

Okay, now I have a question for you: How does ID promote a nonliteral account of Genesis? It doesn't - it strengthens the literal one.

While I agree wholeheartedly that a positive step forward for religion would be to throw off the shackle of literalism, ID is still very much literalism. It sees evidence of the Creation in design.

No, it goes away from literal genesis (earth made in 6 days 6000 years ago, adam and eve etc).

ID states that the universe is so complex and ordered it must have been created. To show evidence of the complexity it looks at how the earth developed, how life developed, etc etc.

Not saying I believe in it, but ID generally concedes old earth development in order to show its inherent complexity.

I also infer the existence of a designer because I already know that designs are designed by designers.

That's great news! Could you use this skill of yours to help me out?

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e194/ENIGMAneo1337/design.jpg

In this picture there are two circuit diagrams, two antennas, and two programming codes. Of each pair one was designed by a human and the other evolved using genetic algorithms. If ID is correct in saying that we can distinguish between the designed and undesigned then you will be able to tell me: 1. which is which? and 2. how did you work it out (googling or otherwise searching the internet don't count)?

I eagerly await your response.

That's great news! Could you use this skill of yours to help me out?

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e194/ENIGMAneo1337/design.jpg

In this picture there are two circuit diagrams, two antennas, and two programming codes. Of each pair one was designed by a human and the other evolved using genetic algorithms. If ID is correct in saying that we can distinguish between the designed and undesigned then you will be able to tell me: 1. which is which? and 2. how did you work it out (googling or otherwise searching the internet don't count)?

I eagerly await your response.
According to ID, we can simply assume all of them were designed, because they all exist. The existence of something is proof that it was designed, because we've already assumed that the universe was designed.

I'm dizzy.

According to ID, we can simply assume all of them were designed, because they all exist. The existence of something is proof that it was designed, because we've already assumed that the universe was designed.

I'm dizzy.

I got a headache just reading this post, good work. :p

Quite right.
I fully agree that it is redundant, but I've been arguing throughout this thread against people that tell me I don't know if I have a book until I can point to the author. I'm saying I don't need to find the author, as long as I can show the book, the author must exist.

Substitute design and designer.

Exactly. The other day, I saw this piece of artwork in the sky. It was a uniformally colored bas relief in some white "cotton-wool"ish substance that was an abstract impressionist rendition of an ice cream cone.

Some "meteorologist" going by told me that it was just random accumulation of moisture in the upper atmosphere, but I saw an ice cream cone, therefore I know that an artist must have created it.

Substitute "design" and "designer" for "ice cream cone" and "artist"

You know a book has an author because you have been told books have authors, have never encountered a book without an author, and the very definition of book implies author.

You can know a book has an author because every book you have seen has an author. We have never seen another universe, nor have we seen a designer. If you had never seen a book, and had no concept of words, how would you know a book has an author?

Try reading one of Sean Hannity's books. He's never written a word in his life.

No, it goes away from literal genesis (earth made in 6 days 6000 years ago, adam and eve etc).

ID states that the universe is so complex and ordered it must have been created. To show evidence of the complexity it looks at how the earth developed, how life developed, etc etc.

Not saying I believe in it, but ID generally concedes old earth development in order to show its inherent complexity.
Anything that hints at or states that the physical world is actually created by god is a literal interpretation of the Genesis stories.

Anything that hints at or states that the physical world is actually created by god is a literal interpretation of the Genesis stories.

No, no it is not.

A LITERAL interpretation of the Genesis stories is that god made the universe, in 6 days, and created Adam and Eve in the garden.

That is the LITERAL reading of it. Simply saying "god had a hand in creation" is NOT a literal interpretation.

Look up "literal", then read Genesis.

Exactly. The other day, I saw this piece of artwork in the sky. It was a uniformally colored bas relief in some white "cotton-wool"ish substance that was an abstract impressionist rendition of an ice cream cone.

Some "meteorologist" going by told me that it was just random accumulation of moisture in the upper atmosphere, but I saw an ice cream cone, therefore I know that an artist must have created it.

Substitute "design" and "designer" for "ice cream cone" and "artist"
The difference being, of course, that "ice cream cone" is a non-literal interpretation and "design" a literal one. Not really substitutable. Apple, meet orange.

No, no it is not.

A LITERAL interpretation of the Genesis stories is that god made the universe, in 6 days, and created Adam and Eve in the garden.

That is the LITERAL reading of it. Simply saying "god had a hand in creation" is NOT a literal interpretation.

Look up "literal", then read Genesis.
A literal interpretation of Genesis is that anything in the story actually happened the way it is told.

Literal = the way it is told is actual.

The act of creation is a part of that story.

I agree - they are only the same to ignorant creationists (who support it because it sounds "creationy" and ignorant atheists who link them because it sounds "creationy".

That being said I think there is overwhelming evidence in favor of evolution so they are both probably wrong.

Why don't you mention some of it? Because there isn't any. The idea that evolution has mounds of evidence supporting it is a common myth. I bet you can't bring one example.

If you do, telegram me.

Androssia

Red Herring. Have you made the leap that alien life would have no simplistic forms, regardless of what it is?


Nope, just pointing out that you don't play by your own rules.
There's no reason to assume that simplistic life will be cellular.
But, if you want to keep magic blue kittens on the table, there's also no reason to assume there will be any simplistic forms of life at all.


Without demonstrating 'aliens' as capable of existing at all, you cannot assume them. We can show dinosaurs existed because we can find their bones, and we know of living creatures with bones in similar configurations, so we can work out how those bones went together. If we had nothing but a few fossilised trackways with areas that looked a bit like footprints, would you regard it as valid to assume that since only a big creature called a dinosaur could make those footprints, dinosaurs must have existed?


If the fossils and footprints were clearly fossils and footprints and we don't have to debate what they are, then I'd conclude that something capable of making large footprints existed.
If dinosaur meant "large unknown creature that is not anything we already know" then sure, I'd call it a dinosaur.


No amount of objects with no obvious physical explanation is enough to justify pulling out something we haven't shown capable of existing, assuming it to be capable of existing and concluding it is capable of existing to form a 'theory' about the objects. You explain absolutely nothing that way, since you can include any evidence you find and make up the characteristics of your 'designer' as you go, never generating a single testable prediction along the way.


I'm not generating a theory and I'm not trying to make testable predictions.

If I wanted to do that, I'd begin a detailed analysis of the objects and structures and come up with a theory of what the Skeletorians might have been like, size, body structure, society, etc.

To go back to my earlier First Nations village example, when we find the remains of a village, we don't need to theorise that village makers might have been here. We have the evidence, we know village makers were here.
Our theories will revolve around when they were here, how long, why here, why did they leave, what did they do while they were here? Who were they?
Those are the theories.


You have assumed the conclusion, again. We are here to find out if it is possible that non-Earth life exists in the universe, not assume it is. Why did we bother to leave Earth at all if you've already convinced yourself that aliens can exist before we test if they can?


I have NOT assumed the conclusion. The conclusion is that Skeletorians existed.
We won't bother to leave the earth and even attempt to search for alien life if we don't assume it is at least possible that alien life exists.

If you can't assume possibilities, you would be paralysed in your attempt to discover anything.
You can't even conceive of a mission to explore for alien life without already first assuming that alien life is possible.
The error wuld be assuming that alien life must be out there and we are going to find it.


You think a colony would lack the most primative forms of life and only have the most complex? Where does that assumption come from?


It's not an assumption, it's a possible line of investigation.
If Skeletor was a sterile planet and the Skeletorians are not native, then a possible scenario would be that Skeletorians travelled here without bringing along any simpler forms of life with them.
I don't suggest this because it is true, just as a possibilty to consider for that evidence. So I would attempt to build a theory that the Skeltorians are colonists and then attempt to see if there is any more evidence that fits that theory or demonstrates that theory can't be true.






No amount of supposedly designed objects that are not alien life can prove alien life is a valid premise.

And this is where we are in complete disagreement. The rest is fluff.

A literal interpretation of Genesis is that anything in the story actually happened the way it is told.

Literal = the way it is told is actual.

The act of creation is a part of that story.

So if I state "I was walking down the road, eatting a sandwhich, when I was hit by a bus" and that would be literally true as long as there was either a road, a sandwhich, or a bus?

No, for Genesis to be literally true, it must have happened as the FULL story says it is.

not just part.

In other words, if not, you could take my statement literally, as long as I just had the sandwhich, which is stupid.

moreover, if someone of the Hindu faith supports the existence of a creator, he is supporting the literal version of genesis, even though his faith has no genesis story? That's stupid.

Literally means as the story says it did, in EVERY detail. That's what the word means.

Why don't you mention some of it? Because there isn't any. The idea that evolution has mounds of evidence supporting it is a common myth. I bet you can't bring one example.

If you do, telegram me.

Androssia

Comparisson of human and ape genome as evidence for common ancestry:

http://www.gate.net/~rwms/hum_ape_chrom.htmlhttp://www.gate.net/~rwms/hum_ape_chrom.html

I understand, and I think you were tilting at windmills in the case of Dempublicents. She was saying the exact same thing that you and I have said. She was talking about the designer who is assumed in the meaning of design. In order to infer design, we need to know that authorship is possible. I can't speak for GMC; only got to page 14 so far.

This is what she said:

The only way you can possibly have design, under any circumstances, is if there is a designer. Therefore, in order to say that evidence leads to the conclusion of design, one must first assume that a designer capable of creating the object exists. The very concept of design necessitates a designer.


Then you launched into how that means we have to "prove the designer exists", and she explained, No, you have to demonstrate that "a possible designer exists".

Just as the way to recognize that 'something is a book' is to know about authors, the way to recognize that 'something is a design' is to know about designers.


I'm really not sure why you're taking up Dem's cause here, but she made it clear that in her mind, I CANNOT call something design because that means I have ASSUMED a designer exists that I have not yet proven.
She demanded proof of the designer before she would label something as design. The relationship between design and designer in her postings was a one way street, conditional on the designer being demonstrated first.

I'm really not sure why you're taking up Dem's cause here, but she made it clear that in her mind, I CANNOT call something design because that means I have ASSUMED a designer exists that I have not yet proven.
She demanded proof of the designer before she would label something as design. The relationship between design and designer in her postings was a one way street, conditional on the designer being demonstrated first.

I disagree with that idea. If you show me something that is absolutly, irrefutably, evidence of DESIGN, then the designer, by necessity of logic, must exist.

The rub is finding proof of design. Without anything to compare it to, it may, in fact, be impossible, unless you know first some qualities of the designer who would be doing the designing.

So if I state "I was walking down the road, eatting a sandwhich, when I was hit by a bus" and that would be literally true as long as there was either a road, a sandwhich, or a bus?
"Literally true" is a different thing entirely. I am talking a the literal interpretation, which if employed would *render* any part of your story the actual truth.

I could read it as actual that you were walking down a road, that you were eating a sandwich, or that you were hit by a bus, and when I do, it is because I have employed a literal interpretation.

Whether or not it actually happened is irrelevant to the literal reading.

No, for Genesis to be literally true, it must have happened as the FULL story says it is.

not just part.

In other words, if not, you could take my statement literally, as long as I just had the sandwhich, which is stupid.
Any part of the story of Geneis can be read literally, and if it is, then a literal interpretation has been applied to Genesis.

It's like when a paintbrush is applied to a wall. We don't have to paint the whole wall to be able to say that a paintbrush has been applied to the wall.

moreover, if someone of the Hindu faith supports the existence of a creator, he is supporting the literal version of genesis, even though his faith has no genesis story? That's stupid.

Literally means as the story says it did, in EVERY detail. That's what the word means.
If someone of the Hindu faith reads Genesis and supports the existence of its creator as actual, or any of his acts as actual, then that is a literal interpretation of Genesis.

I'm really not sure why you're taking up Dem's cause here, but she made it clear that in her mind, I CANNOT call something design because that means I have ASSUMED a designer exists that I have not yet proven.
She demanded proof of the designer before she would label something as design. The relationship between design and designer in her postings was a one way street, conditional on the designer being demonstrated first.
I'll read further and get back to you.

Okay, now I have a question for you: How does ID promote a nonliteral account of Genesis? It doesn't - it strengthens the literal one.

While I agree wholeheartedly that a positive step forward for religion would be to throw off the shackle of literalism, ID is still very much literalism. It sees evidence of the Creation in design.

In christian circles, there are 2 large camps of thought, those that believe they read the Bible as the literal words of God and translate it literally, meaning that aprox. 6000 years ago, God formed the earth in 6 24 hour periods and thse that believe that the Bible is the writing of men, with the inherent flaws that men have but that it contains also the wisdom and inspiration of God, meaning that the Genesis story is full of wisdom and lessons, but isn't meant to be a history nor a cosmology lesson, because we hold it to be as "accurate" as any man 4000 years ago might have been, not as accurate as an omniscient creator would be.


ID does not include anything about 6 days of creation, and so, it moves away from a literalist interpretation of creation.

Any part of the story of Geneis can be read literally, and if it is, then a literal interpretation has been applied to Genesis.


No, it is a literal interprestation of a PART of Genesis. not all of it. To apply analogies again, it's like saying that after you've eatten a segment of an orange, that you've eatten an orange.

No, you've eatten a PART of an orange, not the whole thing. if the only part of genesis you accept as true is "there is god" then you are only taking literally the PART of genesis that says "there is god", not the whole thing.

Additionally, you can have a belief in god having never read genesis. So a hindu individual who believes in ID (IE the ultimite force created the universe) would not, in any way, be supporting ID.

Therefore the base premise of "god creating reality" does not support a literal version of Genesis because:

1) it does not include the other parts of genesis
2) you can hold that belief never having read genesis

Comparisson of human and ape genome as evidence for common ancestry:

http://www.gate.net/~rwms/hum_ape_ch...ape_chrom.html

Your link doesn't work.

Your link doesn't work.
Hrm, odd.

http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoEvidence.html try that, it's the homepage for the argument.

In christian circles, there are 2 large camps of thought, those that believe they read the Bible as the literal words of God and translate it literally, meaning that aprox. 6000 years ago, God formed the earth in 6 24 hour periods and thse that believe that the Bible is the writing of men, with the inherent flaws that men have but that it contains also the wisdom and inspiration of God, meaning that the Genesis story is full of wisdom and lessons, but isn't meant to be a history nor a cosmology lesson, because we hold it to be as "accurate" as any man 4000 years ago might have been, not as accurate as an omniscient creator would be.

ID does not include anything about 6 days of creation, and so, it moves away from a literalist interpretation of creation.
Okay, I see. But this particular step away from some things literally interpreted is still employing a literal interpretation. It reinforces and strengthens the idea that God created the universe.

That's great news! Could you use this skill of yours to help me out?

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e194/ENIGMAneo1337/design.jpg

In this picture there are two circuit diagrams, two antennas, and two programming codes. Of each pair one was designed by a human and the other evolved using genetic algorithms. If ID is correct in saying that we can distinguish between the designed and undesigned then you will be able to tell me: 1. which is which? and 2. how did you work it out (googling or otherwise searching the internet don't count)?

I eagerly await your response.


LOL, you miss my point friend.

IF we can demonstrate design, we can know there is a designer.
You're simply demonstrating that it might be more difficult to segregate design and non-design than some people hope.


Of course, if I was an ID proponent, I'd be tempted to say that the fact that the genetically evolved cicuits, codes and antannae all so closely resemble what we know to be human design, that might point to design being inherent in the genetics... ;)

According to ID, we can simply assume all of them were designed, because they all exist. The existence of something is proof that it was designed, because we've already assumed that the universe was designed.

I'm dizzy.

Ah, Bottle, Bottle, Bottle... why do you do this?
There are plenty of flaws in ID without your baseless attacks on it.

You only strengthen the resolve of those you argue against when you can't even get the basics of what they are saying correct.

Exactly. The other day, I saw this piece of artwork in the sky. It was a uniformally colored bas relief in some white "cotton-wool"ish substance that was an abstract impressionist rendition of an ice cream cone.

Some "meteorologist" going by told me that it was just random accumulation of moisture in the upper atmosphere, but I saw an ice cream cone, therefore I know that an artist must have created it.

Substitute "design" and "designer" for "ice cream cone" and "artist"


Yesterday, while spending time at my favourite beach, I laid back and watched the sky, to my amazment, the clouds across the entire canopy of the sky suddenly formed "New Domici is a big poo head"
I was immediately struck with the notion that the universe has taken a disliking to this New Domici, then I remembered that it is just a random accumulation of moisture in the upper atmosphere, and New Domici is probably a swell person.

Okay, I see. But this particular step away from some things literally interpreted is still employing a literal interpretation.

Only of a single part

It reinforces and strengthens the idea that God created the universe.

Which is a belief shared by many religions, not all of which have the story of Genesis as part of their methos.

And, more to point...so what? It's a belief that a god created the universe, that's what ID is. You've basically only just provided a definition for it.

I disagree with that idea. If you show me something that is absolutly, irrefutably, evidence of DESIGN, then the designer, by necessity of logic, must exist.

The rub is finding proof of design. Without anything to compare it to, it may, in fact, be impossible, unless you know first some qualities of the designer who would be doing the designing.


We're in total synch on this then.

No, it is a literal interprestation of a PART of Genesis. not all of it. To apply analogies again, it's like saying that after you've eatten a segment of an orange, that you've eatten an orange.

No, you've eatten a PART of an orange, not the whole thing. if the only part of genesis you accept as true is "there is god" then you are only taking literally the PART of genesis that says "there is god", not the whole thing.

Additionally, you can have a belief in god having never read genesis. So a hindu individual who believes in ID (IE the ultimite force created the universe) would not, in any way, be supporting ID.

Therefore the base premise of "god creating reality" does not support a literal version of Genesis because:

1) it does not include the other parts of genesis
2) you can hold that belief never having read genesis
Okay. "A literal interpretation of a part of Genesis" is unnecessarily wordy, but if it makes you happy we'll go with that.

It is still a literal interpretation WHEN applied to the story of Genesis to believe that god created the universe.

Okay, I see. But this particular step away from some things literally interpreted is still employing a literal interpretation. It reinforces and strengthens the idea that God created the universe.


That's rather like saying you don't like Darwin because his theory strengthens the idea that life evolved.

:D

Okay. "A literal interpretation of a part of Genesis" is unnecessarily wordy, but if it makes you happy we'll go with that.

It is still a literal interpretation WHEN applied to the story of Genesis to believe that god created the universe.

Well, ok sure. But it doesn't really support the idea OF GENESIS, since most IDers at least concede that the universe was NOT created in 6 days, humanity did NOT begin with Adam and Eve and the earth is NOT 6000 years old.

So ID may accept as faith the princple basis FOR genesis (IE god did it) yet at the same time reject the story OF genesis (the specific story that god did it in 6 days, etc etc). Likewise ID supports an idea (god did it) that is included in genesis, but not unique to it.

Only of a single part


Which is a belief shared by many religions, not all of which have the story of Genesis as part of their methos.

And, more to point...so what? It's a belief that a god created the universe, that's what ID is. You've basically only just provided a definition for it.
That other religions believe that too doesn't really matter. That's irrelevent to the literal of Genesis that we are discussing.

'So what?' indeed. You act like a literal interpretation is a bad thing.

We're in total synch on this then.

I think so. The problem is that no ID proponent has put forward anything that actually shows evidence of design.

The only thing that ID shows is that the universe is "ordered" to which I respond two things:

1) order exists as a comparison to lack of order. How do you know the universe is ordered, when you have no unordered universe to compare to?

2) even if the universe is ordered, how does that provide proof for a designer since you have no evidence on which to conclude an ordered universe can't just be.

That other religions believe that too doesn't really matter. That's irrelevent to the literal of Genesis that we are discussing.

'So what?' indeed. You act like a literal interpretation is a bad thing.

Actually I think a truly literal belief in genesis (the whole 6 day, 6000 year thing) is a bad thing, as it denies all scientific logic and rationale. It rejects scientific method. I think faith should not be so blind as to reject anything that seeks to question even the slightest part of it.

I think simply a belief in god is neither good, nor bad. It's how that belief dictates your actions makes it good or bad.

Well, ok sure. But it doesn't really support the idea OF GENESIS, since most IDers at least concede that the universe was NOT created in 6 days, humanity did NOT begin with Adam and Eve and the earth is NOT 6000 years old.
It lends supports to the story of Genesis, though, to render any part of it true.

So ID may accept as faith the princple basis FOR genesis (IE god did it) yet at the same time reject the story OF genesis (the specific story that god did it in 6 days, etc etc). Likewise ID supports an idea (god did it) that is included in genesis, but not unique to it.
They are free to reject any details of Genesis they may like, yes.

It lends supports to the story of Genesis, though, to render any part of it true.

Perhaps. However if we can get at least some people to admit "OK, I'm not waivering in my faith of god, but I conceede that the universe was NOT created in 6 days, and the earth is NOT 6000 years old" they are both supporting, and attacking different parts of genesis.

And I think the attack on the fundamental specific aspects of genesis (the 6 day creation etc) overall outweighs the support for others.

So in other words, ID generally supports SOME parts of genesis, and rejects OTHER parts of genesis, and in my opion, the rejection does more than the acceptance.

Actually I think a truly literal belief in genesis (the whole 6 day, 6000 year thing) is a bad thing, as it denies all scientific logic and rationale. It rejects scientific method. I think faith should not be so blind as to reject anything that seeks to question even the slightest part of it.

I think simply a belief in god is neither good, nor bad. It's how that belief dictates your actions makes it good or bad.
Though literal interpretations in general are not a bad thing, in this case I do agree with you.

To explain my point, even though I don't really support ID as a "theory" (it is, I suppose, a hypothesis), if we're at least moving from true CREATIONISM (true, 100% literal interpretation of Genesis) to a more liberal idea of ID, we're at least moving into a more enlightened direction.

Perhaps. However if we can get at least some people to admit "OK, I'm not waivering in my faith of god, but I conceede that the universe was NOT created in 6 days, and the earth is NOT 6000 years old" they are both supporting, and attacking different parts of genesis.

And I think the attack on the fundamental specific aspects of genesis (the 6 day creation etc) overall outweighs the support for others.

So in other words, ID generally supports SOME parts of genesis, and rejects OTHER parts of genesis, and in my opion, the rejection does more than the acceptance.
Just so. It's okay to literally believe god created the universe --no harm in that. It should be acknowledged, though, that, in the context of the story of Genesis, that is a literal interpretation of (parts of) Genesis. (Whew, wordy.)

:)

The idea of ID sees design as evidence of the intelligent designer they deem 'God', or with the god-like qualities of being able to design the universe or parts thereof. For the Christian, at least, this is still the equivalent of a literal interpretation of (parts of) Genesis.

The difference being, of course, that "ice cream cone" is a non-literal interpretation and "design" a literal one. Not really substitutable. Apple, meet orange.

How so? If I see an ice cream cone floating in the sky then clearly someone set up their ice cream cone art instalation there. "Ice cream cone" seems a whole lot more literal than a vague notion of "design." "Design" isn't literal at all. It's merely conceptual. Wellamena, meet botanist.

How so? If I see an ice cream cone floating in the sky then clearly someone set up their ice cream cone art instalation there. "Ice cream cone" seems a whole lot more literal than a vague notion of "design." "Design" isn't literal at all. It's merely conceptual. Wellamena, meet botanist.
Ah, I thought you meant an ice-cream shaped cloud (as you'd indicated in your tale), in which instance the "ice cream cone" is a non-literal interpretation of a cloud. "Cloud" or "random accumulation of moisture in the upper atmosphere" is the literal interpretation.

Of course, if it is an actual ice cream cone in the sky, then that's another matter.

How is "design" vague or non-literal? I can see *what is designed* as being non-literal, but never design.

Nope, just pointing out that you don't play by your own rules.

Actually, I do. A cell is the most primative known form of life, therefore we would know we had found primative alien life if we found a cell that was obviously not from Earth. The fact that we could find something else instead that was also a primative form of alien life doesn't change that.

If you must be so absurdly pedantic, mentally replace 'cell' with 'simpliest possible form of life.' If we haven't even found a trace of alien life, it is absurd to assume complex alien life with recognisable intellect to explain an unknown item.

There's no reason to assume that simplistic life will be cellular.

Which is still a red herring, given I was saying we don't have an example of even simplistic alien life, not that all simple life would be cells. The fact that we couldn't be sure that simplistic life took the same form as our own simplistic life is irrelevant. The point is we have yet to discover any evidence that supports 'aliens' as a valid premise.

But, if you want to keep magic blue kittens on the table, there's also no reason to assume there will be any simplistic forms of life at all.

Actually, there is. It's a prediction of evolution, a theory we know to generate accurate predictions. Without compelling reasons to doubt it happens the same to aliens as it does on our own planet, we have no reason to doubt that alien life will have more simplistic forms, if it is capable of existing. There is no scientific theory that precludes the existence of telekinesis, so we cannot declare it impossible.

And I notice your continued attacks on the concept of the kitten have yet to focus on why it's a less reasonable hypothesis than your own. You have loudly complained later in this very post about the idea of ruling out aliens as a cause, but you seem perfectly happy ruling out other possible causes purely because you think they're silly.

We can't do that. If the object has no cause that can be evaluated, we cannot rule out any other possible cause until such time as one of them can be evaluated. Say we got home and found a wizard had demonstrated under controlled conditions that he had the power to make tools appear on other planets. Suddenly, the wizard is a more viable hypothesis for the origin of the tools than your aliens, because we know the wizard exists, but we still don't know if the aliens can exist.

Until such time as you can demonstrate the ability of the cause to exist, it cannot be assumed, because it is no better an explaination than any other such cause, be it magic, telekinetic kittens, teleporting humans, omnipotent beings or Sean Connery. Actually, Sean Connery is a better cause, as he exists and has known properties.

If the fossils and footprints were clearly fossils and footprints and we don't have to debate what they are, then I'd conclude that something capable of making large footprints existed.

I said 'things that look like footprints' and no fossils, stop evading the question.

If dinosaur meant "large unknown creature that is not anything we already know" then sure, I'd call it a dinosaur.

And not bother to evaluate any other theory for the origin of things that look like footprints, again.

I'm not generating a theory and I'm not trying to make testable predictions.

Yes you are, you are generating a theory to explain the origins of the objects. If your theory cannot make testable predictions about those objects, it is worthless.

If I wanted to do that, I'd begin a detailed analysis of the objects and structures and come up with a theory of what the Skeletorians might have been like, size, body structure, society, etc.

You apparently believe a theory is required to be complicated. It's not. You have theorised that alien designers created the objects; that is a worthless hypothesis because it cannot be evaluated. You are trying to create a theory, you've just failed to create a useful one.

To go back to my earlier First Nations village example, when we find the remains of a village, we don't need to theorise that village makers might have been here. We have the evidence, we know village makers were here.

Actually, we make the assumption that they were here based on our knowledge of other villages made by humans. Without that, we could not theorise human village makers had been here, because we would not know if human village makers were capable of existing.

Our theories will revolve around when they were here, how long, why here, why did they leave, what did they do while they were here? Who were they?
Those are the theories.

This is because we know villages are capable of existing and that humans are capable of making villages. We can skip past those stages on Earth as we already have a well-proven cause for villages. We don't know alien tools are capable of existing, and we don't know aliens are capable of existing. We don't know what causes objects that appear to be tools on other planets, either.

We can assume humans because we are humans. We can't assume aliens without having equally strong evidence that there are aliens to assume.

I have NOT assumed the conclusion. The conclusion is that Skeletorians existed.

False. The conclusion is that aliens are capable of existing, that is what we are there to examine. You have explicitly assumed they are not only capable of existing, but that they certainly did exist and were able to design tools.

We won't bother to leave the earth and even attempt to search for alien life if we don't assume it is at least possible that alien life exists.

False. We are testing if it is possible, we cannot assume it is possible as part of such a test. Doing so would be like testing if magic can exist by assuming magic can exist, it's utterly nonsensical.

If you can't assume possibilities, you would be paralysed in your attempt to discover anything.

False. You do not assume it is possible or that it is impossible, you evaluate the possibility based on the evidence. Again, you can make any evidence fit a hypothesis if you allow the assumption that the hypothesis is true as a premise.

You appear to believe that we either 'assume it is possible' or 'assume it is impossible,' this is a fallacy of bifurcation: we should assume that the possibility of it is unknown and therefore no conclusion based on it being possible is currently valid as that is not currently known. Equally, no conclusion requiring it to be impossible should be made; however, theories involving known causes should be regarded as superior to it because they can be evaluated, whereas something whose only distinguishing feature is that it is not known to be possible cannot.

You can't even conceive of a mission to explore for alien life without already first assuming that alien life is possible.

False. I can go to another planet and evaluate if alien life is possible there by looking for signs of it. If I find self-replicating items with the qualities we ascribe to living things there or remains of them, I can conclude that alien life is possible on this planet. If I do not, I can conclude alien life is probably not possible on this planet.

I assume alien life may be possible as my reason for going on the mission, not that it is possible. That is the flaw in your argument; you must assume it is possible.

The error wuld be assuming that alien life must be out there and we are going to find it.

No, the error would be assuming it is possible with no evidence to support that conclusion. You can't declare something to be possible without a shred of evidence in either direction.

I notice you also failed to address why an argument that allows aliens to exist in my refrigerator can possibly be logically sound.

If Skeletor was a sterile planet and the Skeletorians are not native, then a possible scenario would be that Skeletorians travelled here without bringing along any simpler forms of life with them.

It's a ridiculously improbable scenario which requires we accept that not only were the 'intelligent designer aliens' capable of existing, they were also capable of space travel. You're now firmly in the realm of writing sci-fi rather than making an acceptable conclusion from the data.

I don't suggest this because it is true, just as a possibilty to consider for that evidence. So I would attempt to build a theory that the Skeltorians are colonists and then attempt to see if there is any more evidence that fits that theory or demonstrates that theory can't be true.

On the basis of a few objects that might be tools, and still no knowledge that aliens are capable of existing. And you think the blue kitten is less valid than this. Um, right.

And this is where we are in complete disagreement. The rest is fluff.

I assume you mean 'arguments I can't address' by 'fluff' there.

Actually, I do. A cell is the most primative known form of life,

No, it's not.


therefore we would know we had found primative alien life if we found a cell that was obviously not from Earth.

How can you say it's obviously not from Earth? Maybe I planted it, maybe it is from Earth and it beat you to where you found it, or maybe a Blue Kitten blinked it into existence and it's not really a cell at all.
And besides, since you have no idea what cells not from Earth are like or if they can even exist, how can you possibly say you have found a cell and then how can you leap to the conclusion that it isn't from Earth?


Which is still a red herring, given I was saying we don't have an example of even simplistic alien life, not that all simple life would be cells. The fact that we couldn't be sure that simplistic life took the same form as our own simplistic life is irrelevant. The point is we have yet to discover any evidence that supports 'aliens' as a valid premise.


Yes we did discover evidence, you are arguing that the evidence isn't valid, so stop saying it is without evidence.
If the evidence isn't valid, we can't make the conclusion. We both agree to that, we simply disagree on the validity. So stop trying to paint me as if I'm making conclusions without evidence when what I'm doing is making conclusions with evidence YOU don't accept.


Actually, there is. It's a prediction of evolution, a theory we know to generate accurate predictions. Without compelling reasons to doubt it happens the same to aliens as it does on our own planet, we have no reason to doubt that alien life will have more simplistic forms, if it is capable of existing.

You're going to have to demonstrate that evolution is a valid theory for non-Earth life. if you are going to play by your rules that is.


And I notice your continued attacks on the concept of the kitten have yet to focus on why it's a less reasonable hypothesis than your own. You have loudly complained later in this very post about the idea of ruling out aliens as a cause, but you seem perfectly happy ruling out other possible causes purely because you think they're silly.


Not just because they are clearly silly, but because they are specific claims without evidence. There's not even any evidence that we are disagreeing on.
I'm making general claims with (in your case) disputed evidence. You are proposing specific claims without any evidence, disputed or not.


False. The conclusion is that aliens are capable of existing, that is what we are there to examine.

No, it's my scenario and that is not what I'm there to examine. The conclusion IS that Skeltorians existed.
You are free to disagree with the conclusion, you are free to pose your own scenario to examine whether it is possible that aliens exist, although I believe you are doomed to failure.
The only way you will answer your question will be to find evidence of aliens, and at that point, you won't have proven that it is possible that aliens exist, you will have proven that they DO exist.


I assume alien life may be possible as my reason for going on the mission, not that it is possible. That is the flaw in your argument; you must assume it is possible.


There is no difference.
Neither of us assume that alien life exists.
Neither of us assume that alien life does not exist.
Neither of us assume that alien life is impossible.

That only leaves alien life is possible until someone demonstrates that alien life exists or provides compelling evidence that alien life will be impossible.

Your "may be" is redundant with the word "possible".
It's like having imaginary fiction.


I notice you also failed to address why an argument that allows aliens to exist in my refrigerator can possibly be logically sound.


Because it was ridiculously flawed since your refrigerator is a subset of Earth.


I assume you mean 'arguments I can't address' by 'fluff' there.

No, by fluff I mean all of the extraneous writing we are doing. It's very clear where we disagree, but you continually expand it far beyond our disagreement and we discuss things like 2 slit photon experiments etc.

Actually I think a truly literal belief in genesis (the whole 6 day, 6000 year thing) is a bad thing, as it denies all scientific logic and rationale. It rejects scientific method. I think faith should not be so blind as to reject anything that seeks to question even the slightest part of it.

I think simply a belief in god is neither good, nor bad. It's how that belief dictates your actions makes it good or bad.

It only defies scientific rationale if you believe in the scientific theory that life evolved over millions of years into the complexity it is today. There is no reason to suggest that God could not have created the world in six days and granted with that the capacity to change; hence we have evolutionary adaptation, speciation, etc. Or we could argue the idea that God's day is not our day, that each day was in fact millions of our years. But to say it denies all scientific logic and rationale is, in my opinion, a fallacy.

No, it's not.

Um, yes, actually it is. Last I checked, unicellular organisms are the simplest lifeforms that fulfil all the criteria of living things.

How can you say it's obviously not from Earth? Maybe I planted it, maybe it is from Earth and it beat you to where you found it, or maybe a Blue Kitten blinked it into existence and it's not really a cell at all.

I can tell by examining its structure for similarities to known organisms. If it obviously lacks evolutionary descent from Earth organisms, it is either engineered or a genuine alien lifeform. If we then find conditions by which it could have come to exist naturally on the planet we found it, we can start building on the idea that it formed there, and is therefore an alien lifeform.

And besides, since you have no idea what cells not from Earth are like or if they can even exist, how can you possibly say you have found a cell and then how can you leap to the conclusion that it isn't from Earth?

Because I know what the qualifications to be a cell are; a self-replicating organic structure that respires, grows, senses, moves, and does the various other conditions laid down as criteria to be a living thing. It can be tested for all such criteria, unlike your vague concept of 'design' which cannot be tested at all except for some even more vague level of 'complexity.'

Yes we did discover evidence, you are arguing that the evidence isn't valid, so stop saying it is without evidence.

No, we don't have evidence. We have something you believe requires a baseless assumption of aliens with design capabilities when we don't know those can exist. We discovered things with no immediately obvious explanation.

So stop trying to paint me as if I'm making conclusions without evidence when what I'm doing is making conclusions with evidence YOU don't accept.

It's not evidence at all unless it can be evidence for something. Since it can equally be evidence for telekinetic kittens, magic, teleporting humans or omnipotent beings, you can't say it's just evidence for the one thing you want it to be evidence for.

You're going to have to demonstrate that evolution is a valid theory for non-Earth life. if you are going to play by your rules that is.

Evolution is a valid theory for all known life, there is no other known valid theory to explain biological diversity and adaptation. If you could advance another theory that could generate testable predictions of what alien life would look like, we can test that too. Until we do, we will use the theory that generates the best testable predictions on our own planet, as it is the most valid.

This means we could assume humans, but there are no aliens on our planet, so we certainly can't assume them.

Not just because they are clearly silly, but because they are specific claims without evidence. There's not even any evidence that we are disagreeing on.
I'm making general claims with (in your case) disputed evidence. You are proposing specific claims without any evidence, disputed or not.

Actually, 'intelligent designer aliens' is a very specific claim. Further, you have no evidence other than 'lack of demonstrated impossibility' that aliens can exist, which is the precise same 'evidence' that exists for magic. You cannot assume them. End of line.

No, it's my scenario and that is not what I'm there to examine. The conclusion IS that Skeltorians existed.

I don't care what you think you're there for, the only currently valid line of inquiry is if it is possible for aliens to exist. You therefore cannot assume it is possible as part of your argument.

The only way you will answer your question will be to find evidence of aliens, and at that point, you won't have proven that it is possible that aliens exist, you will have proven that they DO exist.

No, I will have proven it is possible for aliens to exist here. Aliens are now demonstrated to be possible, therefore we can use the assumption of the possibility of aliens as an explaination both here and elsewhere, and begin to examine if they're capable of intelligence and human-like design capabilities. They are now a usable term rather than a worthless unknown.

This is what ID needs: some method of analysing the 'designer.' Until it has that, it is completely worthless, much like your aliens.

Neither of us assume that alien life exists.
Neither of us assume that alien life does not exist.
Neither of us assume that alien life is impossible.

That only leaves alien life is possible until someone demonstrates that alien life exists or provides compelling evidence that alien life will be impossible.

False. It leaves 'It is not known if alien life is possible or impossible,' more easily summarised as 'alien life may be possible.'

Your "may be" is redundant with the word "possible".
It's like having imaginary fiction.

No, it's not. 'Alien life is possible' utterly removes the idea that it may not be possible. We don't know that can be ruled out. The correct statement is 'Alien life may be possible' as we have not yet demonstrated it is not possible.

Because it was ridiculously flawed since your refrigerator is a subset of Earth.

It's also part of the universe, last time I checked. That means that your argument allows aliens to exist in my fridge, the core of the sun, in my underpants, on the surface of an electron, and anywhere else in the universe. It's a staggeringly flawed argument and a textbook example of the fallacy of division.

No, by fluff I mean all of the extraneous writing we are doing. It's very clear where we disagree, but you continually expand it far beyond our disagreement and we discuss things like 2 slit photon experiments etc.

Those expansions that you ignore would be arguments you can't address. If you could, you'd address them rather than just trying to brush them off.

Ah... a familiar old topic... :)

And to get back to the original question:
Intelligent Design indeed is thinly-disguised Creationism.

Also, Intelligent Design is by no means scientific because it violates the scientific method.

It only defies scientific rationale if you believe in the scientific theory that life evolved over millions of years into the complexity it is today. There is no reason to suggest that God could not have created the world in six days and granted with that the capacity to change; hence we have evolutionary adaptation, speciation, etc. Or we could argue the idea that God's day is not our day, that each day was in fact millions of our years. But to say it denies all scientific logic and rationale is, in my opinion, a fallacy.
True, there is no reason to speculate that God could not have created the world; but that has nothing to do with science or evolution. There is nothing scientific about God creating the world --that is done by a supernatural being with magic, in some lore by speaking things into existence. And there is nothing in the Theory of Evolution about the creation of the world.

Unless you can demonstrate that there is a God and that he has the ability to speak things into existence, the Creation does defy "scientific rationale".

LOL, you miss my point friend.

IF we can demonstrate design, we can know there is a designer.
You're simply demonstrating that it might be more difficult to segregate design and non-design than some people hope.


Of course, if I was an ID proponent, I'd be tempted to say that the fact that the genetically evolved cicuits, codes and antannae all so closely resemble what we know to be human design, that might point to design being inherent in the genetics... ;)

No, you miss the point.

You claim that if we can identify design then we can extrapolate the identity of a designer. You cannot, however, distinguish the items designed by a sentient designer from the items which 'evolved' using genetic algorithms and I propose that there is no way to distinguish between the two. If you can't suggest a way to distinguish between the designed and the undesigned then your claim that "if we can demonstrate design, we can know there is a designer" is meaningless as we have no way to demonstrate design.

Why am I so confident that there is no way to distinguish the designed and the undesigned? Simple. The antennae were both entered into a NASA competition to find the best possible design for an antenna and the 'undesigned' antenna defeated the antenna designed by humans hands-down.

Why am I so confident that there is no way to distinguish the designed and the undesigned? Simple. The antennae were both entered into a NASA competition to find the best possible design for an antenna and the 'undesigned' antenna defeated the antenna designed by humans hands-down.
I am curious about these antennas. What is it about one that makes it "undesigned"?

Actually, 'intelligent designer aliens' is a very specific claim. Further, you have no evidence other than 'lack of demonstrated impossibility' that aliens can exist, which is the precise same 'evidence' that exists for magic. You cannot assume them. End of line.


Actually, it's not a very specific claim. If I in fact have something designed, I know that a designer exists, (the intelligent being redundant) and if I know the designer is not human, I use the very general term "alien" as a place holder to name them.

You disagree that I can possibly ever have something I can point to and say it is designed, without first having proven the designers exist.

You challenge the term alien as if it is a specific claim when it is nothing but recognition of the fact that we have found something not from our planet.
Making up reasons why a particular thing may not be from Earth is only dodging the point since if we find the evidence that you will accept i.e. fossils, cells, etc. you will also use the term.


I don't care what you think you're there for, the only currently valid line of inquiry is if it is possible for aliens to exist. You therefore cannot assume it is possible as part of your argument.


Meaningless liine of inquiry.
You can't prove that it is POSSIBLE for aliens to exist without proving that aliens DO exist.


No, it's not. 'Alien life is possible' utterly removes the idea that it may not be possible. We don't know that can be ruled out. The correct statement is 'Alien life may be possible' as we have not yet demonstrated it is not possible.


Aliens either exist or they do not exist.
The "idea" that they may not be possible is meaningless.
If it isn't, then you will need to include the equally meaningless, "may be impossible" "idea".
The term possible covers the uncertain area.


It's also part of the universe, last time I checked. That means that your argument allows aliens to exist in my fridge, the core of the sun, in my underpants, on the surface of an electron, and anywhere else in the universe. It's a staggeringly flawed argument and a textbook example of the fallacy of division.


If something is in your fridge, then it is not something outside of our planet, and since that is what we use to distinguish alien and non-alien, claiming aliens in your fridge is obviously pre-mature.
It's not a fallacy of division, it's using the words by their definition.


Those expansions that you ignore would be arguments you can't address. If you could, you'd address them rather than just trying to brush them off.

No, because what constitutes life and what is the simplest form of life does nothing to prove what either of us is saying.
Whether or not someone is hoaxing does nothing to prove what either of us is saying.
They might be interesting discussions on their own, but this is a long thread and you make long resposnses, so I will not respond to every thought that crosses your mind and you drop into this thread.


So, to take us back to the point I've been arguing, I'll expand on it even I've been loathe to impose my own thoughts of design on it.

You and I have developed the first faster than light spaceship.
We travel on this spaceship on it's maiden voyage to become the first humans to leave our solar system.
We are not hoaxing anyone, includuing each other.

We travel 420,000 light years and land on a planet we jokingly call Skeletor because from space, the most prominent land mass vaguely resembles Skeletor's face.

We do not detect anything we recognise as life.
We do detect and observe many many objects and structures of various kinds.
We approach one object and find an oriface by which we are able to enter it.
We note that the object is both transparent in places and opaque in others.
With minimal experimentation, we discover that certain actions we take within the object are followed by the object to move at high speeds and other actions are followed by the object stopping or changing direction.

I'm comfortable concluding that no known natural process could have created this object that appears to be some kind of designed Skeletorian vehicle.

I conclude aliens exist/existed here on Skeletor. Oh and I also conclude that aliens are in fact "possible". I feel a bit silly making such an obvious conclusion but I'm sensitive to your feelings on the matter.

No, you miss the point.

You claim that if we can identify design then we can extrapolate the identity of a designer. You cannot, however, distinguish the items designed by a sentient designer from the items which 'evolved' using genetic algorithms and I propose that there is no way to distinguish between the two. If you can't suggest a way to distinguish between the designed and the undesigned then your claim that "if we can demonstrate design, we can know there is a designer" is meaningless as we have no way to demonstrate design.


I didn't miss the point.
I agree with you, if we can't demonstrate design, my claim will be useless.

Why don't you mention some of it? Because there isn't any. The idea that evolution has mounds of evidence supporting it is a common myth.

On the contrary, there is a huge amount of supporting evidence for evolution.
Of course, there is also a huge amount of supporting evidence for ID. And for the idea that we were all created by a flying ball of spaghetti. And for the idea that we are all butterflies trapped in the matrix under the control of the galactic overlord Xenu.

That of course is why science does not really deal with supporting evidence - it instead deals with testing ideas for flaws. It checks if the idea that looks so good on paper actually fits the facts. Science likes negating evidence.

The theory of evolution has sofar survived every scientific test. Quite a few of the original details had to be adjusted, but the central idea of the theory remains standing as something that fits what we observe remarkably well. Anyone wishing to challenge it will need to present their alternative with at least the same amount of rigorous testing.

Sofar, ID supporters have not even been able to *devise* a test, let alone executed it.

If you do, telegram me.

Why telegram instead of simply post here ?

On the contrary, there is a huge amount of supporting evidence for evolution.
Of course, there is also a huge amount of supporting evidence for ID. And for the idea that we were all created by a flying ball of spaghetti. And for the idea that we are all butterflies trapped in the matrix under the control of the galactic overlord Xenu.

That of course is why science does not really deal with supporting evidence - it instead deals with testing ideas for flaws. It checks if the idea that looks so good on paper actually fits the facts. Science likes negating evidence.

The theory of evolution has sofar survived every scientific test. Quite a few of the original details had to be adjusted, but the central idea of the theory remains standing as something that fits what we observe remarkably well. Anyone wishing to challenge it will need to present their alternative with at least the same amount of rigorous testing.

Sofar, ID supporters have not even been able to *devise* a test, let alone executed it.



Why telegram instead of simply post here ?

On that note, I haven't seen any evidence at all so far for Intelligent Design. Rather, I know a lot of examples that I would calle STUPID DESIGN, ie structures that are too stupid and inefficient to have been designed.

Or said designer was rather demented, that is... :D

Actually, it's not a very specific claim. If I in fact have something designed, I know that a designer exists, (the intelligent being redundant) and if I know the designer is not human, I use the very general term "alien" as a place holder to name them.

Which is the usual circular argument. You cannot conclude design without assuming the designer, which is not known to be capable of existing.

You disagree that I can possibly ever have something I can point to and say it is designed, without first having proven the designers exist.

No, without ever proving the designers have the potential to exist. If you had previously found any alien lifeform it would assist you in generating a hypothesis involving aliens, but without that we don't know if aliens have the potential to exist, therefore they can't explain anything.

You challenge the term alien as if it is a specific claim when it is nothing but recognition of the fact that we have found something not from our planet.

It is a specific claim. You are claiming the term is a life-form with recognisable traits of intelligence similar to our own and use of tools similar to our own. You have no basis to make such assumptions, since the term 'alien' has never been observed.

Meaningless liine of inquiry.
You can't prove that it is POSSIBLE for aliens to exist without proving that aliens DO exist.

Actually, you potentially could by demonstrating organic self-replicating molecules or amino acids in a state where they could develop futher, in which case there is the potential for life but not yet life itself.

But you have it backwards: the point is that proving aliens do exist demonstrates aliens are a possibility: this means they can be used as an assumption to explain things, as they are now known to be possible. They are now a better explanation than magic, teleporting humans, telekinetic kittens and Sean Connery, because we have demonstrated they are possible.

Aliens either exist or they do not exist.
The "idea" that they may not be possible is meaningless.
If it isn't, then you will need to include the equally meaningless, "may be impossible" "idea".
The term possible covers the uncertain area.

No, it doesn't. If something is possible, that means it is capable of happening. Flipping three tails in a row with a normal coin is possible. However, flipping three tails in a row with a double-headed coin is not possible. We can therefore say that with a given coin, flipping three tails in a row may be possible pending further investigation of the properties of the coin. We can't say it is possible due to the known ability of the action to not be possible.

If something is in your fridge, then it is not something outside of our planet, and since that is what we use to distinguish alien and non-alien, claiming aliens in your fridge is obviously pre-mature.
It's not a fallacy of division, it's using the words by their definition.

Actually, it's not. There's no reason to believe aliens would not be capable of ending up on Earth, especially not in your argument; Earth is part of the universe, therefore it is possible there are aliens on Earth.

What you're doing here is like saying it would be impossible to find a Mexican in America because Mexicans can only exist in Mexico.

No, because what constitutes life and what is the simplest form of life does nothing to prove what either of us is saying.

It does, actually. You don't seem to understand why it's necessary to have a form of alien life, regardless of what form it is, in order to conclude aliens at all. Look at it like this:

* We know the objects can exist, because they do.
* In order to conclude aliens are the source of the objects, we must use them as a premise, therefore we must also have some independant reason to believe they exist.
* A simple form of alien life would allow us to call on the theory of evolution to conclude more complex forms of alien life may be possible, therefore the alien designer may be possible. We've now moved up a little towards proving alien designers are a valid assumption, though we're by no means done yet.

We can't get anywhere near 'alien designer' if we don't know there can ever be aliens.

We note that the object is both transparent in places and opaque in others.
With minimal experimentation, we discover that certain actions we take within the object are followed by the object to move at high speeds and other actions are followed by the object stopping or changing direction.

I'm comfortable concluding that no known natural process could have created this object that appears to be some kind of designed Skeletorian vehicle.

Or some kind of animal we would regard as a beast of burden. We should probably check if it can be explained as that first; it may be the object and its 'operator' are a symbiotic lifeform of a type we don't recognise and this one has lost its operator.

This is a better hypothesis to test than alien designers, since we have no idea if alien designers are able to exist or what they would design if they did.

Which is the usual circular argument. You cannot conclude design without assuming the designer, which is not known to be capable of existing.


Designers are known to be capable of existing.


Actually, you potentially could by demonstrating organic self-replicating molecules or amino acids in a state where they could develop futher, in which case there is the potential for life but not yet life itself.

But you have it backwards: the point is that proving aliens do exist demonstrates aliens are a possibility: this means they can be used as an assumption to explain things, as they are now known to be possible. They are now a better explanation than magic, teleporting humans, telekinetic kittens and Sean Connery, because we have demonstrated they are possible.


Fine.
What are aliens?
Aliens are life on a planet.
Can we prove that life can exist on a planet?
We are life and we exist on a planet.
Depending on perspective WE could be aliens.
Therefore, if WE exist, it may be possible that other life can also exist.
Done.


No, it doesn't. If something is possible, that means it is capable of happening. Flipping three tails in a row with a normal coin is possible. However, flipping three tails in a row with a double-headed coin is not possible. We can therefore say that with a given coin, flipping three tails in a row may be possible pending further investigation of the properties of the coin. We can't say it is possible due to the known ability of the action to not be possible.


Oh, maybe the double-headed coin was really a normal coin with a false heads face added to the tails side, and when you flip it, it might break the false face off and leave a flip of tails. So, it may not be impossible.

We can play that game forever, because we can never ever know anything with certainty. So, when we say something is possible or impossible, it is always predicated on the current information that we have. Future investigations may change the impossible to possible to impossible and back again.


Actually, it's not. There's no reason to believe aliens would not be capable of ending up on Earth, especially not in your argument; Earth is part of the universe, therefore it is possible there are aliens on Earth.

What you're doing here is like saying it would be impossible to find a Mexican in America because Mexicans can only exist in Mexico.


You won't even accept aliens as a premise, yet you have them travelling now and landing in your fridge?
Whether you can find Mexicans in America depends entirely on how you define Mexicans and America. If Mexicans are "things not in America" then it would be impossible to find one in America.

If you have a lifeform in your fridge, we're going to go with it being an earth life form since your fridge is on earth, unless you can demonstrate it has extra-terrestrial origins.
If we find life forms on Skeletor, we're going to go with it being "alien", because that's how the word works.



* In order to conclude aliens are the source of the objects, we must use them as a premise, therefore we must also have some independant reason to believe they exist.


In order to conclude that this other reason was valid, we would have need to use them as a premise to it, without some independent reason to back it up.

You're backing yourself into a circle with no exits.
In order to conclude aliens exist, we must already have evidence of aliens.
So ANY evidence we find, will be rejected until we have evidence of aliens to allow us to conclude that aliens are a valid premise.


Or some kind of animal we would regard as a beast of burden. We should probably check if it can be explained as that first; it may be the object and its 'operator' are a symbiotic lifeform of a type we don't recognise and this one has lost its operator.

This is a better hypothesis to test than alien designers, since we have no idea if alien designers are able to exist or what they would design if they did.

So your "better" hypothesis to "aliens" is some kind of an animal?
Tell me, would this be an "alien" animal? Or is this symbiotic vehicular animal lifeform somehow an earth animal?

Designers are known to be capable of existing.

If they are humans. Non-human designers are not known to be capable of existing, and please stop nitpicking. It doesn't help you in the slightest.

Fine.
What are aliens?
Aliens are life on a planet.
Can we prove that life can exist on a planet?
We are life and we exist on a planet.
Depending on perspective WE could be aliens.
Therefore, if WE exist, it may be possible that other life can also exist.
Done.

False. Aliens are life that is native to other planets. We cannot be native to other planets as we are native to this one, therefore we cannot prove aliens to be capable of existing because we exist.

You have assumed life existing on one planet demonstrates life can exist on more than one planet. This is a hastly generalisation; until we demonstrate life is able to exist on more than one planet, we cannot assume it.

Oh, maybe the double-headed coin was really a normal coin with a false heads face added to the tails side, and when you flip it, it might break the false face off and leave a flip of tails. So, it may not be impossible.

That doesn't actually change the fact that if the coin is a real double-headed coin it will be impossible to ever flip tails, and therefore we can only ever declare flipping three tails in a row may be possible. Also, your example fails because your 'double-headed' coin will not be a double-headed coin after the first flip and therefore is not a double-headed coin flipping tails three times as stipulated.

It is a false double-headed coin flipping tails once and then a normal coin the remaining two times.

You won't even accept aliens as a premise, yet you have them travelling now and landing in your fridge?

No. Please keep up, this is a demonstration of your false logic, not any assumption I'm making.

Whether you can find Mexicans in America depends entirely on how you define Mexicans and America. If Mexicans are "things not in America" then it would be impossible to find one in America.

But that's not how we define them, is it?

If you have a lifeform in your fridge, we're going to go with it being an earth life form since your fridge is on earth, unless you can demonstrate it has extra-terrestrial origins.

Which isn't what your argument said...Have you forgotten already? What it said was:

It is possible that non-earth life exists in the universe.
It is possible that non-human intelligent life exists in the universe.
Skeletor is in the universe, therfore, it is possible that both non-earth and non-human life existed on Skeletor.

Now, if this is a valid logical argument, I should be able to replace 'Skeletor' with anything else with the same quality ['is in the universe'] and get a valid result. For example, in the valid statement:

A modern vehicle weighing 50-90 tons with heavy armour, a powerful main cannon of 105-130mm designed for direct-fire and tracks is called a main battle tank.
The Challenger II is a modern vehicle weighing 50-90 tons with heavy armour, a powerful main cannon of 105-130mm designed for direct-fire and tracks.
Therefore, the Challenger II is called a main battle tank.

I can replace 'Challenger II' with any other 'modern vehicle weighing 50-90 tons with heavy armour, a powerful main cannon of 105-130mm designed for direct-fire and tracks' and still get a valid conclusion: and sure enough, if you replace it with other vehicles with the same description [Abrams, Merkava, LeClerc] you get a valid conclusion. [to forestall any splitting hairs, yes, there's some you'd get called other names like the T-72, but the NATO classification for them would still be MBT anyway]

From yours, I get the result that non-human intelligent life is possible in my fridge, or the core of the sun, or on the surface of an electron. So your argument is nonsense.

If we find life forms on Skeletor, we're going to go with it being "alien", because that's how the word works.

No, we're not. We're going to go by proper methods of investigation, which mean we first test it for terrestrial origins, because we know more about those and can test them more easily. If and when those are ruled out, we will begin to explore the possibility that they originated on this planet.

In order to conclude that this other reason was valid, we would have need to use them as a premise to it, without some independent reason to back it up.

No, we would not. We would be required to demonstrate aliens were capable of existing through direct observation of non-terrestial creatures having the qualities we associate with living things. We could then say that aliens are capable of existing, and use this as a premise.

You're backing yourself into a circle with no exits.

No, that's you with your designer.

In order to conclude aliens exist, we must already have evidence of aliens.
So ANY evidence we find, will be rejected until we have evidence of aliens to allow us to conclude that aliens are a valid premise.

No, any theory requiring aliens as a premise will have an invalid premise until we have demonstrated aliens are capable of existing. Demonstrating the existence of an alien cell or other simple lifeform would not require 'aliens are capable of existing' as a premise, only that there is no known evidence of their impossiblity, so it may be possible for them to exist. We start with the premise that the object is a living thing, as we can presumably test this, and that its origins are not known, but it was found on the planet it was found on.

We can then test the hypothesis that the creature is not from Earth by first examining if there is any environment on Earth it could have evolved in or creature it could be descended from. If not, we move on to examining the alien planet it was found on; if on this planet the conditions are found that it could have evolved in or a line of descent for it, we can conclude the creature most likely evolved there. We can then further test things like food sources and atmospheric conditions, and finally conclude the alien planet is a more likely origin for the creature than Earth, therefore the creature is probably an alien.

This requires no mysterious causes or handwaving about designers; the stages can be tested. We do not need to, as you claim, 'have evidence of aliens to allow us to conclude that aliens are a valid premise;' we don't need aliens to certainly be possible as a premise at all, we merely need to have evidence of a creature that is obviously more suited to the environment on the planet it was found on than Earth, and has no known evolutionary ancestors on Earth. We can then conclude that its own planet, a testable and observed known, is a more likely place of origin for it than Earth, another testable known. The lifeform is also a testable known, there are no mysterious premises not known to exist here.

You, on the other hand, want to skip that whole stage and go to 'aliens can exist.' It's nice to see you trying to read that as my assumption too in spite of my criticism of it, but that's not how it works.

You can test the falsehood of your argument yourself. Wave your hands and say 'Alakazam!' and you will note magic did not have to be possible for you to test if magic was possible. Neither did you have to assume it was possible.

So your "better" hypothesis to "aliens" is some kind of an animal?
Tell me, would this be an "alien" animal? Or is this symbiotic vehicular animal lifeform somehow an earth animal?

No, my better hypothesis is that the object was not designed by non-observable 'designers' but rather exists by itself. As I've explained several times, if we can demonstrate direct evidence of a creature with no known terrestrial origin, we can conclude it may be possible its origins are not on Earth. We can then test this as outlined above, without ever using any assumption above 'aliens may be possible.' We do not require that they are possible to test if they are possible, that's utter nonsense.

If they are humans. Non-human designers are not known to be capable of existing, and please stop nitpicking. It doesn't help you in the slightest.


LOL, nitpicking? You are the one nitpicking, you might want to find a better word for what you think I'm doing.

Designers exist. If you want to nitpick and quibble and try and tack on "human" there, that's your perogative, but we know that designers exist. Full stop.


False. Aliens are life that is native to other planets. We cannot be native to other planets as we are native to this one, therefore we cannot prove aliens to be capable of existing because we exist.

You have assumed life existing on one planet demonstrates life can exist on more than one planet. This is a hastly generalisation; until we demonstrate life is able to exist on more than one planet, we cannot assume it.


Why is the life on this planet so special that we must prove it's possible that life can exist on another planet?
YOU told me to prove that life could exist on one planet and then we could assume it was possible on others and use life on other planets as a premise.

If you must prove life can exist on a second planet, then you'll need to do that for the 3rd planet you wish to consider and so on and so on.

No matter how many times you have found life on other planets, you're going to need to demonstrate that life may be possible on the planet under current observation by finding that life. Because you won't accept life on one planet as demonstrating that life may be possible on another. Or is life on 2 planets more magical than life on one planet?


No, my better hypothesis is that the object was not designed by non-observable 'designers' but rather exists by itself. As I've explained several times, if we can demonstrate direct evidence of a creature with no known terrestrial origin, we can conclude it may be possible its origins are not on Earth. We can then test this as outlined above, without ever using any assumption above 'aliens may be possible.' We do not require that they are possible to test if they are possible, that's utter nonsense.

Just so I'm clear then, you are putting forward a hypothesis that the vehicular objects we found and observed are alien animals in order to test if alien animals are possible, but your critique of me concluding these objects are designed by aliens is wrong because I don't have any aliens to suport that.

So you can suggest the objects are alien life, but I can't include alien life as a possibility a premise?

I'm really not sure why you're taking up Dem's cause here, but she made it clear that in her mind, I CANNOT call something design because that means I have ASSUMED a designer exists that I have not yet proven.
She demanded proof of the designer before she would label something as design. The relationship between design and designer in her postings was a one way street, conditional on the designer being demonstrated first.
Well, I read up and Dempublicents did not take the position you attribute her.

She said basically the same things we have been saying, only you argued against it. In fact, I said in her defense at the time that it's not about proof. What she said is:

...you do have to assume that something capable of being the designer exists. If you do not first make this assumption, it is logically impossible to find evidence of design, as it is only evidence of design if there is, in fact, a designer.
No, I don't.

The only assumption is that something capabale of being the designer POSSIBLY exists.

What you keep calling logically impossible is nothing more than your opinion on how to approach the question, or how not to.
Wrong. It has to *actually* exist, or it is impossible for any evidence to be interpreted as evidence of design.

For instance, if I am going to interpret evidence to say that one creature is the offspring of another, I must first assume that the "parent" creature exists. If it does not, then there is no evidence that could possibly lead me to believe that the offspring was its offspring.

Likewise, without assuming the existence of a being capable of being the designer, it is impossible for any evidence to lead to the conclusion that there is a design.

*snip* but you do have to assume that parents capable of producing an albino creature do exist. You don't have to assume that this creature has an albino parent, but you do have to assume that there is a creature capable of parenting it. Otherwise, no evidence would ever lead you to the conclusion that there was an albino parent.

The designer that is assumed in the design *necessarily* exists, and we recognize design because we recognize a designer's work. That's what she's saying.

To each other, what are they?

Is Intelligent Design thinly deguised Creationalism or what?

Yes, except ID includes organic-based aliens AND gods...

Yes, except ID includes organic-based aliens AND gods...

Only on paper. In practice alternative suggestions, like the flying spaghetti monster, are deemed to be blasphemy.

Well, I read up and Dempublicents did not take the position you attribute her.


Before I even respond, I have to ask, why are you doing this?
Dempublicents and I disagreed, but we knew what each other were saying. If she felt like continuing her discussion or clarifying her position, she would have, so why would you and I hold a discussion about what she said???


She said basically the same things we have been saying, only you argued against it. In fact, I said in her defense at the time that it's not about proof. What she said is:


The designer that is assumed in the design *necessarily* exists, and we recognize design because we recognize a designer's work. That's what she's saying.

She was not saying the same thing that I am saying.

I am saying that design necessitates a designer, so, if I find design, I know that a designer exists.

Dem was saying that to have design, you must have a designer, so, in order to be able to claim you have design, you must first have a designer.

What you're saying could be interpreted in either way. I'll leave it to you to clarify which of us you are agreeing with.

Yes, except ID includes organic-based aliens AND gods...

Not really. THe idea behind ID is that the universe is too ordered to be created randomly, thus it requires a creator of the entire universe.

This idea precludes anything other than supernatural, for any naturally existing creator would exist in a similarly ordered universe, which would itself require a creator, etc etc ad infinitum, until you get to the supernatural creator that didn't need to be created.

LOL, nitpicking? You are the one nitpicking, you might want to find a better word for what you think I'm doing.

'I know you are but what am I?'

Wow, mature. Your furious hair-splitting speaks louder than your denial of it, sadly. My posts wouldn't be half as long if I didn't have to set out each point in nauseating detail to avoid your attempts to find grammatical loopholes and create contradictions out of anything remotely vague. The not-quite-double-headed coin being perhaps the most obvious.

Designers exist. If you want to nitpick and quibble and try and tack on "human" there, that's your perogative, but we know that designers exist. Full stop.

No, no full stop. We know humans exist and humans can be designers, because we are human and we can observe that some of us are capable of designing things. Unless we can observe non-humans being capable of designing things in a similar fashion, we can only assume 'human designers,' the term 'designer' alone is meaningless if it is not known to be able to be attached to anything else. There are no known things that are just 'designers' without being anything else, much like there are no known things that are just 'bus drivers' or 'lawyers' without being anything else.

The term 'designer' alone does not exist, it is only know to exist as a trait of things with the property 'human.' Until we can show things without the property 'human' can also have that trait, we can't assume it any more than we can assume things that are not human can be bus drivers or lawyers.

Why is the life on this planet so special that we must prove it's possible that life can exist on another planet?

I don't know, maybe we should find out what's so special about this planet by looking at other ones...Using science, perhaps. We could even test if this planet is so special by doing that. You know, like I've been saying for the last dozen posts or so.

YOU told me to prove that life could exist on one planet and then we could assume it was possible on others and use life on other planets as a premise.

No, I said if we could prove alien life was able to exist it would become a valid assumption, not 'life on one planet.' Stop twisting my words, I know what I wrote.

If you must prove life can exist on a second planet, then you'll need to do that for the 3rd planet you wish to consider and so on and so on.

Wrong. Once we prove life can exist on another planet, we can compare any new planets to that life as well as our own. We now have a type of creature known to be able to exist on planets other than Earth, and so it is valid to suppose Earth is not the only planet able to support life.

Further, what's wrong with having to prove life exists on a given planet? Would you rather we did not try to prove life could exist on a given planet?

No matter how many times you have found life on other planets, you're going to need to demonstrate that life may be possible on the planet under current observation by finding that life.

Actually, if that planet has signs associated with a form of life we have previously discovered, we can assume that life existed there without finding it; we only need to do so if it does not match any known form of life. This is how if I went to Detroit but found no humans, I could still compare Detroit to other human cities and say humans built Detroit.

Only new alien species will require strong proof, which is how it should be. I don't see why you have any problems with having to demonstrate native life is able to exist on a planet before assuming it can.

Because you won't accept life on one planet as demonstrating that life may be possible on another. Or is life on 2 planets more magical than life on one planet?

Life on another planet allows us a type of 'aliens' to test for on future planets. This particular type of 'aliens' are now valid as an assumption and has known properties, so we can test for them as well as for humans as a potential cause of things.

Until that point, we can only test for humans, because until we know what aliens are like, we cannot know what they would do and cannot create a test that would allow us to evaluate something for signs of their actions. They are no better than magic until at least one kind of alien has been demonstrated to exist.

Just so I'm clear then, you are putting forward a hypothesis that the vehicular objects we found and observed are alien animals in order to test if alien animals are possible, but your critique of me concluding these objects are designed by aliens is wrong because I don't have any aliens to suport that.

No. I am suggesting that we test all explanations involving observable processes forming the objects first so we examine the objects more closely. We check for signs that they might be living creatures, because we have already observed they have two qualities associated with living things; if they have all of the seven qualities associated with living things, we go on to test if they could have come from Earth, then if the alien planet is a better possible origin for them.

I do not theorise they are alien animals at all, I theorise they may be living things because they are known to have some of the properties associated with living things and it is possible for us to test if they have the rest. At no point do I need to assume they are native to this planet to do that.

So you can suggest the objects are alien life, but I can't include alien life as a possibility a premise?

No, I can't, and no, you can't. I suggest the explanation that requires the least number of additional terms; that, given we have no natural explanation for how the objects formed but they are known to be capable of sensing and movement, we could test them for the other five qualities associated with living things. We [i]don't have to assume they are native to this planet to do that, so 'aliens' aren't required as an assumption.

You, on the other hand, not only want the object to exist and have its known properties, you also want an additional untestable term to exist, an 'alien designer.' This adds nothing but untestability to your theory, making it useless. We don't yet know if the object is native to this planet, so we certainly can't claim it demands something else native to this planet to have built it. You are again making leaps in logic just to get to your 'intelligent designer' without bothering to find out if the designer can exist or even what the object itself is.

LOL, nitpicking? You are the one nitpicking, you might want to find a better word for what you think I'm doing.

Designers exist. If you want to nitpick and quibble and try and tack on "human" there, that's your perogative, but we know that designers exist. Full stop.

Designers exist? No, sorry. There's no evidence whatsoever. A designer would in fact be absolutely redundant towards the existence of life on Earth.

Why is the life on this planet so special that we must prove it's possible that life can exist on another planet?
YOU told me to prove that life could exist on one planet and then we could assume it was possible on others and use life on other planets as a premise.



If you must prove life can exist on a second planet, then you'll need to do that for the 3rd planet you wish to consider and so on and so on.

No matter how many times you have found life on other planets, you're going to need to demonstrate that life may be possible on the planet under current observation by finding that life. Because you won't accept life on one planet as demonstrating that life may be possible on another. Or is life on 2 planets more magical than life on one planet?

What's the purpose of this? From my point of view, finding life elsewhere in the universe would evidently prove that Earth is not so unique and special that it requires a designer. Life just happens...

Just so I'm clear then, you are putting forward a hypothesis that the vehicular objects we found and observed are alien animals in order to test if alien animals are possible, but your critique of me concluding these objects are designed by aliens is wrong because I don't have any aliens to suport that.

So you can suggest the objects are alien life, but I can't include alien life as a possibility a premise?

Vehicular objects? Alien animals... okay... maybe I should have read back a bit earlier. That definitely sounds strange...

... since I don't believe into UFOs and similar paranormal stuff, I can't exactly see where the purpose of that is. From my point of view, while I consider life elsewhere in the universe a likely thing, the same isn't the case for sentient life which most probably is very rare.

On the issue of "design", of course one will notice how (apparently) fine-tuned Earth and the solar system seems to be for life here. However, there are millions and millions of other stars in the galaxy, most of which are very different from our sun. In that context, it's not that our planet/solar system was designed, it's just that it happened millions of times and it only worked right this one case (or, if life exists elsewhere - a few cases).

It all boils down to the fact that a designer is redundant.

Designers exist? No, sorry. There's no evidence whatsoever. A designer would in fact be absolutely redundant towards the existence of life on Earth.
Your sentence is designed. Your paragraph is designed. That is evidence that designers exist.

Before I even respond, I have to ask, why are you doing this?
Dempublicents and I disagreed, but we knew what each other were saying. If she felt like continuing her discussion or clarifying her position, she would have, so why would you and I hold a discussion about what she said???
Because I don't believe that you did understand what she was saying, or you wouldn't have argued. She has said no different than what I said, and you agreed with me. So you should be agreeing with what she said, too.

She was not saying the same thing that I am saying.

I am saying that design necessitates a designer, so, if I find design, I know that a designer exists.

Dem was saying that to have design, you must have a designer, so, in order to be able to claim you have design, you must first have a designer.
Yes, same thing. "You must have" = "necessitates". "If I find design" = "in order to be able to claim design".

I am only baffled as to why you argue the point.

What you're saying could be interpreted in either way. I'll leave it to you to clarify which of us you are agreeing with.

'I know you are but what am I?'

Wow, mature. Your furious hair-splitting speaks louder than your denial of it, sadly.

If you want to use an insult, be familair with what it means then. If you don't want to trade insults, then don't hand them out.


No, no full stop. We know humans exist and humans can be designers, because we are human and we can observe that some of us are capable of designing things. Unless we can observe non-humans being capable of designing things in a similar fashion, we can only assume 'human designers,' the term 'designer' alone is meaningless if it is not known to be able to be attached to anything else. There are no known things that are just 'designers' without being anything else, much like there are no known things that are just 'bus drivers' or 'lawyers' without being anything else.

The term 'designer' alone does not exist, it is only know to exist as a trait of things with the property 'human.' Until we can show things without the property 'human' can also have that trait, we can't assume it any more than we can assume things that are not human can be bus drivers or lawyers.


Designers exist.
The fact that the only designers we are currently certain that exist are humans does NOT mean that the term 'designer' alone does not exist. It most certainly does exist alone.
There is nothing about the definition of designer that requires 'human' to be involved, but humans are all we know of that meet the criteria to be designers.

Because designers will necessarily also be something else is utterly irrelevant.
The same can be said for almost every word, including human.
You can't just have 'human'. You will have other attributes, like gender, age, size, etc.

Human is just a more specific term than designer. Being able to label something as 'human' opens up a wealth of other known attributes. Being able to label something as 'designer' opens up a few attributes.


I don't know, maybe we should find out what's so special about this planet by looking at other ones...Using science, perhaps. We could even test if this planet is so special by doing that. You know, like I've been saying for the last dozen posts or so.

No, I said if we could prove alien life was able to exist it would become a valid assumption, not 'life on one planet.' Stop twisting my words, I know what I wrote.


But why would we assume that life here might be so special that life can only be here?
As we travel through space, you won't allow me to assume that life is possible on planets, and so far, the only reason you won't allow me the possibility is that life is only on earth.

I regret ever using the word alien in my discussion with you because you have loaded it with meaning it doesn't have.
If life exists anywhere else, WE are alien life.

There's no point whatsoever in proving that it is possible that ALIEN life can exist, because the term ALIEN is entirely relative to one's perspective.

Is it possible that life can exist on planets.
Yes, it is possible and WE are the proof of that.

Does life exist on planets other than ours? We don't know, but it is possible.

I'm now free to use the assumption of the possibility of life on Skeletor.

Designers exist? No, sorry. There's no evidence whatsoever. A designer would in fact be absolutely redundant towards the existence of life on Earth.


Sorry, the post read alone with the thread title might lead you to that assumption, but I'm not claiming that designers of life on earth exist.
Just 'designers', like architects for example.


What's the purpose of this? From my point of view, finding life elsewhere in the universe would evidently prove that Earth is not so unique and special that it requires a designer. Life just happens...


You may be very correct, I'm not trying to prove life on Earth is unique.


Vehicular objects? Alien animals... okay... maybe I should have read back a bit earlier. That definitely sounds strange...


LOL, probably, you're diving in quite late and the discussion has had many turns before it got here.

Sorry, the post read alone with the thread title might lead you to that assumption, but I'm not claiming that designers of life on earth exist.
Just 'designers', like architects for example.


Designers of what? What is out there that needs to be designed? :confused:

(this is very confusing...)

And yeah, I indeed joined relatively recently into this discussion...

Because I don't believe that you did understand what she was saying, or you wouldn't have argued. She has said no different than what I said, and you agreed with me. So you should be agreeing with what she said, too.


Well then, I don't believe that you have understood the difference in what we are both saying then. To be honest, I never said I agreed with you, I said I didn't DISAGREE with anything you were saying so far. It's a subtle, but sometimes important difference.


Yes, same thing. "You must have" = "necessitates". "If I find design" = "in order to be able to claim design".

I am only baffled as to why you argue the point.


No, not the same thing.

Under my view, I can have a designer and then know that I can label the designer's work as design.
Dem and I have that in common.

Where we diverge is that I say I can have design, and with design alone, I can know there is a designer. Dem says that I simply cannot have design unless I first show I have a designer that could design it.
So, until I can show her a designer, she will not agree to label anything as design.

Designers of what? What is out there that needs to be designed? :confused:

(this is very confusing...)

And yeah, I indeed joined relatively recently into this discussion...


In the course of the ID discussion, some have criticised the very concept of proving a designer exists by finding evidence of design as inherently logically flawed.

That is what I'm discussing.
Other's have pointed out that we may not be able to find anything we can agree is design, and I agree with them, but that is different from negating the ability to prove designer if we could find design.

It has been in support of that line of reasoning that I created what has become the Skeletor example in this thread, where we find very obvious design, but we have no designers to point to.
I'm using that to demonstrate that based on compelling evidence of design, it is not only logical to conclude a designer(s) exist(s), it is necessary.

Whether we will ever have compelling evidence of design in the ID debate is another matter entirely

In the course of the ID discussion, some have criticised the very concept of proving a designer exists by finding evidence of design as inherently logically flawed.

That is what I'm discussing.
Other's have pointed out that we may not be able to find anything we can agree is design, and I agree with them, but that is different from negating the ability to prove designer if we could find design.

It has been in support of that line of reasoning that I created what has become the Skeletor example in this thread, where we find very obvious design, but we have no designers to point to.
I'm using that to demonstrate that based on compelling evidence of design, it is not only logical to conclude a designer(s) exist(s), it is necessary.

Ah, I think I'm now beginning to understand. So you made up a fictional example of a planet where life has evidently been designed? That sounds like a clever (and interesting) idea.

Whether we will ever have compelling evidence of design in the ID debate is another matter entirely

Well, considering the impressive weight of paleontological, morphological and (more recently) genetic evidence, I think the ID movement is doomed to fail sooner or later.

Ah, I think I'm now beginning to understand. So you made up a fictional example of a planet where life has evidently been designed? That sounds like a clever (and interesting) idea.


That's going a step further than I am.
Nothing in my example assumes a designer for the life that lived on this fictitious planet. The fictitious life on this planet are designers (much like we are), and even though they are long gone and we can't find them, we can find the designed things they left behind.

If you want to use an insult, be familair with what it means then. If you don't want to trade insults, then don't hand them out.

I'm sure there's a reply in that, but I can't find it.

Designers exist.

No, they don't. Humans who are designers exist. 'Designers' do not exist.

The fact that the only designers we are currently certain that exist are humans does NOT mean that the term 'designer' alone does not exist. It most certainly does exist alone.

Really? Can you show me a 'designer' with no other qualities at all? Can you isolate 'designer' from 'human?'

Of course you can't. Arguing an abstract concept is a concrete thing is a logical fallacy called reification. 'Designer' is a trait some humans have.

There is nothing about the definition of designer that requires 'human' to be involved, but humans are all we know of that meet the criteria to be designers.

Correct. That means humans are the only designers we can assume, because we have no data that other designers are able to exist.

You can't just have 'human'. You will have other attributes, like gender, age, size, etc.

Irrelevant. You can have human without designer, but as far as we know, you can't have designer without human. This means you have to prove it is possible before you can assume it validly.

But why would we assume that life here might be so special that life can only be here?

Because we have only observed it here. When we have observed it elsewhere, we will conclude it is not so special. Until then, we won't assume it just because we don't know it's impossible, that's the Appeal to Ignorance fallacy.

As we travel through space, you won't allow me to assume that life is possible on planets, and so far, the only reason you won't allow me the possibility is that life is only on earth.

No, I won't allow you to assume the possibility until you can demonstrate it is indeed a possibility. Until then, we conclude it is unknown to be possible and don't assume it.

I'm not sure why you have this bizarre fear of having to find solid proof for your theory; if we're going to conclude aliens are capable of existing, we should do so on the basis of the strongest possible proof, not because we've decided we're omnipotent and if we can't immediately figure out how something was formed naturally it must have been made by mysterious aliens.

I regret ever using the word alien in my discussion with you because you have loaded it with meaning it doesn't have.
If life exists anywhere else, WE are alien life.

Semantics. We are talking about alien meaning 'life which is native to other planets,' which is the meaning 'alien' does have in this context. Humans cannot be native to other planets, because they are native to this one. We therefore cannot prove life native to other planets is possible just by pointing out we exist.

Also, for us to be alien life, alien life must exist to have that perspective. You've assumed your own conclusion again there.

There's no point whatsoever in proving that it is possible that ALIEN life can exist, because the term ALIEN is entirely relative to one's perspective.

Irrelevant. If that perspective includes no life on other planets, we must prove such life is possible by demonstrating it clearly. We do not qualify as such a demonstration, desperate word games aside.

Is it possible that life can exist on planets.
Yes, it is possible and WE are the proof of that.

'Native to other' planets. We are not proof of that, we are not native to other planets, and we are not alien relative to ourselves. As I have already said at least once, humans do not demonstrate that alien life is possible. They demonstrate human life is possible.

Does life exist on planets other than ours? We don't know, but it is possible.

It may be possible. You cannot demonstrate it is possible for native life to exist on other planets by showing life exists on Earth, your arguments here are simply word games. To prove life is possible, we must find it, show it is living, and show it is more likely to have originated on the planet it was found than on Earth. Sweeping generalisations won't cut it, and neither will attempting to change the meaning of 'alien' to include humans because we might be aliens relative to aliens which might not exist at all.

If the aliens don't exist, we wouldn't be alien to them because we wouldn't be anything to them. It's amusing that you're trying to justify the assumption that aliens can exist by assuming they can exist again!

I'm now free to use the assumption of the possibility of life on Skeletor.

No, you're not. You just made a circular argument to defend another circular argument, it doesn't change anything about the process we would be required to go through to make a valid conclusion that alien life can exist. You can't declare it capable of existing without ever finding a single example of it.

The fictitious life on this planet are designers (much like we are), and even though they are long gone and we can't find them, we can find the designed things they left behind.

That's weird, given you only ever claimed that was your conclusion rather than an absolute fact before; the scenario never said the aliens existed or not, only that we found objects that appeared to be tools. You tried to force an instant concession by saying both parties 'agreed they were tools' [which would require the assumption of a tool-user, since use defines a tool], but nobody fell for such an obvious trick. Changing the rules again?

Well then, I don't believe that you have understood the difference in what we are both saying then. To be honest, I never said I agreed with you, I said I didn't DISAGREE with anything you were saying so far. It's a subtle, but sometimes important difference.
Well, then have you mislead me.

No, not the same thing.

Under my view, I can have a designer and then know that I can label the designer's work as design.
Dem and I have that in common.

Where we diverge is that I say I can have design, and with design alone, I can know there is a designer. Dem says that I simply cannot have design unless I first show I have a designer that could design it.
Wrong. She is saying "unless you first assume a possible designer made it."

"…without assuming the existence of a being capable of being the designer, it is impossible for any evidence to lead to the conclusion that there is a design."

So, until I can show her a designer, she will not agree to label anything as design.
You only need show her designers exist to demonstrate that a designer is possible. I believe it's you who doesn't understand her.

I am curious about these antennas. What is it about one that makes it "undesigned"?

I was using 'designed' from the Paley's Watch sense of the word, in other words 'requiring a designer'.

Well, then have you mislead me.


Here's the conversation we were having, note the bolded parts where I mention that I'm unclear where we disagree and specifically mention that I do not disagree with what you are saying but I don't go as far as saying that I agree. I said that precisely because of a situation like this where we may be saying similar things, but there are things left unsaid or terms defined differently that mean we don't fully agree.

I did my best to NOT mislead you.

We're on different wavelengths.
I'm talking about objects for which we can't or don't have a designer to point at, which is why I made up the Planet Skeletor example.
Just because you and I don't know the designer doesn't mean an object was NOT designed. I'm suggesting that it is more than just knowing the designer that allows us to make the call that something is designed.
379

I agree with much of what you say. Objects for which we don't have a designer to point at, but are obviously designed, can be labelled 'design'. I have no problem with that, because the designer can be assumed --because it's possible for us to assume a designer. We are just that talented.
(Note, that's different than "...assume a possible designer". By assuming a designer, we make it impossible that the designer cannot not exist. Sorry for the triple-negative.)

I wasn't paying attention to your other discussion in this thread, sorry; just wanting to get the point about assuming the designer cleared up. But what makes it possible for us to make the call that something is designed is that we have other known designed things to compare it to. It is not NECESSARY to have a specific designer to point to, because the designer is assumed; but we MUST assume that the designer does exist or cannot move forward logically on the whole issue.
381

Maybe a re-stating will help.

When we find something and determine that it is "designed", the way we do so is to look for signs that are recognizably of design.

We can recognize these signs because we've seen them before in other things, things that have been designed. We know these other things have been designed because we know their designers.
382

Re-stating might be good now, because from your previous post, I'm pretty hazy on where we disagree.

I want to stop you here though and I want to insert the Skeletor example. If we are unfamiliar with the designers and their methods, are you saying there is no amount of complexity to an object we could find from them that would allow you to conclude that you have evidence of a previously unknown, intelligent designer of objects on planet Skeletor?

I'm not talking about clubs here, let's say we're talking about something with a Skeletorian equivalent to a PDA or a Blackberry device. We may be unable to decide how it functions or be familiar with their design, but would you not agree that it would be possible to conclude that intelligent Skeletorian life existed there based on objects we could find? 384

Any amount of complexity to an object that would determine design includes everything that we know of our own design. Period. If we see something familiar --any familiar design --then we can declare it designed.

We are pretty darned familiar with reality as we know it, and design *is* defined within that context. We're doing a pretty good job of discovering and defining the world. There is probably very little they could design that we could not recognize as design, as something we, or someone we know, have done. If it *is* something entirely new, we could not recognize it as design --we have no criteria upon which to determine design.

Any indication of design at all is design. If we find design, then included in that idea is the designer, who comes along for the ride (assumed, taken for granted). It may or may not be native Skeletorian life, but it is a designer. 385

Ok, so where, if at all, do you see us disagreeing?
I see some wiggle room for you possibly not entirely agree, but I can't say I disagree with what you're saying there. 386

I only saw us disagreeing on the concept of the designer assumed. 387

OK, are we clear on that now? I'm unsure if there's anything left for me to respond to.
388

I don't know, as you haven't really confirmed that you agree with what I said.

And if you do, maybe you can go back 12 pages and tackle what Dempublicents said again, this time without disagreeing with her. :)
389

I don't disagree with anything you have posted in this thread recently.

I did tackle it, I've been tackling it again with GMC. I still disagree.
390





Wrong. She is saying "unless you first assume a possible designer made it."

"…without assuming the existence of a being capable of being the designer, it is impossible for any evidence to lead to the conclusion that there is a design."


You only need show her designers exist to demonstrate that a designer is possible. I believe it's you who doesn't understand her.


OK, let's back this up to the beginning.
Dem is saying that the concept of ID is logically flawed, because in order to label anything as design, you must first assume the existence of a possible designer.
Her reasoning is that we are assuming something exists in order to label something as proof that our assumption is true.

This is pretty much exactly the same thing GMC is saying too.

I am saying that we can first recognise design with only the assumption that designers are possible. (GMC is cutting me off right there and saying I can't make that assumption) If we recognise design (again, Dem and GMC are both saying that we can never do this) we can use that design to conclude that a designer exists.

You have previously agreed with me that we can find design and that will allow us to conclude that a designer exists, but now I'm not sure if we were clear on that.

No, they don't. Humans who are designers exist. 'Designers' do not exist.

Really? Can you show me a 'designer' with no other qualities at all? Can you isolate 'designer' from 'human?'

Of course you can't. Arguing an abstract concept is a concrete thing is a logical fallacy called reification. 'Designer' is a trait some humans have.


A designer is a noun. The fact that designer will have other traits will in no way negate that it is a designer. You can't show me a 'human' with no other qualities either.

You're playing a very strange game here now, but to play along, I'm arguing that there are concrete things that have the quality, 'designer'.

Concrete things that have the quality 'designer', exist.


Semantics. We are talking about alien meaning 'life which is native to other planets,' which is the meaning 'alien' does have in this context. Humans cannot be native to other planets, because they are native to this one. We therefore cannot prove life native to other planets is possible just by pointing out we exist.


We cannot prove that HUMAN life native to other planets is possible. That is the only time that the word 'other' has any business being there.

We are life, native to a planet.
That's all we care about, is it possible that life can be native to a planet?
Yes.
We can't prove that there is life on any planet but our own, but we're not talking about that, well not yet anyway.

The difference between human life and alien life is purely semantics, and you have already stated you don't want to argue semantics.


That's weird, given you only ever claimed that was your conclusion rather than an absolute fact before; the scenario never said the aliens existed or not, only that we found objects that appeared to be tools. You tried to force an instant concession by saying both parties 'agreed they were tools' [which would require the assumption of a tool-user, since use defines a tool], but nobody fell for such an obvious trick. Changing the rules again?

Nope, I'm not changing the rules, I'm explaining the point of it. I'm not forcing an instant concession, I'm explaining what happens IF both parties agreed.

There's no trick for anyone to fall for, but some agree with me and some agree with you.

I was using 'designed' from the Paley's Watch sense of the word, in other words 'requiring a designer'.
...and?

I did my best to NOT mislead you.
Okay, but when I specifically pointed out that you had not yet confirmed that you agree with what I said, your response to that was to say that you did not disagree with anything I had said in this thread recently. I took that as a statement that you were agreeing, as that was the implication.

Obviously, though, if we are disagreeing then there are things to disagree with.

OK, let's back this up to the beginning.
Dem is saying that the concept of ID is logically flawed, because in order to label anything as design, you must first assume the existence of a possible designer.
Not quite. She was arguing that it was unscientific, not flawed. She was arguing the designer, required for 'design', because her point was that if you conclude design you also conclude a designer (it comes along for the ride), and if we talking about fundamentals of the universe, then that designer is God or a being with god-like qualities (same), or a being claimed to be God by IDers, i.e. not a part of the universe and therefore not subject to scientific investigation.

Her reasoning is that we are assuming something exists in order to label something as proof that our assumption is true.
Her reasoning is that when we conclude design, in order to have been able to do that, we have already assumed the designer exists. It's already true, it doesn't require proof.

That is what's unscientific about it.

This is pretty much exactly the same thing GMC is saying too.

I am saying that we can first recognise design with only the assumption that designers are possible. (GMC is cutting me off right there and saying I can't make that assumption) If we recognise design (again, Dem and GMC are both saying that we can never do this) we can use that design to conclude that a designer exists.

You have previously agreed with me that we can find design and that will allow us to conclude that a designer exists, but now I'm not sure if we were clear on that.
You are assuming the designer before being able to assume the design --if I read correctly, that is what GMC is arguing against. In other words, you are breaking it down into two separate assumptions in order to put both assumptions into some cause-and-effect chain, rather than having the one already assumed in the other assumption.

If we recognize design, we cannot use the fact of design to conclude anything about the designer, and the "conclusion" of existence is redundant. Existence is not a property. The designer is already assumed in the concept of design.

Her reasoning is that when we conclude design, in order to have been able to do that, we have already assumed the designer exists. It's already true, it doesn't require proof.

That is what's unscientific about it.

Assuming something and assuming something is true are very different things. Therefore, we may have a design hypothesis and give absolutelly no truth value to it whatsoever. This is exactly the point, we want to have an hypothesis that there is a designer. However, we have made no claims about whether that hypothsesis (whatever it would look like) is true or false (confirmed or disconfirmed, whatever language you want to lose). We have made no claims about the designer. Admitedly we've assumed a designer, but we haven't ASSUMED A DESIGNER. What is wrong with that?

Assuming something and assuming something is true are very different things.
When we assume something, we render it true. If it isn't true, we cannot proceed on (or with) that assumption.

Whether or not it is actually true is another matter.

Therefore, we may have a design hypothesis and give absolutelly no truth value to it whatsoever. This is exactly the point, we want to have an hypothesis that there is a designer. However, we have made no claims about whether that hypothsesis (whatever it would look like) is true or false (confirmed or disconfirmed, whatever language you want to lose). We have made no claims about the designer. Admitedly we've assumed a designer, but we haven't ASSUMED A DESIGNER. What is wrong with that?
The hypothesis that states that there is a design to be found in nature means that the designer of nature is true.

If, on the other hand, you are saying that you are proceeding with a blatently false assumption in your hypothesis, then that's not science either.

Okay, but when I specifically pointed out that you had not yet confirmed that you agree with what I said, your response to that was to say that you did not disagree with anything I had said in this thread recently. I took that as a statement that you were agreeing, as that was the implication.

Obviously, though, if we are disagreeing then there are things to disagree with.


You took the statement incorrectly then.
I quite deliberately responded to your question of my agreement with a statement of negative disagreement to be clear that while I wasn't certain we were in agreement, I could not see anything to disagree with.

The wording of the positions in this thread can often sound quite similar, yet be very far apart in their implications.


Not quite. She was arguing that it was unscientific, not flawed. She was arguing the designer, required for 'design', because her point was that if you conclude design you also conclude a designer (it comes along for the ride), and if we talking about fundamentals of the universe, then that designer is God or a being with god-like qualities (same), or a being claimed to be God by IDers, i.e. not a part of the universe and therefore not subject to scientific investigation.


Her reasoning is that when we conclude design, in order to have been able to do that, we have already assumed the designer exists. It's already true, it doesn't require proof.

That is what's unscientific about it.


You are assuming the designer before being able to assume the design --if I read correctly, that is what GMC is arguing against. In other words, you are breaking it down into two separate assumptions in order to put both assumptions into some cause-and-effect chain, rather than having the one already assumed in the other assumption.

If we recognize design, we cannot use the fact of design to conclude anything about the designer, and the "conclusion" of existence is redundant. Existence is not a property. The designer is already assumed in the concept of design.

Quite honestly, I can't really tell what side of the discussion you are on.

I'm assuming that a designer is possible, I'm not assuming the designer exists.

As for what Dem was saying, here's where she and I began:


Actually, you've got it backwards. You see, something cannot imply design unless you first assume the existence of a possible designer. Those who support ID do not support it because they have seen evidence of a design which then implied a designer. That would be logically backwards. Instead, they see evidence of design because they have assumed the existence of a designer.

No, I don't have it backwards.
As long as you are aware that a designer is a possibility to consider you can decide if you see evidence of design.
You don't need to have assumed the designer actually exists first.

Yes, you do. You don't have to assume that the designer actually designed, but you do have to assume that something capable of being the designer exists. If you do not first make this assumption, it is logically impossible to find evidence of design, as it is only evidence of design if there is, in fact, a designer.

No, I don't.

The only assumption is that something capabale of being the designer POSSIBLY exists.

What you keep calling logically impossible is nothing more than your opinion on how to approach the question, or how not to.

Wrong. It has to *actually* exist, or it is impossible for any evidence to be interpreted as evidence of design.
<snip>
without assuming the existence of a being capable of being the designer, it is impossible for any evidence to lead to the conclusion that there is a design.

What you are arguing is for a case of circular logic.


Note the bolded parts where Dem states that I must assume the existence of a designer and where she states the position opposed to her is logically backwards, logically impossible and circular logic. She is definitely critiqueing the logic.
I'm not entirely certain why you want to distinguish between being not scientific and not logical, but Dem is definitely saying it's not logical.

But really, please, can we drop whatever Dem was saying, and if you have a point to make, or if you want to disagree with anything I'm saying, can we have our own discussion instead of retracing the Dem conversation??