Arguments for intelligent design

[MuadDib]

Leos recent blog post on the abiogenesis course remided me of the intelligent design arguments I was taught in highschool chemistry and biology.

I remember learning then that the flagellum of a bacteria has something like 70 (dont quote me) unique parts that need to be combined in a very specific sequence in order for it to function and the probability that this came about as an evolutionary adaptation that conferred advantage to survival by chance is astronomically low.

 

 

They also covered the biochemical components that are involved in dna transcription and translation, precision engineering, really. I was wondering what other arguments and or examples of similar things people knew about or may have come across. I vaguely recall another agrument for intelligent design coming in the form of some weird examples of coevolution? I cant remeber the specifics of that because it was such a long time ago.

The real question is why is existence and everything in it just... here. Quite absurd to ponder and to this day it amazes me how few people even seem to ask that question, let alone spend decades just looking at it.

 

[LastThursday]

There seems to be two misconceptions about evolution that confuse people. One is tiny changes over time, the other is how much time is needed. The analogy is like climbing Mount Everest. It can seem incomprehensible how someone could get to the top, but all they do is put one foot in front of the other and take their time. What's lost to us is how those steps were taken, so a flagellum seems like a miracle.

Sometimes evolution walks down the hill and organisms become simpler. Evolution doesn't have a destination. Intelligent Design makes it seem as if the destination has been reached and nothing more happens. But pandemics and flu viruses prove different. If there is a designer, then they sure are busy.

But so what? As you say the real question is, what is all this and how did it get here or why? Evolution can't explain everything! Intelligent Design requires an intelligent designer, and then you have to explain how they  were created and if they weren't, why are they there?. 

Edited October 3, 2023 by LastThursday

[MuadDib]

I have the sense that people understand that, however in the context of the flagellum even when you consider the universe being 13 billion years old the odds of something so complex spontaneously developing in a lower life form is still astronomically low. 70ish parts, coming together in the perfect sequence, and if even one of them is missing nothing functions? Nah man.

People struggle to understand big numbers. One example is 52! ... the number of times a deck of cards needs to be shuffled to obtain every unique sequence is more than the total number of atoms in the known universe. If each shuffle took a few seconds ... well thats a lot more than 13 billion years. And this is just a deck of 52 cards we're talking about, not 70ish AFTER the friggen bacteria has come into being mind you.

Its like saying, damn, how did that guy walk to Gargantua? Everest is a cakewalk by comparison.

This is how it was explained to me at least. Im just a layman. Throwing that out as a disclaimer.

 

Edited October 4, 2023 by MuadDib

[LastThursday]

Taking your example of 52!, that's a big number. How is it even possible to sort a deck of cards in order, ace to king in each suit? Shouldn't it take the age of the universe? Of course not. You would use a procedure to sort the cards, something basic like if I see two cards out of order I swap them. Indeed it's possible to instruct a dumb computer on how to do this, it doesn't even take intelligence.

What's happening is that with each step in the process, you're chopping away all the arrangements of cards that don't you don't care about. This reduces the probabilities with each step. And in the end you are certain to get to a sorted deck.

Evolution uses a procedure but it's not a directed one. By directed I mean goal-oriented, evolution doesn't go to a destination. Evolution's procedure is simple: some organisms are more likely to re-produce than others. That's it. It relies on huge numbers to evolve organisms. You're talking potentially trillions of organisms over many millions or billions of years. That's a lot of chances to apply that simple procedure: those are the steps taking you to the top of Everest.

Evolution doesn't care about complexity. The only organsims that stick around are the ones that reproduce (by applying the procedure). If organism A survives and organism B doesn't, it's because A was more suited to its environment. The differences in survival rate between A and B don't even have to be very different, over many generations organism A will outsurvive organism B. If organism A happens to be slightly more complex than organism B, then that complexity will carry on over into the next generation and stick around.

In general, because surviving in an environment is super complex, the organisms that evolve also tend to be super complex. The complexity of organisms is just a reflection of the complexity of environments.

The process of evolution (survival of the fittest), works on the whole organism not just on parts of it. It doesn't work on a flagellum in isolation from everything else, it works on the entire thing at once. That's why everything just works as part of a unified whole. It's a holistic process.

[MuadDib]

9 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

Taking your example of 52!, that's a big number. How is it even possible to sort a deck of cards in order, ace to king in each suit? Shouldn't it take the age of the universe? Of course not. You would use a procedure to sort the cards, something basic like if I see two cards out of order I swap them. Indeed it's possible to instruct a dumb computer on how to do this, it doesn't even take intelligence.

Don't kid yourself, it takes intelligence to sort a deck of cards or instruct a dumb computer to do it. 
Why do you call the computer dumb after all? 
Why can't the computer do it without instruction?

 

10 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

Evolution's procedure is simple: some organisms are more likely to re-produce than others. That's it. It relies on huge numbers to evolve organisms.

The goal of evolution then is to increase the likelihood of reproduction.

[LastThursday]

23 minutes ago, MuadDib said:

The goal of evolution then is to increase the likelihood of reproduction.

Not in general. Evolution works without having a goal, all it does is apply the procedure. The environment the organism finds itself in is what sets the likelihood of reproduction. Evolution is blind in that respect.

However, organisms do modify their environments. So it's completely possible that an organism modifies its environment so that it has a greater chance of survival over other organisms. In that case evolution would favour (i.e. increase the chances of reproduction) of those organisms that modify their environment in that way. Evolution is holistic, so it can also include the environment. I mean, this is exactly what humans do, their modify their environment to increase their chances of survival. But, it would be wrong to say that it is a goal of evolution. Chimps don't have their own civilisations for example.

In a sense evolution isn't a thing. The process whereby organisms reproduce to the next generation gets called evolution.

 

23 minutes ago, MuadDib said:

Why do you call the computer dumb after all?

Because fundamentally it uses a very simple and mechanical procedure to sort a deck of cards. It's not making active decisions in the moment like a real intelligence would. It's completely deterministic. Dumb=deterministic in this case.

 

Edited October 8, 2023 by LastThursday

[MuadDib]

6 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

Evolution is holistic, so it can also include the environment. I mean, this is exactly what humans do, their modify their environment to increase their chances of survival. But, it would be wrong to say that it is a goal of evolution. Chimps don't have their own civilisations for example.

In a sense evolution isn't a thing. The process whereby organisms reproduce to the next generation gets called evolution.

True evolution is, after all, just a concept in the mind ... an intelligent mind, mind you.
The map is never the territory.

[Leo Gura]

11 hours ago, LastThursday said:

Evolution's procedure is simple: some organisms are more likely to re-produce than others. That's it.

That's not it. You have no explanation of how new functions are made.

Edited October 8, 2023 by Leo Gura

[vibv]

Of course evolution is conscious. Why not?

Genes are intelligent, that doesn’t even contradict Darwin, it’s just way more amazing that he thought.

[LastThursday]

Warning lots of analogies incoming:

Thinking in terms of function doesn't give the full picture. The analogy is with music. The functions might be likened to the instruments in a band, a guitar, drums etc. But the song they play itself can be encoded into a continuous waveform. Seen from that viewpoint, changing the waveform even slightly, would change the sound of all the functions at once. That's what I meant by evolution being holistic. 

Each organism has X chance of survival (taken as an average). That means that all the organisms that don't make it and go extinct, take their particular waveform with them - to stretch the analogy. Over time the organisms that are left are those that have the greatest chance of survival and their waveforms become the most prevalent. So the waveforms will get shaped by the environment of the organism, certain parts of it being amplified and other parts diminishing. It's like evolving a key to fit a lock, the shape of the key changes to fit the lock.

How do new functions arise? They don't as such. A "function" is just a product of the reductionist way of seeing things. Each and every organism is slightly different (thanks to random mutation) and unique. Therefore each and every organism has a different holistic function (singular), this is just the shape of the waveform or key if you like. Like a key it's the entire shape that matters, and some keys will fit better than others. 

As the waveform of an organism is shaped over time, it will appear as if new structures arise in the organism (new instruments). But it's a mirage, what you hear is actually the waveform changing, the static of mutation gets amplified into new sounds.

Edited October 9, 2023 by LastThursday

[MuadDib]

The analogy of music beautifully illustrates the concept of holism and the environment dancing with each organism as it fluctuates through random mutations.

You seem to obfuscate this point, however.

3 hours ago, LastThursday said:

How do new functions arise? They don't as such. A "function" is just a product of the reductionist way of seeing things. Each and every organism is slightly different (thanks to random mutation) and unique.

We can say with mathematical precision that the flagellum of the bacteria developing randomly is like saying that if a drumstick started falling in a growing forest, and nobody was around to hear it, Bill Burr definitely attended a Meshuggah concert.

https://youtu.be/HS9_p7zNASQ?si=jpKyyPQuXxy8aAO5

Edited October 9, 2023 by MuadDib

[LastThursday]

Let me see if I can try and clarify what I was getting at. Wish me luck...

Imagine you have an organism with no eyes. It has skin and a few limbs, whatever. By some random mutation its offspring has a patch of light-sensitive skin somewhere (there is plenty of chemistry which is light sensitive, so it's not super surprising). The question arises: is this patch of light-sensitive skin a new function of the organism? And, what is that function?

It could be that the patch does nothing whatsoever. The organism neither reacts to light hitting its skin there and there is no cost to the organism to maintain it. In other words there is no difference in survival value and so the mutation will proliferate into further descendant populations. Evolution can and does keep mutations that have no affect on survival value: junk DNA, useless organs etc.

Say there's another mutation which then connects nerves to that patch of light-sensitive skin. Aha! Do we have a new function? Not necessarily. Even though the organism could react to light hitting its skin now, the rest of its nervous system is not wired up to react in a way that will increase its survival value. Nevertheless, the new mutation gets passed down to descendants, because it doesn't affect the survival rate.

Then we get a third mutation, which connects the nerve messages from the light-sensitive skin, to nerves in muscles in its limbs. This time, whenever the light level drops on its skin, the limbs kick the organism away from the shadow. Now we have a function. This greatly increases the organism's survival value and so nearly all its descendants will maintain all three mutations. 

Note how each individual mutation by itself does not confer a new function, but all three have to be present together to increase survival of the organism. When exactly did the new function arise, which mutation was it? And what was the function of each mutation? It's not at all clear. In each case the mutation could have had no function at all, or required many other mutations for it to be useful whatsoever. 

6 hours ago, LastThursday said:

How do new functions arise? They don't as such.

All that happens is the phenotype (waveform) drifts through mutation, and occasionally those mutations come together to increase an organism's survival rate. Function is just what a biologist uses to reduce the problem of complexity in understanding an organism, but it's not real.

[Leo Gura]

3 hours ago, LastThursday said:

By some random mutation its offspring has a patch of light-sensitive skin somewhere

This cannot be assumed. Explain how to randomly get a light-sensitive anything.

Edited October 9, 2023 by Leo Gura

[bambi]

15 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

This cannot be assumed. Explain how to randomly get a light-sensitive anything.

Explain how Truth and Death and Love are tautological?

[LastThursday]

All matter both emits and absorbs light. You can verify this for yourself quite easily. For example if you heat a bit of metal to a high enough temperature, it will emit an orange light. Conversely, if you get a magnifying glass and concentrate the sun's light through it, you can burn paper (an oxidation reaction).

More specifically, the whole of the photographic industry relies on matter being light-sensitive (both digital and analogue photography). Silver halide particles react to light and go black, which is used as the "negative" in photography. Here's a list of especially light-sensitive chemicals:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Light-sensitive_chemicals

So I wouldn't say it was particularly difficult to get something to be light-sensitive, it's just a matter of degree.

How would light-sensitivity arise in an organism? 

All organisms are nearly exclusively built up from proteins - with a sprinkling of other chemicals. Proteins are carbon polymers, a polymer being a long string of repeating units of some type of chemical. Plastics are carbon polymers. Proteins are long one-dimensional strings of repeating amino acids. There are twenty types of amino acid in nature, each amino acid having its own structure. Each different type of protein (there are many thousands of them), has its own unique sequence of amino acids.

Proteins have a strong tendency to curl up and form three-dimensional structures. In general there is one or maybe several stable three-dimensional structures for each type of protein. In that way, each different sequence of amino acids, maps into a defined set of three-dimensional structures. If you change the sequence, you change the final structure.

The genius of proteins is that their three-dimensional structures give them different capabilities. Most chemical reactions involve varying chemical shapes, and proteins can fit around these shapes and speed up or slow down chemical reactions (i.e. they are catalysts). Pretty much all the activity in a cell for example is chemical reactions mediated by proteins.

To change the capabilities of a protein, you would change its sequence of amino acids. This is basically what a mutation is. Some mutations have a small effect on the three-dimensional structure of a protein and so don't affect its abilities much. Other mutations have a large effect. Some mutations might increase the light-sensitivity of the protein, even if slightly (because all matter is light-sensitive). Proteins are not static, but dynamic wobbling structures, much like a liquid. If the effect is large enough, a protein might deform with incoming light and release electrons, which then cascade into other proteins (say forming nerves). Or it might change shape and increase the production of some other chemical (say a hormone). 

Here is some info on light receptive proteins:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoreceptor_protein

So. Random mutations imply changes to sequences of amino acids, which imply changes to the three-dimensional structure of the protein, which imply changes to its capabilities. Some of those capabilities include light-sensitivity.

 

[MuadDib]

40 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

All matter both emits and absorbs light. You can verify this for yourself quite easily. For example if you heat a bit of metal to a high enough temperature, it will emit an orange light.

What if I make it cold. Like really cold. Like really really cold. Like as cold as is inetellectually possible. Would all matter emit and absorb light then?

What about a black hole? I watched a movie and the main actors said that light never leaves gargantua. I mean sure its not a real place but I really FEEL like the concept has a ring to it.

All this just sounds like a really fluffed up way of saying that incredible complexity emerged from nothing and arranged itself into words on a screen and there is no intelligence at play in any of it. Its just random.

So either intelligence doesn't exist or it's involved in everything pal ... explain me where I'm wrong

[Leo Gura]

The odds of randomly stringing together even one correct protein is like 1 in a trillion, trillion, trillion. And one protein by itself does nothing.

Edited October 10, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Francis777]

Can you not just channel some Alien intelligence @Leo Guraand figure it out

serious question though do you not have access to almost limitless levels of intelligence in your new “human jailbroken” alien state of consciousness.

sounds silly but surely this advanced consciousness comes with advanced intelligence. 

Or is it that you do but anything that isn’t completely limitless  intelligence will always pale in comparison to infinite intelligence by nature?

Edited October 10, 2023 by Francis777

[Leo Gura]

5 minutes ago, Francis777 said:

Can you not just channel some Alien intelligence Leo and figure it out

Evolution and proteins are just a fiction at the level of Alien Consciousness.

Edited October 10, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Francis777]

@Leo Gura yeah but you still don’t know the function of them, imaginary or not?

why do you even ponder these questions at all if that’s your answer.

I suppose this is just the big picture understanding of it, but the nuanced understanding still eludes you, is that it?

Edited October 10, 2023 by Francis777