#53954: mynym — 12/17  at  11:56 AM
Methodological naturalism does not deny that things can be made by intelligent actors. That science confines itself to natural explanations is not a way of saying that we'd be blind to evidence of intervention by aliens.

Only if they were unnatural aliens, I suppose, then you would admit to being blind to their effects naturally enough.

The commenter at Panda's Thumb is no better. Further, I'd add that his argument is very peculiar: he's an IDist, yet he's arguing that designed organisms would be less "better" or fit than the ones living in our environments now?

The ones that we design would be, which is why the argument from bad design is pretentious, although it is a favorite among half-wits who seem to have a difficult time designing their own brains through the use of symbols and signs.

I agree, but that's another strike against the idea that organisms are planned.

The only thing that is not planned are the brain events that cause you to write that you are not planned.

However, the creationists are not basing their argument on a distinction between artificial vs. not artificial.

I've seen this meme circulating on the Left now. This murmuring is not very creative, but then those with the urge to merge are not. So now perhaps you are going to try to make some artificial distinctions, it's about time for some distinctions. I suppose we'll have to wait and see what distinctions Mommy Nature selects for you to make, after you're done trying to think through your brain.

The last paragraphs are part of what I wrote for a little fellow easily wowed by bits of knowledge, much like some of your own sycophants are. I wonder if you could find some factual tittle to suck on somewhere in the text. This way I could learn of another little tittle about Mother Nature, which those with the urge to merge find so titillating.

Note the irony typical to the claims of charlatans like PZ, although we don't really know what is responsible for the self-organization and development of millions of embryos based on current empirical observations, (Is there a morphogenetic field? What's that, and where does it reside? Epigenetic processes, which are based on what natural laws?) he knows without a doubt what happened millions of years ago which "explains" every single organ that unfolds in the development of every single mammalian embryo, millions of them. Not only does the little fellow supposedly know what happened millions of years ago, but it's a scientific fact that cannot be questioned lest all of science just crumble away and civilization collapse.

Supposedly he could design a better reproductive system and it is too close to other systems, yet I wonder where he would put the excretory system? Perhaps an out of the way spot like the upper leg, and just let the excrement run down it? Or maybe he could put it closer to his brains and then what is already true of him metaphorically could be closer to the truth literally?

When PZ designs an organism or a machine that can run on some plants and animal products, has teleological principles written into it as a matter of fact, self-replicates in ways that approach an infinite diversity while maintaining typological unity that also sometimes sings and dances in joy, writes Mozart, etc., then maybe he can set himself up to judge the design of Homo sapiens instead of trying to remove the sapience/intelligence from the Homo.

(Is the denial of intelligence natural or artificial?)

#53957: mynym — 12/17  at  12:03 PM
I'm not sure what an "unnatural" creature would look like. It sounds like something out of H.P. Lovecraft or Clive Barker, though—something that is not bound by the laws of our universe.

Jesus called them the people of light, which in all probability is a form of spiritual or transphysical existence.

When creationists demand that scientists need to look for explanations that are not "natural", that implies that we're supposed to look for things outside our universe…I don't know how to do that.

I don't claim that scientists need to do anything other than admitting to limitations instead of writing mythological narratives of Naturalism reaching far back into ancient history based on the fact that the general patterns of Nature that exist now, are by definition those that now exist.

There's also this little matter of those with the urge to merge trying to merge their Darwinian creation myth in with anything from the theory of gravity to microwaves or "virtually all modern medicine" ...and probably toilet paper too. Virtually all of modern medicine, what a canard that is. Check the names of the hospitals, notice anything? Medicine is an art.

#53958: Jim Lippard — 12/17  at  12:09 PM
I touched on this subject in a response I wrote to a similar ID argument (http://lippard.blogspot.com/2005/08/intelligent-design-and-genetically.html).

I think the ID argument amounts to a claim that biological organisms are artifacts... but why should they stop at biological organisms? If they're right, everything is an artifact, and the only distinction between natural and artificial is a distinction between divinely created artifact and human (or other) created artifact. Any time we find something that we classify as an artifact, we should be questioning whether it's one God directly created... and thus the challenge to Phillip Johnson about the role of ID in the courts is a legitimate one.

#53959: — 12/17  at  12:14 PM
The writer of the quoted passage seems to acknowledge the limitations of design, but also seems confused about the reason for these limitations. (The writer also seems to have a pretty inflated idea of nanotechnology, since it's more likely that the first replicators would function ONLY in a carefully controlled environment and would be far less robust than life, but I digress.)

The reason that even careful human designs tend to fail can usually be attributed to unintended consequences. Assuming they do function well with respect to the intent of the designer, the designer remains unaware of all possible interactions within a complex ecology, and may be blindsided by one of them.

There's nothing magical about the fact that at appropriate intervals, ecologies can appear to be in better balance than artifical systems. It's not because there is a better design process that makes natural things less prone to unintended consequences. When we observe some kind of equilibrium, it a result of the fact that the ecology as a whole has adapted to whatever might have changed. It's also very easy to find natural disruptions, for example when an alien invasive species is introduce to an ecology that has not been exposed to it. We now see this happening through the carelessness or misguided plans of human agents, but it has surely happened in the past due to natural events.

Finally, the "law" of unintended consequences does not apply to evolution, but only for the simple reason that evolution does not have any intent. So while one can often find human acts that don't go according to plan, nature is immune--not because it is a better planner but because there is no plan to which to compare the outcome.

#53960: — 12/17  at  12:15 PM
Mynym--
If you're going to use the patronizing style, it works better if what you write actually makes sense.

#53961: — 12/17  at  12:33 PM
Not only does the little fellow supposedly know what happened millions of years ago

This appeal to common human prejudices is one of the most common logical fallacies of those who attack science. We see it in both the creationists and the deniers of global warming. Oddly enough, we don't see as much of it in physics, where people seem to readily accept the fact that we know where the Earth was millions of years ago, even though we don't have anything resembling fossil evidence to support it.

#53962: Lee J Rickard — 12/17  at  12:41 PM
Is the artificial unnatural? How nice to see that we are returning to the old debate. My favorite explication of this is Shakespeare's, in Act IV, Scene IV of The Winter's Tale:

PERDITA
Sir, the year growing ancient,
Not yet on summer's death, nor on the birth
Of trembling winter, the fairest
flowers o' the season
Are our carnations and streak'd gillyvors,
Which some call nature's bastards: of that kind
Our rustic garden's barren; and I care not
To get slips of them.

POLIXENES
Wherefore, gentle maiden,
Do you neglect them?

PERDITA
For I have heard it said
There is an art which in their piedness shares
With great creating nature.

POLIXENES
Say there be;
Yet nature is made better by no mean
But nature makes that mean: so, over that art
Which you say adds to nature, is an art
That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry
A gentler scion to the wildest stock,
And make conceive a bark of baser kind
By bud of nobler race: this is an art
Which does mend nature, change it rather, but
The art itself is nature.

#53963: mynym — 12/17  at  12:47 PM
This appeal to common human prejudices is one of the most common logical fallacies of those who attack science.

What's the difference between prejudice and intuition?

We see it in both the creationists and the deniers of global warming.

Based on the term little, I suppose...well we are rather little and probably do not have all that much to do with our globe warming. I suppose that ecologically speaking Life won't adapt and diversify in a warmer globe, although it did an awful lot of diversifying in the past.

Maybe the global warming will prevent the New Ice Age that was supposed to get here in the 1990s.

E.g. (Get Out the Ear Muffs: New Ice Age Forecast
The New York Times; Nov. 11, 1956, pg. 40)
WASHINGTON, Nov. 10 (AP)
New findings of "atomic timekeeping" suggest that North America may be headed into another major Ice Age, a Government geologist said today.

(Frozen Key to Our Climate
By Leonard Engel
The New York Times; Dec 7, 1958, pg. SM72)

(Science, Worrying About a New Ice Age
By Walter Sullivan
The New York Times; Feb 23, 1969, pg. E10)

(Scientists Ask Why World Climate Is Changing: Major Cooling May Be Ahead
By Walter Sullivan
The New York Times; May 21, 1975, pg. 45)

(New Ice Age by 1995?
By Larry Ephron
The New York Times; Jul. 1988, pg. A16)

#53964: mynym — 12/17  at  12:49 PM
The writer also seems to have a pretty inflated idea of nanotechnology...

It's a hypothetical. Given that the Darwinian creation myth is supported with hypothetical/mythological narratives of Naturalism it seems apposite to answer it hypothetically.

#53965: — 12/17  at  12:56 PM

Check the names of the hospitals, notice anything?

No, not really. Sorry, but I have no idea what you're getting at here.

Medicine is an art.

Modern medicine is a technology. It's incomplete both in theoretical basis and efficacy of outcome, but it is based on sound empirical reasoning. The extent to which this matters depends on the nature of one's complaint. Many illnesses cure themselves, and therefore respond well to common sense practice. Others are beyond our current capability to treat, and practices may change without much improvement in efficacy.

On the other hand, there is a large middle ground of serious but treatable problems such as heart attacks, stroke, trauma, contagious disease, or chronic disorders such as diabetes in which modern medicine has applied empirical methods to improve substantially on any sort of folk medicine. Even when the theoretical justification of treatment is not understood as is often the case, it is backed up by clinical studies. Statistics show that life expectancy has improved as a result. This is an on-going process driven by the scientific method and not by "artists" in medical garb.

#53966: — 12/17  at  01:05 PM

The writer also seems to have a pretty inflated idea of nanotechnology...


It's a hypothetical.

No. The hypothetical was the premise of succeeding in building self-replicating nanotechnology. I didn't criticise that. The consequence was "we’d probably all be dead." Even hypotheticals need plausible consequences. A far more plausible consequence is "It probably wouldn't do much outside of the lab in which it had the appropriate resources needed to replicate."

I base this on the fact that current human technology tends to work within a narrow spectrum of resources, particularly as compared to life. Therefore, the design of a self-replicating nanotechnological machine is almost certainly easier than the design of a robust machine that could pose a threat, and more likely to be designed first.

#53967: mynym — 12/17  at  01:05 PM
If you're going to use the patronizing style, it works better if what you write actually makes sense.

Even if I made some sense for you to have how would I give it to you, little one*? Among those who deny that one has to make sense to have sense shall I deal with their nonsense by making more sense? It would seem then that I would not get any credit for making sense.

*I figured I would combine a partronizing style with "human prejudice," since it is not as if Darwinists have anything to say that will make sense anyway. They are not much for creativity and creation. They are Darwinists, although I am aware that those with the urge to merge will tend to reject distinction and classification as "Darwinists." Darwinian principles are still the basic and essential principles that they cling to when they aren't skirting concepts by running into the skirts of Mommy Nature or trying to engage in perceptual instead of conceptual arguments like: "This looks a little like that or somethin'." This is the skirting of issues: "This may be mentally retarded, but it's natural! Stick with me here, can't you see how natural it is. Nature selects all with natural selections, naturally enough..." For Nature calls, and their excrement happens. (Supposedly if people believe the Darwinian creation myth then progress will be assured and I suppose we will have the technology to make enough toilet paper. But if people believe ID, then no toilet paper!)

#53969: mynym — 12/17  at  01:12 PM
The consequence was "we’d probably all be dead." Even hypotheticals need plausible consequences.

Top ten ways to destroy the earth, number 2:

You will need: a single von Neumann machine

Method: A von Neumann machine is any device that is capable of creating an exact copy of itself given nothing but the necessary raw materials. Create one of these that subsists almost entirely on iron, magnesium, aluminum and silicon, the major elements found in Earth's mantle and core. It doesn't matter how big it is as long as it can reproduce itself exactly in any period of time. Release it into the ground under the Earth's crust and allow it to fend for itself. Watch and wait as it creates a second von Neumann machine, then they create two more, then they create four more. As the population of machines doubles repeatedly, the planet Earth will, terrifyingly soon, be entirely eaten up and turned into a swarm of potentially sextillions of machines. Technically your objective would now be complete - no more Earth - but if you want to be thorough then you can command your VNMs to hurl themselves, along with any remaining trace elements, into the Sun. This hurling would have to be achieved using rocket propulsion of some sort, so be sure to include this in your design.

So crazy it might just work.

LiveScience

#53971: — 12/17  at  01:22 PM
Among those who deny that one has to make sense to have sense shall I deal with their nonsense by making more sense? It would seem then that I would not get any credit for making sense.

That right there is just precious. PZ, you are brilliant. Letting this mynym fellar toss up this word salad buffet will do as much to damage IDC as anything else. This is even better than watching a Scotty McClellan press conference!

Oh, and this thing with running under "Mommy Nature's" skirt - got some issues with women, too, fella?

#53972: — 12/17  at  01:22 PM
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/

'Mother Nature doesn’t give a flip if you live or die.'

A quote from Making Light (although it was written in a different context, it is still relevant to the tortured reasonings of those trying with all their might to elevate the specialness of human 'design') A wolf is evolved to live in the outdoors in harsh conditions. Humans can join them in their habitat by designing and manufacturing clothing, shelter, heating devices, etc. It seems a pretty serious oversight of the human 'designer' not to make humans able to live 24 hours a day on most of the planet's land masses, never mind the parts covered with water.

#53975: — 12/17  at  01:35 PM

Create one of these that subsists almost entirely on iron, magnesium, aluminum and silicon, the major elements found in Earth's mantle and core.

OK, so the revised hypothetical is "Suppose scientists succeeded in creating some kind of doomsday machine using self-replicating nanotechnology based on advances even wilder than what Drexler envisions (Drexler's nanotech is carbon-based)." Then I suppose you're right in a tautological sense that the consequence of building such a doomsday machine is that we'd all be dead.

My point was that the first self-replicator is unlikely to be such a doomsday device, even in the additionally unlikely event that the designers intend it to be such. Most likely, the first nanotech self-replicator will work using a very narrow range of chemical resources as input. The reason is that the mechanism will be simpler to design than a more robust one, which might come later, and it will be possible to produce the raw material simply using bulk chemical processes.

This has the added advantage of making the "grey goo" scenario implausible, but I am not counting on human intentions, only human limitations.

#53979: Hank Fox — 12/17  at  02:09 PM
Words are what we use to convey meaning, and in some ways, to THINK. If you can destroy the ability of words to convey clear meaning, you can destroy the ability of your victims to think clearly.

Anytime you're dealing with creationists, you'll find DELIBERATE lies and confusion about the meaning of the words involved.

The word "theory" is the obvious example. If you engage in a discussion with an anti-evolutionist, it's almost comical how they will squirm out of even THINKING about the word in any sense except the colloquial one: "a wild, off-the-cuff conjecture." (I’ve talked to people whom I couldn’t even get to admit the word had any other meaning.)

Rather than working to progressively clarify the meaning of the words in any discussion, they work to keep the meanings as fuzzy and confused as possible.

For a long time, I thought there was something conspiratorial in that (and I still think that’s the case among the leaders of the anti-evo group).

Because, obviously, in talking about any real subject, progressively clarifying the meaning of the words you’re using helps you think in more specific terms about the thing under discussion.

It’s why the words of science and engineering tend to have razor-sharp meanings (when possible), meanings understood all over the world. The word “centimeter” means something so sharp you can measure it in angstroms, and every physicist all over the world probably knows it.

But for most of the people caught up in this refusal to clarify and standardize meanings, it seems to me the real reason is even worse: It’s because it's only in the fuzzy gaps between meanings that they can even talk about their favorite subject. It’s only in the fuzzy linguistic gaps, where nothing can really be pinned down, that their religion can continue to seem true to them.

Clarity destroys fantasies. Clarity eliminates the fight over evolution vs. creationism. Clarity kills gods.

It seems to me that there’s an entire linguistic set of deliberately fuzzy words used by religious people to talk about their god, about heaven, about the afterlife, about morality, and unfortunately, about science. The big problem with communication between them and more reality-minded people is that they sometimes use the SAME words – they just give them wholly different meanings.

“Good” means what they want it to mean. “Truth” (for godders, it always has a capital T) means – rather than something like “independently verifiable factually-correct data” – something more like “stuff the Lord Jesus tells me in His Revealed Word.” (And where the hell does any discussion of “true” or “truth” go from there?? Exactly – it goes nowhere.)

“Theory” means what THEY want it to mean ... and they won’t even ADMIT it might have some other meaning. Because to admit the other, technical meaning, would eventually start corroding their ability to think in the way they think. It would invite clarity, solidity, reality into their heads, and that would, if they continued on with it, eventually destroy their religion. As far as they’re concerned, it would kill their god, kill their morality, kill their hope.

To even attempt to talk about science, and to simultaneously hold to their religious notions, they have to redefine words to fuzzier, more confusing meanings, so that they leave huge conceptual holes where their religion can continue to exist.

The basic reason it is impossible for a reality-minded person to engage in an exchange of ideas with a creationist, to hold an actual fair-minded give-and-take conversation with them, is that creationists have a fundamentally different goal. They want something different from what you want.

They don’t want clarity or certainty. They don’t want truth. They don’t want progressively-more-refined understanding.

They want un-clarity, un-certainty. To achieve that, they use language, by choice, in a fundamentally different way.

(An ugly little side-effect of all this, by the way, is that, because they can’t win any battle of ideas, they deliberately use lies and force – low-level violence – to achieve their larger political ends. It’s why they try to get control of school boards, for instance, rather than simply allowing their pet educational concepts to defend themselves in honest, open discussion.)

#53980: The Rev. Schmitt. — 12/17  at  02:47 PM
Shorter mynym: the fact that science makes useful predictions which allow for greater research, understanding, and development upsets the emotional investment I place in my religion; please stop it. As for the philisophical materialism of scientists, even the theists - we mortals can make the supernatural explicable by...science has limitations which scientists won't admit.

Incidentally I get my science education from newspapers, which I can only assume accurately represent the views of mainstream scientists.

-The Rev. Schmitt.

#53981: coturnix — 12/17  at  03:06 PM
Every time mynum comes here and I read his name, I make and error and read "mymun" instead, because in Serbo-Croatian language "majmun" (pronounced "my-moon") means 'monkey'. Then I read his comments and realize I have not made an error after all. We are all related do monkeys (and cabbage and bacteria), after all, but some of us try to use their brains in a more human-like fashion. I am with Hank Fox on this, some brains are incapable of thinking clearly, and yes, Jamie, they always have issues with women, too.

#53982: — 12/17  at  03:29 PM
We are all related do monkeys (and cabbage and bacteria)

Reminds me of a psychological tactic used in seminaries and bible colleges (ahem) involving visualizing your audience as nothing but a bunch of cabbage heads - to get over nervousness about public speaking. I doubt they caught the ironing in that trick . . .

#53984: — 12/17  at  03:47 PM
mynym, the New York Times is not a scientific journal. You can't support your argument that the scientific consensus has changed from global cooling to global warming by citing a few articles from a newspaper. It's especially pointless to cite the particular paper that claimed space travel was impossible because rockets wouldn't have anything to push against once they left the atmosphere.

#53987: Kagehi — 12/17  at  04:39 PM
Hmm. Just read an article in Skeptic Vil. 12 No.1 on a conference held recently at Caltech. Some hilights:

"Terry Sejnowskim, the director of the computational neurobiology lab at the Salk Institute in San Diego, debunked the notion that a stimulous follows a single pathway culminating in an action ('monkey see, monkey do'), instead, Sejnowski shows how his research focuses on the intrinsic brain activity that is present without stimulus and which may represent, at least in part, a neural correlate of consciousness."

Later, Susan Blackmore, "ochestrated an audience participation activity that replicated Libet's experiments demonstrating that motor action potentials appear **before** a decision to move is made. That is, free will is an illusion. Something in our brain makes a decision to, say, move your hand. A moment later, you consciously decide to move your hand. But the **decision** to move is and the impulse was already well under way. ... Consciousness appears to be a little behind the process (dynamic illusions of reverse depth can be particularly revealing here)." Emphasis is mine.

And later, "Von Economo cells arose 10-12 millions years ago and are thus shared by humans, chimpanzees and gorillas, but are not found in any other mammals. It appears these cells play a key role in past parallel processing and decision-making that Allman calls *intuition*. Intuition determines the outcome of limited-time social interactions (how do we know when to trust someone when we have next to nothing to go on?)."

And so on. Seems to torpedo Mynym's assertions about intuition, creationists claims we can't explain consciousness and numerous other idiocies. Though, if I was a believer in gods, I would find it supremely ironic how this sort of stuff always shows up to refute the delusions of the faithful at *just* the right times to make them look completely stupid. lol

BTW. It might be possible to read the article on their web site, though I haven't checked. Its under News, titled "Mind, Brain, an Consciousness The Skeptics Society 2005 Conference at Caltech", by Lee Traynor. There is also a fun one on a fake excercism some clown invited people to come see. Again, the irony being that the writer ended up there when the bus changed drivers and he ended up in Hollywood, instead of at JPL, where he was planning to go. No doubt Satan conspired to put him there, if you believed the gibberish that fundies do. ;) lol

#53992: Stacy — 12/17  at  06:16 PM
This reminds me of an (unasked) question I've got everytime I'm reminded my parents believe in this nonsense (my dad is also a big believer in crank history). If they are so committed to the idea that the supernatural is involved in everything and natural explanations are so meager, then why don't they ever apply these supernatural explanations to things in their real everyday lives? My father raises cattle, mostly as a hobby, but he's got several hundred cows on his farm. When a cow is missing, he doesn't assume it was eaten by a demon or fallen into a wormhole, and when a calf is stillborn, he doesn't assume he (or the cow) did something to displease god. He goes out and looks for the missing cow until he figures out what happened to it, and he knows there are perfectly natural reasons calves die. He knows from years of observation that 9 months after a bull and cow mate, a calf is a likely outcome. Never 5 months or 12 months.

Why is the scientific method ok for him and his cows, but not ok for evolution and archaeologists?

#53993: — 12/17  at  07:05 PM
My main problem is the phrase "a self-repicating automata." There he goes trying to sound uppity and pretentious, and he doesn't realize that the singular is 'automaton,' and 'automata' is plural. I see the same mistake made with 'phenomenon' and 'phenomena' - in scientific textbooks, no less! - and it's one of those things that just makes me tick.

#53994: mynym — 12/17  at  07:05 PM
Letting this mynym fellar toss up this word salad buffet will do as much to damage IDC as anything else.

Yes, the whole ID movement will likely crumble away just because you lack the intellect to understand words.

Oh, and this thing with running under "Mommy Nature's" skirt - got some issues with women, too, fella?

I have issues with those with the urge to merge and the psychological dynamics typical to nerds that impact their "science."