@ken: It is wonderful and honest that the referenced scientists

Comment on A “Christian Agnostic”? by Sean Pitman.

It is wonderful and honest that the referenced scientists think the KC could not have been better designed. But isn’t how it got to the point the question? If KB was created at first instance as the perfect design why the need for the GC? And why the similarities between enzymes and pathways?

It is an error to assume, without further demonstration, that similarity of structure and even of function is definitive evidence of origin via the Darwinian mechanism of random mutations/natural selection from some common ancestral state.

While such similarities do in fact suggest a common origin of some kind, that common origin may be a common intelligent designer. There is also the proven possibility that the more simple system actually devolved from the more complex system over time (as is the case for TTSS toxin injection system in bacteria, which devolves from the much more complex flagellar motility system in bacteria over relatively short periods of time).

So, how does one rule out the necessity of intelligent design to explain two different systems that look similar in structure and perhaps in basic function? How does one scientifically determine, to a useful level of predictive value, that a particular mindless mechanism could or could not reasonably have done the job? Well, one has to consider the functional differences themselves. The similarities are very easy to explain via mindless mechanisms of various kinds. However, the functional differences are not so easily explained beyond very low levels of functional complexity. It’s all about the differences. The functional differences are key here – key to the detection of the requirement for intelligent design to explain a given phenomenon.

That’s the problem with the just-so stories of evolutionary progress you’ll often find in literature. They are just that – just-so stories without any demonstration in the lab or any real statistical analysis with regard to the ability of mindless mechanisms to produce the required functional differences between the systems in question.

When it comes to enzymatic cascades, to include the citric acid cycle, the complexities involved are not generally significantly more complex than the most complex single component part. The reason for this is that the overall system does not require a specific 3D structure in order for it to work. An enzymatic cascade works in a sequence whereby each individual part works independently from the other parts in the enzymatic cascade.

That is why such cascades are not nearly as functionally complex as a system with an equal number of parts where the function of the system requires that the parts work in harmony with each other, at the same time, in a specific three-dimensional arrangement with each other – as is the case for the flagellar motility system. The flagellar motility system is far far more complex that an enzymatic cascading system with an equal number of protein/amino acid parts or building blocks.

Such systems of functional complexity, when they require more than 1000 specifically arranged amino acid parts, do not evolve from anything else, regardless of structural similarities with other systems of function. The functional differences require structural differences that are just to statistically large to cross, at such levels of complexity, in what anyone would consider to be a reasonable amount of time via any known mindless mechanism.

It is for this reason that the hypothesis that only an intelligent agent could have produced such a high level functional system in a reasonable amount of time gains superior scientific credibility.

Many different sciences that are based on the ability to detect the need to invoke intelligent design to explain various phenomena in nature (such as anthropology, forensic science, anthropic science in physics, and even SETI science) are all based on this basic logical argument for design. There is no fundamental difference…

So, there you have it, the scientific “ID-only argument” in a nutshell.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

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Sean Pitman Also Commented

A “Christian Agnostic”?
@ken:

Effective atheist, closet creationist, close to classic IDist or creationist?

Are you sure it is my agnosticism that is changing rather than your opinion of what I am?

I didn’t say that you were effectively an atheist. What I said was that your arguments for agnosticism were effectively atheistic. There’s a difference. Your arguments for God’s likely existence are obviously the opposite of atheistic – certainly not agnostic either.

After all, someone who claims to believe that the existence of God is “likely”, because of ultimate origin arguments, doesn’t match most people’s concept of an “agnostic”.

So, please do forgive me if I am still way off base regarding your true position…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

A “Christian Agnostic”?
@Ken:

You have transported me from an atheist to a closet creationist in the width of a thread my friend. 🙂 I wonder what you will create me as next?

What have I done? – besides point out that someone who claims that God’s existence is “likely”, based on arguments for ultimate causation requiring a God-like intelligence and creative power, isn’t what most people would call an “agnostic”?

In short, your “agnostic” arguments are the very same ones used by atheists like Dawkins and Hawking and your “God likely exists” arguments are essentially the same ones used by IDists and creationists. How then can I be faulted for suggesting that you’re not really an agnostic or an atheist? While you’re not a classic creationist or IDist by any means, you seem to me to be, at least for now, far closer to such than to pure agnosticism… which is a very hard position to hold, in its pure form, for very long I would think. Certainly Hawking couldn’t do it for long. Eventually one decides, like you, to try to figure out which way the turtles seem to be going…

Of course, you could end up falsifying my hypothesis… 😉

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

A “Christian Agnostic”?
@Ken:

Now I think Hawkings thinking about our universe has evolved since he wrote Brief History of Time, because he is looking at turtles ( metaverses) a level or two upwards. However Grand Design implies grand designer doesn’t it. Can design ever be mindless?

Yes, Hawking has apparently evolved, or devolved if you prefer, from the position of agnosticism to atheism since he wrote A Brief History of Time.

As far as your question as to if a “design” can be “mindless”, the answer to that question is yes – depending upon what you mean by the term “design”. As far as we can tell, anyway, what appears to be “mindless nature” does in fact have certain creative powers (discussed further below).

Who or what created the matter for the first turtle? Ever seen a turtle appear out of nothing, ex nihilo?

This is exactly the reason why many scientists and philosophers have come to the conclusion that the “first cause”, whatever it may be, had to itself have been eternal. Of course there are those, like Hawking for instance, who argue that something can indeed come from nothing… but that belief certainly isn’t scientific in that it is not testable in a falsifiable manner and has no useful predictive power.

I told you I was intrigued by Intelligent Design and Deism didn’t I? And I still say that creation of the original matter for the original universe out of nothing is not a rational proposition. Why? Because science and mathematics can not explain infinity, first cause or infinite regress. And philosophy doesn’t seem to do much better (Munchhausen Trilemma).

Now you’re sounding like a creationist 😉

Can turlles read? For their sake I’ ll state it again: when the atheists, sceintists or philosphers rationally explain to me how ‘original’ matter and energy, that ultimately led to intelligent life, arose out of the mindless void, then I’ll become an atheist.

Me too! The only difference between you and I is that you are impressed with the unlikely appearance of original matter/energy out of nothing without a pre-existent eternal intelligence, while I am also impressed by the origin of the informational complexity needed to get otherwise random non-directed energy/matter to produce useful stuff. Consider that the origin of useful information is just as problematic for the atheistic mindset as is the origin of basic energy/matter itself (By the way, atoms and basic atomic particles are informationally rich, as are the fined-tuned fundamental constants of the universe).

If a faith construct ever satistifactority answers my questions then I’ll join that religion. (All come up relativistically short so far).

Science itself is a faith construct. You cannot make any conclusions as to the likely nature of empirical reality without taking a leap of faith, to one degree or another, beyond that which can be absolutely known.

This was Wesley Kime’s point in arguing that faith and science are forced to walk hand-in-hand. This is also the point of well-known philosophers of science like Thomas Kuhn. You simply cannot avoid taking on a “faith construct” of some kind – no one can. The only choice any of us really has is which faith construct to take on…

Part of the problem is what we mean by mindless. Can a human mind know the mind of God?

Not in totality of course since we are finite and God, by definition, is infinite. However, we can known what God has given us to know about himself. In other words, we are capable of comprehending certain limited aspects of God.

What may appear as mindless nature may not be mindless at all if we figure out the Grand Design. I think both Einstein and Hawkings understood and understand this dilemma. In fairness and with great respect I think in what you and Dr. Kime in your own way are trying to do as well: marry faith to science for a more fuller and optimistic view of reality. Please note, especially my friend Wes, that I have stated that this is laudable. Not toying around here, I mean what I say.

Faith and science are already married since one cannot exist without the other. It is just that some fail to recognize when they are in fact taking leaps of faith.

Beyond this, you seem to be making the same point that the founders of modern chaos theory made. In short, randomness cannot be proven. What appears to be a random sequence from one perspective may actually be determined by a simple formula from another perspective. The same thing is true about what appears to be the result of a mindless mechanism. Ultimately, from a different perspective, the same phenomenon may have been known or produced by some deliberate purpose.

The problem, of course, is that our perspective is limited. We can only deal with the limited information that we currently understand. So, the best we can say is that certain phenomenon appear to be the result of apparently mindless mechanisms while other phenomena (like highly symmetrical polished granite cubes, or your automobile) much more clearly require the input of deliberate intelligence.

Might I be stretching the boundaries of agnosticim in saying that even though I cannot prove it – because ultimate creation ex nihilo and infinite regress makes no sense to me – the case for an ultimate grand designer/ force makes more rational, ‘likely’ sense?

You are definitely stretching the boundaries of agnosticism to argue for God’s “likely” existence. This is why I have been saying for some time now that you are not a true agnostic. You are a closet creationist to at least some degree. You present some of the very same arguments used by intelligent design advocates and even creationists in favor of the very likely existence of a God or God-like intelligence behind it all.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com