Yes of course humans manifest intelligence and design and construct

Comment on Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes by Sean Pitman.

Yes of course humans manifest intelligence and design and construct elaborate artefacts even using intermediary designed agents to effect their construction. So what?

The “so what?” is in how artifacts are detect as such – as the result of deliberate intelligent design on at least the human level. What is the rational mechanism? what is the science? behind such an ability to detect or recognize artifacts as true artifacts rather than the result of some mindless or “raw” force of nature?

Big brains make elaborate objects that is so blindingly obvious that I cant believe we are even arguing about it.

We are arguing about it because you don’t believe that some elaborate objects that exist, perhaps some of the most elaborate objects in the universe, are true artefacts (i.e., living things or the fundamental structure of the anthropologic universe itself). That is why you have been arguing that there is no real “science” to the detection of any kind of artifact – regardless of how simple it may be (i.e., a simple granite cube). You claim that classification of such artifacts as artifacts is not a “science” – when in fact it is (as are all useful classification systems).

The real argument is about the extension of this phenomena of toolmaking into the metaphysical and an argument about imputing an intelligence and design for the causation of the natural world inanimate and animate based on the way we recognize atefact as the products of actions from brains of living creatures.

The real argument has to do with the concept of universal application of scientific arguments for design – regardless of if the medium be the material of granite, radio waves, or strings of carbon-based molecules. The fact that biological systems are put outside of the realm of detecting true artefacts is a philosophical position, not a scientific one.

You are arguing from the clear products of brains that we understand to include everything we see and experience as an artefact of some overarching cosmic intelligence.

I’m arguing that there is a universal application to the rational basis for detecting true artefacts. If you don’t have a “raw” mechanism for explaining a given artefact, upon what rational basis can you conclude, ultimately, that mindless “raw” natural processes were still responsible? – that it really isn’t a true artefact even though it meets every criterion for an artefact outside of biological systems?

I say no. All the artefacts of intelligence we can examine empirically can be attributed to the brains we see in our natural world.

But you just claimed that even if our granite cube were found on an alien planet (not in our world) that you would still conclude that the activity of at least human-level intelligence had been involved in its production. Again, you’re not being consistent in your application of the basis for detecting design.

Why do you even need to go through the tenuous step of arguing about the supposed inexplicable ontogeny of the design to infer a designer rather than simply skipping all the pseudoscientific woo and just saying like all Christians; we believe that there is a supernatural back-story and beyond the useful and clear scientific explanation there is a God we accept by faith as the creator. A Christian doctrine of creation. Why the insecurity and clamouring for scientific recognition and legitimacy of your view by a supposed scientific method?

Why not claim it if it is obviously there? Why not show that the signature of design is evident in nature when it meets the criteria of detecting design in anything else? How is it “pseudoscientific woo” when you yourself claim that you can detect deliberate intelligence behind the origin of a granite cube? Were you being pseudoscientific or otherwise irrational when you came to this conclusion?

Again, you’re just upset with the implications of discovering design in living things. You don’t care if evidence for intelligent design is discovered on Mars or some other alien planet, or anywhere else in the universe, as long as one doesn’t suggest that God was involved… Isn’t that true?

In summary, you do in fact claim to be able to rationally detect intelligent design. You are an IDist on at least some level. That’s simply undeniable given the statements you’ve made thus far. You just don’t like it when the suggestion of God is brought to the table. But, I didn’t claim that it was necessarily God who created this or that from a purely scientific perspective devoid of any other information. What I said is that certain artefacts are clearly designed by some extraordinarily intelligent and creative designer. If one can get at least this far, I leave the discovery of the actual identity of the designer up to the individual – up to you. I cannot prove God. No one can prove the supernatural. However, one can in fact present very very good evidence, scientific evidence, for design behind various features/artefacts within the universe. The argument that ID is pseudoscience is itself anti-science… contrary to what is otherwise overwhelmingly intuitive to even the casual observer (i.e,. as with highly symmetrical granite cubes or something equivalent Paley’s watch found on an alien planet).

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

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Sean Pitman Also Commented

Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes

I was not clear enough in my comment. There are 14 ERV’s that are intact and able to produce virus that we share with the chimps.

This is not true. According to a study published in 2005, no human ERVs capable of replication have been identified; all appear to be defective as far as producing infective viruses is concerned due to major deletions or nonsense mutations.

Belshaw R, Dawson AL, Woolven-Allen J, Redding J, Burt A, Tristem M (Oct 2005). “Genomewide Screening Reveals High Levels of Insertional Polymorphism in the Human Endogenous Retrovirus Family HERV-K(HML2): Implications for Present-Day Activity”. J Virol. 79 (19): 12507–14.

These occur at the same location in the genome of both humans and chimps. There is no question as to the function of these 14 ERV’s. Some of these are associated with disease states in humans.

This is also not true. While many ERVs are being found to be functional, most of these functions are beneficial to one degree or another, and some are even vital to life. Also, there have been no proven cases of human ERVs causing disease.

“HERVs have frequently been proposed as etiological cofactors in chronic diseases such as cancer, autoimmunity and neurological disease. Unfortunately, despite intense effort from many groups, there remains little direct evidence to support these claims, and moreover some studies have served only to muddy the waters for others.” – http://genomebiology.com/2001/2/6/reviews/1017

“Many still manage to generate proteins, but scientists have never found one that functions properly in humans or that could make us sick.” – http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/12/03/071203fa_fact_specter

It’s like arguing that regular genes cause disease. The real reason for disease is a loss of regulation of the normal function of regular genes, and perhaps ERV sequences on occasion, due to random mutations that destroy their original functionality.

If these are a product of design by God then why is reverse transcriptase part of the code in these viruses? They could have been placed directly in the genome as DNA. Did God design us to have disease? Would it not be more likely that these represent the past viral attacks on a common ancestor which were then incorporated into the germ cell and passed on the future generations of descendants? It would only require one ERV to prove common descent and we have 14. Ask yourself what is more reasonable?

Your knowledge about ERVs is very inaccurate. There are many rational reason for ERV-type sequences to be included, by design, in our genome. As already mentioned, many ERV sequences are being discovered to produced beneficial effects – some are even vital to life. Some ERVs have even been shown to fight against infection by exogenous retriviruses:

“The HERV-W env gene product has also been shown to block infection by an exogenous retrovirus, suggesting that the expressed HERV-W env gene could have a beneficial function to the host (Ponferrada et al., 2003).” – http://vir.sgmjournals.org/cgi/content/full/85/5/1203

“However, in the case of both Fv4 and Rmcf, the mode of defense is by the domesticated env gene blocking the receptor required for retrovirus entry.” – http://genetics.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=
10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.0010044

Beyond this, the theory that the ERV sequences within the human gene pool were derived from external viral infections is untenable given the population bottlenecks that would have been required to achieve this effect within the germline of humans or any other animal. Even modern retroviral infections never insert themselves within the germline cells of their host. Such a theory is based on something that is so extraordinarily unlikely that it hasn’t even been observed.

“No current transposition activity of HERVs or endogenization of human exogenous retroviruses has been documented so far.” – http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/101/suppl_2/14572

“Most of these elements represent ancient retroviral infections, as evidenced by their wide distribution in primate species, and no infectious counterparts of human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) are known to exist today.” – http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/101/6/1668

In any case, for further details along these lines, please refer to these detailed discussions of ERVs:

http://www.detectingdesign.com/pseudogenes.html#Endogenous
http://www.whoisyourcreator.com/endogenous_retroviruses.html

Sean Pitman

Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
We share far more than 14 ERVs with chimps.

Not too long ago it was thought that around 30,000 ERVs existed within the human/ape genomes, comprising between 1-8% of each. As of the 2005 Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium, where the entire chimpanzee genome was compared to the human genome, it is now thought that approximately 200,000 ERVs, or portions of ERVs, exist within the genomes of both humans and apes – totaling around 127 million base pairs (around 4% of the total genomic real estate). Some authors suggests a 45% ERV origin for the human genome at large (Mindell and Meyer 2001) and 50% for mammalian species in general, if all small fragments of ERV sequences are included in the estimate. In any case, of these hundreds of thousands of recognizable portions of ERVs, the vast majority of them seem to match up, at the very same loci, between humans and chimps. Less than 1% of the ERVs are lineage specific for either humans or apes. In other words, the vast majority of ERVs are shared or “orthologous” between humans and chimps (a significant increase from the seven or so that were once thought to infect both humans and chimps at identical locations).

So, doesn’t this make the case all that much stronger than humans and apes share a common ancestor? After all, what kind of intelligent designer would have put so much shared “junk” in both of our genomes?

Well, recent research is turning out some surprising discoveries on what was once thought to be junk-DNA. Much of what was thought to be junk is turning out to be functional to one degree or another – to include ERVs.

For more information on this most interesting topic, please visit:

http://www.detectingdesign.com/pseudogenes.html

Sean Pitman

Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
Now you’re just projecting. How about putting your own ideas to the test and see where they stand? Isn’t it a bit strange that I’m willing to respond to questions and challenges regarding my position, but you are not? Are you willing to even consider that you might be wrong? What kind of evidence or demonstration would that take? – short of a conversion of most scientists?

I’ve spelled out quite clearly that my position is easily falsifiable and that I’d be more than willing to leave Adventism and even Christianity behind as convincingly falsified if reasonable evidence supporting the creative power of the Darwinian mechanism, or any other mindless naturalistic mechanism, could be produced… or that life has actually existed and evolved on this planet over hundreds of millions of years. I have no desire to believe in any falsehood – not matter how attractive it may seem to me. I really do desire to know the truth and follow where it leads as I am able to discover it.

What about you? What would make you leave agnosticism behind and consider that a personal God who thinks about you and cares for you and died for you actually exists?

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

P.S. By the way, science is also required to make leaps of faith. Science isn’t about absolute proof or demonstration. Science is about taking what little is known and using it to make educated leaps of faith into that which is not and cannot be known with absolute confidence.