| Subject: Actually... |
Author:
Duane
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Date Posted: 10/ 3/04 11:02pm
In reply to:
Wade A. Tisthammer
's message, "ALL systems?" on 10/ 3/04 12:16pm
>>It's very strange I tell you, they'll read books of
>>all sorts that basically hammer home the same point
>>over and over and over again, that all systems have a
>>tendency to move from a simple state to a complex
>>state
>
>That's what may be in books, but the problem is that
>point isn't quite true, and that none of the known
>"self-organizing" processes have the potential to
>create the kind of order we see in life.
Actually, it *is* true. You actually can believe some of what you read in books. I think you have some work to do to define some of the things you said here - like, what do you mean by the "kind" of order we see in life? And what do you consider to be the "known" self-organizing processes?
>Cars and other machinery tend to break down
>without continuous maintenance, for instance.
>All
>known organisms, even with constant maintenance from
>biochemical processes, also eventually die and break
>down.
But that doesn't actually address the issue of self-organization at all.
You're confusing two disparate issues. What Tumelo was talking about is the emergence of complexity from systems with simple, small-scale interactions. You're talking about how those systems eventually tend towards disorder. That they eventually tend towards disorder says nothing about how they arose to begin with. So I'm not sure why you included the above statements, as they prove nothing about self-organization.
>>all organizations that I've heard about have
>>all had that tendency, and unless I've been looking
>>somewhere else
Self-organization is almost a neccessary consequence of any system with enough simple rules of interaction and enough fundamental entities. To quantify my use of "enough," consider the "Game of Life" computer simulation created by John Horton Conway in the 60's. A system with 2 fundemental entities ( 0 and 1 ) with 3 rules of interaction was able to demonstrate persistent patterns of complex organization. Certainly the natural universe has at LEAST the equivalent amount of rules and fundamental entities.
>Given the real facts at hand (which
>you seem to be somewhat ignorant of, given the remark
>about all systems moving towards higher complexity),
>it shouldn't be surprising that by now there are a few
>scientists thinking that they don't exist.
It's quite ironic that you'd be accusing someone of being ignorant of the facts in this case, when it seems to be you who are ignorant of the facts. Self-organization has been observed for absurdly simple artificial systems. It is a property observed in both artificial AND real biological systems. The fact that nearly EVERY identifiable system exhibits complex emergent qualities is a well-documented and widely accepted fact.
I think you might benefit from a little time spent away from the apologetics texts, reading actual textbooks.
>>friend "Behe" would be
>>wise not only to give a plausible reason for his
>>continued support for a theory as outlandish as ID
>
>I don't see why it's outlandish. We humans infer
>design all the time. Isn't it possible, at least in
>principle, to infer design from life?
Sure, it's possible, and it's a neat idea, too. But ID ends there - it's just a neato idea, without anything new or innovative to prop it up. It's a reinterpretation of existing facts, and not a particularly good one, at that.
>Behe and other ID adherents have tried to present
>plausible reasons for their theory. And I think some
>of them, at least in principle, are quite plausible.
>Nonetheless, I still think we should keep at it a few
>decades to confirm the prediction of ID theory.
And that's fine - the proponents of ID *can* keep at it. But you can't expect anyone to believe you until you can demonstrate at least some evidence (and by evidence I mean actual observable phenomenon) that's not just a reinterpretation of existing facts. Because ID's reinterpretation requires a new strong assumption - the existence of an Intelligent Designer. It's a pretty astounding claim, and you need pretty astounding evidence to back it up.
>ID theory in its current state does provide testable
>and potentially falsifiable predictions. One example:
>we should not be able find any non-artificial
>processes that are reasonably capable of creating life
>from non-life.
Well, we're steadily making progress towards that. The latest hypotheses have been at least preliminarily verified, and they seem to agree even with our latest pending shift in the central dogma of genetics (You can Google "RNA origins of life" to get started - Breaker at Yale did some neat stuff at Yale in 98, still doing interesting work on the capabilities of naturally-occurring RNA molecules.)
>Perhaps decades of fervent research
>are needed to confirm this prediction before ID theory
>is accepted, but I see no reason to reject ID theory
>by fiat like some opponents seem to want to do.
No, Wade - it's not being rejected by fiat. It's just that ID hasn't shown itself to be anything more than a wishful-thinking, "Uh.. It also could have involved God" hypothesis.
If ID ever starts producing some real results, you can bet people will sit up and take notice. So, really, Wade, you have nothing to worry about.
>Additionally, there are other positive arguments for
>ID theory besides this testable prediction.
Which are?
>I think
>that the prediction will continue to be confirmed, and
>that ID theory will eventually be accepted, though I
>don’t expect it to happen within my lifetime.
And I think that WHEN the prediction is falsified ID proponents will probably deny it, claiming that it's still not good enough.
Duane
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