…and this is a 
It was very simple: DIRP.
I knew ahead of time exactly what it was going to be: complexity, complexity, complexity, complexity, complexity, complexity, complexity, therefore, DESIGN. It doesn't follow. The logic is nonexistent. It's the kind of thing you'd expect a competent person with a Ph.D. in philosophy to recognize, but no, it's the same ol' thing, trotted out every time they get up to speak.
COMPLEXITY DOES NOT IMPLY DESIGN. You can build up an awesome mess of complexity by accident, so you need to demonstrate something other than complexity to demonstrate intent.
Politics
Comments
Posted by: SEF
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September 30, 2009 10:22 AM
Public Service Post (for anyone else having difficulty even getting the TypeKey/typepad sign-in option to appear or getting the faulty MovableType URL):
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Posted by: Stephen Wells
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September 30, 2009 10:27 AM
Are they still doing the "humans make things function by deliberate design, therefore everything functions by deliberate design" thing?
It's wonderufl logic if you apply it more widely. For example, humans fly using jet engines, therefore birds fly using jet engines.
Posted by: Rhology
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September 30, 2009 10:33 AM
So let's see.
From tonight's performance, we have:
-Meyer and Wells LOTS
-Darwinists in attendance ZERO
Seriously you guys. The best you can do during the Q&A is
1) Have Prof Hutchison ask why it's proper to quote non-ID people expressing their views on a relevant topic (and then have Prof Hutchison warmly pat Dr Meyer on the arm and tell him that he didn't ask another question b/c he didn't want to embarrass him)?
2) Ask about the presence of ERVs evidenced during mammalian evolution (which is, for the uninitiated, AFTER the Cambrian explosion) (oh yeah, the DVD was about nothing but the Cambrian explosion)?
3) Ask about Hox genes and gene duplication (and then go into a tizzy [that's you, Ola F] when challenged on why a Designer just couldn't conceivably want to do it that way)?
4) Ask why a Designer would make it so humans share lots of similar genes with other organisms? (Dunno, maybe b/c they work well and the Designer doesn't like to reinvent the wheel every time? Maybe?)
5) Ask why the DVD sometimes said "designers" and sometimes "Designer"?
6) Ask whether using the normally-accepted geological scale was an intentional jab at YEC?
7) Beg the question repeatedly and mercilessly when asked to give an explanation for one's materialistic views (that was you, Prof Hutchison)?
Umm, so yeah. Not exactly the best of performances from our Darwinist friends. Send us more, we're hungry.
Peace,
Rhology
Posted by: Zifnab
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September 30, 2009 10:36 AM
It's the most lazy of the intelligent design arguments.
1) This shit is confusing
2) ???
3) GOD DID IT!
And I absolutely love their absolute refusal to discuss mechanisms of intelligent design. Even the Scientologists had the balls to lay their Thetan alien bacteria on the table. But Meyer won't get within a metric mile of the "God Hand" that is supposed to be influencing animal development.
Posted by: Stephen Wells
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September 30, 2009 10:37 AM
It's Rhology, copy-pasting from ERV to here! As if anyone were listening!
For hints, nobody has to disprove that a god did anything. If you think it did, give evidence why it did. If your evidence is "there's no reason a god couldn't have made it look like just like evolutionary theory predicts", you have no evidence. Toodles.
Posted by: claw
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September 30, 2009 10:42 AM
Weather patterns are complex. Weather patterns sometimes act as though they have deliberate intent or purpose (they hate trailer parks, rain on weddin days -isn't that ironic?).
Since they are complex, they must therefore be designed. Somewhere there must be a giant weather control machine controlling/making the weather.
It is also complex. Therefore someone must have designed it and be operating it right now.
That person(s) is/are complex enough to design complex machinery to affect complex systems. Therefore they must have been deliberately designed...
Gets us nowhere on where the machine is or who built it. But it certainly refutes the notion that weather is simply the result of natural processes.
oh, wait.
Posted by: Glen Davidson
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September 30, 2009 10:44 AM
Somehow I think that an intelligent rational designer would have made a Stephen Meyer (who apparently isn't naturally stupid) that could think rationally.
Here's the thing, Meyer. A rational designer would have left behind rational designs, presumably produced for a purpose. Not a purposely-made bunch of parasite-host and predator-prey relationships as predicted by evolution (you know, the real theory).
No rational design of organisms, no rational reason to infer design.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
Posted by: Matt Penfold
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September 30, 2009 10:50 AM
Any halfway competent mathematician or computer scientist knows you do not need design to get complexity.
Following the rules of simple algorithms can also produce complexity as anyone who has looked at fractals can confirm. For even more complexity that is very hard to pick apart simply take a number of simple algorithms and let the outputs interact.
Posted by: RickR
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September 30, 2009 11:04 AM
All these bullshit talks about complexity and design and "Darwinism". The sham of a scientific non-troversy. All these IDiots trying to 'score points' against evolutionary biology, trying as hard as their little brains will allow to make a design argument look sciencey.
And for what? All to advance a conservative christian political agenda. That's all it's for. They admit it themselves.
All so that they don't have to look at 2 pages of ancient scribbling from a holy book and say "maybe it's a metaphor".
What a waste of skin.
Posted by: James Sweet
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September 30, 2009 11:08 AM
I always thought it was spelled "DERP"...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_staff_at_South_Park_Elementary#Mr._Derp
Posted by: Matt Penfold
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September 30, 2009 11:11 AM
I would add, for the benefit of anyone like Rhology who is hard of thinking, that natural selection (and the other evolutionary mechanisms) are really pretty simple.
We know they are simple because we can model them with not much effort.
Posted by: Zifnab
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September 30, 2009 11:21 AM
#2:
It's for more than that. It's about power. When you start questioning the underpinnings of the faith, suddenly you can't just forgive and forget a pack of child molesters. If the churches loss their divine luster, people start talking about taxing them like every other business. And the "Morale Values" platform starts getting shaky when the faith healers and snake oil salesmen have to start proving their worth.
You can push a lot of ridiculous political agendas under the cover of religion. Tax cuts. Foreign wars. Corporate give-aways. Just cook up some jango about the Bible saying Social Security is a sin, or lift a few passages from Revelation to lash out at the UN. It's a potent political weapon to set a very secular agenda.
Posted by: eurycea
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September 30, 2009 11:41 AM
As often the case, Rhology (#3) gets it wrong. (1) As I was leaving the auditorium Meyer turned and stuck out his hand and thanked me for coming. I did not tell Meyer that I did not ask another question because I did not want to embarrass him. I did tell Meyer that I disagreed with almost all of his views. Also, the point about non-ID people interviewed in the film was that Morris and Valentine had stated that they were not told what the film was about when interviewed. Valentine has issued a statement stating that and that he does not support the ID position; the statement was posted on the Oklahoma Evolution List Serve. My question was based in part on Valentine's statement.
Previously, on ERV Rho falsely falsely accused me of calling someone an asshole, saying that one should not comment on biological topics if they are not a biologist, etc. For a supposed 'Christian' he often gets it wrong when it comes to telling the truth. Perhaps he uses pious lies to advance his beliefs?
Rhology's point (7) is based on a conversation with him after the film when he entered a conversation I was having with another person (which Rhology often does). His description of 'begging the question' was simply that I did not give an answer to his question of where one gets a materialistic view. He does have a knack for twisting things, as many have pointed out on various blogs, over and over. Missionary Rhology believes, as is his right, that the only acceptable worldview is one that comes from his Holy Bible.
NONE of the questions/remarks after the film were ID friendly and all were valid and pertinent to things in the film. The very long convoluted answers especially by Meyer left little time for questioning by the audience. Questions were stopped too soon, in my opinion. Wells and Meyer did stay up front to talk with attendees (mostly their supporters).
Little was said about OU paleontologist (and an expert on the Cambrian) Stephen Westrop's excellent and well-attended talk that was given just prior to the film. Steve lucidly explained what we know about he Cambrian and showed with real scientific information why the main conclusions in the DI film were not supportable. The only comment made by Wells or Meyer was that the time line of Westrop and the film were different.
The talk by Meyer on 'Signature in the Cell' the previous night had to be something of a disappointment to the DI. The auditorium was only about 50% filled, after a barrage of press releases, posted notices and sidewalk chalkings, etc. A few years ago Dembski had a large overflow crowd at the same place. Also, most of the questions (all but one as I recall) were by opponents of the talk.
Despite the ballyhoo on the DI web site, the events at OU were no big deal for the DI, despite John West's posts on the DI blog!
Posted by: Zifnab
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September 30, 2009 11:46 AM
Dumb, dumb. That's supposed to be #9 not #2.
Posted by: ERV
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September 30, 2009 12:00 PM
More on Meyer
It was probably the most non-scientific 'science' talk I have ever seen. +25 year-old quotes from old/dead men, 'IZ NUT PRO-BABBLY!' for the next 45 minutes.
Megafail.
Posted by: Marcus J. Ranum
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September 30, 2009 12:14 PM
Cretards never seem to get the relationship between things that are designed and things that are self-organizing. Take, for example, the plumbing network of New York City - it's insanely complicated and (if anyone could understand it in detail) it'd be impossible to see it as arising from random chance. Not as a whole. But, actually simple rules like "most buildings have a toilet" and "kitchens like hot and cold running water" result in massively complex working and interdependent systems that are NOT designed. There is no "designer" of New York City. Buy I suppose a complete idiot could look at it and think it was designed.
Posted by: Glen Davidson
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September 30, 2009 12:51 PM
Another report on Meyer's talk
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
Posted by: Rhology
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September 30, 2009 12:57 PM
eurycea @13 -
I did not tell Meyer that I did not ask another question because I did not want to embarrass him.
That is precisely what Meyer told me you said to him. But fine, whatever.
Rho falsely falsely accused me of calling someone an asshole
I merely inferred from existing evidence and past observation, sir. Or do only "scientists" get to do that? Sheesh.
For example, you hear what you want to hear. You told me "I've read your arguments and they aren't any good" (exact quote) and yet when I started walking you thru a very elementary example of one of "my" arguments, you showed no comprehension of it. Three times in a row. I'm sure you can think of a colorful adjective to describe someone who talks a big line but fails to understand a simple reductio argument three times in a row, sir.
Peace,
Rhology
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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September 30, 2009 1:04 PM
Rology, you have no arguments. Just sophistry. You see, your god doesn't exist as far as science is concerned, so anything that has god as a cause or result of an observation isn't scientific. Only more science can refute science. So anything that includes god can't refute science, as it is a religious argument. Science can't refute religion either, but it can make religion look silly. That is your problem. You look and sound silly.
Posted by: Randy Crum
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September 30, 2009 1:08 PM
Indeed complexity does not imply design. Often a lack of complexity implies design.
My favorite example is the stone monolith in the book and movie "2001 - A Space Odyssey". In the context of the plot the very purpose of the monolith was to demonstrate intelligent design and it did so very persuasively.
But the monolith had probably the least complex shape possible - a simple rectangle.
Posted by: bobxxxx
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September 30, 2009 1:28 PM
"complexity, complexity, complexity, complexity, complexity, complexity, complexity, therefore, DESIGN."
Too complex for a Disco retard, therefore MAGIC.
Posted by: Glen Davidson
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September 30, 2009 1:44 PM
Bizarrely, though, Dembski would call that complex. He calls "complex" anything that is unlikely to form "naturally," which to me appears to be a cynically dishonest ploy (but who really knows what afflicts his appalling mind?) to "compare" the relatively simple objects that archaeologists find that humans made to the highly complex life that in fact differs enormously in complexity from at least "primitive objects."
And Meyer depends heavily upon Dembski's "work." Whether this includes that bit of dishonesty (it's dishonest in the larger context, even if Dembski doesn't know it), I really don't know, as I'm not willing to subsidize Meyer's dishonesty, and will only read his book when I can do so for free.
So yes, what it looks like is that Dembski realized that simplicity often is the least ambiguous marker for design, and decided to re-define order as "complexity" because it is the antithesis of life's complexity, and he really needed to lie that simple human designs are like complex life's non-design. He may be that deluded, but it looks like a deliberate lie when we have no access to his psychological profile.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
Posted by: GourmetJesus
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September 30, 2009 2:30 PM
I find the argument that 'life is so complex that it must have an intelligence behind it' to be so simplistic that there can't possibly be any intelligence behind the argument.
So there.
Posted by: maddog
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September 30, 2009 2:48 PM
sorry, posted this in the wrong thread initially ...
What does DIRP stand for?
Posted by: Zetetic
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September 30, 2009 3:22 PM
So Rho...
Why don't you let us know when the I.D. "movement" progresses from being just a P.R. campaign based on an overly convoluted argument from ignorance, and pandering to theocrats, to starting to act like real science.
You know things like describing
godthe "designer", describing a mechanism for the changes, and making testable (read: falsifiable) predictions. Appealing to a deliberately ignorant public (and the self-deceived) does nothing to make the cdesign proponentsists more scientific. Strangely when the cdesign proponentsists are asked (repeatedly) to provide some scientific backing for their little proclamations, they pointedly refuse to do so. Instead they'd rather just make ridiculous statements before a credulous (and usually very ignorant) public, instead of trying to work on any real science.When they stop acting like every other "crank" movement, trying to win through public opinion rather than science, then they'll be taken more seriously.
Posted by: Ol'Greg
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September 30, 2009 3:35 PM
I always relate it to programming. The more well designed it is the LESS complex it will be.
I should know because if I made it, it's bound to be complex :P
Posted by: ERV
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September 30, 2009 3:38 PM
maddog-- Nothing. Its just a sound stupid people make.
"JUNK DNA PROVES HUMANS AND CHIMPS WERE SPECIALLY CREATED! DIRP!"
Posted by: Free Lunch
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September 30, 2009 5:10 PM
Rhology,
Do you really expect anyone hear to buy the false claims you cheerfully make? Really? You've demonstrated both that you do not understand science and that you will not accept criticism of the errors and false statements you make. What do you expect from people who care about science?
Posted by: ckitching
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September 30, 2009 5:45 PM
Snowflakes are complex formation of frozen water crystals. Therefore, god(s) hand-crafts every single snowflake using unique patterns. When they run out of unique snowflakes, it's game over - end of the world. If there wasn't an intelligent snowflake designer, all snowflakes would simply be square because there would be no reason for them to be complex.
Teach the controversy! Intelligent Snowflake Design must be taught!
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM
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September 30, 2009 6:06 PM
eurycea #13
Lying for Jesus is a well-honed fundamentalist Christian tactic. Lying is a sin unless it's being done to promote a Christian idea. Apparently Jesus likes it when people lie in his name.
Posted by: amphiox
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September 30, 2009 6:45 PM
If the history of human engineering is anything to go by, there is an upper limit of complexity above which intelligently designed systems either break down, fall apart, or transition into a self-organizing system over which the original designer(s) no longer have any control.
There comes a point where a system has so many simultaneously interacting parts that a top-down, intelligently applied organization simply can't handle it anymore.
Whereas self-organized systems routinely, and easily, go past this complexity barrier, and most biological and ecological systems are well above this threshold.
I would say that extreme complexity, if anything, is a compelling argument AGAINST intelligent design.
Posted by: Miles670
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September 30, 2009 7:07 PM
I wasn't there. I didn't see this. But after readin stuff from this and the ERV website all i can see is that their are some fucking very very stupid people out there. Rhology? Who the fuck are you? If you were trying to be stupid out of some kind of joke then i could understand, i guess. But it looks like you really talk the way you write, and you write like a 5 year old. You clearly know that no-one cares for your opinion and you clearly know that your not wanted here, so why insist on posting? Mommy an Daddy not give you enough attention? Post your address an i'll send you a pack of cookies to shut you the fuck up.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler
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September 30, 2009 7:26 PM
ERV # @ 27: Its just a sound stupid people make.
Yahweh fuck it (it's that day, remember): I thought it stood for Disco Institoot Role-Playing...
Posted by: rock-biologist
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September 30, 2009 11:31 PM
Meyer doesn't understand the Cambrian Explosion and still hasn't owned up to being a party to academic misconduct. Stay classy, DI.
Posted by: 386sx
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October 1, 2009 2:34 AM
Oh Rhology is here.
Here's what Rhology amounts to:
You give some evidence, and then Rhology says you can't prove that Jesus didn't "poof" it that way with magic.
That's about it folks! Be he poe or not, he's not much different from ID theory, except that your typical ID theorist is a little more careful with finding the gaps for their god to crawl into.
Posted by: 386sx
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October 1, 2009 5:35 AM
All so that they don't have to look at 2 pages of ancient scribbling from a holy book and say "maybe it's a metaphor".
Metaphor for what? An ancient superstitious civilization who twirled birds around their heads knew enough wisdom of the universe to make "metaphors" about some really deep universe "thingy" stuff? Get real.
The whole "metaphor" thing is as big a sham as literalism. Granted, it does help people from being embarrassed for not twirling birdies around their heads, or talking donkeys, or whatever. So I guess it's progress. I guess!