The argument from design is self defeating.

[billy rubin]

https://imgur.com/gallery/rube-goldberg-tvFbBHB

what about this? its a more complex wuestion than i have time to ask atm, but how do i percieve intent?

what shared culture is necessary ti distinguish a broken rock from a paleolithic hand axe?

[Dark Lightning]

My take is from recent xtians. They can't conceive of how a human being could be in their current configuration without someone designing them. Adam and Eve as a start is the problem. Figure whatever mud or ocean or combination thereof held myriad chemicals what somehow formed into molecules and then into single-cell organisms. Religious people tend to equate abiogenesis with evolution, a basic misunderstanding. The vastness of those reactions that gradually lead to multicellular life is mind-boggling, but ignored for the creation story. Some religious person should come in and explain it...

And even if they can grasp what you say they are obliged to deny it.

Denial, yes. Apologetics...means making excuses instead.

[billy rubin]

here it is



^^^this is a designed machine. can its design be detected? how?

can intent be identified? how would we do that?

i can see how a crystal is not a designed thing, but i do NOT see how i can detect design or not-design. remove all the subjective thoughts and just look at the crystal, at paley's pocket watch, and atthe rube goldberg device above.

how do we identify intent?

A watch is a perfect example of structure with intent. A snail is also a perfect example of structure with intent. But a watch is constructed as a finished entity, a snail on the other hand is a living growing organism. So there is the basic false equivalency between a 'dead' externally designed mechanism and a 'live' internally grown organism. This fundamental difference is the flaw in Paley's equivalency.

what about this?

[Tank]

https://imgur.com/gallery/rube-goldberg-tvFbBHB

what about this? its a more complex wuestion than i have time to ask atm, but how do i percieve intent?

The intent here is to illicit a humorous response. So can your perception change from before you see the cartoon to after it? One can understand the transition from an initial state to a post stare and the 'mechanism' (whatever it may be) has caused that state change.

what shared culture is necessary ti distinguish a broken rock from a paleolithic hand axe?

I'm not sure a shared culture is necessary. Being able to recognise the probability of the item existing in its broken state vs it's manufactured state is what implies intent IMO.

[Tank]

"can intent be identified? how would we do that?"

How has energy been expended to create the item/mechanism and has any of that energy reduced entropy in the item/mechanism? In both the watch and the snail energy has been expended to reduce/limit entropy.

[Tank]

...

A watch is a perfect example of structure with intent. A snail is also a perfect example of structure with intent. But a watch is constructed as a finished entity, a snail on the other hand is a living growing organism. So there is the basic false equivalency between a 'dead' externally designed mechanism and a 'live' internally grown organism. This fundamental difference is the flaw in Paley's equivalency.

what about this?

The person who nurtures and prunes the tree expends energy to create a specific outcome. Pauly would have seen intent and implied a designer from the bonsai or a watch. As you say there is cultural interpretation here. However if you place a bonsai tree net to a natural tree in the same circumstances what are the relative probabilities of the two outcomes as the tree grows. 

[billy rubin]

i dont know. tank, you have brought up a really hard question.

i dont know how to detect design because i dont know of any characteristics that a designed artifact possesses, that are unique to design. as you say, intent is critical, but what does it look like?

if i take a dead bird and hang it under the eaves so that it can age until rotted sufficiently for me to cook, i have designed something.

if a bird dies on a flat rock and rots in the sun all by itself, it is not designed.

if i came across either, in isolation, i couldt tell the difference.

i have hsd long conversations wirh people who are supporters of intelligent design, fine tuning of the universe, cosmological constants, scriptural principles  and on an on. its fascinating, and mostly they think very stupid things, even though they may be very intelligent.

i dont know how to detect design and i am skeptical of people who say they can. sure, given cultural prerequisites and special pleading, i can tell a rock from michaelangelos david. but could i distinguish the presence or absence of design in a beam of light versus a symphony?

there are a lot of assumptions in there that make it possible to do after the fact identification. but i want to understand how to distinguish the two before the fact. i do not know how.