From: bivalve (bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com)
Date: Tue Aug 05 2003 - 12:54:11 EDT
Richard wrote:
>there are plenty of natural phenomena that would produce the fibonacci sequence in plants, whereas there is no known phenomenon that would produce the sequence of primes in radio signals. In these cases we would distinguish between nature and design not on the basis of the algorythmic complexity of the sequence, but on our knowledge of the operation of natural laws.<
I think this is a basic problem of the current ID approach. In practice, we identify things as anthropogenically designed or not based on our knowledge of what occurs naturally, not on its complexity. For example, many of the mollusk shells in the lab here are more complex than many of the man-made objects, but I know that a growing snail makes the shell (in a spiral related to the Fibbonachi series) whereas a human makes the shelves.
Non-ID sequences can produce apparent ID. I mentioned some time ago that the amino acid sequence for cytochrome oxidase I in the female mitotype in many freshwater mussels contains the sequence GAINFIST. Although our treatment of freshwater habitats is such as to plausibly motivate molluscan militancy, this sequence is simply a coincidence.
Although failure to detect ID in many cases, such as Glenn's examples, does not show that the tests do not detect ID when they claim to, the abundance of false negatives begins to raise questions about the accuracy of the test. As a whole, the ID-proposed tests for design sound to me more like attempts to describe complex biological systems rather than attepts at comparing a large sample of ID and non-ID items and looking for differences.
I would agree with the objection of ID advocates that it cannot be ruled out a priori. However, I see the current ID movement as providing evidence against the merits of ID.
Dr. David Campbell
Old Seashells
University of Alabama
Biodiversity & Systematics
Dept. Biological Sciences
Box 870345
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0345 USA
bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com
That is Uncle Joe, taken in the masonic regalia of a Grand Exalted Periwinkle of the Mystic Order of Whelks-P.G. Wodehouse, Romance at Droitgate Spa
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