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From: bch@mcnc.UUCP (Byron Howes)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: codes, design, creation, intelligence
Message-ID: <617@mcnc.mcnc.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 11-Jul-85 10:31:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: mcnc.617
Posted: Thu Jul 11 10:31:12 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Jul-85 14:30:21 EDT
References: <1270@uwmacc.UUCP>
Reply-To: bch@mcnc.UUCP (Byron Howes)
Distribution: net
Organization: North Carolina Educational Computing Service
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In article dubois@uwmacc.UUCP (A Ray Miller) writes:

>A few weeks back on CNN, there was a little story on SETI, the
>Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.  This is a big telescope at Harvard
>(staffed only be evolutionists, of course) which has been scanning the skies
>for the last 25 years, hunting for evidence of life on another planet.  They do
>this by examining the electromagnetic frequency spectrum, looking for "evidence
>of design".  This has several implications for net.origins.

Who are you quoting here, Ray, when you say "evidence of design."  I do not
recall that term in the program.  I do recall the words non-random, with no
implication of design.

>     First, the SETI group must feel that time, chance, and natural processes
>are not sufficient to produce a code capable of carrying information.  In this
>case, the code is electromagnetic.  Anyone currently reading this note is
>looking at a 26 letter code and no one, I'm sure, thinks it was produced by a
>random-letter generator, or a bug, or any other form of time, chance, and
>natural processes. 

No, but then I'm not convinced it was produced by a sentient being, either :-)
(Sorry, Ray, you fed me that straight line.)

>When we look at the DNA of *any* life form, it is also a
>code (of a 4 chemical alphabet) which is far more advanced than any babble I'm
>likely to produce.  The media on which the code is carried is unimportant.
>Why then do we say DNA was produced by time, chance, and natural processes?

DNA is quite imperfect, actually.  There is unnecessary redundancy and whole
sections which perform no obvious function.  There are things that don't
work at all and a nasty tendancy for having bits and pieces knocked out by
chemical action.  While you may believe that its structure indicates design,
you have to admit that even the most reasonable of human engineers could do
a better job of designing.  Again, it is the imperfections and just plain
dysfunctional characteristics of your so-called "design" which suggest an
evolution rather than creation of function.

>    Second, SETI claims they can recognize a designed object, i.e., one which
>requires intelligence (the I in SETI).  Note that this is not due to any
>inherent properties in the object itself.  The designed object will be some
>pattern of electromagnetic frequency in a sea of random electromagnetic fre-
>quencies.  It must be, therefore, be due solely to the nature of the pattern
>itself, i.e., a code carrying some information.  Yet not a week goes by on this
>net that we don't hear evolutionists tell us they can't recognize evidence of
>design and intelligence.  They tell us this, of course, only when it's
>convenient, in other words, when they're talking to creationists.  When
>they're working on SETI, or looking for arrowheads made out of rocks just like
>all the other rocks lying on the ground, or noticing the difference between a
>sandcastle on a beach and the patterns waves make on that same beach, then -
>well, even a child can recognize that which took creative thought and that
>which natural processes can produce.

Horsesh*t, Ray, and you know it.  You even contradict yourself below when
you admit that the SETI scientists confess that the only non-random pattern
found turned out to be a pulsar.  Again, the word "designed" in this context
was not in the original program, but is your own creation -- perhaps a
fantasy.  What the SETI scientists can recognize are patterns, but patterns
in themselves do not denote design or intelligence.  

>     (A footnote here.  Symmetry, such as that formed in a crystal like ice,
>provides no help for the evolutionists, despite comments by some on this net.
>One of the guys CNN talked to from SETI mentioned they got a symmetric pattern
>once - they had discovered a pulsar.  It contained no information, however, and
>although an important discovery, provided no hope of ever producing life.)

Hey!  You guys are the ones maintaining that patterns indicate an active
designer.  Despite your assertions, neither the SETI scientists nor any
evolutionary scientist here has said that.  You're arguing our side of the
question again  (Oh, I forgot, this is the same A. Ray Miller who in his
first posting to the net said he was undecided about creation vs. evolution.
It was only later that we found out he was an ICR type in student's clothing.)

>     Finally, it is theoretically possible to translate the DNA patterns of
>E. coli into an electromagnetic pattern (DNA, of course, being based on a
>simple four character alphabet).  This is a simple mapping function, e.g.,
>these very words have been mapped several times into analog and digital elec-
>tronic values from when my fingers typed on 26 keys.  All are equivalent, of
>course.  If SETI were to pick up such a transmission of E. coli DNA patterns,
>it would be trivial to recognize, and no doubt the High Priest of Evolution,
>Carl Sagan, would say: "Aha!  We have evidence of an intelligent designer,
>which we have not seen directly, but must exist."  So when that same Carl
>Sagan sees E. coli here on earth, along with vastly more advanced forms of
>life expressing codes we haven't even begun to decipher, must less design
>ourselves (simply expressed in a chemical rather than electronic alphabet)
>what does he say?  "Evolution is a fact - like apples falling off trees."

Again, this is your straw man about what Carl Sagan would say, not based
on anything he has said nor on anything the SETI team has said (or was
reported in the television program.)

>P.S.  I'll put the shoe on the other foot now:  Would some evolutionist on the
>net care to give us a definition of design which would allow SETI to recognize
>created patterns but would differentiate against those patterns found here on
>earth evolutionists claim to be produced only by natural processes?  Well?????


Sure.  No problem.  Natural processes won't answer back when we try to
broadcast back to them, will they.  If we send a craft to visit the source,
there won't be anyone home if it is a natural process.  The point is that the
SETI team at no point said that a patterned transmission was *proof* of
intelligence.  That statement that they did would seem to be the product of
the creationist somewhat lower standard of proof.
-- 

						Byron C. Howes
				      ...!{decvax,akgua}!mcnc!ecsvax!bch