Wyz_sub10

My quantum bunnies don't *need* websites. The truth does not need cyberconfirmation (well, except for cybertruth).

May the bunny be with you.

Starboy

Sounds good tgamble, political "judo". It will result in more a-theists than ever.

Richiyaado

Once the floodgates for teaching alternate theories have opened wide, I will vigorously undertake to promote Nic Tamzek's Invisible Tinkering Warrior Armies hypothesis, which I believe provides a much more robust explanation than any lame Invisible Pink Unicorn theory. And quantum bunnies don't even deserve to be capitalized.

Not only do ITWAs provide far greater insight into escalating predator/prey relationships over time, they're also quite compatible with everything from antibiotic resistance of bacteria to many types of genetically-borne disease. These things simply make no sense without many ITWAs arrayed against each other.

No, I will not stop until the ITWA hypothesis is known to every schoolchild in America!

Quantum bunnies? Flapdoodle! A single Invisible Pink Unicorn? Codswallop! Tell me another one!

[edited to refine theory]

[ August 24, 2002: Message edited by: Richiyaado ]</p>

strubenuff

There pushing only for ID. That would eb the alternative theory. No 7 day creation, no wolves and spiders, just an intelligent design.

Coragyps

Go fornicate with thyself, foul heretic heathen!

A very similar tactic needs desperately to be tried on the "bring back prayer in our schools" crowd. Can you even imagine Joe Bob Baptist out here in Texas when he's told that the kids can say "An' we wanna' jes' thank yuh, Lawd..." 43 days of the school year, but "Hail Mary, full of grace.." in Spanish for 74 days?

Gutterboy

ID is not a scientific theory. As has already been pointed out, there is nothing to teach.

Its also been noted that giving equal time to creationism presents a great opportunity for science teachers to expose it in the science classroom for the nonsense that it is. Personally I would *love* to teach a science class where we had to discuss intelligent design. The children would learn all about the coherence and efficacy of methodological naturalism, as well as things like arguments and inferences from ignorance

Nic Tamzek

As readers can see, ITWA Theory is already gaining support. Furthermore, there is ongoing, soon to be published research by researchers who will remain nameless. And my fifth-grade teacher said I was a good writer.

And of course, even the Darwinist Orthodoxy cannot avoid the use of the term "tinkerer", as is shown by a PubMed search:

<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?CMD=&DB=PubMed" target="_blank">Type "evolution tinkerer" here</a>

These and other ITWA-Theory-relevant articles are going to be compiled in a list and submitted to the Ohio BOE as further evidence that they should decide a "Teach the Controversy" towards ITWA Theory in public schools.

Finally, I have concocted my very own important-sounding-but-hard-to-nail-down-buzzword-that-disproves-evolution. I call it "Definitional Complexity", or "DC" for short.

Biological structures are Definitionally Complex if their existence disproves evolution "by definition". Examples include such criteria as Dembski's "Specified Complexity" and Behe's "Irreducible Complexity", both of which are often defined essentially as "that which unintelligent natural processes cannot produce". Since DC structures disprove evolution by definition, and because people usually don't notice when we identify DC structures by such criteria as "gee that's complex" rather than an analysis of realistic evolutionary scenarios, then ITWA and ID theorists can disprove evolution without doing any real biological work. I must here admit my indebtedness to the giants of ID whose shoulders I stand on in this regard.

However, ID is not the whole story. ITWA Theorists' contribution to the Origins Debate has been to note that all of the DC structures favored by the ID movement appear to have the primary purpose, not of doing something useful for the designer (like shovels and keyboards serve the purposes of human designers), but of either (1) killing other critters or (2) avoiding being killed by other critters. Very often, the DC structures are arranged against each other in complementary fashion -- for example, animal immune systems often have dedicated components specialized to detect bacterial flagella and attack their bearers; bacteria, on the other hand, often have needle-like injection systems, called "Type III transport systems" -- using components very similar to flagellar components by the way, a clear case of tinkering, but I'm getting ahead of myself -- which one recent research article has described as a "complex weapon for close combat" (<a href="http://micro.annualreviews.org/cgi/content/full/54/1/735" target="_blank">Cornelis and Gijsegem, 2000</a>) -- a clear allusion to ITWA Theory if I ever heard one.

This design-vs.-design pattern is ubiquitous in biology -- in fact, I would go so far as to say that most of the most impressive "designs" in biology appear to have the primary purpose of defeating other designs. This is the key point that undermines ID, because an Intelligent Designer cannot be expected to work at such dramatic cross-purposes to himself. It's like building a very complex bulldozer that elegantly and efficiently scoops up dirt, and in the same motion elegantly and efficiently puts it back in the same hole. Clearly something is amiss with ID "theory".

However, ITWA Theory has developed a method for detecting the source of the DC seen in biology. I call it the DefCom Filter, on analogy with both Dembski's Design Filter and with the Defense Department's DefCon system for military alert status in times of immanent nuclear war.

Here is the filter. You input a biological system or structure and follow the steps, and the cause is output.

1) Is the system reasonably attributable to chance?

Yes: It was probably caused by chance
No: Go to step 2

2) Is the system reasonably attributable to "law", i.e. natural regularity?

Yes: It was probably caused by the action of natural law.
No: Go to step 3

3) Is the system reasonably attributable to the action of law and chance together? Keep in mind that since chance can't do anything by itself, it can't do anything more when combined with law, so this boils down to chance.

Yes: It was probably caused by the action of natural law and chance together.

No: The biological system is Definitionally Complex. Go to step 4.

4) But what about this reasonable evolutionary scenario, relying on mutation and natural selection, and supported by these 50 references from the peer-reviewed literature which you seem completely ignorant of? Shouldn't that be considered?

Yes: Ooops, this system wasn't DC after all. Quietly drop this from your list of oft-cited examples but whatever you do, don't admit your error.

No: The system is Definitionally Complex, therefore by definition it couldn't have evolved, therefore it is not a viable chance + law hypothesis. I am not impressed by your just-so stories because my supporters do not check PubMed. Continue to step 5.

(5) OK, so it's DC. But what is the DefCom Level?

I don't have time to explain the entire DefCom system, but the basic idea is that DefCom 1 is pitched battle, with multiple expensive measures and countermeasures, whereas DefCom 5 is very mild, perhaps even mutualistic cooperation.

However, what DefCom 1-5 all have in common is that the DC systems fundamentally enhance the reproduction of the organism with the system; that is, they are genetically selfish. I propose the hypothetical category DefCom 6 for a system that helps not the genes of the holding organism, but rather the designer.

With this terminology set up, we can move on to:

(6) Is the DefCom Level 1-5?

Yes: The "design" was effected by Tinkering Warrior Armies

No: Go to Step 7

(7) Is the DefCom Level greater than 5?

Yes: Intelligent Design is the probable explanation

No (or N/A): Indeterminate result.


This filter gets no false positives, that is, when it identifies TWA, it does so correctly.

Nic "The Isaac Newton of Complexity Theory" Tamzek

PS: Others, inspired by the promise of ITWA Theory, are encouraged to contribute additional original research to the article posted here. A suitably entertaining group-author article might even be suitable for posting to Dembski's favorite publishing venue, metanexus.

nic

Richiyaado

Some in the ID movement may object to ITWA Theory, citing the oft-repeated claim that ID does not require identifying the designer to be seriously considered by science. They may argue that a design "inference" alone is sufficient. But this only yields an impasse that is born out by the ID movement's own history. The fact is that in ten years no line of actual ID research has been proposed. Nor has any been done.

Fortunately, ITWA Theory provides a way out of this research impasse by proposing to address one of the most nettlesome questions inherent in ID. The question is: Why does the lone designer design defensive structures and systems in one organism, only to design offensive structures and systems in other organisms which can defeat them? This cycle escalates endlessly, and is ubiquitous throughout the living world.

The answer should be obvious: There's more than one designer! ITWA Theory boldly proclaims that a single designer divided against itself cannot stand!

No lone designer will do. ITWA Theory has already proven to be fruitful ground for a robust, rewarding research program, as Nic's PubMed search shows.

Further, with the refining additions of Definitional Complexity and The DefCom Filter, ITWA Theory should provide many promising avenues of significant research for many years to come.

This is an exciting new era for science and the renewal of culture, and no child should be left behind. In a more open climate of "teach all theories", ITWA Theory is poised to lead the pack!

Albion

Oh, you mean it's two intelligent designers having a war of one-upmanship with each other and planet Earth is the battleground? So actually, since the IDists have decided it must be a God, that means that there are two Gods. Pretty well-matched, too.

Nic Tamzek

There are several additional advantages of ITWA Theory that should be mentioned:

(1) Nonreligious. Both ID and IPU Theory are clearly motivated by religious concerns, see for example the "Center for Renewal of Science and Culture" at <a href="http://www.discovery.org" target="_blank">www.discovery.org</a> (ID) or the <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=invisible+pink+unicorn" target="_blank">numerous temples and other devotions to the IPU</a> that turn up in a google search.

Some have pointed out that ITWA Theory appears to match up well with the Hindu religion, for example the titanic battles portrayed in the Bhagavad Gita, and more generally the continual drive towards improvement implicit in reincarnation theories. But I assure you that scientific work on ITWA Theory is independent of these ideas, although of course all origins theories have religious consequences, and of course our money has to come from somewhere.

(2) Social value. As ITWA Theorists' analysis of ID Theory has shown, the concept of a single IDer does not match up with biological reality, and if it is shoehorned into fitting, the resulting IDer is not one suitable for the renewal of science and culture. ITWA Theory has an advantage here as well, as it clearly shows that humans are designed to function most happily, productively, and harmoniously in one specific arrangement: Cold War.

The Cold War was the "good ol' days" for humanity, according to ITWA Theory, and the triumph of Monism (one power controls all -- natural selection in Darwinism, The IDer in ID, or in global politics, the United States) has had manifest dire consequences in the form of social and moral decay, and decreased defense spending while environmental concerns increase. We note solidarity with the Discovery Institute on all of these problems, we just think that their theoretical foundation is a bit weak.

In sum, ITWA Theory not only will revolutionize science, but culture as well, as it will revive the ancient idea that humans only achieve their highest flowering when they face immanent destruction at the hands of a super-powerful enemy.

Nic