Designed artifact?
The Discoveroids have found a great example of how their “theory” of Intelligent Design works. Their post is High Five for a Design Inference. It’s by Casey Luskin, our favorite creationist.
Casey has previously attempted to explain their theory, but we don’t think he was successful — see Casey Defines “Complex and Specified Information”. He’s giving it another try today, this time with an example that even a Darwinist should be able to understand. He says, with bold font added by us:
If you’ve ever been to an introductory lecture on intelligent design by an ID advocate, there’s a good chance that you saw Mt. Rushmore invoked as a classic example of a structure in a natural setting that provokes an inference to design. These sort of illustrations are often used to help us understand how we make design inferences.
Ah yes, the Discoveroids’ theory is what enables us to determine that Mt. Rushmore is a designed artifact rather than a natural formation. Without it we’d all be befuddled. We’ve written about that argument before — see Mt. Rushmore Is Designed, Therefore …. Now Casey has another example. He says:
I was sick in bed this past weekend and watched a History Channel documentary about the Atacama Desert, which is said to be the driest place on earth. While doing some further Internet surfing, I discovered a cool structure in the middle of that same desert that ought to rival Mt. Rushmore as an example of a designed structure:
Then Casey’s article shows a couple of photos of Mano del Desierto (Hand of the Desert) in Chile. The picture you see above this post was in Wikipedia’s article. They say it’s 11 metres (36 ft) tall.
For once in your dull, dreary, and deluded Darwinist life, be honest with yourself, dear reader. If you were driving along the Pan American Highway and you saw the Hand of the Desert rising out of the sand almost four stories high, your first thought — as a Darwinist — would be: “Aha, that’s a natural formation, created by the blind, random forces of wind and rain.” That’s the same ignorant error you make when you contemplate the wonders of the biosphere. Wake up, you fool! Casey informs us:
Whatever the artistic interpretation, it’s a structure we immediately recognize as designed. We can recognize it as such because it exhibits high levels of specified complexity. It has an unlikely shape (making it complex) that precisely matches a pattern — that of the human hand (making it specified).
Ooooooooh! Specified complexity. That’s what the Discoveroids look for. Their mastery of their magnificent scientific theory reveals design in this case, while you wander around in a fog of Darwinist ignorance.
There’s only one more paragraph to Casey’s post:
We do not say, as Stephen Meyer jokes about the Rosetta Stone, “Isn’t it amazing what the powers of wind erosion can do!” And thus, not only our intuition, but also the methods of ID theory, confirm that this structure was designed.
That’s fantastic! Think about it, dear reader. The same scientific insight that enables them to conclude that the Hand of the Desert is a designed artifact is also what reveals to them that the universe is designed. They know what they’re doing, and it’s time you admitted it. Fat, dumb, and Darwinist is no way to go through life, son.
See also: The End Is Nigh!
Copyright © 2014. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.
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The Sensuous Curmudgeon 
Yea verily, ’tis a sign! The Intelligent Designer (Blessed be He/She/It!) can now be identified–as none other than The Master in Manos: The Hands of Fate!
Luskin should henceforth be known as Casey Torgo.
You have to hand it to Blustkin. You can thumb your nose at him and call him a knucklehead but he’s fingered something there. Seems he’s got it nailed, digit by digit. He’s not trying to palm something off on the world. Truly a man in the pinkie, he’s throwing the Discorrhoids a lifeline without being cuticle or backhanded about it.
*Groan* 😉
Ha, poor Gerbil is sick all right, but not the kind that can get relief from Contac, first or otherwise.
I used my fingers to determine if the Mano del Desierto was natural or artificial by typing “Wikipedia.” Sure enough, my fingers did the walking and mystery solved!
Like everything else, it’s designed because we know that humans designed it. So far, they have yet to find anything that they DIDN’T ALREADY KNOW was designed.
Once we at AtBC asked a IDiot if something was designed, we were told that he needed the history of the thing. He could tell us if it was designed or not after we told him if it was designed or not.
I just can’t understand how ID isn’t setting the scientific community ablaze.
So…does Little Casey think Mario Irarrázabal is the Designer? I swear, the discoverrhoids get stupider and more ridiculous by the day.
The question remains: was the Hand of God intelligently designed?
Casey said: I was sick in bed this past weekend …
I think that sickness he speaks of has been with him for many, many years, warped his mind no less. On the other hand, so to speak, the sickness he speaks of was clearly designed, clear evidence of the designer, and not the result of random mutations, etc.
Is there some reason to point out further examples of artistic creation? What would yet another sculpture, painting, or composition do to change one’s mind about “Intelligent Design”? Everybody can immediately think of a famous sculpture (“The Thinker”, “David”) – how does adding “Mano del desierto” to the list give us any new insight into ID? Does Luskin really think that, after having seen Mount Rushmore and the Sphynx, someone’s opinion might be changed on seeing another sculpture?
In fairness to the Discoveroids, they are using a perfectly valid form of logic. It’s modus ponens, which works like this:
The conclusion is valid, but its truth depends on the truth of the premises. In this case their first premise seems to be: “If anything is designed, then everything else is too.” And because the Hand of the Desert is designed, well then, so is everything else. It’s because of their unspoken first premise that they never identify anything that isn’t designed.
Perhaps Casey can apply his methodology to the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland. Is it designed, as some believe, or not?
I have never read an explanation of ID or CSI that wasn’t subjective. Casey states that “We can recognize it as such because it exhibits high levels of specified complexity” – but how is specified complexity measured, and in what units? I want to see his calculations. Otherwise, the thing just looks like a hand that someone carved in the desert. (Or maybe just the tip of a really big statue that someone buried.)
Forget it Ed. Being a Discoverrhoid means never having to show your work.
Ed, CSI is very much like US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s take on obscenity.
Ed insists: “I want to see his calculations. Otherwise, the thing just looks like a hand that someone carved in the desert.”
Why are you so dense? If the Hand was designed, then so was Uranus. And everything else.
Since humans can design and create things, often with perfection, it seems obvious that if humans were to design humans, there would be some significant improvements. As has been noted many times, shouldn’t the Ultimate Designer be capable of a flawless design?
When I see Mount Rushmore, I deduce “That was designed and made by humans.”
When I examine a strand of DNA, it would be idiotic to make the same deduction.
What’s “CSI” got to do with it?
At this point I always bring up New Hampshire’s late Old Man in the Mountain. Was that designed?
“an unlikely shape (making it complex) that precisely matches a pattern — that of the human hand (making it specified).”
So that’s how simple CSI, just two steps: 1. It has to be unlikely, 2. It has to match a pattern.
Now we just need definitions of ‘unlikely’ and ‘pattern’. Casey help me with more than 5 paragraphs please.
Hey Casey, is this big hand intelligently designed?
If you say no, your design detector issues a false positive, because this hand matches the same “hand” pattern as the sculpture above.
If you say yes, God is giving you the finger, Casey.
I’d like to see what Casey has to say about this formation:
Ah, the Cadillac Ranch. I’ve been there, before they moved it.
This looks like a psychological phenomenon, to me – a special case of pareidolia in which the stimulus is a good bit less random or abstract than usual. These folks never seem to take into account how their minds play tricks on them to make them act like fools.
Mark Germano, to explore further the deep connection between football and Oogity Boogity, a quasi-Socratic dialogue (advisory: mature content, mental age 12+).
retiredsciguy wants to post a pic of a certain rock formation for Casey’s benefit, but we can’t post pics in comments. So here’s a link.
Pareidolia does not make you a fool, but acting on pareidolia often does.
Here’s one of god’s creations being destroyed by nature.
“Fat, dumb, and Darwinist is no way to go through life, son.”
LOL! 😀
@SC: “If anything is designed, then everything else is too.”
Exactly. Jeffrey Shallit pointed out that this especially applies to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant's_Causeway
Ah, Ed beat me to it. For more details:
http://recursed.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-intellectual-fraud-of-intelligent.html
Five more examples:
http://www.cracked.com/article_20667_5-mind-blowing-things-you-wont-believe-were-built-by-nature.html
I seemed to remember Lusking babbling a bit about how ID uses the scientific method. And behold:
http://www.caseyluskin.com/id.htm
To save you your precious time: “This makes intelligent design a scientific theory capable of falsification and testing predictions.”
To be found at Step 3, Experiments.
The only honest conclusion is that Luskin’s “method” cannot distinguish between intelligently designed stuff and natural stuff. Not that we can expect him to address this issue, because that would violate SC’s excellent four steps summary of IDiot methodology.
OK, I have taken this nonsense seriously for long enough now.
The two photos I sent to SC were of the Kodachrome penis-like chimney, second from the right, top row of the smaller photos. It’s a natural formation in Kodachrome Basin State Park in Utah, not far from Bryce Canyon National Park.
So, if Casey Luskin wants to think this is the work of his Grand Old Designer (G.O.D.), he would then have to admit that the G.O.D. was a bit, shall we say, quirky?
The thing that puzzles me about “design” in this context is that the argument for design comes from people who think that the whole universe is designed.
Are they trying to say that some things in the universe are more designed than others?
Richard Forrest wonders
So it would seem–but they need an appropriate term for this particular attribute, methinks.
Perhaps: designiness? Or: specific complexiosity?
How about Complex and Specified Informationitude?
It appears a whole new scientific discipline is called for, namely schediometrology, that studies the patternality of things.
Good point Richard
retiredsciguy says: “Grand Old Designer (G.O.D.)”
That’s good!
Thanks, SC! Can’t believe no one thought of it before. Please feel free to use it at will. I hereby assign all rights to this most worthy blog.