DescentBB

I have no doubt this thread will quickly degrade, but last week I watched a live web video broadcast of an Evo~ID talk, and really wanted to share it with interested parties here on the DBB.

The video is two hours long, but only the first hour is critical. The second hour is Q&A that is good but not great, since there were no challenge questions. I was hooked after the first 10 minutes and watched the whole thing.

This is the best thing I've ever seen on the ID~Evolution issue, and can't recommend it enough. You will learn new things about ID, evolution, and the recent Dover trial that pitted them against each other.

ID'ers:
Be warned, the talk is given by the star science witness for the evolution side in the trial, and he is dead set against ID. But that doesn't mean ID proponents shouldn't watch it, they should just be aware ahead of time that it's the \"enemy\" speaking. As I scientist, I often read creationist and ID literature to understand their arguments; I believe everybody should understand the other guys point of view. How else are you going to form coherent arguments against it? Hopefully not by cutting and pasting from like-minded web pages!

Evos:
Unless you followed the trial coverage as it was happening and read the judge's 139-page decision, your mind is going to be blown. This guy speaks at a level anyone can understand without compromising the science. He also makes it clear that the judge couldn't have ruled any other way without ignoring the facts of the case. I've been following this issue closely for a while, but I still learned a heck of a lot from this video.

Everyone:
If you had enough time to participate in all those muli-page posts about ID and Evolution here on the DBB, you certainly have enough time to watch this video!

- G


ARCHIVED:

html download:
http://lutton.com/drmiller.html

Torent:
http://tracker.zaerc.com/torrents-details.php?id=4599


STREAMING:

Case Western Reserve University:
[url]mms://mv-helix1.cwru.edu/a/2006/biology/intelligent_design_384kbps_01_03_2006_1.wmv[/url]

You Tube:
http://www.youtube.com/?v=yWGMtaww7Vk

Very interesting stuff genghis!
I think this will be fun to see how this post turns into something totally different in about a week

Nice man. Thx

WAY to big for me to download over dialup. Perhaps it will become available for rental at some time.

Kilarin

Sounds interesting. I'll take a look at this when I get the chance. I read a few snippets of the judge's decision, and it sounded as though he really had a good handle on the facts of the case.

Thank you very much for that video link. I was hooked into watching the whole thing and I felt like I was right there in the audience. It was great. If you ever find more of these or know where I can go for more, please post them here. The lecturer, Kenneth Miller, was brilliant and presented himself very well. I like that in a teacher.

He showed how creator morphed into designer, creation morphed into Intelligent designer which was just relabeled religion
Then there was the part I mentioned in other posts.....direct injection into textbooks by using public relations, politics, religion, and money, and most of all what happened in the Islamic world when religion buried science.

I need to read more about the human genome to understand what he said about that, but I will.

Thank you again...

Bettina

I'm an hour and forty minutes into it, and it's pretty good so far.

Listened through the mp3.

I know of Ken Miller as an antagonist of intelligent design, and have read his stuff before, but I am consistently surprised by it.

I think the thing that surprised me most about this talk was how much time was spent talking about politics, and in particular how much time was spent attempting to prove that intelligent design is synonomous with creationism. He talked about intelligent design emerging as creationism waned, and textbooks replacing the word \"creator\" with \"designer\", and other such arguments that I think are totally spurious. He went so far as to speculate (during the Q&A at the end) that scientists who advocated intelligent design--such as Michael Behe--must really be interested in destroying evolution for religious and moral reasons, regaurdless of their own appraisal of the evidence.

I found this disappointing because, first, it isn't true, but second, it's pointless. It demonstrably isn't true that intelligent design is just a relabeling of creationism with no new content. You can see that reading the books of both camps--though they share some arguments, their assumptions, methods, and makeup is different--and many people arguing for or persuaded by ID arguments say it's not creationism. (Shoot, I'll say that--independant of whether I think their work on origins is rationally sound, I'll say it isn't creationism.)

But more importantly than that is that this argument is pointless. When Denton criticized evolution in the 1960's from a scientific perspective, does it really matter whether he was secretly motivated by creationism? I submit that it does not. It matters whether his arguments were sound. Recently I read a book by Tom Woodward, who--from what I was able to gather--is a creationist of the young earth variety. But his book was about ID, not creationism, and what mattered to me was his documentation of ID's ideological history and arguments, and whether those were sound--not whether he was secretly promoting creationism.

Really, haven't we had enough of that? Christians have been saying for years that evolutionists are *really* secretly supporters of atheism, trying to destroy Christianity and institute an oppressively secular state. That demonstrably isn't true, but it makes you wonder that the evolutionists (or at least Ken here) are willing to turn the argument around and say intelligent design'ers are *really* secretly supporters of creationism, trying to destroy science and institute a theocracy, threatening to pull us back to the dark ages.

Enough with speculating about people's motives. Let's just talk about their arguments.

I was particularly disappointed that on one of the core questions of the debate--what counts as science--Miller simply assumed his side's answer correct and left it at that. At 27:00 he comments on the ID-advocates' definition of science by saying that \"Supernatural explanations may be correct ... but are not science because they are not testable.\" That's the question, isn't it? Is science a subject matter or a method? Miller is saying that a subject matter is unsuitable for the method, but ID advocates are arguing that the subject matter is suitible for the method and moreover they have a method that works.

He does talk briefly about some ID arguments around 31:00, but I think he treats them poorly. He consistently conflates evidence for common descent with evidence for naturalistic evolution and against intelligent design, and twice states that irreducible complexity means no function (of any sort) can be derived from the parts of an irreducibly complex system. I cannot tell if he honestly misunderstands his opponents on these points or if he is intentionally lying--nor do I know whether a charge of ignorance or dishonesty would be more offensive. But from his honest tone in the talk, it sounds like he honestly thinks his arguments are good, and just doesn't understand the opposition. I guess this makes sense, if he honestly thinks they're creationists in disguise...

There was no serious discussion of evidential ID claims, but a lot of discussion about politics and religion, and a lot of speculation about intelligent design's real purpose. I've said--and I'll continue to say--that that's unfortunate. I think ID as an origins position has some serious problems, and I wish it had some competent critics it could interact with. As it is, it's all people who don't understand the point of the arguments and aren't interested in learning because they think it's all a facade anyway. I don't know whether ID can rationally succeed or not, but I'll never know if it doesn't get some better critics.

But the most lasting impression I came away from the talk with was this. The talk was titled \"The collapse of Intelligent Design\", and one of the questioners at the end commented, \"I think ID is dead, so... what's next?\" I think that's far from the case. Quite the opposite, I saw this talk as indication that ID would continue to gain steam, since the arguments made here were so terrible, and because it was so terribly evident that one of its best and most well-known critics doesn't understand it. I think he gravely miscalculates when he assumes that ID is religiously motivated and if you expose that motivation, everything else blows away as fluff. ID is deadly earnest about reforming secular science to consider the (locally) supernatural (and yet remain secular science). An opposition that cannot seriously understand and confront that cannot hope to offer serious resistance.

Hmmm, I never got the impression that he was trying to defeat the idea of ID itself. It's too hard to get people to agree on what ID even is before you can do that. I think he was just addressing ID's present inadequacy to be taught in public schools and its illegitimacy as a science.

Intelligent Design is an incredibly interesting philosophy, but it will never be a science.

Drakona wrote:I think the thing that surprised me most about this talk was how much time was spent talking about politics, and in particular how much time was spent attempting to prove that intelligent design is synonomous with creationism.

Sad, but hardly unexpected. <sigh> As I have said before, I switched camp from evolution to ID when the evolutionist started sounding like the creationist I had grown up with.

Jeff250 wrote:Intelligent Design is an incredibly interesting philosophy, but it will never be a science.

And what is inherently unscientific about attempting to detect design? Again, we MUST separate the philisophical implications of a theory from it's scientific merit. This is where the creationist failed, and it's where the naturalistic evolutionist are failing now.

Kilarin

Kilarin wrote:... Again, we MUST separate the philisophical implications of a theory from it's scientific merit. This is where the creationist failed, and it's where the naturalistic evolutionist are failing now.

Kilarin

But you know that in the broader public arena it won't.

It's kinda funny really, as the ID premiss is simple and not without merit: That there are biomechanical structures and subsytems that are too complex to come into being through random trial and error. (that's the easy part, but the not so easy...) And these "systems" suggest that they were designed and set into motion at origin.

(nutshell definition)

Kilarin wrote:And what is inherently unscientific about attempting to detect design? Again, we MUST separate the philisophical implications of a theory from it's scientific merit.

Nevermind the consequences. When you're looking for Intelligent Design, you're looking for supernatural events performed by a supernatural agent. How do you experiment for those? Or falsify those?

Jeff250 wrote:

Kilarin wrote:And what is inherently unscientific about attempting to detect design? Again, we MUST separate the philisophical implications of a theory from it's scientific merit.

Nevermind the consequences. When you're looking for Intelligent Design, you're looking for supernatural events performed by a supernatural agent. How do you experiment for those? Or falsify those?

Well, any theory of origins can't be clasically scientific in the sense of searching for laws by controlled experiment. Evolution, intelligent design and (for that matter) creationism are all making claims about a one-time, historical occurance. Studying origins scientifically is kind of like studying the Civil War scientifically; you can uncover evidence and make hypotheses, but you can't really experiment. It already happened.

For a historical topic, further discoveries that fit in well with a pre-existing theory serve the purpose of experiment (though sometimes you can control it a bit better--sometimes your theory tells you where to look for that new data). This works equally well for evolution and for design. Evolution can predict the existence and location of certain fossils, what how certain animals are physically related, certain gene similarities--and looking for and finding those things supports the theory. Design would be supported if research into a particular biological system raises many more naturalistic problems than it answers, or if a designer or designer's methods are found. One of the things about designed systems is that a designer usually doesn't design just one piece, but rather a whole system. Generally, if design is correct, you should be able to search further and find multiple independant evidences for design in the same item, and that supports the original hypothesis.

Here's a good example that might help you. Suppose scientists find a new organ in a bird--a quasiwhatsit. If the quasiwhatsit is homologous to an organ in a species the bird is supposed to be related to, we might hypothesize that it evolved from that. We can look at similar features between them and the relative complexity of the organs and similar genes and proteins and such. If we have a high-probability model for the change, a couple of transitional forms, and other evidences that the two animals are related, we have a pretty solid case as to where quasiwhatsits come from.

On the other hand, the quasiwhatsit may be unlike an organ any other animal has. In that case, we'd leave it as an evolutionary anomaly. If studying the quasiwhatsit further we discover that seems more and more complex, and more and more unlike anything else in nature, we might begin to suspect that it's artificial. If our further studies uncover astonishing machinery inside the quasiwhatsit, or obvious artificial purpose, or non-natural materials (perhaps the quasiwhatsit has ceramic parts), our design inference would be confirmed. If we can identify a time of sudden appearance and especially a source and method by which the quasiwhatsit was introduced, we'd have a firm case for design.

The origins example is clumsy, and unfortunately, I can't do a whole lot better--which is why I'm a little suspcious of ID applied to origins. I'm not sure we know enough about the system as a whole to be making really responsible design inferences. (Quite the opposite, I'm pretty sure we don't--but I'm open to persuasion...) Still, in principle, that's how it would work. In either case, the "experiment" consists of looking for more data that fits the original theory. In the case of design, this would be increased complexity and natural problems, artificial materials, artificial introduction, or artificial purpose. The most blatant sign would be a signiture of some sort--e.g., "Made by the Alpha Centauri genetic engineering division" inscribed in DNA, but nobody really expects to find that.

Falsification's easier. Design is easy to falsify. You have to understand that design isn't making the claim, "Someome designed this," but rather the stronger claim, "We can tell someone designed this." It's obvious you can't really study the first; I very carefully designed the sequence "Hayttwivnh" - each letter has a particular meaning to me. But you can't tell that, as it evidences no pattern. On the other hand, the sequence "How are you today?" is both designed, and moreover that design is evident. To falsify design, it is sufficient to falsify the claim that design is evident.

You can do this several ways. The easiest and most immediate is to demonstrate that the design inference is not sufficiently rigorous or fails the design criteria being used (whatever those are). You can show that the probability calculation is wrong, or the pattern is too vague, or the data was mined. People do this all the time when they use irreducible complexity as a design criteria--you can definitely argue that something isn't irreducibly complex (or you can argue that irreducible complexity isn't a suitable design criteria), and that kills the inference. Such arguments falsify an individual attempt at an inference, though though nothing stops someone from trying to make another. More effectively (but harder), you can exhibit a natural theory that accounts for the phenomenon. This is conclusive falsification that indicates any attempted design inference on the item must fail.

I actually worry more about the falsification of evolution. Individual aspects of evolution can be studied and tested well enough--genetic relationships, appearance in the fossil record and geographically over time, and so forth. But the interesting bit--the claim that natural selection is responsible for it all--virtually requires time travel to study. How can you say, "In 512,304,259 BC, gene X changed to Y which spread through the population due to natural pressure Z"? I seems to me impossible to even postulate a theory, let alone to test and falsify one. Maybe someday if we know a whole lot more than we do now... but for right now, I have no idea how you would conclusively falsify a specific evolutionary claim--e.g., "Humans naturalistically evolved from chimpanzees." It amounts to proving that the change is impossible--which, I suppose, is what ID is trying to do with things like the irreducible complexity criterion. Still, it's far from obvious to me whether they've succeeded, or even can succeed in principle with such a claim.

And as for falsifying the Goo-to-you overarching theory? I have no idea if that's even possible. I mean, I've heard people say it would be--the classic example is the "rabbit fossilized in the precambrian". But if you ask me, this is cheating--it's like saying you could falsify it by proving that the earth is 10,000 years old or that DNA doesn't really affect anatomy. A piece of a theory you can't test independantly is spurious and should be disposed of. Indibidual pieces should be capable of being separately confirmed or falsified. Given that I accept the earth is a certain age, that various species and kinds appeared at various dates in earth's history, that some animals may be genetically related (through common descent or not, I don't know), or even if I accept common descent--how do I know natural selection did it? Or how do I falsify that? I guess that's what ID is trying to do, but it's sure got to be a tough task.

Interesting.

I thought it was good right up until he began his \"please God save America's domination of science!\" (paraphrased how I saw it) speech right before the questions. I was impressed with it, but only up to that point. It's got nothing to do with America's domination of the scienctific community, it's about ID vs Evolution.

Nationalism has no place in this debate.

Drakona wrote:...turn the argument around and say intelligent design'ers are *really* secretly supporters of creationism, trying to destroy science and institute a theocracy, threatening to pull us back to the dark ages.

But, but...religion has been trying to do that for 2000 years! Almost succeeded, even. The Arabs saved science for I don't know how long.

Testiculese wrote:

Drakona wrote:...turn the argument around and say intelligent design'ers are *really* secretly supporters of creationism, trying to destroy science and institute a theocracy, threatening to pull us back to the dark ages.

But, but...religion has been trying to do that for 2000 years! Almost succeeded, even. The Arabs saved science for I don't know how long.

And the Evolution camp has been trying to squash religion for over a hundred years. Most notibly through the 20's and 30's.

And the Evolution camp has been trying to squash religion for over a hundred years. Most notibly through the 20's and 30's.

Perhaps some scientists individually have done this, but there is nothing in evolution that says religion cannot co-exist, or that it wasn't God who put forth the beginning of all things, including evolution.

Duper wrote:And the Evolution camp has been trying to squash religion for over a hundred years. Most notibly through the 20's and 30's.

Man, it's too bad it's taking so long...the sooner the better. Get rid of it, it serves no purpose...much like everything else. Oh, vid was good...not much new for me though...ID'ers should like it though.

Don't worry Zuruck. Your day in the sun is coming. It won't be long.

Ah, good, I see the thread has degraded. It took a little longer than I expected, though! There's already more in here to address than I have time for, which is why I usually have to leave these threads alone. But since I started this one...

Drak, I agree with you partially. True young-earth creationism and ID are not compatible, so of course they aren't the same thing. But at heart of it I think they both shoot for the same objective: to use non-naturalistic explanations to describe that which evolution tries to explain naturalistically. So I see them both as based in religion, and that's what the trial was about.

You're also right that motive shouldn't matter when judging ID on its own merits. But I think ID stands as religious anyway. Furthermore, the Wedge manifesto (or marketing strategy or whatever you want to call it) explicitly states that ID'ers don't want to just replace evolution with ID, but all naturalistic understanding (i.e., science) with "a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions." In this case, motives do matter, and makes me doubt your claim that this isn't true:

Drakona wrote:intelligent design'ers are *really* secretly supporters of creationism, trying to destroy science and institute a theocracy, threatening to pull us back to the dark ages.

Regarding your disappointment in all the politics and religion involved, I submit that it's the ID movement trying to politicize (and religion-ize ) things, since they've been unsuccessful in the scientific realm. So why be surprised that scientists are judging ID not just on a scientific basis, but also on a political and religious basis?

As far as the definition of science, I always thought it was both a subject and a method. And as Behe admitted, extending the subject to the supernatural includes things like astrology, and I don't think we want to go there.

As for Miller's dismissal of IC with the flagellum and the clotting, I thought that was pretty good so I must misunderstand IC. Admittedly, he doesn't find an independent function for every single portion of these systems, but science is a work in progress. Every day we explain more and more, and are slowly reducing the complexity of these IC systems.

Kilarin wrote:Again, we MUST separate the philisophical implications of a theory from it's scientific merit. This is where the creationist failed, and it's where the naturalistic evolutionist are failing now.

I'm not sure I understand this. What are the philosophical implications of evolution, and why are they not separate from the science, and who is supposed to pronounce on this separation?

Duper wrote:It's kinda funny really, as the ID premiss is simple and not without merit: That there are biomechanical structures and subsytems that are too complex to come into being through random trial and error.

I believe it would be more accurate to say "appear to be too complex" rather than "are too complex." I submit that we just haven't figured out all the details yet. A couple of thousand years ago we couldn't explain the sun, stars, and planets and figured they were supernatural. And now we know they're just regular matter, but we still don't know every detail of their formation.

Drakona wrote:Well, any theory of origins can't be clasically scientific in the sense of searching for laws by controlled experiment. Evolution, intelligent design and (for that matter) creationism are all making claims about a one-time, historical occurance. Studying origins scientifically is kind of like studying the Civil War scientifically; you can uncover evidence and make hypotheses, but you can't really experiment. It already happened.

I disagree here. First, while a particular organism's evolution may be a one-time occurance, certainly some biological systems have evolved (or been designed!) repeatedly and independently, such as the eye. Second, historical sciences include not just origins but also geology, astronomy, and forensics. Experiments on such systems include hypothesis and testing, much as Miller described with the fused human chromosome. But you know all this. And as you say, you're using a particular, classic definition of science. PS - oh, I see you already acknowledged the ability to experiment in your next paragraph.

Reading your explanation of experiments to support ID, I'm afraid I find them kind of hand-wavy. But let me mull them over some more. The design inference in particular seems very subjective. For example, the human eye used to be a favorite icon of ID due to its irreducible complexity, but it has since been shown how it could have evolved naturally. (and on top of that, there's the poor "inside-out" retinal feature that indicated accident more than design). So now some IDers still cling to it, and others have moved on as you say to other inferences. The question is, as evolution explains more and more things, how far will ID have to retreat?

As for falsifying evolution, there are a number of ways to do that, and you can find them if you Google for "falsifying evolution" (they're not my thoughts so I won't regurgitate them here). But you seem interested in hardcore falsification; no matter how clear something becomes using Occam's Razor, we can't go back in time and check. You're right about that, but science luckily doesn't make such a strong claim; it just tries to make theories that fit the evidence and haven't been proved wrong.

Robo wrote: thought it was good right up until he began his "please God save America's domination of science!" (paraphrased how I saw it) speech right before the questions. I was impressed with it, but only up to that point. It's got nothing to do with America's domination of the scienctific community, it's about ID vs Evolution.

Nationalism has no place in this debate.

I disagree. The ID vs Evolution is just one front in which science is in danger of losing ground in the US. We're also churning out less science graduates in proportion to other countries, and our research budgets are shrinking. Our current governmental administration is considered by scientists to be either hostile to science or else just ignores scientific input. And as the ID manifesto states, they do in fact want to replace all science with a more Christian friendly variety. As a US citizen, I believe it is in my country's best interest to maintain high science standards. This country, and the world in general, is more and more driven by technology and information than agriculture and heavy manufacturing. It's an area we can't afford to give up ground in.

Duper wrote:And the Evolution camp has been trying to squash religion for over a hundred years. Most notibly through the 20's and 30's.

I admit there's hostility on both sides, mostly concentrated in a few bad eggs. However, as Drak says:

Drakona wrote:Christians have been saying for years that evolutionists are *really* secretly supporters of atheism, trying to destroy Christianity and institute an oppressively secular state. That demonstrably isn't true...

Birds wrote:Perhaps some scientists individually have done this, but there is nothing in evolution that says religion cannot co-exist, or that it wasn't God who put forth the beginning of all things, including evolution.

I used to believe this, but I have to admit that a fully hard-core, young earth creationist, biblical literalist would certainly be unable to reconcile a lot of scientific knowledge with their beliefs.

Zuruck wrote:Man, it's too bad it's taking so long...the sooner the better. Get rid of it, it serves no purpose...much like everything else.

I wonder why some Christians think some people are out to squash them...

- G

This is why Genghis. You might have seen it in the "Question?" thread.

Duper wrote:

Behemoth wrote:But yet again i dont see the hostility called for since the meat and bones shall we say of the christian message is this, "Love one another as i have loved you" and thats offending the world??

The "problem" is that you CAN'T distill it out like that. Scripture also tells us that God instucted that He is the One True God and there will be no other gods before (or rather in place) of Him.

Jesus said in Matthew 10:21&22 wrote: "[21]. Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. [22]. All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.

Needless to say, most everyone else doesn't want to here this. We're right and you're wrong. It's really that simple. the nature of man is evil and it likes darkness (John 3:19&20)

I was wondering the same thing a couple months back when I witnessed an explosion of hostility toward Christianity. And like I've said elsewhere.. it's going to get worse before it gets better. (Trichord can do his happy dance now )

Genghis, maybe if you post this on that other DBB someone will acknowledge that the Wedge document exists. I've tried three times now. You're the first person to acknowledge it, and I'm pretty sure I know which camp you're in.

Maybe Drakona \"misundertands\" ID or she is \"intentionally lying\".

Genghis wrote:

Robo wrote: thought it was good right up until he began his "please God save America's domination of science!" (paraphrased how I saw it) speech right before the questions. I was impressed with it, but only up to that point. It's got nothing to do with America's domination of the scienctific community, it's about ID vs Evolution.

Nationalism has no place in this debate.

I disagree. The ID vs Evolution is just one front in which science is in danger of losing ground in the US. We're also churning out less science graduates in proportion to other countries, and our research budgets are shrinking. Our current governmental administration is considered by scientists to be either hostile to science or else just ignores scientific input. And as the ID manifesto states, they do in fact want to replace all science with a more Christian friendly variety. As a US citizen, I believe it is in my country's best interest to maintain high science standards. This country, and the world in general, is more and more driven by technology and information than agriculture and heavy manufacturing. It's an area we can't afford to give up ground in.

- G

It's good to keep high scientific standards throughout the USA, as well as stopping it from becoming more "Christian friendly". You are completely correct that the modern world is driven by technology and new scientific research, that's true.

However dominance has got nothing to do with it, which is what I wanted to highlight.

Drakona wrote:Evolution, intelligent design and (for that matter) creationism are all making claims about a one-time, historical occurance.

SUPPOSITION!

Drakona, you have no evidence the emergence of life was a one time event. It may have happened many times on Earth. It may be happening right now. (Unlikely I admit) Panspermia denies it happened on Earth at all. The left handedness of all life proteins may simply mean the right handed protein based life could not compete with the left-handed variety. That's evolution.

Drakona wrote:you can uncover evidence and make hypotheses, but you can't really experiment. It already happened.

That's rubbish. You don't understand science if that's what you believe. You CAN experiment. In fact, a team in Europe is currently attempting to create life right now, and don't be surprised when they succeed. The methods they emply certainly won't be those that caused the first self-replicating RNA to form, but the results will speak for themselves. That's if they succeed.

Let's assume for a minute that they DO succeed. They succeed in creating a bacterium out of nothing but chemistry. Now, take these replicating bacterium to some scientists and ask them where it came from. Do you suppose they can work out it is an artificial life form, based on the fact it has been designed?

Most certainly life will be created in the laboratory in the future - of that there can be no doubt. There are probably many different ways to create life too. Many of them will be flawed, in terms of the species longevity - they will simply "fail to thrive". Or they will be exposed to other manufactured life forms, which will consume the resources they need to survive. That's evolution.

Eventually however, we will be able to create life which does thrive. We may even create life forms which match exactly what we know of some of the life forms which used to exist on our planet. (The anaerobic life which made most of itself extinct with their dangerous, poisonous and highly reactive excrement: oxygen.)

The point is - is it possible to detect that they are designe organisms? I postulate that unless the creators are egotists, that they will NOT leave evidence of their handiwork. There won't be any binary (or base-4, for ATG&C) code left in the chromosomes which spells out the names of the team. If they did, it would be elementary to discover it.

Any scientists that encountered these life forms might be tricked into classifying them as simply a previously unknown form. It might literally be impossible to distinguish a designed life form from a natural one - especially if the Creator - err - creators did a good job.

It might sound here, that I'm actually supporting ID, but that is not my point. The point is, if it's impossible to discern, without evidence to the contrary, we must NOT assume it has been created, because that would go against existing scientific knowledge.

Occam's Razor dictates this assumption.

Drakona wrote:On the other hand, the sequence "How are you today?" is both designed, and moreover that design is evident.

The design may APPEAR evident, but it is not guaranteed. It is extremely LIKELY that it is designed, but it is not the only explanation. Tossing a bag of scrabble letters onto the floor might result in this combination once every million times.

This is the crux of the ID argument: "It is too complex, so it must be designed". Unfortunately, biology and chemistry does not agree.

If we extend the randomness analogy to a million monkeys sitting at type writers, randomly bashing keys, hoping to produce a perfect draft of A Misdummer Night's Dream - we will be waiting until the end of the universe without ever producing something remotely similar to shakespere.

IDers often use this exact argument against evolution.

However, this kind of reasoning assumes that animals appear, fully formed, and thinking beings spring, like magic, complete in every way (including behaviour!) from nothing but the surounding materials. The chemistry of life does not work that way.

Let's go back to our million monkeys, and apply some chemistry. Let's treat Night's Dream as a life form, and let's have a literature critic take the place of Natural Selection. The critic knows what Night's Dream is, word for word, and only let's the monkey hit 10 keys before removing the paper from the type writer. She throws away any piece of paper which does not match Night's Dream, but she gives the monkeys a leg up, by inserting not blank pages into the type writers, but the accurate page(s) produced thus far.

In a remarkably short period of time, the full manuscript is there to see, and it is entirely the result of true randomness, but with a mechanism to reject flawed copies. This is evolution in action.

Drakona wrote:How can you say, "In 512,304,259 BC, gene X changed to Y which spread through the population due to natural pressure Z"? I seems to me impossible to even postulate a theory, let alone to test and falsify one. Maybe someday if we know a whole lot more than we do now... but for right now, I have no idea how you would conclusively falsify a specific evolutionary claim--e.g., "Humans naturalistically evolved from chimpanzees."

Firstly, no one is going to say that. Mitochdrial DNA (which is what you are referring to, because it passes purely from female to female with a known mutation rate, and without mixing with the male mitochondria during Mieosis.) can be accurately tracked in time, but not THAT accurately.

The term "natural pressure" is describing what? You need to be more precise here. Do you mean "Natural Selection"? This is a mechanism which, even today, we have only scratched the surface of. Those mechanisms, and their affect on humans will become more evident as time progresses.

It is utterly disingenuous of you - and extremely ignorant as well, to make the claim about chimpanzees. This is the EXACT claim which idiotic 19th century religious nutcases made against Darwin.

Humans did NOT evolve from chimpanzees - and that claim has never been made - by anyone (except fools who do not understand evolutionary theory). The correct way to state what I think you wanted to say is this:

Humans and chimpanzees have a common ancestor, roughly 7 million years ago according to the latest genetic research.

It is completely obvious to me, that this simple misguided, uninformed, and discredited (for 100 years!) statement of yours indicates you know next to nothing about evolutionary theory.

Perhaps it is time you devoted some considerable time to studying the subject you are trying to defeat.

For my own point of view, I find ID ludicrous, but only because there IS NO EVIDENCE FOR IT WHATSOEVER. I am happy to accept ID as a valid scientific theory when evidence that completely overwhelms evolutionary theory is produced. I confidently predict this will never occur.

And the reason? If we are designed, then the designers are so many orders of magnitude more intelligent than us, that we are less than the bacteria we examine in evolution studies by comparison. Any such alien superminds are NOT going to leave their signature on their work, unless they WANT us to find it. If that was not their intention, then it will be impossible for human minds to ever discern.

If they have left their signature behind, then we will surely find it, science will confirm, it, and evolutionary theory will have to make a major adjustment according to the new evidence.

You see, science, in the end, is the winner, because - as Dr. Miller states: EVERYTHING IN SCIENCE IS PROVISIONAL - AND SUBJECT TO CHANGE WHEN BETTER INFORMATION IS FORTHCOMING.

Palzon wrote:Genghis, maybe if you post this on that other DBB someone will acknowledge that the Wedge document exists. I've tried three times now. You're the first person to acknowledge it, and I'm pretty sure I know which camp you're in.

Maybe Drakona "misundertands" ID or she is "intentionally lying".

I don't think the Wedge document's existence or authenticity are in doubt, since the Discovery Institute has acknowledged ownership of it. The open question I think is in its interpretation. In the follow-up document in which the DI admits to writing the Wedge, they also try to downplay it's significance.

Here's the original Wedge document:
http://www.kcfs.org/Fliers_articles/Wedge.html

And here's the DI's "so what" followup, as posted on their very own website:
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB ... php?id=349

I haven't read either one in over a year, but I recall being horrified at the Wedge, and not buying into the platitudes of the followup.

Palzon wrote:Genghis, maybe if you post this on that other DBB someone will acknowledge that the Wedge document exists. I've tried three times now. You're the first person to acknowledge it, and I'm pretty sure I know which camp you're in.

I've acknowledged it right here, several times I believe. Would you like a link? Of COURSE many of the ID folks have an agenda, so does the other side. That has NOTHING to do with the quality of the science, on either side.

Genghis wrote:What are the philosophical implications of evolution, and why are they not separate from the science, and who is supposed to pronounce on this separation?

Evolution by natural selection is used by naturalist to deny the necessity of a creator God. The whole idea really irked theists. That's why they tried to get it declared illegal to teach in schools.

Genghis wrote:Furthermore, the Wedge manifesto... In this case, motives do matter

Was it valid when, in the scopes trials, Christians argued against Evolution based only on the fact that the Evolutionists were trying to get a foot into the door at schools so they could introduce naturalisim and an overarching naturalistic philosophy?

Because, it WAS true. Demonstrably so. The naturalist have certainly won over in our schools science programs, and, more importantly, in science in general. And yet, this "naturalist" wedge has NOTHING to do with whether or not Evolution by Natural Selection was a good theory or not. Denying a scientific theory for ANY political or philosophical reason is BAD SCIENCE. DREADFULLY BAD. You can discuss with me all day whether IC is a well defined idea, and whether the flagellum is actually IC, and whether the design inference is subjective. A valid scientific discussion can be held on these points, and we HAVE had some very good and interesting discussions on them on this very forum. But tell me that ID should be thrown out because you don't like where it's going politically or philosophically and you are wasting your time. It has nothing to do with the topic and puts you on the same level as the creationists. I rejected creationisim for precisely this reason, they weren't arguing from the science, they were arguing from philosophy.

Genghis wrote:As far as the definition of science, I always thought it was both a subject and a method. And as Behe admitted, extending the subject to the supernatural includes things like astrology,

But of COURSE we want it to include things like astrology. Duh! James Randi took the astrologers head on, on their own terms. He worked out an experiment with the full cooperation of the astrologers. A group of people took personality tests, tests that had been chosen by some of the worlds foremost astrologers, then those same astrologers attempted to match the people up with their signs based on the personality profiles alone. The astrologers claimed they would have near perfect results. They got 1/12 right. Exactly what you would have expected if only chance were in operation. That was SCIENCE, GOOD SCIENCE, testing a claim of the supernatural. If we deny science the ability to test supernatural claims, then we deny science the ability to FALSIFY supernatural claims, which is certainly nonsense. And, of course, ID does NOT require a claim of the supernatural. A supernatural creator is certainly the most logical assumption, in my opinion, but it's not required. There are always naturalistic possibilities, such as this one. which just points out the current hypocrisy of the scientific community. It's not ID if WE do it.

Genghis wrote:I believe it would be more accurate to say "appear to be too complex" rather than "are too complex." I submit that we just haven't figured out all the details yet.

As long as naturalist keep giving this answer, evolution is unfalsifiable. Again, you sound like the creationists. If light appears to have traveled a billion years before it got here, that doesn't PROVE God didn't create the light "already on the way". If radioactive dating proves a creature older than we think it should be, well, the rate of radioactive decay could have CHANGED. Sounds just like "Well, just because it seems to violate the laws of Natural Selection now doesn't mean we won't figure out some way that it doesn't violate them LATER"

Palzon wrote:Maybe Drakona "misundertands" ID or she is "intentionally lying".

The problem is that Naturalist keep making up their own definitions of ID and then attacking them. Straw men. Drakona understands ID quite well. And please note, she isn't exactly on my side. I think ID CAN be applied to the question of origins, Drakona does not. We disagree, but I don't question her understanding of the topic.

Mobius wrote:They succeed in creating a bacterium out of nothing but chemistry. Now, take these replicating bacterium to some scientists and ask them where it came from. Do you suppose they can work out it is an artificial life form, based on the fact it has been designed?

Almost every example we have says that we can detect design. We can tell tooled rocks from randomly broken ones. We can detect photos that have been tampered with from those that were not.

Mobius wrote:I postulate that unless the creators are egotists, that they will NOT leave evidence of their handiwork.
...
It might literally be impossible to distinguish a designed life form from a natural one

ID is about answering this very question, if you deny ID you deny us the right to test your hypothesis.

Mobius wrote:Most certainly life will be created in the laboratory in the future - of that there can be no doubt.

And they accuse Christians of having "Blind Faith".

Mobius wrote:This is the crux of the ID argument: "It is too complex, so it must be designed".

<sigh> No it is not. Again with the straw men. I wish this discussion didn't get folks so emotional, on both sides. Very complex organs and structures can be adequately explained by naturalist evolution. Just so long as there is a step wise path to them with every step having an advantage over the previous (Darwin's definition). ID says there are some organs that could not have been evolved in a step wise fashion, and therefore, could not have been derived through evolution by natural selection. These organs may even be SIMPLER than some organs that could have evolved.

Mobius wrote:If they have left their signature behind, then we will surely find it, science will confirm, it, and evolutionary theory will have to make a major adjustment according to the new evidence.

In which case you are saying that ID is a valid science, but will fail? THAT is a fair enough position, see you in the lab.

Kilarin

But of COURSE we want it to include things like astrology. Duh! James Randi took the astrologers head on, on their own terms. He worked out an experiment with the full cooperation of the astrologers. A group of people took personality tests, tests that had been chosen by some of the worlds foremost astrologers, then those same astrologers attempted to match the people up with their signs based on the personality profiles alone. The astrologers claimed they would have near perfect results. They got 1/12 right. Exactly what you would have expected if only chance were in operation. That was SCIENCE, GOOD SCIENCE, testing a claim of the supernatural. If we deny science the ability to test supernatural claims, then we deny science the ability to FALSIFY supernatural claims, which is certainly nonsense. And, of course, ID does NOT require a claim of the supernatural. A supernatural creator is certainly the most logical assumption, in my opinion, but it's not required. There are always naturalistic possibilities, such as this one. which just points out the current hypocrisy of the scientific community. It's not ID if WE do it.

Um, unless I'm not seeing something correctly, the example you gave here with the astrologers is completely falsifiable, and since it is, it doesn't really apply to ID. Science does have the ability to falsify supernatural claims - they just have to be falsifiable in the first place.

Evolution by natural selection is used by naturalist to deny the necessity of a creator God. The whole idea really irked theists. That's why they tried to get it declared illegal to teach in schools.

Was it valid when, in the scopes trials, Christians argued against Evolution based only on the fact that the Evolutionists were trying to get a foot into the door at schools so they could introduce naturalisim and an overarching naturalistic philosophy?

Eh, you replied to these just above it yourself:

...Of COURSE many of the /Evolution/ folks have an agenda, so does the other side. That has NOTHING to do with the quality of the science, on either side.

As long as naturalist keep giving this answer, evolution is unfalsifiable. Again, you sound like the creationists. If light appears to have traveled a billion years before it got here, that doesn't PROVE God didn't create the light \"already on the way\". If radioactive dating proves a creature older than we think it should be, well, the rate of radioactive decay could have CHANGED. Sounds just like \"Well, just because it seems to violate the laws of Natural Selection now doesn't mean we won't figure out some way that it doesn't violate them LATER\"

Well, when I throw a ball into the air, I can expect it to come back down, even if I don't observe it or die in the intervening time. That's a reasonable assumption, based on available evidence, and the same one that evolution is making here.

My personal opinion is that, since God did grant us the use of reason and logic, he meant us to use them. We're using them here, and if he created that beam of light to make it seem to be older than it is, he is lying to us. I would not, will not respect someone that lies to me with intent to deceive (and that can be the only possible explanation for such actions). I certaintly wouldn't worship a lying god. If you really believe that, I don't know what to say to you. God cannot teach one thing and do another - he can't deny himself, his nature. He taught lying is not good. I'm interested in how you came to the idea he can...?

Almost every example we have says that we can detect design. We can tell tooled rocks from randomly broken ones. We can detect photos that have been tampered with from those that were not.

I think Mobius' point was that, even if we were created using ID, the intelligence creating us would most certaintly have the power to make it look (to us) that we were not. So it depends on what our supposed 'creator' wanted - which is as unverifiable as ID in the first place.

And they accuse Christians of having \"Blind Faith\".

Again-

When I throw a ball into the air, I can expect it to come back down, even if I don't observe it or die in the intervening time. That's a reasonable assumption, based on available evidence, and the same one that Mobius is making here.

In which case you are saying that ID is a valid science, but will fail? THAT is a fair enough position, see you in the lab.

No, he simply said 'if they left their signature.' There's little reason to suppose they did, and even with a signature, you still couldn't prove it wasn't random.

So, whether you believe in ID is a question of philosophy, not evidence. Evolution may not be proven either, but what it does do is provide a real, testable (even if theoretically) framework to base the reality we experience on. It does predict many things that have been observed. It does predict what we will find in experiments when we have long enough to do them. It does explain things in a rational (i.e., not involving or even talking about any God(s)) way, and that makes it acceptable to people of all religions, and that is important. And lastly, it is falsifiable.

The reason that ID cannot be disproven (and why I find it useless in relation to God) is that nothing that exists or can exist within the bounds of the universe can be an actual demonstration of God's absolute power, since that is infinite. We have to rely on personal revelation for our 'proof.' I find that very unsatisfying, but that's how I see it.

Genghis that dude kinda looks and really sounds like you without curly hair!!!!

I think there is a very real possiblity that you liked this more than the rest of us because you could actually hear and see yourself on that stage heh

P.S. For those of you that don't know, Genghis is not that old though

Samuel Dravis wrote:the example you gave here with the astrologers is completely falsifiable, and since it is, it doesn't really apply to ID.

ID is NOT the claim that everything was designed. That is a straw man argument. ID says that under SOME circumstances, design can be detected. Any biological system that could have evolved in a step wise fashion with each step having an advantage over the previous step, MIGHT have evolved, so ID doesn't have anything to say about them.

At the grand level of "Did ANYTHING Evolve" or "Was ANYTHING designed", NEITHER theory can be falsified, you can't prove a negative. But at the level that Science is actually interested in, the level of individual biological systems, ID can certainly be falsified. Show that there is a path to developing the Flagellum through naturalistic means, and ID fails on that organ. Do this on enough of IDs claims, and ID starts to stand on very shaky ground as a theory with any interest at all.

ID says that under certain favorable circumstances, we can detect a difference between things that were designed by intelligence and things that evolved through natural means. You can attempt to falsify that claim, but it's just silly to say the question isn't scientific.

Samuel Dravis wrote:Well, when I throw a ball into the air, I can expect it to come back down, even if I don't observe it or die in the intervening time. That's a reasonable assumption, based on available evidence, and the same one that evolution is making here.

So, are you saying that NO amount of evidence, of any kind, would EVER convince you that a particular biological system had evolved naturalisticially? If not, what evidence would you require? Under what circumstances do you consider Evolution to be falsifiable?
Last time we discussed this, you said: If the evidence is so much so that the probability of random chance is almost nothing, then I could be convinced. That is, EXACTLY, what ID is attempting to achieve.

Samuel Dravis wrote:even if we were created using ID, the intelligence creating us would most certaintly have the power to make it look (to us) that we were not.

I don't see the point. If we were designed in such a way as to make it look like we had evolved, ID fails on the origin question. If we can't DETECT design, You guys win.

Again, just to re-emphasise a point that I seem to be failing miserably to get across: The theory of ID is NOT the claim that things were designed, that is creationisim. The theory of ID claims that, under certain circumstances, we can DETECT design.

Now you can certainly attack the basic assumption, that sometimes design can be detected, but it's a pretty silly attack since we USE that assumption in countless sciences already. But what everyone is upset about is applying ID to the origins question. There ID claims that we have already found biological systems that show evidence of design, systems that fit Darwins stated requirement for falsifying evolution (for a particular biological system). The attacks on ID(Origins) should be directed at those claims, not on the claim that anything COULD have been designed, which has nothing to do with ID.

I don't mind ID being attacked, HONEST! I LIKE a good debate, I just want to be talking about the SAME THING.

Kilarin

dbl post

Mobius....What a great post! Not to say the rest of you aren't great, its just I never got a chance to hear Mobius like this. I read every word... Thanks for that. I print out a lot of good material here and this is one of them.

Carl Sagan once said \"Science is a candle in the dark. It shines a light on the world around us and allows us to see beyond our superstitions and fears, beyond our ignorance and delusions, and beyond the magical thinking of our ancestors, who rightfully fought for their survival by fearing and trying to master occult and supernatural powers.\"

Bettina

ID is NOT the claim that everything was designed. That is a straw man argument. ID says that under SOME circumstances, design can be detected. Any biological system that could have evolved in a step wise fashion with each step having an advantage over the previous step, MIGHT have evolved, so ID doesn't have anything to say about them.

ID is pretty weak if all it is is \"God of the gaps\" and can only be determined by what we can't currently explain naturally.

First of all, even if something can't be explained naturally, that doesn't necesitate design. It could have been the result of any other of an infinitude of supernatural phenomena, right? At the bare minumum, you need to have some reason to suspect design in and of itself. This is where I see design lacking today. Drakona (if I understand correctly) suggested the idea that when one part appears designed, it would tend to have other parts in the same system defined as well. This is testable to an extent, but I'm still not convinced that it is design itself that would be necessarily tested. It would just be that unknown supernatural intervention that prevented us from explaining an event naturally.

Secondly, and more importantly, just because something occurred naturally shouldn't mean that it wasn't designed or that design cannot be detected. Naturalism is where things are heading, whether we like it or not. You're hanging onto the flagellum like it's your saving grace, but realize that it stands a very large chance of being partially explained in the next few years (I was fairly convinced by the video, but I'm not a biologist) and of being completely explained within the decade. Evolution has the momentum to finish off the few persisent problem cases, and, even if it doesn't, when you're dealing with such a large plethora of phenomena, sometimes I think you're allowed to shrug a few off to just being a mystery. This said, I don't see naturalism going away. This is why I'm disheartened to think that you think that ID says nothing about things that can be explained naturally, because I think that its inside those very things that lies any future of ID.

The best example is to consider a God mixing around the ingredients of a \"big bang\" so that things would naturally unfold actually the way that he designed. This sort of design investigation I believe will be the only sort of ID remaining, if it does, after the next couple of decades, and I think that therein lies its future.

I don't think that this would be science, however. It could be removed with Occam's Razor easily from any scientific explanation of anything, since everything would have a naturalistic explanation. But I think that it would pose merit on a philosophical level.

This is why I think that intelligent design is an incredibily interesting philosophy, but it will never be a science.

I think the whole Science vs. ID discussion has the wrong 'ansatz', narrowing things down to a conflict in an objectionable way.

As far as I have understood ID, it says that the probability for such a complex environment like the earth and its biosphere is so low that there must have been some extra impulse to make it happen.

I doubt ID questions the justification of science in its entirety. ID questions the attempts of ruling out that (a) there is a God and (b) that God interfered with the coming into existance of our universe, planet and lives with scientific means.

The problem is that this is being tried, and you don't need to wonder about the backlash of those who do not want to have their faith being discriminated by such an application of science - and this is what I see happening all over the place. Things have turned around: While it was the other way round in former centuries, today's crusades are against Christianity.

Apart from that, ID has no problem with science. The bible doesn't have either. It says that it's God's honor to hide a matter, and the king's honor to unveil it. It also says something about who is a king. If I take this a little further, it's perfectly permissible to find out about the secrets of this world with scientific means.

There is no way to prove God is or is not. So there is no way to prove God created our universe, nor is there a way to prove he didn't. There can be an omnipotent God, and if there is an omnipotent God, he may have chosen to create the universe(s) by flicking a finger at some 11 dimensional not really existant energy or whatever string, making it dissect with other strings, creating a ripple in its whatever continuum finally making up our universe, or he may even have constructed everything in an instance with built in age, petrified skeletons, oil reservoirs etc., making it look like it's 6 billion years old (make that 4 or 10 billion, if you prefer).

Given that, it is a somewhat ridiculous question to ask why there should be such a God, and where he should come from, asked from a childlike self-centered point of view, overlooking that our grasp of reality might be to weak to understand that this could actually be true. So if there is a God who 'always' (a term implying the application of time, which is sequencing the order of events) was, he is. Period. (Who really knows what time is, and whether there is something 'outside' of time, and how that would 'be' or 'work'?)

I can only say that once you have come to know God, you just know he is beyond any doubt, and it's not autosuggestion (though I know non believers cannot believe that, because they have no way to imagine it), and that God will prove himself to whom ever he choses and whoever longs for it.

Knowing God is about faith, not about science, and coming to know God is about divine grace, not about scientific proof.

ID says there are some organs that could not have been evolved in a step wise fashion, and therefore, could not have been derived through evolution by natural selection. These organs may even be SIMPLER than some organs that could have evolved.

Is that all ID is arguing? Can you clarify for me?
Because your point contains a huge assumption, which is that the theory of evolution is complete. There are still gaps in it, but that doesn't mean because you can point out a case where evolution can't explain something that it means a designer was involved.

I don't understand how the ID'ers can prove design by a 'creator'. Can you postulate how design can be detected without using an example that came from a designed produced by an earth-based animal?

It still does seem, although you call it a straw man, that the crux of the argument IS that these things 'are too complex to have evolved naturally'.

Have IDer's ever thought that God's way of creation could be detected, and that perhaps evolution is just describing God's design? Do you think it is IMPOSSIBLE to scientifically describe God's creation method? Maybe the four pillars of evolution ARE describing intelligent design, although not completely--science is a work in progress. Maybe what evolution calls 'random' occurances are intentional processes set forth into motion by God. I don't wish to pose a false dilemma but just an idea: Why can't God's design be broken down scientifically? Why does this 'magic wand' have to be involved that means we can't find a scientific way in which God's design was set into motion?

It seems that ID implies that God's design can't be scientifically explained! Why can't evolution just be an observational description of God's design?

Birdseye,

the point is not that some 'process of divine creation' could be scientifically described, but that it could be proved that the process was instigated by God, or wasn't. The whole argument is about proving or disproving the existance of God, which is plainly impossible. Read my above post.

Kilarin wrote:

Palzon wrote:Genghis, maybe if you post this on that other DBB someone will acknowledge that the Wedge document exists. I've tried three times now. You're the first person to acknowledge it, and I'm pretty sure I know which camp you're in.

I've acknowledged it right here, several times I believe. Would you like a link? Of COURSE many of the ID folks have an agenda, so does the other side. That has NOTHING to do with the quality of the science, on either side.

Though I missed your original post, you've hardly acknowledged the significance of Wedge. You act as though evolutionists at the time of Scopes were politically motivated rather than motivated by the results of testable science. they were not.

What you are saying is tantamount to saying that Galileo or Newton were politically motivated as opposed to truly trying to advance human knowledge. Their theories challenged the authority of the church and the biblical way of looking at things. Are we to believe they only made their theories to "wedge" bogus science into our lives? rubbish. The difference is that they, like modern day evolutionists, had testable science to offer. ID does not.

Microevolution is an observable fact as much as anything we consider to be fact scientifically. There are even examples of transitional fossils to support macroevolution! Not only archaeopteryx, but Therapsids, Icthyostega, and others. At that point the debate becomes one of the mechanism by which macroevolution occurs, not one of whether or not it does occur. The only "problem" with evolution is that the nature of the macroevolutionary mechanism is still under investigation, but this does not invalidate anything that has come before it.

There were many years between Newton's Principia and Einstein's theory of Special Relativity. Just because Newton's theory had gaps did not mean the entire thing needed to be thrown out or some repugnant psuedo-scientific theory put on equal footing with it. Even special relativity was not complete as theory and it would be 10 more years until the General Relativity was published.

Keep in mind also, that Einstein resisted Quantum Mechanics (partly because it conflicted with his religious views). Later in life, Einstein was forced to admit that Quantum theory was able to make fantastically accurate predictions.

Talk Origins has this page and many others that address a lot of these relevant issues.

Another good article is at the Creationism Science Debunked hompage

Another issue, your reference to our being able to detect something designed by man is spurious because the anology does not hold up. In the same thread you have quoted i said:

Palzon wrote:just because humans create complex things does not mean that everything complex must have a creator. in fact, even thinking along these lines could be used to argue the inverse of ID; that god is manmade. we seek to explain the unexplained and we do so by anthropomorphising.

the complexity of the universe says nothing whatsoever pointing to a creator. but our capacity to see design in the complexity says something about how our minds work. we naturally seek out regularities and try to account for them.

One irony of Drakona's position is that theists often seek to refute arguments against god by pointing out that man cannot comprehend god's rationale. yet her excercise suggests that the ability to discover intelligent human blueprints is analogous to the ability to discover design blueprints. as previously stated, no such analagous relationship exists in the first place.

being able to distinguish between something natural and something manmade could NEVER establish that complex things are intelligently designed by a supernatural force. there is no analogous situation here whatsoever, despite what drakona implies. it's totally invalid.

If you look around the universe you will see that there are as many examples of poor design as there are good ones. the only possible way to see scientific evidence for a creator is to be dishonest or willfully ignorant.

Drakona's entire position falls apart because it's talking about detecting human intelligence, which isn't the question at all. the question is detecting a designer of the cosmos, not word puzzles. Drakona's bold claim that ID is "absolutely science" is absolutely "bunk".

the excercises Drakona proposes are irrelevant since they are not a true test of ID. they are nothing more than a red herring.

i am in no way saying that ID is a philosophy that should not be explored. what i'm saying is that it is not science, not in the least. ID does not belong in the science classroom.

I never got a response to this from anyone. So show me how we test for Intelligent Design that is not man-made. And further, you should acknowledge that criticism of evolution that comes from ID supporters is NOT a theory of Intelligent Design. ID would need to make its own theoretical predictions that are testable.

...

Wedge shows that ID believers are politically motivated, first. Wedge and the actions of Discover Institute, et al show that they don't have a scientific leg to stand on - so instead they will change the definition of science altogether!

The only support for ID is in the bible itself, a self-referential way of believing that is NOT science.

Diedel wrote:Birdseye,

the point is not that some 'process of divine creation' could be scientifically described, but that it could be proved that the process was instigated by God, or wasn't. The whole argument is about proving or disproving the existance of God, which is plainly impossible. Read my above post.

Good post, btw. I'm trying to play along with them, though. I know you can't prove the existance of god, or disprove it. I'm just wondering why there is such resistance to the idea that science is simply describing God's method of creation, and furthermore why if science can't explain a part of evolution why this suddenly means God created it (I know I'm going to be screamed at as 'straw manning' but that's what I'm seeing from the IDer camp here). I guess the root problem is the Old Testament's story of creation. I agree with Genghis that there is no way for the Old Testament creation believers (unless they believe the story to be extremely metaphorical and open to interpretation) to end up agreeing with evolution.

I apologize in advance for the length of the post, every time I kept coming back to post there was a new message, and, since I seem to be the only one posting who supports ID for origins I felt I should at least TRY to answer most of them. (Palzon, are you REALLY, REALLY certain this board is a haven for right wing conservative Christians)

Jeff250 wrote:ID is pretty weak if all it is is "God of the gaps" and can only be determined by what we can't currently explain naturally.

No, NOT God of the gaps, the opposite. We can only claim to detect design when we actually understand a structure to an enormous degree of detail.

According to Darwin's own definition of natural selection, it can only work in a stepwise fashion. ID says that some things can't evolve in a step wise fashion, they required planning and predicting to put together, and only intelligence can plan or predict.

jeff250 wrote:First of all, even if something can't be explained naturally, that doesn't necesitate design. It could have been the result of any other of an infinitude of supernatural phenomena, right? at the bare minumum, you need to have some reason to suspect design in and of itself.

I'm not certain I understand your objection. ID is about detecting design. It doesn't require you to suspect it to be there before you could detect it. If you were walking on the surface of the moon and found stone chipped into an axe head shape, well, you certainly wouldn't have been EXPECTING to find design, but you would certainly start looking into what the odds were that such a thing could have happened by any means other than design. If a scientist was studying a new bird flu, he probably wouldn't be looking for design, but if he found something in the DNA that made him think it may have come out of a lab in Iran, you can bet he would get on the phone real quick.

Jeff250 wrote:You're hanging onto the flagellum like it's your saving grace,

The Flagellum is an interesting and easy to explain example, but hardly the only one.

Jeff250 wrote: but realize that it stands a very large chance of being partially explained in the next few years (I was fairly convinced by the video, but I'm not a biologist) and of being completely explained within the decade.

I'll have to disagree with you there. There is a secretory structure that contains about 1/3 of the molecules that exist in the flagellum. It doesn't do much to explain the existance of the Flagellums structure to me.

From my reading, it hinges on two claims of the naturalist.
1: That natural selection can take a bunch of different parts from different structures and throw them together to make a new complex structure. I agree that having the parts pre-existing certainly helps your odds, but when the number of parts required is large, it doesn't help enough. If a structure can be built up out of many seperate subsystems, and the combined structure has no advantage until all parts are assembled in the correct order, the odds of putting those parts together by chance become vanishingly small, even if you have all of the parts available.

2: That natural selection can build a system down a gradual path, then dispose of parts it doesn't need later, leaving you with a system that appears IC at the end. This is a MUCH more interesting direction and ID needs to concentrate on answering this issue. It's definition of IC is not yet firm enough. But the naturalist need to work hard here as well, they have yet to actually demonstrate a complete working path where this could have occured.

jeff250 wrote:This is why I'm disheartened to think that you think that ID says nothing about things that can be explained naturally, because I think that its inside those very things that lies any future of ID.

What you are describing is "theistic evolution", no need to waste a new term on it, especially when that term already has a very different meaning.

Diedel wrote:I doubt ID questions the justification of science in its entirety.

ID doesn't question Science at all, its just a scientific theory competing with naturalistic evolution.

Deidel wrote:The whole argument is about proving or disproving the existance of God

I still don't seem to be communicating a very important point. ID is NOT about proving there is a God. I know a lot of people use it for that, but it's not part of the science, and it has nothing to do with the issue for me. IF someone convinces me tomorrow that the science behind ID is bad, I'll abandon it, but it won't shake my faith in God one bit.
My belief in God is not connected to my support for ID. I was a Christian for MANY years after I rejected Creationisim and before I became interested in ID. I believe in ID because I actually think the science is GOOD. I freely admit that I might be wrong, it's happened before, but to convince me, you are going to have to debate the science, not the philosophy or theology.

Birdseye wrote:Is that all ID is arguing? Can you clarify for me?

By Darwin's own definition, Evolution by Natural Selection MUST work in small steps, where each step has an advantage over the next. No, of course we don't understand everything about evolution, but we know that it follows that rule. It's almost the DEFINITION of natural selection.

And don't misunderstand me, Natural Selection can do some absolutely MARVELOUS things. Some completely unexpected things, some fascinatingly complex things. BUT, natural selection can NOT plan ahead or predict the future. Those two things require intelligence behind them. I think I best described the way I feel about ID in this post. It's way to long, but the topic isn't simple.

No one has any objection to attempting to detect design in acheology or forensic science. The only reason for objecting to the ATTEMPT with regards to origins is philosophical, not scientific.

Palzon wrote:You act as though evolutionists at the time of Scopes were politically motivated rather than motivated by the results of testable science. they were not.

Do you honestly feel that there wasn't any political motivation involved? I find that position a bit hard to swallow. But I freely grant they they also believed in the science they were pushing. I don't quite understand why you can't grant that Dembski and Behe and the rest actually believe in their science, as science, as well.

Palzon wrote:I never got a response to this from anyone. So show me how we test for Intelligent Design that is not man-made

Actually, I felt that we HAD responded. ID is NOT about complexity. Of course humans are good at pulling patterns out of chaos. That's one of the POINTS of ID, how do we seperate out things that actually WERE designed from naturally generated patterns?

Lets use an example from a famous naturalist, Carl Sagan. I happen to be a big Sagan fan. Have you read his book, "Contact"? Not seen the movie, the movie was ok, but it cut out all of the best parts. The end of the book, the numinos experiance, is when the heroine finds a pattern in the digits of pi. A pattern that she couldn't have explained by chance. A message hidden in the very fabric of the universe. Who put it there? Sagan doesn't answer that question, he just ends the book there, which is a perfect ending.

I'm interested in cryptography and programming, and both of these disciplines have taught me that it IS possible to seperate the evidence of design from seeming patterns in chaos.

On all the points about Evolution. I believe in Evolution. Behe has stated quite publicly that he believes in common descent. Just because evolution is true does NOT mean it can explain everything. That is the question ID is trying to answer.

Palzon wrote:The only support for ID is in the bible itself, a self-referential way of believing that is NOT science.

I'm willing to address naturalistic evolution on the basis of it's own scientific statements, it would be exceptionally kind if you would grant ID the same privilege.

Birdseye wrote:I know I'm going to be screamed at as 'straw manning'

I didn't think I had screamed at anyone, my appologies if it sounded like I was.

Birdseye wrote:I'm just wondering why there is such resistance to the idea that science is simply describing God's method of creation

I don't resist that idea at all.

Birdseye wrote:if science can't explain a part of evolution why this suddenly means God created it

It doesn't. I urge you to actually read Dembski or Behe. The conditions for identifying design are actually quite limited in scope.

Kilarin

Kilarin wrote:(Palzon, are you REALLY, REALLY certain this board is a haven for right wing conservative Christians)

Yep. I never said it was a haven for right wing conservative Christians who support ID for origins.

I don't see how your response answers this question:

Palzon wrote:So show me how we test for Intelligent Design that is not man-made

Kilarin wrote:

Palzon wrote:The only support for ID is in the bible itself, a self-referential way of believing that is NOT science.

I'm willing to address naturalistic evolution on the basis of it's own scientific statements, it would be exceptionally kind if you would grant ID the same privilege.

Again, give me a scientifically testable statement that ID makes.

Last, whether one believes in ID or not is not what concerns me. What concerns me is whether or not we should be teaching school children that ID is science when it is clearly not science. I have repeatedly said that ID should be pursued, and/or taught in school - outside the science class. I am more than happy to entertain ID as a philosophy, but I am not prepared to see our whole scientific system put in peril due to politically motivated zealots.

ID is about detecting design. If a scientist was studying a new bird flu, he probably wouldn't be looking for design, but if he found something in the DNA that made him think it may have come out of a lab in Iran, you can bet he would get on the phone real quick.

Your analogy works only because there is an established framwork for what constitutes a human design. But we're not talking about human design, and I think what you are doing is making an unfair logical jump -- that we can somehow compare human-design indications to the structures of life. But even if the design is similar to 'intelligent design methods' used already, it still doesn't prove that an intelligent being designed anything, it just shows similarities. All your left with is 'this would make sense if it were true' since they are similar, but nothing has been scientifically proven.

Again, back to Diedel's point -- you have to prove the existance of God for Intelligent Design to be proven. I don't see how you can get around that.

D doesn't question Science at all, its just a scientific theory competing with naturalistic evolution.

...yet they can also be thought of not competing at all, with \"naturalistic evolution\" simply being the intelligent design God set into motion! IDer's keep forgetting that evolution can ALSO be thought of as intelligent design. What the real argument is, I think, between ID camps. Some have a firm belief that it is scientifically *impossible* to 'naturally ' expain things, that there was, at some point, a \"Magic Wand\" was waved by God and we will never be able to unravel how this wand was waved, such that the universe must be designed. What ID is really arguing is not scientific at all, it's arguing for God waving a \"Magic Wand\" that we cannot scientifically explain.

By Darwin's own definition, Evolution by Natural Selection MUST work in small steps, where each step has an advantage over the next. No, of course we don't understand everything about evolution, but we know that it follows that rule. It's almost the DEFINITION of natural selection.

I think you are too attatched to currently held scientifically beliefs. I think some day we may discard some of Darwin's theories for better ones, or find new 'mechanisms' which take up some of the slack from old ones. Science, despite how hard it is worked on and how strongly it is rooted in experimentation, still ends up being an approximation. Any good scientist will tell you that they don't understand the whole picture. It never tells the story, but we make theories out of our observations. If observe new things, science will simply change and the old theories will be gone.

But what you seem to be doing is nit picking small parts that don't seem to work yet, and opting in favor of this \"Magic Wand\" as a better explanation.

And don't misunderstand me, Natural Selection can do some absolutely MARVELOUS things. Some completely unexpected things, some fascinatingly complex things. BUT, natural selection can NOT plan ahead or predict the future. Those two things require intelligence behind them. I think I best described the way I feel about ID in this post. It's way to long, but the topic isn't simple.

I think you'll need to explain why natural selection predicting the future is the ONLY way certain life forms could have evolved, which I think you won't be able to do.

The world is way, way beyond our understanding. What physicists thought rediculous 100 years ago is now science fact. Read up on Quantum Physics if you want to be shocked and astounded about nature. I reccomend \"Schrodinger's Kittens\" by John Gribbin of Cambridge University. Things such as light \"particles\" going through two holes at once, and many other paradoxes and jaw droppers are revealed about the natural world.

ID is NOT about complexity.

Huh? Uhh... please explain. I have no idea what ID is even ABOUT after that statement. I understand you are trying to detect *Design* but in order to prove that the designer did it via some Magic Wand and not a scientifically verifyable process, you'd need to also prove that the situation was too complex for a natural explanation. Otherwise we're back to 'it would make sense if it were true, but we can't be sure'

I don't resist that idea at all.

You sure seem to be. Do you think that ID is but a *possibility* or do you believe it to be true?

I have go with Palzon here, when I ask this question again: give me a scientifically testable statement that ID makes.