NationStates Jolt Archive

The ID crowd loves the idea of irreducible complexity - how evolution cannot produce more information in an organism etc.

Just a couple of hours ago, I suddenly thought of a super simple example to illustrate why irreducible complexity is total nonsense.

I've written a detailed article (http://freshbrainz.blogspot.com/2006/10/irreducible-complexity-pwned.html) about this, but my main idea is - irreducibly complex systems cannot grow or shrink.

What are your thoughts?

Personally, I like this as a response to IDers:

http://www.lehigh.edu/~inbios/news/evolution.htm

The faculty in the Department of Biological Sciences is committed to the highest standards of scientific integrity and academic function. This commitment carries with it unwavering support for academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas. It also demands the utmost respect for the scientific method, integrity in the conduct of research, and recognition that the validity of any scientific model comes only as a result of rational hypothesis testing, sound experimentation, and findings that can be replicated by others.

The department faculty, then, are unequivocal in their support of evolutionary theory, which has its roots in the seminal work of Charles Darwin and has been supported by findings accumulated over 140 years. The sole dissenter from this position, Prof. Michael Behe, is a well-known proponent of "intelligent design." While we respect Prof. Behe's right to express his views, they are his alone and are in no way endorsed by the department. It is our collective position that intelligent design has no basis in science, has not been tested experimentally, and should not be regarded as scientific.

What are your thoughts?

I wonder if my sister will ever forgive me for loading one of her kids' squirt guns with grape juice and shooting her with it last night.

I wonder if my sister will ever forgive me for loading one of her kids' squirt guns with grape juice and shooting her with it last night.
Probably. As long as you didn't get it on the sofa. Sisters tend to be very protective of furniture in my experience.

Personally, I like this as a response to IDers:

http://www.lehigh.edu/~inbios/news/evolution.htm

The faculty in the Department of Biological Sciences is committed to the highest standards of scientific integrity and academic function. This commitment carries with it unwavering support for academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas. It also demands the utmost respect for the scientific method, integrity in the conduct of research, and recognition that the validity of any scientific model comes only as a result of rational hypothesis testing, sound experimentation, and findings that can be replicated by others.

The department faculty, then, are unequivocal in their support of evolutionary theory, which has its roots in the seminal work of Charles Darwin and has been supported by findings accumulated over 140 years. The sole dissenter from this position, Prof. Michael Behe, is a well-known proponent of "intelligent design." While we respect Prof. Behe's right to express his views, they are his alone and are in no way endorsed by the department. It is our collective position that intelligent design has no basis in science, has not been tested experimentally, and should not be regarded as scientific.

Ouch.

Personally, I like this as a response to IDers:

http://www.lehigh.edu/~inbios/news/evolution.htm

The faculty in the Department of Biological Sciences is committed to the highest standards of scientific integrity and academic function. This commitment carries with it unwavering support for academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas. It also demands the utmost respect for the scientific method, integrity in the conduct of research, and recognition that the validity of any scientific model comes only as a result of rational hypothesis testing, sound experimentation, and findings that can be replicated by others.

The department faculty, then, are unequivocal in their support of evolutionary theory, which has its roots in the seminal work of Charles Darwin and has been supported by findings accumulated over 140 years. The sole dissenter from this position, Prof. Michael Behe, is a well-known proponent of "intelligent design." While we respect Prof. Behe's right to express his views, they are his alone and are in no way endorsed by the department. It is our collective position that intelligent design has no basis in science, has not been tested experimentally, and should not be regarded as scientific.

OWNED.

i find it strange when they use the EYE as an example of irreducible complexity as if the have never heard of sunflowers.

What are your thoughts?I think that (for example)
Oh yes, as I was saying, if a baby was really made up of perfectly-aligned components, then growth would be impossible. Any tiny mis-timing in the growth of one part will cause all the other parts to fail. is misrepresenting what people mean with "irreducible complexity". It's like saying "well, watch composed of perfectly-aligned parts can't possibly run". Just because parts fit together 'perfectly' doesn't mean there can't be movement change etc.
Most of the arguments for "irreducible complexity" are at the level of molecular biology, about chemical cycles, DNA copying, etc. Which of course goes bust for the same reason the "mouse trap" analogy goes bust, because you can strip a whole lot of cellular mechanisms and still have a working cell.

A better argument against "irreducible complexity" in my opinion is that evolutionary strategies in computational science have shown that 'information' can emerge in evolution.

I think that (for example)
is misrepresenting what people mean with "irreducible complexity". It's like saying "well, watch composed of perfectly-aligned parts can't possibly run". Just because parts fit together 'perfectly' doesn't mean there can't be movement change etc.
Most of the arguments for "irreducible complexity" are at the level of molecular biology, about chemical cycles, DNA copying, etc. Which of course goes bust for the same reason the "mouse trap" analogy goes bust, because you can strip a whole lot of cellular mechanisms and still have a working cell.

A better argument against "irreducible complexity" in my opinion is that evolutionary strategies in computational science have shown that 'information' can emerge in evolution.

I definitely agree with you that a molecular example would be more apt, since Behe was more interested in stuff like bacteria flagellum. However I was thinking of using the simplest, most accessible example that non-scientists can visualize. Once I talk about a cell some people will turns off immediately.

As for the perfectly-aligned parts in the baby, I understand your criticism but I don't mean that when parts fit perfectly they can't move. Sure they can, they are made precisely to move together. The core of my message is - in order to disproportionally grow or shrink such a single-function, purpose-made machine with critically-interdependent parts, you will need to invoke a miracle every time. Living systems (such as a baby) are not like that at all.

The ID crowd loves the idea of irreducible complexity - how evolution cannot produce more information in an organism etc.

Just a couple of hours ago, I suddenly thought of a super simple example to illustrate why irreducible complexity is total nonsense.

I've written a detailed article (http://freshbrainz.blogspot.com/2006/10/irreducible-complexity-pwned.html) about this, but my main idea is - irreducibly complex systems cannot grow or shrink.

What are your thoughts?

Well, anybody who knows anything about genetics understand that all mutations that occur, and all genes, are already present. When two creatures mate, mutations occur do to slight differences in genetic varition.

Over time, these mutations can build up, and create entirely new species. Even in asexual organism can have a mutation from one generation to the next(however mutations don't happen as frequently from one generation to a next, it happens more quickly in actually time due to faster production of generations).

Not to mention almost all of the "science" ID's use is completely false or misinterpreted into something it does not mean. ID's also ignore a great deal of science which goes against thier ideas.

Not to mention that ID's do not even follow the scientific process, thus it cannot be science.

Jesus, there a lot of "not to mentions" when thinking of ID.

Mutation don't magically happen. No bioligist in thier right mind would even for a second claim that.

... The core of my message is - in order to disproportionally grow or shrink such a single-function, purpose-made machine with critically-interdependent parts, you will need to invoke a miracle every time. Living systems (such as a baby) are not like that at all.

Interesting. With this in mind, that you propose that there is no 'miracle' that occurs during a conceptus to baby development period, no miracle to define when a baby is a pre-working lump of cells and post-changed-into-working baby, please do tell, how do you feel about abortion? If there is no miracle that occurs that defines when it is a pre-human and post-human-enhanced development, it must continuously be human since concpetus? Perpetual human-working machine, no?

please do tell, how do you feel about abortion? If there is no miracle that occurs that defines when it is a pre-human and post-human-enhanced development, it must continuously be human since concpetus? Perpetual human-working machine, no?

No. Human...maybe. Person? Not until the brain works and the thing is sentient. Same reason that a human being who is in an irreversible coma with complete brain death isn't a person.

Interesting. With this in mind, that you propose that there is no 'miracle' that occurs during a conceptus to baby development period, no miracle to define when a baby is a pre-working lump of cells and post-changed-into-working baby, please do tell, how do you feel about abortion? If there is no miracle that occurs that defines when it is a pre-human and post-human-enhanced development, it must continuously be human since concpetus? Perpetual human-working machine, no?

Yes you are right. Embryo development is a process and not magic. We understand some of the core principles (like when and where essential genes are expressed to drive the differentiation of cell types) but of course many details need to be studied. If development was truly a divine-guided miracle, then developmental abnormalities cannot occur.

You are also correct in your observation that life is a continuous process. It doesn't "start" at fertilization, since both the sperm and egg were alive. However when "human life" starts - during what stage of development should there be full human rights - is a today a matter of raging ethical and legal debate.

Anyway I mentioned the baby example to show that irreducible complexity is bunk. Living systems can tolerate a fair amount of variation in their parts, or even loss of many parts. The watch will definitely fail, but Timmy the toddler goes on nonetheless.

I wonder if my sister will ever forgive me for loading one of her kids' squirt guns with grape juice and shooting her with it last night.

It's her own fault. Anyone who knows you as well as your sister would should know better than to have anything that stains in the house while you are there.

Just remind her it could have been a mud bath.

I wonder if my sister will ever forgive me for loading one of her kids' squirt guns with grape juice and shooting her with it last night.

Youre the reason we cant have nice things!

The ID crowd loves the idea of irreducible complexity - how evolution cannot produce more information in an organism etc.

Just a couple of hours ago, I suddenly thought of a super simple example to illustrate why irreducible complexity is total nonsense.

I've written a detailed article (http://freshbrainz.blogspot.com/2006/10/irreducible-complexity-pwned.html) about this, but my main idea is - irreducibly complex systems cannot grow or shrink.

What are your thoughts?
Simple, easy to understand even by idiot IDers...I love it! You, Xisla, are teh rock.

Heh, I wrote a paper critiquing Behe the other day.

I wonder if my sister will ever forgive me for loading one of her kids' squirt guns with grape juice and shooting her with it last night.

That depends on what she was wearing. If it was white, I would start looking for a burial plot and a nice casket. You'll need these soon enough.

If there is no miracle that occurs that defines when it is a pre-human and post-human-enhanced development, it must continuously be human since concpetus? Perpetual human-working machine, no?You seem to be implying there should be a clear line before which an embryo wouldn't be human and after which it is; or otherwise that it's always human.
That's a falacy however, the beginning and end of a process can be qualitatively different while there isn't a set point where it suddenly switches from one to the other.
Consider creating a painting; with which brushstroke does it turn into a painting? The first, the second, the third, .., the last? There just isn't a well-defined moment where it turns from one to the other with a single brushstroke.
So why should there be with a an embryo? Surely it's not simpler than a painting.

The ID crowd loves the idea of irreducible complexity - how evolution cannot produce more information in an organism etc.

Just a couple of hours ago, I suddenly thought of a super simple example to illustrate why irreducible complexity is total nonsense.

I've written a detailed article (http://freshbrainz.blogspot.com/2006/10/irreducible-complexity-pwned.html) about this, but my main idea is - irreducibly complex systems cannot grow or shrink.

What are your thoughts?

From your article:


His critics managed to make mousetraps using fewer and fewer parts than he could ever imagine. Worse, they even demonstrated that a complex mousetrap can be modified from simpler "ancestors".

I thought that the point was that the critics were able to find different functions for the various components of the mouse trap, not actually a simpler mouse trap. (It would be harder to conceive of a simpler mouse trap than the one Dr. Behe described.)

And earlier in your article:

Then, he had a flash of insight: "Hey, living things are complex things too! In comparison to a watch, a human being contains way, way more parts. All these parts must fit together perfectly in order for a person to be alive."


To which I reply that I reckon William Paley wasn't claiming perfection, only the ability to function adequately. Perfection is for mathematics. Adequate functionality is more like real life. The problem is that outside of mathematics, there is no real way to define perfection. ID does not argue for perfection in life, but that complexity is a basic ingredient for adequate functionality, and argues that there are some forms of complexity in life that cannot adequately function in the absence of some of the parts of the complex.

Hence, in your arguments, you need to be careful that you are not attacking a straw man, or an argument that the IDers are not even making.


Living systems are not rigid like a watch, they are flexible and robust. They have a modular organization, that allows for variation in some parts not to affect the function of other parts. This same feature also permits the organism to evolve. All the parts don't have to be perfect - what about people with extra fingers? Or people with organs on the "wrong" side of the body?


The problem for evolution is explaining how something like modular organization could come about in the first place through natural selection and lots of small changes (mutations) over a very long time. It isn't, however, a problem for ID as you claim, since IDers are not arguing for perfection, just functionality. A person with extra fingers is not a problem for ID, because they recognise that mistakes happen and that the system is not necessarily 'perfect', whatever that means anyway, but well designed to cope with the changes.


A Designer God would have to make a brand new baby every time.

This is what irreducible complexity would predict.

And this is exactly what we don't observe.



Maybe he does. I wouldn't be surprised if science simply could not tell us either way.

Not necessarily.

What can't we observe? God making a designer baby? Do you mean we should be able to observe 'God at work'? Or do you mean that a designer God would mean that every baby ought to be 'perfect', assuming that 'perfect' means free from mistakes.

In conclusion, I think you need to review your article somewhat. So far, you haven't scored any points against ID in my book.

You seem to be implying there should be a clear line before which an embryo wouldn't be human and after which it is; or otherwise that it's always human.
That's a falacy however, the beginning and end of a process can be qualitatively different while there isn't a set point where it suddenly switches from one to the other.
Consider creating a painting; with which brushstroke does it turn into a painting? The first, the second, the third, .., the last? There just isn't a well-defined moment where it turns from one to the other with a single brushstroke.
So why should there be with a an embryo? Surely it's not simpler than a painting.

I find the painting analogy quite interesting. If you wanted to prevent a picture from being painted, it could be done at any point before the last stroke, and you would be left with an incomplete picture. So with a baby, all we need to do is prevent the last development, and then we would have an incomplete human....and thus a non-human. On second thoughts, I don't think the painting analogy works that well. You are right, the human issue is certainly not simpler than a painting. I would say it is a lot more complicated. What is at stake is a good deal more than a mere painting, even if it was a painting by Michealangelo. So long as one holds the life of a human to be sacred, there should be much caution exercised when comparing it to something material like a painting.

Personally, I like this as a response to IDers:

http://www.lehigh.edu/~inbios/news/evolution.htm

The faculty in the Department of Biological Sciences is committed to the highest standards of scientific integrity and academic function. This commitment carries with it unwavering support for academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas.

That is, freedom and free exchange of ideas is for all those in support of what they define as science. All else can expect no freedom or free exchange of ideas, but a continual denunciation as non-science.


It also demands the utmost respect for the scientific method, integrity in the conduct of research, and recognition that the validity of any scientific model comes only as a result of rational hypothesis testing, sound experimentation, and findings that can be replicated by others.

All these points are goals that ID also seeks, which doesn't explain why IDers are harassed so much.




The department faculty, then, are unequivocal in their support of evolutionary theory, which has its roots in the seminal work of Charles Darwin and has been supported by findings accumulated over 140 years.
The sole dissenter from this position, Prof. Michael Behe, is a well-known proponent of "intelligent design." While we respect Prof. Behe's right to express his views, they are his alone and are in no way endorsed by the department. It is our collective position that intelligent design has no basis in science, has not been tested experimentally, and should not be regarded as scientific.

If one throws out the concept of a designer, then one should also throw out the concept that material forces are enough to explain life and its diversity, since both are untestable, and are philosophical positions. And if we do this, then much of evolutionary theory has to be relegated to philosophy, invention, and myth-making--certainly not pure science. Any part of evolutionary theory that comes only ''as a result of rational hypothesis testing, sound experimentation, and findings that can be replicated by others'' can stay, and all the rest has to be labelled as non-science.

The core of my message is - in order to disproportionally grow or shrink such a single-function, purpose-made machine with critically-interdependent parts, you will need to invoke a miracle every time. Living systems (such as a baby) are not like that at all.But IC doesn't posit that it's a single-function machine, or that the complex machinery isn't in some way robust.
Importantly, if most of the irreducible complexity is on the cellular level, you may achieve robustness on the macro level. Just like a few servers going down doesn't terribly upset the internet as a whole. The protocols and architecture are robust enough to deal with it. But remove a few transistors from the computer and it will most likely break.
That's how they can escape the problem the growth of an organism might provide.

Added to that, there's the fact that in evolution you can lose the bootstrapping subsystem of a process. Once it starts, and incorporates another more efficient subsystem that can keep it going, you can burn the bridge that led you there. And then millions of years later, we come along, and we wonder, "How did we ever get here? These cellular process could never have started by themselves." Then some invoke miracles, others invoke missing links.

This I think is the real issue of IC. To put it crudely, you can't synthesize proteins without DNA (or RNA), and you can't copy DNA without proteins.
The assumption there however is that there wasn't something else, something that life used before, that might do either or both. Something that we lost once DNA and proteins proved to be much more efficient.
It's not like we never use scaffolding to build something, which can then stand on it's own after we remove the scaffolding (and all other evidence of what was used to build it; it's simply not needed any longer).

If development was truly a divine-guided miracle, then developmental abnormalities cannot occur.That depends on how well and how closely it was guided. It's not like we haven't had nuclear powerplants melt down despite 'guiding' the fission process.
It also assumes it doesn't happen for a reason (another easy escape from the dilemma).

Living systems can tolerate a fair amount of variation in their parts, or even loss of many parts. The watch will definitely fail, but Timmy the toddler goes on nonetheless.Months ago I read an article about a special processor that could tolerate, I think, about 30% loss of it's transistors. Thanks to an errorcorrecting program that was incorporated.
Design might account for a fair amount of tolerance. And certainly, in the real world it should.

If one throws out the concept of a designer, then one should also throw out the concept that material forces are enough to explain life and its diversity

you fail to explain why one logically follows the other.

the forces of which we are aware (gravity, weak, strong, electromagnetic) are quite sufficient to dictate any possible physical or chemical interaction that could lead to modifications in protiens making up the cell structures of specific species over time.

are you are implying that you see the laws of physics as God?

I find the painting analogy quite interesting.Well, I can't take credit for it. It's from science of discworld II (Ch 22)

If you wanted to prevent a picture from being painted, it could be done at any point before the last stroke, and you would be left with an incomplete picture.Would you notice it's incomplete though? Say, the last leaf of a tree unpainted?

So with a baby, all we need to do is prevent the last development, and then we would have an incomplete human....and thus a non-human.I don't think that's entirely fair. For one you can easily maintain that humans are never done develloping. Taking your appraoch that would mean they're incomplete and thus non-humans.
The real problem is, we don't know how/what the painter is, and what he'd consider the last stroke. Or even if there is one (you can keep on refining a picture indefinitely). So what might be the last devellopment of a human?

So long as one holds the life of a human to be sacred, there should be much caution exercised when comparing it to something material like a painting.And even if one doesn't hold life sacred.
An analogy should never be taken too seriously, just as an explanation of a line of thought.

you fail to explain why one logically follows the other.

Yeah, I didn't go into detail on that one. But I was hinting that I think there is a lot within evolutionary theory that is mere speculation, explanations that are designed to fill in the gaps, but with have little or no evidence other than the basic assumption that material forces (somehow) are adequate. It is this assumption that cannot be called science, but is the basis upon which much is passed for science. When we call something like ID not science, how can we defend the same accusation for much of evolutionary theory.

For your interest, while I am not an IDer, neither am I an 'evolutionist', just a critic who thinks it is better to say that we don't know, than to make up explanations that are easily recognised as inadequate. However, I do support both ID and evolutionary based research as 'worthy' activities. We will never ever know, of course, unless with have a go.


the forces of which we are aware (gravity, weak, strong, electromagnetic) are quite sufficient to dictate any possible physical or chemical interaction that could lead to modifications in protiens making up the cell structures of specific species over time.

That's a big fat assumption right there. I argue that we don't even know if they are adequate, in the absence of information already present (like an enzyme). We don't even know if lots of time could fix the problem. We hypothesis this, but we don't know it. Thus, such ideas might belong in science as hypotheses, but not fact. It is precisely this point that has caused so much confusion--so many people mistake a hypothesis for a fact, or don't even see the difference. People just believe a hypothesis (you would be a prime example) and forget that belief does not turn a hypothesis into a fact, in the realm of science. Such a belief belongs more to a religion (and by no means do I consider religion to be less than science).


are you are implying that you see the laws of physics as God?

No, not at all. Only that I believe God is responsible for the laws of physics (although that is clearly not a belief within the realm of science, so that I do not consider it necessary to support such a belief with scientific experiments).

Well, I can't take credit for it. It's from science of discworld II (Ch 22)
OK


Would you notice it's incomplete though? Say, the last leaf of a tree unpainted?


Only to a very careful eye, perhaps. Practically speaking, most likely not. Same goes with the development of baby, I'll agree.


I don't think that's entirely fair. For one you can easily maintain that humans are never done develloping. Taking your appraoch that would mean they're incomplete and thus non-humans.

Yes, I even thought of that when I was replying to you in my earlier post. However, I suspect that it would even increase the difference between a painting and a baby.


The real problem is, we don't know how/what the painter is, and what he'd consider the last stroke. Or even if there is one (you can keep on refining a picture indefinitely). So what might be the last devellopment of a human?


Yeah, I don't know....birth?



And even if one doesn't hold life sacred.
An analogy should never be taken too seriously, just as an explanation of a line of thought.

Yes, and I suppose we have covered some of the benefits of such a line of thought, and the limitations. If anything, though, I am still unsure about the whole 'when is a baby a human' issue. Perhaps the issue is more about whether it is good to interfer, and how much. I mean, just how far should we go with human intervention--until we have a human population that cannot reproduce through any other means than fertilization in a test tube?

You seem to be implying there should be a clear line before which an embryo wouldn't be human and after which it is; or otherwise that it's always human.
That's a falacy however, the beginning and end of a process can be qualitatively different while there isn't a set point where it suddenly switches from one to the other.
Consider creating a painting; with which brushstroke does it turn into a painting? The first, the second, the third, .., the last? There just isn't a well-defined moment where it turns from one to the other with a single brushstroke.
So why should there be with a an embryo? Surely it's not simpler than a painting.

You see, that was just it. If the OP posit stands to itself, then we can't use a 'painter' and a brush analogies because there is no painter. This painting, in your example, must be able to paint itself. If that is the case, that the conceptus is self-directing it's own painting, then measuring when the painting started to paint itself is the only meaningful definition of pre-human and post-human. If there is no miracle that occurs that defines the difference between full existence and partial existence, then all self-painting portraits (to stick with your analogy) must be equal.

If complexity of structure can be reduced to the most simple of assembled pieces, than a single cell entity is equal to it’s multi-cell counterpart. We can’t logically hold that no event occurs during ‘self-painting’ AND argue that a concepturs is not a complete machine until so-and-so occurs.

The ID crowd loves the idea of irreducible complexity - how evolution cannot produce more information in an organism etc.

Just a couple of hours ago, I suddenly thought of a super simple example to illustrate why irreducible complexity is total nonsense.

I've written a detailed article (http://freshbrainz.blogspot.com/2006/10/irreducible-complexity-pwned.html) about this, but my main idea is - irreducibly complex systems cannot grow or shrink.

What are your thoughts?

Compexity arrises when energy is added to existing systems, raising the system to a bifurcation point where change is inevitable but not predicable. Complex systems will grow and change at bifurcation points, but it has little or nothing to do with any supposed "intelligent design."

You see, that was just it. If the OP posit stands to itself, then we can't use a 'painter' and a brush analogies because there is no painter.That analogy is just to show how something can have a qualitatively different beginning and end without a clear point where it switched from one to the other.
You could just as easily take a melting ice sculpture. At what exact point of degradation does it stop being a sculture? And mind you, it melts nicely by itself.

This painting, in your example, must be able to paint itself.If you want to extend it to fit an embryo, then it should paint itself, in a specific context. And embryo doesn't devellop outside a womb or something that can substitute for it. There is an interaction between it and it's environment.

If that is the case, that the conceptus is self-directing it's own painting, then measuring when the painting started to paint itself is the only meaningful definition of pre-human and post-human.I disagree. Firstly because it's not a meaningfull definition. There is an obvious difference between an empty canvas and a finished (near as any one can tell) painting. Whether it directs it's own painting doesn't change that. You could take (probabilistic) cellular automata. Each iteration the canvas can change in a way depending on th way it was previously. And eventually, (with the right kind of starting canvas), it (somewhat) converge to a (somewhat) finished picture.
And it's just follows the rules from the canvas+environment. But still a clear qualitative difference between start and finish.

If there is no miracle that occurs that defines the difference between full existence and partial existence, then all self-painting portraits (to stick with your analogy) must be equal.Again I disagree. This would simply come down to denying (continuous) change. If you have a heap of sand, and take a way a grain, does it stop being a heap of sand? No, right? Take an hourglass. You have a heap of sand in the top, assume one grain drops out from the top bulb at a time. If one grain dropping out doesn't matter, you'd always have a heap of sand in the top, but it does run out. It's clear enough to say when it's empty. But when does it's content stop being a heap of sand?
"Heap" is not a clearly defined concept. What is a heap? 10 grain, a 100, a 1000?
What, exactly, is a human? Two arms, two legs, a rump, a head and a brain? "Human" is also not a clearly defined concept.
We know it when we see it, mostly. But there is quite some variability. Someone doesn't stop being human if he looses a limb. Nor if (s)he's born with one or two fewer, or three or four fewer. Nor even with one more.
That's the real problem in pointing out a line of division between "now it's not human" and "now it is". We can recognize when it clearly is, and when it clearly isn't. But when it neither is nor isn't, we should simply reserve judgment rather than force a line of division.

We can’t logically hold that no event occurs during ‘self-painting’ AND argue that a concepturs is not a complete machine until so-and-so occurs.But change is an event. So we don't hold that. Although 'event' is perhaps too big a word. All little bits of change add up.
But there needen't be one big noticable event that marks the switch from not-painting to painting, from heap to not-heap, from sculpture to not-sculpture, from before-state to after-state.
You could only mark such a change if you very precisely defined what something is.

The ID crowd loves the idea of irreducible complexity - how evolution cannot produce more information in an organism etc.

Just a couple of hours ago, I suddenly thought of a super simple example to illustrate why irreducible complexity is total nonsense.

I've written a detailed article (http://freshbrainz.blogspot.com/2006/10/irreducible-complexity-pwned.html) about this, but my main idea is - irreducibly complex systems cannot grow or shrink.

What are your thoughts?

I like the idea of ID, but not as a scientific idea.

The problem for evolution is explaining how something like modular organization could come about in the first place through natural selection and lots of small changes (mutations) over a very long time. It isn't, however, a problem for ID as you claim, since IDers are not arguing for perfection, just functionality. A person with extra fingers is not a problem for ID, because they recognise that mistakes happen and that the system is not necessarily 'perfect', whatever that means anyway, but well designed to cope with the changes.

I think the point being made is that all the parts are *not* necessary for adequate functionality. The whole idea behind ID is that, if you are to remove a part from a given system, it won't work, and therefore cannot possibly have evolved. From this point of view, it actually does have to be perfect to have adequate functionality. However, that isn't how biology actually works. In order to arrive at their conclusions, you have to first assume that none of the components were ever used for anything else, that the system has never had more components, and a whole slew of other unsupported assumptions.

In conclusion, I think you need to review your article somewhat. So far, you haven't scored any points against ID in my book.

From previous conversations, it would appear that nothing, not even simple logic, can "score any points against ID" in your book.

That is, freedom and free exchange of ideas is for all those in support of what they define as science. All else can expect no freedom or free exchange of ideas, but a continual denunciation as non-science.

Being demonstrated to be non-science doesn't keep someone from expressing their ideas. The fact that a church doesn't conduct science doesn't keep it from expressing its ideas, does it? There are all sorts of methods we use to gain knowledge and form ideas that are not science. Simply stating that they are not science doesn't keep them from being freely exchanged.

All these points are goals that ID also seeks, which doesn't explain why IDers are harassed so much.

As soon as IDers figure out how to test their actual assumed designer, they can be seen as actually adhering to the scientific method.

If one throws out the concept of a designer, then one should also throw out the concept that material forces are enough to explain life and its diversity, since both are untestable, and are philosophical positions. And if we do this, then much of evolutionary theory has to be relegated to philosophy, invention, and myth-making--certainly not pure science.

What you ALWAYS fail to see is that science is, itself, based in philosophy. The method was derived from philosophy. And yes, it is based in certain axioms that science itself cannot be used to test. The main axiom in this case is the idea that the universe is deterministic - that it is run by set "rules" that do not change. Interestingly enough, without this assumption, the scientific method is not logical. Without this assumption, it would be completely illogical to make the statement, "Well, I've repeated this experiment 1000 times, so I can safely assume that the 1001st time would be the same." Without the assumption of determinism, we would have no reason to believe that the next time would be the same, no matter how many times we tried. Induction only works in such a system. So yes, science itself is based in axioms (which are, by defininition, untestable in any system which is based upon them).

However, this does not mean that you can add any old untestable assumption you like into the mix. That *does* break the method of science. By adding in new untestable axioms, you change the method - it becomes something else.

Note that this does not mean that science assumes that there is no God/designer/creator/etc. (or that there is one). It simply means that science cannot be used to investigate such questions, nor can it be based in an assumed answer to such questions.

Any part of evolutionary theory that comes only ''as a result of rational hypothesis testing, sound experimentation, and findings that can be replicated by others'' can stay, and all the rest has to be labelled as non-science.

You mean the entire theory?

"Irreducibly complex" is ID-speak for "I don't understand how it works so God must have done it." Sheesh.

LG, is your sister speaking to you again?

I just think it's interesting that science is willing to believe we randomly sprang into existence from non-living matter, and that one very simple organism evolved into many different species, when they have no concrete proof that either occurrence is even possible.

There is no concrete evidence that living creatures can spontaneously form from non-living matter. There is also no concrete evidence that evolution can cause such radical changes in an organism, so as to render it a completely different species, though it can create highly specialized genetic sub-specie.

And seeing as creation is the traditionally held view I think the burden of proof rests upon the shoulders of evolution. Their case is mostly based on supposition and conjecture, and I don't find it very convincing.

I just think it's interesting that science is willing to believe we randomly sprang into existence from non-living matter, and that one very simple organism evolved into many different species, when they have no concrete proof that either occurrence is even possible.

There is no concrete evidence that living creatures can spontaneously form from non-living matter. There is also no concrete evidence that evolution can cause such radical changes in an organism, so as to render it a completely different species, though it can create highly specialized genetic sub-specie.

And seeing as creation is the traditionally held view I think the burden of proof rests upon the shoulders of evolution. Their case is mostly based on supposition and conjecture, and I don't find it very convincing.

Translation: I've never read a peer-reviewed science article in my life so will go w/ the traditional "arguments from ignorance".

I just think it's interesting that science is willing to believe we randomly sprang into existence from non-living matter, and that one very simple organism evolved into many different species, when they have no concrete proof that either occurrence is even possible.

There is no concrete evidence that living creatures can spontaneously form from non-living matter. There is also no concrete evidence that evolution can cause such radical changes in an organism, so as to render it a completely different species, though it can create highly specialized genetic sub-specie.

And seeing as creation is the traditionally held view I think the burden of proof rests upon the shoulders of evolution. Their case is mostly based on supposition and conjecture, and I don't find it very convincing.

It's not a matter of "belief," it's facts. However, you're perfectly entitled to your belief that the facts are wrong. And given the quote from the founder of the Mormons in your signature, I can't imagine anything I could post giving evidence for evolution would make any difference to you. And anyway, I'm tired and not in the mood. I say all that with a smile, you understand. :)

I just think it's interesting that science is willing to believe we randomly sprang into existence from non-living matter,

What scientific theory states this?

and that one very simple organism evolved into many different species, when they have no concrete proof that either occurrence is even possible.

"Concrete proof" is an interesting term. If we had "concrete proof" of anything, why would science even need to investigate it? Science doesn't deal in "concrete proof." It deals in empirical evidence and the conclusions (and further hypotheses) drawn from it. If those conclusions or hypotheses are later disproven, then they are disproven. In the end, nothing in science is really seen as being truly "concrete", as it is always open to being disproven by new evidence.

There is no concrete evidence that living creatures can spontaneously form from non-living matter. There is also no concrete evidence that evolution can cause such radical changes in an organism, so as to render it a completely different species, though it can create highly specialized genetic sub-specie.

What is a new species other than something that has become highly specialized - so highly specialized, in fact, that it can no longer mate with other members of the species from which it was derived?

And seeing as creation is the traditionally held view I think the burden of proof rests upon the shoulders of evolution. Their case is mostly based on supposition and conjecture, and I don't find it very convincing.

Creation and evolution are not in any type of conflict. Both can quite easily co-exist. If you are speaking specifically of a literal interpretation of Genesis, often known as Creationism, that is not very traditionally held. In fact, it is a rather new view, and is still in quite the minority.

I just think it's interesting that science is willing to believe we randomly sprang into existence from non-living matter, and that one very simple organism evolved into many different species, when they have no concrete proof that either occurrence is even possible.

There is no concrete evidence that living creatures can spontaneously form from non-living matter. There is also no concrete evidence that evolution can cause such radical changes in an organism, so as to render it a completely different species, though it can create highly specialized genetic sub-specie.

And seeing as creation is the traditionally held view I think the burden of proof rests upon the shoulders of evolution. Their case is mostly based on supposition and conjecture, and I don't find it very convincing.
Take a biology class sometime. Or an anthropology course. Or better yet, a biological anthropology course.

At the very least pick up a textbook on the subject. You seem like you could do with hearing the other side of this particular theory, the supporting evidence.

In conclusion, I think you need to review your article somewhat. So far, you haven't scored any points against ID in my book.
ID = goddidit. Thus, scoring points against it is like fishing with dynamite.

That is, freedom and free exchange of ideas is for all those in support of what they define as science.
No, what IS science. ID != science. ID = dogmatic religion.


All these points are goals that ID also seeks,
Wrong. ID seeks to invoke god, which is not scientific.


If one throws out the concept of a designer, then one should also throw out the concept that material forces are enough to explain
No, we should not, since we can test the material forces, unlike your lie that we can't.

I just think it's interesting that science is willing to believe we randomly sprang into existence from non-living matter, and that one very simple organism evolved into many different species, when they have no concrete proof that either occurrence is even possible.
I just think it's sad that you don't know what you're talking about.


There is no concrete evidence that living creatures can spontaneously form from non-living matter.
Which brings up where the creator came from.


OOOOOOPS! Blows up the creator argument right there.

Which brings up where the creator came from.

OOOOOOPS! Blows up the creator argument right there.

They never seem to understand that fundamental flaw in their arguement; that everything which exists must require a more complex thing to have created it, except the original creator. It seems strange that an amoeba is so complex as to require a creator, but the creator himself, who is apparently more complex than the entire universe, does not require a creator.

When they called it God the idea was pretty stupid, but now theyre trying to look all sciency the cant even try to explain it for fear of looking stupid.

When you have to avoid the basic premise of your arguement because it is so bad, you should stop arguing.

Simple, easy to understand even by idiot IDers...I love it! You, Xisla, are teh rock.

Thanks! You are so nice. I feel appreciated. :fluffle:

I thought that the point was that the critics were able to find different functions for the various components of the mouse trap, not actually a simpler mouse trap. (It would be harder to conceive of a simpler mouse trap than the one Dr. Behe described.)

First of all, thanks for responding to my article. I appreciate it.:)

Yes, in my article there is a hyperlink to a webpage where researchers have made mouse traps with fewer parts than described by Dr. Behe. You can even make one-part mouse traps.

To which I reply that I reckon William Paley wasn't claiming perfection, only the ability to function adequately. Perfection is for mathematics. Adequate functionality is more like real life. The problem is that outside of mathematics, there is no real way to define perfection. ID does not argue for perfection in life, but that complexity is a basic ingredient for adequate functionality, and argues that there are some forms of complexity in life that cannot adequately function in the absence of some of the parts of the complex.

I wasn't refering to mathematical perfection, just that a watch is intricately designed and purposely made to tell time. You can call it "adequately functional" if you prefer.

ID does not argue that "there are some forms of complexity in life that cannot adequately function in the absence of some of the parts of the complex." That is not an argument, that's just an observation. Of course many complex things fail if you take away a major part.

Irreducible complexity does have a prediction. It predicts that living systems must fail if parts are removed, because it is irreducible.

I wish to point out that this is not only false for living systems; it is even false for watches. Watches can do without many embellishments - if Paley is to see a cheap digital watch today he would be astounded that the total number of well-aligned gears in them comes up to a grand total of zero. Some of those IC boards aren't even glued straight.

I also didn't mention in my article that historically, Paley's brass watch was the product of numerous designers making inclemental improvements to create the marvel he held. Since irreducible complexity points towards polytheism, the most parsimonious explanation is evolution.

Hence, in your arguments, you need to be careful that you are not attacking a straw man, or an argument that the IDers are not even making.

Which is why I appreciate your comments, to help clarify the ID arguments so that I can address them more accurately.

The problem for evolution is explaining how something like modular organization could come about in the first place through natural selection and lots of small changes (mutations) over a very long time. It isn't, however, a problem for ID as you claim, since IDers are not arguing for perfection, just functionality. A person with extra fingers is not a problem for ID, because they recognise that mistakes happen and that the system is not necessarily 'perfect', whatever that means anyway, but well designed to cope with the changes.

You brought up a good point. The modular organization of life already exists in the ancestral prokaryote cell. Details of how that first living cell came about may never be known. That is abiogenesis.

However, evolution is about what happens after abiogenesis. To put it in the simplest terms possible, evolution explains how a single "simple" cell with modular organization can diversify into the millions of different species we see today.

I must emphasize that we should never underestimate prokaryotes like bacteria. A wise scientist once said, "Some people call it the Ages of Mammals now, but it has always been the Age of Bacteria".

To address your point about people with extra fingers, think of Paley's watch if you try to jam an extra gear inside. Just a tiny one. Or try fit a bunch of gears backwards in that watch. People can tolerate these changes, a mechanical watch cannot. Remember that my article specifically targets the problems with Paley's and Behe's analogies.


What can't we observe? God making a designer baby? Do you mean we should be able to observe 'God at work'?

We don't observe that a new person has to be reconstructed every time she grows. Similarly we don't observe that a new species has to be reconstructed as a special creation every time. All existing species come from ancestral organisms.

Or do you mean that a designer God would mean that every baby ought to be 'perfect', assuming that 'perfect' means free from mistakes.

Yes. If a Designer God makes too many mistakes, such as constructing babies with debilitating or even fatal deficits, then it is not a parsimonious explanation. Of course if your idea of a Designer God is a bumbling tinkerer than how is that different from evolution?

In conclusion, I think you need to review your article somewhat. So far, you haven't scored any points against ID in my book.

Maybe not against all of ID, but I believe I scored points against irreducible complexity specifically.

The ID crowd loves the idea of irreducible complexity - how evolution cannot produce more information in an organism etc.

Just a couple of hours ago, I suddenly thought of a super simple example to illustrate why irreducible complexity is total nonsense.

I've written a detailed article (http://freshbrainz.blogspot.com/2006/10/irreducible-complexity-pwned.html) about this, but my main idea is - irreducibly complex systems cannot grow or shrink.

What are your thoughts?

one small problem. a watch and any other item can grow if it's designed to do so. Take a program virus. it's self replicating and while completely man made, it can reproduce (replicate) itself and use various means to avoid detection. Humans and other living things also grow because they take in materials to assist in replication.

don't eat or drink? your body starts to break itself down. until it will cease to grow (you die)

Nice article btw...

Babies are complex organisms, yes? They grow and grow. Different parts of the baby grow at different rates. By the time they become adults, the proportion of their body parts have become quite different.
please show data. I know their weight and height don't grow at the same rate, and there are conditions where certain bones grow faster or slower but those are special conditions...

also there are outside forces that can dictate growth, people who don't excercise don't develope the same muscles as those who do, people in different altititudes will have different sized lungs from others... etc...

Can a watch grow like this? Nope. If the gears or the brass casing grows proportionally faster, the entire watch fails. Similarly a mousetrap. if the watch was designed for growth, no it would not. why? the case will grow in the same speed as the gears, the spaces between gears would remain porportinaly the same. thus no failure.

Living systems are not rigid like a watch, they are flexible and robust. They have a modular organization, that allows for variation in some parts not to affect the function of other parts. This same feature also permits the organism to evolve. All the parts don't have to be perfect - what about people with extra fingers? Or people with organs on the "wrong" side of the body?
like watches that are built wrong? tape players that play tapes backwards? (I have one of these.) programs that have bugs in them?
they are object that, to follow your theory, would be the same as a person with extra or missing fingers, missing or misplaced organs... etc. the thing is tho. we, as biological machines, are also capable of self repair, as well as self-reproduction. no machine built by man is capable of that. and those programs that do, any errors are repaired by the programmer. what would happen to the program/virus if it was not, and allowed to continue to replicate?

Oh yes, as I was saying, if a baby was really made up of perfectly-aligned components, then growth would be impossible. Any tiny mis-timing in the growth of one part will cause all the other parts to fail. this is flawed. by your reasoning, a baby then grows because it's not made of Perfectly aligned parts. however, if the parts are not aligned properly, then the baby dies or has severe health problems. Perfectly Aligned parts will grow if they are made to grow. and yes, in a human, you can have mis-timings of growths of some parts... the most common cases of this happening is called "Cancer"

I just think it's interesting that science is willing to believe we randomly sprang into existence from non-living matter, and that one very simple organism evolved into many different species, when they have no concrete proof that either occurrence is even possible.

The theory of Evolution does not care how life began. The theory of Ambiogenesis does, but Evolution does not. All evolution cares about is how life changed after its beginning.

Also, you seem to have a misunderstanding of Evolution, one which is often seen in opponents of Evolution. Often times, people see Humans as the end result, and the highest evolved animal on the planet. However, Humans ourselves are still evolving, albeit at a slower rate than that of other animals. This is largely due to a higher gestation and maturation period, allowing a slower transfer of genetic information.

Think of it like this:

Imagine you have no knowledge of how to make bread. You are given all of the ingredients to make bread, and also are given several ingrediants that are not commonly used in bread. Your only instructions are to mix the ingredients how you see fit, and to bake it as how you see fit. Now, it is possible that bread(In this case Bread means humans) will be made, however it is also possible something completely different will be made, and it may infact be successful. You do not know the outcome until the product is finished. From here, you can follow the process of how you made the product, but you did not during the process.

Thus, the bread maker analogy is born right here on NS. Use it, love it.

And I know that there are several problems with this analogy, but it does get the basic idea of Evolution across.


There is no concrete evidence that living creatures can spontaneously form from non-living matter. There is also no concrete evidence that evolution can cause such radical changes in an organism, so as to render it a completely different species, though it can create highly specialized genetic sub-specie.


There is nowhere in the Theory of Evolution that states that organisms formed from non-living material. Look at my previous response.

And actually, species change HAS been observed. For instance, Mosquitos have evolved quite rapidly, due to short generation spans. Different species HAVE evolved in the past few years. Species change has been observed. I suggest you try to find out what the scientific definition of a species is before you try to "disprove" anything.

Also, Evolution is based on many different fields of study, including, but not limited to, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Ecology. It really does follow basic logic:

Those with a greater chance of survival in a certain environment have a greater chance of passing on their genetic material. It does not guarentee this, however it creates a higher chance. Over time, a certain trait will arise more frequently than others as it is passed on more frequently than than those with less useful similar trait.

For instance, rabbits with longer hair will have a higher chance of survival and thus breeding than short hair rabbits in cold areas, thus the genes of hte long-haired rabbits will occur more frequently. There will still be short haired rabbits, but this trait will slowly occur less and less, until the large majority of the population will have longer hair.

Now, several traits change at the same time. Take the rabbit, again. In cold areas, there is often snow. Now, those rabbits with wider feet have a higher chance of survival, as they can walk on snow much easier. Now, it doesn't guarentee survival of the individual, but it makes survival, and subsequently breeding and passing on the trait, more likely. Over time, the "wide-foot" gene will exist in higher frequencies than the "narrow foot" trait.

It's not even limited to only two variables changing at once. Let's look at the rabbit one more time.

In colder climates, extremity exposure can cause a good deal of body heat loss. This would mean that shorter eared rabbits would have a higher chance of survival(due to less heat loss) than longer eared rabbits. Over time, the traits for shorter ears become more prevalent, as those with this trait have a better chance of survival and thus breeding than larger eared rabbits. The long eared rabbits can still survive, however it will be in a lower frequency than that of the short eared rabbits.

Three traits(and infact, I could go down this list), all evolving at the same time. Where am I getting with all of this? Well, as we all know(or assuming we all know), is that genetics is what causes all traits to occur. And, as we all know, genes are passed on from the parent group. As generations pass on, certain traits become more dominant in populations than other traits. As these traits build, it changes the genetic code. So, let's make a quick diagram:

Parent Group 1(Large Variation in Hair Length, Foot Size, and Ear size with no specific need for any of these to be dominant in one extreme or other)
-
Parent Group 2(large variation still exists in the three traits, however there are slight more Long Haired, Long Eared, and/or wide-footed individuals than in PG1)
-
Parent Group 3(Still some variation exists in the three traits, but the Long-haired, Long-Eared, and/or wide footed individuals are starting to become a bit more frequent than in PG1)
-
Parent Group 4(Variation exists in the three traits, but the Long-Haired, long-eared, and/or wide footed individuals are much more frequent than in PG1)
-Parent Group 5(Variation exists in the three traits, but the Long-Haired, long-eared, and/or wide footed individuals have become a great deal more prominant than in PG1)
-Parent Group 6(For the most part, there is little variation in the three traits, with the Long-Haired, long-eared, and/or wide footed individuals are very prominent, and occur at a much higher frequency than in PG1)
-
Contemporary Group(Almost no variation exists in teh three traits, with the Long-haired, long- eared, and/or Wide footed individuals making up nearly 100% of the population)

Now, when comparing Parent Group 1 and the Contemporary Group, the two are vastly different. PG1 had these three traits all over the place-with no preference to either one. However, as time passes, and generations pass, certain traits are more favorable to other for survival. Now, then, let's break the next part down step by step.

1.Traits are caused by genes.
2.When an overall population's traits change, that means it's overall genetic make up is changing.
3.Given a good span of time(depending on the animal), as many different traits change, many parts of the genetic code are changed.
4.If enough genes change, then they will no longer be compatible for reproduction with earlier populations, or with other populations which may have followed a different evolutionary path. Thus, the two populations can reproduce offspring and share each other's genetic code. A new species is born.

That is the very basics of Evolution. Doesn't get much simpler than that, really.



And seeing as creation is the traditionally held view I think the burden of proof rests upon the shoulders of evolution. Their case is mostly based on supposition and conjecture, and I don't find it very convincing.
Problem is, Evolution is just a theory. It is regarded as fact, however it should not be treated as 100%. There is much evidence which supports evolution, and there is virtually no evidence against it which has been scientifically studied. So far, there has been virtually no scientific research which has disproven Evolution in any way. If Evolution is false, don't just say so-prove it.

Also, the idea of "Creationism" being more "traditional" does not make it right. For a great deal of time, the "traditional" thought was that the Earth was flat-this is obviously false. For a great deal of time the "traditional" thought was that the Earth was the center of the Universe. This is false. Just because it is "traditional" does not make it true. Creationism needs to be proven, or at least given enough evidence to hold it's weight, to even be considered at all as possible science, which it has not. Science is not exclusive-every thing is possible as long there is reasonable evidence, not just a "gut feeling" that something is right. Not just because it's "traditional". Creationism CAN be science, as long as there is ample enough REAL evidence to support it- not misconceptions and twisted evidence.

one small problem. a watch and any other item can grow if it's designed to do so. Take a program virus. it's self replicating and while completely man made, it can reproduce (replicate) itself and use various means to avoid detection. Humans and other living things also grow because they take in materials to assist in replication.

However, watches require that all pieces grow at the same time, and the same rate, and all pieces replicated perfectly, only at different scale. Humans have parts which can grow at different rates, with no two individuals having the same sized, or exactly the same functioning, parts. One person's digestive track can work more efficiently than another's, one person's body organs can be different sizes. However, niether of these would ensure the failure, nor necessarily impede the success, of the individual. With watches, a minor difference in a single part makes the entire piece fail. Watches(of the same type) all need to have the exact same parts to work, and need to work at the exact same efficiency to be considered successful. Watches need to be perfectly made compared to others-humans don't.
]

please show data. I know their weight and height don't grow at the same rate, and there are conditions where certain bones grow faster or slower but those are special conditions...

Exactly, there is no abc of development. There are no constants. There is not trait that is absolutely universal trait of all humans, as far as specific development goes. There are generalities, but there are no constants. For instance, all humans have stomachs, but no there is no set formula for how the stomach grows over the course of a lifetime. The general trait is that humans have stomachs, but nothing more can really be said about specifics of this trait. Unlike a watch, which if a certain types of watch wishes to change in size, it must change with a constant in mind-all pieces must be changed at the same time and the exact same rate for the watch to function. Humans do not have this "constant rate of change" that must exist in ALL humans.


if the watch was designed for growth, no it would not. why? the case will grow in the same speed as the gears, the spaces between gears would remain porportinaly the same. thus no failure.

Yes, however in humans there is room for failure. If one piece fails, it does not necessarily mean the failure of the entire entity, unlike with a watch.


like watches that are built wrong? tape players that play tapes backwards? (I have one of these.) programs that have bugs in them?
they are object that, to follow your theory, would be the same as a person with extra or missing fingers, missing or misplaced organs... etc. the thing is tho. we, as biological machines, are also capable of self repair, as well as self-reproduction. no machine built by man is capable of that. and those programs that do, any errors are repaired by the programmer. what would happen to the program/virus if it was not, and allowed to continue to replicate?

Watches that are built wrong fail. Tape players that are built wrong and play tapes backwards had an incidental event which created an incidental result(Kinda like evolution). The intent was never to create the tape player as such, but it happened because of a series of incidental events.


this is flawed. by your reasoning, a baby then grows because it's not made of Perfectly aligned parts. however, if the parts are not aligned properly, then the baby dies or has severe health problems. Perfectly Aligned parts will grow if they are made to grow. and yes, in a human, you can have mis-timings of growths of some parts... the most common cases of this happening is called "Cancer"

There is a difference between "Perfectly aligned" and "properly aligned" parts. Properly aligned parts can exist, but need not be perfect. "Perfectly aligned" implies that the parts need be absolutely 100% aligned in order for proper function. However, in humans 100% alignment is not needed-there can be variation, and there is variation. Also, certain parts can fail without the entirety failing. In a "Perfectly aligned" mechanism, if one part fails, all parts fail. In "Properly Aligned" a certain part can fail, and not necessarily lead to the failure as a whole.

Thanks for your comments JuNii. :)

I think Seangoli has addressed your criticisms in detail, so let me see if there is anything else to add.

one small problem. a watch and any other item can grow if it's designed to do so. Take a program virus. it's self replicating and while completely man made, it can reproduce (replicate) itself and use various means to avoid detection. Humans and other living things also grow because they take in materials to assist in replication.

My article was targetted towards irreducible complexity specifically, but you brought up an interesting issue. Are there human-made machines that can grow like living systems? Probably not yet. As we become better at systems-level engineering, we might be able to make a physical, self-growing machine.

A mechanical watch (or a mouse-trap) is not one of these. A computer virus (strongly dependent on external complexity) is tad closer but different in many ways.

please show data. I know their weight and height don't grow at the same rate, and there are conditions where certain bones grow faster or slower but those are special conditions...

Not a peer-review article per se, but a simple webpage about teenagers growing up:

The growth spurt (http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/body/articles/lifecycle/teenagers/growth.shtml)

Intuitively differential growth rates must occur, since our heads are smaller relative to our bodies compared to a baby.

if the watch was designed for growth, no it would not. why? the case will grow in the same speed as the gears, the spaces between gears would remain porportinaly the same. thus no failure.

You are right. If a hypothetical mechanical watch can have parts that instantaneously expand at the same time, then continuity is never broken and the watch remains functional at any time. Miraculous as that sounds, to proponents of irreducible complexity this should be true.

But it isn't. Cell division is asynchronous in humans. Organs grow disproportionately. Yet a human stays alive. Living systems are not analogous to mechanical watches.

like watches that are built wrong? tape players that play tapes backwards? (I have one of these.) programs that have bugs in them?
they are object that, to follow your theory, would be the same as a person with extra or missing fingers, missing or misplaced organs... etc. the thing is tho. we, as biological machines, are also capable of self repair, as well as self-reproduction. no machine built by man is capable of that. and those programs that do, any errors are repaired by the programmer. what would happen to the program/virus if it was not, and allowed to continue to replicate?

I agree with you that no machine now (or for the foreseeable future) built by people is capable of the vast repertoire of functions that a living system can do. Watches and mouse-traps being simple systems are bad analogies of living organisms.

You mentioned programmers and error-correcting subroutines. I think programmers are the last people on Earth to believe in irreducible complexity. Compare Window XP's 50 million lines of code to Mac OS's 8 million. :p

this is flawed. by your reasoning, a baby then grows because it's not made of Perfectly aligned parts. however, if the parts are not aligned properly, then the baby dies or has severe health problems. Perfectly Aligned parts will grow if they are made to grow. and yes, in a human, you can have mis-timings of growths of some parts... the most common cases of this happening is called "Cancer"

You are right that a baby can have growth deficits, because development is a process and not a miracle. I was thinking of alignment in a macroscopic, watch component sense. Even if you are thinking of perfection in a sub-cellular component sense, that doesn't exist either. The human genome is largely non-coding, and many of the genes themselves (done in animal experiments) are non-essential. That doesn't mean that these parts are useless, but it emphasizes the fact that they are not indispensible.

In irreducible complexity, nothing is indispensible, thus organisms cannot evolve. This is not observed in nature.

They never seem to understand that fundamental flaw in their arguement; that everything which exists must require a more complex thing to have created it, except the original creator. It seems strange that an amoeba is so complex as to require a creator, but the creator himself, who is apparently more complex than the entire universe, does not require a creator.

When they called it God the idea was pretty stupid, but now theyre trying to look all sciency the cant even try to explain it for fear of looking stupid.

When you have to avoid the basic premise of your arguement because it is so bad, you should stop arguing.

Interestingly enough, Behe has at least been honest enough to state that yes, the creator is God and yes, incorporating his ideas into science would involve redefining science itself. I'll give him honesty, even though I can't advocate trying to redefine science. You want to study theology? Study theology. No need to redefine science to do it. In fact, you can study both theology and science if you so choose - I did, in undergrad.

However, watches require that all pieces grow at the same time, and the same rate, and all pieces replicated perfectly, only at different scale. Humans have parts which can grow at different rates, with no two individuals having the same sized, or exactly the same functioning, parts. One person's digestive track can work more efficiently than another's, one person's body organs can be different sizes. However, niether of these would ensure the failure, nor necessarily impede the success, of the individual. With watches, a minor difference in a single part makes the entire piece fail. Watches(of the same type) all need to have the exact same parts to work, and need to work at the exact same efficiency to be considered successful. Watches need to be perfectly made compared to others-humans don't.

ahh... now this is interesting. you first say "watches require that all pieces grow at the same time, and the same rate, and all pieces replicated perfectly, only at different scale." that indicates you are talking about a single Watch. For which I argued that the same is required for a perfectly functioning human.

however the rest of the quoted section is comparing one human with another, a totally different and irrelivant argument. if you equate one watch = 1 human, then your argument falls, each human is different, tho we do have the same parts. just like I can pick up 20 different clocks, varying in shapes and sizes, yet having the same parts, and even the parts will be different.

The difference, between a watch and a human is that humans have a self correcting system within their bodies to make them run perfectly, watches don't. If you don't think humans need to run perfectly? stop taking medicine when you're sick... after all, medicine corrects the parts that are failing or going to fail...

Exactly, there is no abc of development. There are no constants. There is not trait that is absolutely universal trait of all humans, as far as specific development goes. There are generalities, but there are no constants. For instance, all humans have stomachs, but no there is no set formula for how the stomach grows over the course of a lifetime. The general trait is that humans have stomachs, but nothing more can really be said about specifics of this trait. Unlike a watch, which if a certain types of watch wishes to change in size, it must change with a constant in mind-all pieces must be changed at the same time and the exact same rate for the watch to function. Humans do not have this "constant rate of change" that must exist in ALL humans.
In a human, everything is growing. Even if it’s not growing at the same rate, it’s still growing. the problem is, that you are making an assumption. We have to assume the growth of a watch is constant, but that may not be true.

And also, if one part of the human system does not grow or remain… constant… then problems also occure, an undersized/underdeveloped heart requires surgery… a corrective proceudure. An under developed brain hinders performance. Even overgrowth of bone will also cause problems. There is room for error, but that is because the builder allows for such variants. As would the builder of a growing clock.


Yes, however in humans there is room for failure. If one piece fails, it does not necessarily mean the failure of the entire entity, unlike with a watch.
no there isn’t. man, created the room for failure. If Humans left it to nature, you will find that slower/weaker/dumber humans would also fail. A human with useless legs (hanicapped) must rely on man made items to survive. (wheelchair) a human that is mentally incapable, HAS to rely on others to survive, they won’t survive alone… like a watch with a faulty spring has to.

Watches that are built wrong fail. Tape players that are built wrong and play tapes backwards had an incidental event which created an incidental result(Kinda like evolution). The intent was never to create the tape player as such, but it happened because of a series of incidental events.
And humans that “develop” wrong also fail... or would if not for the assistance of other humans.

There is a difference between "Perfectly aligned" and "properly aligned" parts. Properly aligned parts can exist, but need not be perfect. "Perfectly aligned" implies that the parts need be absolutely 100% aligned in order for proper function. However, in humans 100% alignment is not needed-there can be variation, and there is variation. Also, certain parts can fail without the entirety failing. In a "Perfectly aligned" mechanism, if one part fails, all parts fail. In "Properly Aligned" a certain part can fail, and not necessarily lead to the failure as a whole.and I have a wall clock that functions with or without a pendulm. So a clock can be designed to work, even if certain parts fail, like a human.

And I know what you’re going to say… that clock was “Designed to work that way” so a Human is also designed with a self repair system, and also to allow to work with a certain amount of damage/failure.

But in actuality, the Room of Failure for a human is not as large as you think.

Thanks for your comments JuNii. :) this is an interesting topic and you did write an intersting paper, however, I preferre my computer analogy better. ;)

if this is for school, I hope you get a grade worthy of it. :)

I think Seangoli has addressed your criticisms in detail, so let me see if there is anything else to add.

My article was targetted towards irreducible complexity specifically, but you brought up an interesting issue. Are there human-made machines that can grow like living systems? Probably not yet. As we become better at systems-level engineering, we might be able to make a physical, self-growing machine. and nowdays, computers are designing machines, programming them and manufacturing them. So it’s not so far off. Remember when the “watchmaker” theory was created. Watches were “High Tech” back then. ;)

I remember a program, (can’t remember the title, but Alan Alda was hosting it on PBS) and they were talking about the evolution of machines. They showed a machine who’s purpose was to create other machines. They put in the requirements.. say it has to be stable, be able to move on it’s own… and the machine designs it, builds it and presents it to the scientists. Damn, I can’t remember the name…

So machines creating machines (reproduction) is not that far off.

A mechanical watch (or a mouse-trap) is not one of these. A computer virus (strongly dependent on external complexity) is tad closer but different in many ways. and remember, all things mentioned are built by MAN, who is still growing in intelligence. The Bionics shown on television in the mid 70’s was a dream, yet, now, there are Bionics similar to that being developed now. Suppose we, the modern man, a BIOROID if you will. Will appear to be the pentium three when compared to the TSR 80 of the Neaderthal… and will appear to be that when compared to the man of 20,000 yrs from now.



Not a peer-review article per se, but a simple webpage about teenagers growing up:

The growth spurt (http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/body/articles/lifecycle/teenagers/growth.shtml)

Intuitively differential growth rates must occur, since our heads are smaller relative to our bodies compared to a baby. ah, but the article only covers the growth spurt. But again, humans and most other living things are “designed” for growth. The closest thing would be the table with folding leafs. Granted it’s not designed for self growth, but it can grow and shrink according to needs and even change it’s shape (square to round to half round… etc…. Another would be the stow and go seats in modern family vehicles. And toys. The lastest transformer, Metroplex can change size, and varying the size does not hinder the movement of the toy.

Until the self growing machine is invented, you can only speculate that an equal growth is necessary.



You are right. If a hypothetical mechanical watch can have parts that instantaneously expand at the same time, then continuity is never broken and the watch remains functional at any time. Miraculous as that sounds, to proponents of irreducible complexity this should be true.

But it isn't. Cell division is asynchronous in humans. Organs grow disproportionately. Yet a human stays alive. Living systems are not analogous to mechanical watches. uneven cell division… do you know what that can create? Conjoined twins, Cancer, mental retardation, still birth… etc. In most cases, yes, the person can live, but they would be heavily dependant on other humans. In other cases, they die. So if you hold the same restrictions, that a watch (or any machine) must live and die on it’s own merits, the same must be tested in humans. Remove medical treatment and outside assistance, and see if Humans with such variations in their structure will survive unaided… cold, but scientific.



I agree with you that no machine now (or for the foreseeable future) built by people is capable of the vast repertoire of functions that a living system can do. Watches and mouse-traps being simple systems are bad analogies of living organisms. I agree… but back then, Watches and yes, probably Mouse Traps, were possibly the best examples of High Tech back then.

You mentioned programmers and error-correcting subroutines. I think programmers are the last people on Earth to believe in irreducible complexity. Compare Window XP's 50 million lines of code to Mac OS's 8 million. :p however, consider the programmers and what they had to go through to make the mars rover work. Then ask them to try and make it work like a human would…

that will back the complexity needed for a human and can be, I repeat, CAN BE an argument for Intelligent design.



You are right that a baby can have growth deficits, because development is a process and not a miracle. I was thinking of alignment in a macroscopic, watch component sense. Even if you are thinking of perfection in a sub-cellular component sense, that doesn't exist either. The human genome is largely non-coding, and many of the genes themselves (done in animal experiments) are non-essential. That doesn't mean that these parts are useless, but it emphasizes the fact that they are not indispensible. maybe it does mean that parts are useless…. Or it might me a (pardon the programming language) subroutine that will activate when certain conditions are met. Say… as the world undergoes global warming, perhaps those non essential genes will trigger a program that will re-wire and re-program (adapt) the species for survival… one can only speculate.

In irreducible complexity, nothing is indispensible, thus organisms cannot evolve. This is not observed in nature.and who’s to say that those unusued genes, or the unused parts of our brain, are dispensible. The more science finds out about nature, the more people say “See God didn’t do this!” yet, that is not true, Evolution does not disprove Intelligent Design. After all, how do you know that God (or some intelligent being) did not trigger a biomechanical process to start that lead up the evolutionary path… to where we are today… and will lead life to some unknown point in the future?

God designed us… yes. But he designed us to be ever growing, ever changing and that’s what we are doing.

And if you’re thinking that I am not your steriotypical creationist… I consider myself not. I believe in Intelligent Design. I believe that God put things in motion and used envrionmental influences to shape all life. Evolution is the how to God’s miracle of Life.

Interestingly enough, Behe has at least been honest enough to state that yes, the creator is God and yes, incorporating his ideas into science would involve redefining science itself. I'll give him honesty, even though I can't advocate trying to redefine science. You want to study theology? Study theology. No need to redefine science to do it. In fact, you can study both theology and science if you so choose - I did, in undergrad.

interesting thought.

many theories were redefined when new facts that didn't fit the theories were discovered tested and proven. what if, and I do say IF... there is a basic, underlying flaw, one so basic that it's undetectable (i forgot to carry that damned 2 :D ) that if corrected (and to do so would prove almost everything based in science flawed) it actually proves God's exsistance. How enthusiastic would the scientific community do this, or would they just wave their hands and stick to flawed methods because it suits them.

Like they perceive Diests to be doing now...

<Snippy>

Basically the same hole I found in the argument, by in more detail than I would have added. :p :)

Basically the same hole I found in the argument, by in more detail than I would have added. :p :)

I don't mind going into this level of detail... that's because Xisla and Seangoli are being civil and non condesending. ;)

*+1's over this whole thread*

i find it strange when they use the EYE as an example of irreducible complexity as if the have never heard of sunflowers.


Yes, furthermore, seeing as how the eye was used as evidence FOR evolution back in the day, since there are examples of all stages of its development in the world (the simplest being merely cells that are sensitive to the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that we call light).

I don't mind going into this level of detail... that's because Xisla and Seangoli are being civil and non condesending. ;)

I'm only uncivil when somebody doesn't contribute the argument at all, and responds with a "EVOLUTION IS TEH EVIL!!!!111!!!!One!!" or some such. It's alright to disagree, but give criticism and bring some new thought to the argument.

As for your criticism, it is actually quite intriguing, and has given me much to ponder. I'll be back tommorrow after some thinking. Not mind-blowing change in my personally beliefs, but an intriguing thought for sure.

interesting thought.

many theories were redefined when new facts that didn't fit the theories were discovered tested and proven. what if, and I do say IF... there is a basic, underlying flaw, one so basic that it's undetectable (i forgot to carry that damned 2 :D ) that if corrected (and to do so would prove almost everything based in science flawed) it actually proves God's exsistance. How enthusiastic would the scientific community do this, or would they just wave their hands and stick to flawed methods because it suits them.

Like they perceive Diests to be doing now...

I would suspect that the science community would be reluctant to change much, however not necessarily because of the proof of God, but because it would prove them wrong. And one thing a lot of scientists never do is admit they are wrong. So they would dispute it until the day they die.

In all seriousness though, there really isn't any thing as 100% proven in Science. There are only educated guesses. So, if proof were to found of a "God", then ID would most definately have a much more solid ground in Science than it does now. However, as of right now, all ID is is a series of conjectures, with no actual experimentations or research done, with no actual evidence for it, so thus it is not Currently science. But the day there is evidence for a God, or god-like being? It would then fall into the realm science.

Meh, I love to rant. :D

this is an interesting topic and you did write an intersting paper, however, I preferre my computer analogy better. ;)

if this is for school, I hope you get a grade worthy of it. :)

Thanks. This is not for school (I am actually doing a structural biology assignment right now), the article is my hobby. I believe that scientists are estranged from wider society because they are often incomprehensible, so writing such articles forces me to practice using the simplest, most relevant and most vivid example I can think of to illustrate certain concepts.

Over-simplification may cause inaccuracies. I am aware of this limitation but I would rather live with it and explain the details later, rather than to have my readers switch off immediately because they don't get it.

*snip* uneven cell division… do you know what that can create? Conjoined twins, Cancer, mental retardation, still birth… etc. In most cases, yes, the person can live, but they would be heavily dependant on other humans. In other cases, they die. So if you hold the same restrictions, that a watch (or any machine) must live and die on it’s own merits, the same must be tested in humans. Remove medical treatment and outside assistance, and see if Humans with such variations in their structure will survive unaided… cold, but scientific.

Umm, perhaps you mean uncontrolled cell division. Usually cells don't divide in rhythm, some cells divide a lot (say intestinal epithelium, skin) some cells divide rarely or never (brain).

maybe it does mean that parts are useless…. Or it might me a (pardon the programming language) subroutine that will activate when certain conditions are met. Say… as the world undergoes global warming, perhaps those non essential genes will trigger a program that will re-wire and re-program (adapt) the species for survival… one can only speculate. and who’s to say that those unusued genes, or the unused parts of our brain, are dispensible. The more science finds out about nature, the more people say “See God didn’t do this!” yet, that is not true, Evolution does not disprove Intelligent Design. After all, how do you know that God (or some intelligent being) did not trigger a biomechanical process to start that lead up the evolutionary path… to where we are today… and will lead life to some unknown point in the future?

Those parts are useless as of now and in this current environment. A proponent of purposeful design would find it wasteful to have a genome full of stuff meant for a future that an organism cannot foresee (or may not even survive to reach). Of course if you believe in a God that made the first prokaryote, and controlled all aspects of the environment so that it would evolve into human beings, there is no conflict at all with biological evolution.

Except you now have a even bigger (and possible unexplainable) mystery - the Designer God.

And if you’re thinking that I am not your steriotypical creationist… I consider myself not. I believe in Intelligent Design. I believe that God put things in motion and used envrionmental influences to shape all life. Evolution is the how to God’s miracle of Life.

And I am not an typical "evilutionist" neither. I am a deist but I don't believe in a Designer God. I think God is only interested in Porn and Chocolate. And 42. Stupid me, how can I forget about 42?

I think the point being made is that all the parts are *not* necessary for adequate functionality. The whole idea behind ID is that, if you are to remove a part from a given system, it won't work, and therefore cannot possibly have evolved. From this point of view, it actually does have to be perfect to have adequate functionality. However, that isn't how biology actually works. In order to arrive at their conclusions, you have to first assume that none of the components were ever used for anything else, that the system has never had more components, and a whole slew of other unsupported assumptions.

Hi Dem.

I don't think that ID rests on the claim that all of the parts are necessary for adequate functionality. Rather, ID recognises that removal of a part of the complex happens all the time in nature. Living organisms inherit mutations which cause loss of function (to a certain degree) and yet manage to continue passing on their genes. Perhaps what ID is about is the idea that you cannot evolve irreducible complexity. Once you have it in place--that is a different story.

According to ID, the original development of complexity has to be quite precise to fit the specified requirements. And the argument is that we intuitively know that such precision is highly improbable in the absence of any guiding intelligence.



From previous conversations, it would appear that nothing, not even simple logic, can "score any points against ID" in your book.

Is insults like that really necessary here? The guy wanted to know people's reaction to his article in which he was attacking ID and calling it trash, and I suggested that he review his arguments, in the light of my conclusions.



Being demonstrated to be non-science doesn't keep someone from expressing their ideas. The fact that a church doesn't conduct science doesn't keep it from expressing its ideas, does it? There are all sorts of methods we use to gain knowledge and form ideas that are not science. Simply stating that they are not science doesn't keep them from being freely exchanged.

The point is that the governing assumptions of ID haven't been demonstrated to be any less science than the governing assumptions in evolutionary theory. So their repetitive labeling of ID as non-science appears to be more like some sort of harassment than an intellectual conclusion.



As soon as IDers figure out how to test their actual assumed designer, they can be seen as actually adhering to the scientific method.


They actually don't need to.

William Dembski wrote:
''Darwin, in his Origin of Species, wrote, “'If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.'” ID, in arguing for design on the basis of complexity, takes up Darwin’s gauntlet.''
http://www.uncommondescent.com/index.php/archives/266

Dembski goes further is saying:
''Intelligent design and evolutionary theory are either both testable or both untestable. Parity of reasoning requires that the testability of one entails the testability of the other. Evolutionary theory claims that certain material mechanisms are able to propel the evolutionary process, gradually transforming organisms with one set of characteristics into another (for instance, transforming bacteria without a flagellum into bacteria with one). Intelligent design, by contrast, claims that intelligence needs to supplement material mechanisms if they are to bring about organisms with certain complex features. Accordingly, testing the adequacy or inadequacy of evolutionary mechanisms constitutes a joint test of both evolutionary theory and intelligent design.''

In other words, ID is as testable as evolutionary theory, because the way to falsify ID is to demonstrate that evolutionary theory is true, and visa versa. You are not wrong in pointing out the weaknesses of ID, perhaps, but this only serves to highlight the weaknesses in evolutionary theory.


What you ALWAYS fail to see is that science is, itself, based in philosophy. The method was derived from philosophy. And yes, it is based in certain axioms that science itself cannot be used to test.

On what basis do you assert that I fail to see this?


The main axiom in this case is the idea that the universe is deterministic - that it is run by set "rules" that do not change. Interestingly enough, without this assumption, the scientific method is not logical. Without this assumption, it would be completely illogical to make the statement, "Well, I've repeated this experiment 1000 times, so I can safely assume that the 1001st time would be the same." Without the assumption of determinism, we would have no reason to believe that the next time would be the same, no matter how many times we tried. Induction only works in such a system. So yes, science itself is based in axioms (which are, by defininition, untestable in any system which is based upon them).

However, this does not mean that you can add any old untestable assumption you like into the mix. That *does* break the method of science. By adding in new untestable axioms, you change the method - it becomes something else.


All this is fine, and not meaning that design cannot be detected in nature.



Note that this does not mean that science assumes that there is no God/designer/creator/etc. (or that there is one). It simply means that science cannot be used to investigate such questions, nor can it be based in an assumed answer to such questions.


ID does not try to investigate the designer. It simply focuses on the aspect of design, whether it can be detectable in nature. The meaning of the discovery of design is up to the individual to interpret.


You mean the entire theory?

I don't know. But at least a good deal of it.

I can see the headlines now!

"The Teachings of Religious Extremists Found to be Utter Bunk. World Reels In Shock"

No, what IS science. ID != science. ID = dogmatic religion.

Any supporting reasons for your assertions? No? Shall I remind you that this is a debating forum? One is supposed to argue, preferably politely.


Wrong. ID seeks to invoke god, which is not scientific.


Actually, the leaders of the ID movement say that ID seeks to discover design in nature. What the discovery of design in nature means is up to the individual to interpret.


No, we should not, since we can test the material forces, unlike your lie that we can't.

ID is about testing material forces. I have never read about any suggestions by IDers to test any other forces. And if there was, I would agree that it definitely is not science. Perhaps there is a challenge for you--to demonstrate how ID is trying to test for non-material forces.

And, please, there isn't any need to claim that I am lying. That isn't necessary here.

Actually, the leaders of the ID movement say that ID seeks to discover design in nature. What the discovery of design in nature means is up to the individual to interpret.



Rain falls and forms a puddle. The exact surface of the puddle against the rough and irregular ground is far too complex for us to model and as the puddle fits so well to the puddle hole it must have been designed to fit in such an exact way.

The puddle was therefore designed to fit in the hole.

Actually, the leaders of the ID movement say that ID seeks to discover design in nature. What the discovery of design in nature means is up to the individual to interpret.


Come, you know this isn't true.

I mean, seriously - look at the name of the discipline: "Intelligent Design". Look at the principle, even as you state it 'to discover design'...

This is not science - the agenda is already there before the 'science' is done. The hypothesis predates the observation - and that is just bad science.

And, when we find pattern, we call it design... and not JUST 'design', but intelligent design. This suggests a purpose, a plan... an overarching control. They might not call it 'god'... they might like to pretend that isn't what they are talking about - but if I don't name my red-flower-with-thorns, it is still a rose.

First of all, thanks for responding to my article. I appreciate it.:)

You are welcome, of course. I do enjoy such discussions.


Yes, in my article there is a hyperlink to a webpage where researchers have made mouse traps with fewer parts than described by Dr. Behe. You can even make one-part mouse traps.


OK, I read your link. I was impressed by the ingenuity there. Rather clever mousetraps. The problem with the concept though was that the traps with the simpler parts actually had just as much complexity as the original. What happened is that when a part was removed, one or more of the remaining parts was modified to keep the trap functional. Thus, while technically, the modified traps have less parts, the are not really any less complex, or where they are less complex, their effectiveness is greatly reduced--perhaps to the point of not working at all??!!, e.g., the one-part mouse trap was a single piece of wire that was bent in such a way as to cover the functions of four parts of the original. The only thing that was missing was the platform. And it is questionable whether anyone could catch a mouse without that platform--more like giving the poor mouse a tap on the head.


I wasn't refering to mathematical perfection, just that a watch is intricately designed and purposely made to tell time. You can call it "adequately functional" if you prefer.


Would you say that a watch was not intricately designed?


ID does not argue that "there are some forms of complexity in life that cannot adequately function in the absence of some of the parts of the complex." That is not an argument, that's just an observation. Of course many complex things fail if you take away a major part.

But not a strict observation. A human that has one leg can still survive and pass on his genes. It all depends on the function that is removed.


Irreducible complexity does have a prediction. It predicts that living systems must fail if parts are removed, because it is irreducible.

But be careful with this, since that does not mean that every failure results in death.


I wish to point out that this is not only false for living systems; it is even false for watches. Watches can do without many embellishments - if Paley is to see a cheap digital watch today he would be astounded that the total number of well-aligned gears in them comes up to a grand total of zero. Some of those IC boards aren't even glued straight.


That's all fine, but you are not really criticising ID, but just a claim that you think ID makes. The irreducible complexity that ID points to does not apply to every complexity that one can find in nature, only to the complexity that cannot function in the case of the reduction of one of the parts. Heaven knows there are all sorts of complexes in nature that are reducible.

It does not make any sense to compare the watches of Paley's day with the modern digital ones as an example of where complexity is reducible. Neither does it really matter if Paley was to be astounded by the simplicity of those crooked IC boards, (which are still arguably more complex than the watches of his day).


I also didn't mention in my article that historically, Paley's brass watch was the product of numerous designers making inclemental improvements to create the marvel he held. Since irreducible complexity points towards polytheism, the most parsimonious explanation is evolution.


Hehe, I don't think that line of reasoning is going to score any points either. Evolution of watches is hardly evidence for several designer gods of nature. But I do appreciate the humour.


Which is why I appreciate your comments, to help clarify the ID arguments so that I can address them more accurately.


I'm actually not an IDer. And I am not a spokesman for ID. Thus, basing your understanding of ID based on my comments is not to be recommended, and is a poor substitute for figuring it out for yourself.


You brought up a good point. The modular organization of life already exists in the ancestral prokaryote cell. Details of how that first living cell came about may never be known. That is abiogenesis.


But I wasn't thinking of abiogenesis. I was thinking of how the modular organization found in a relatively simple life form like a bacterium (which is, incidentally, far from simple) could develop into a far more complicated one, such as that found in mammals. There is a good deal more components that all need to be developed (in order to reach specific mammalian requirements), and the only hint that evolutionary theory can give us is that lots of small changes over a long time period is somehow adequate. I do have a problem with such an assumption.


However, evolution is about what happens after abiogenesis. To put it in the simplest terms possible, evolution explains how a single "simple" cell with modular organization can diversify into the millions of different species we see today.


One of my criticisms of evolutionary theory is precisely that it does not explain how a single cell can diversify. It can provide speculations for this supposed phenomenon, but none that I find very convincing.


I must emphasize that we should never underestimate prokaryotes like bacteria. A wise scientist once said, "Some people call it the Ages of Mammals now, but it has always been the Age of Bacteria".


Yes, wisely said, since bacteria are anything but simple, and in order for a bacterium to develop into a mammal via a long history of an accumulation of small changes, there has to have been a whole multitude of miracles, any one of them equal to the creation miracle in terms of believability.



To address your point about people with extra fingers, think of Paley's watch if you try to jam an extra gear inside. Just a tiny one. Or try fit a bunch of gears backwards in that watch. People can tolerate these changes, a mechanical watch cannot. Remember that my article specifically targets the problems with Paley's and Behe's analogies.


The problem is what you do with your analogies. Adding an extra gear backwards in a watch is not comparable to adding an extra finger to a human--more like adding an extra heart that pumps the blood back into the first heart (effectively preventing circulation).



We don't observe that a new person has to be reconstructed every time she grows. Similarly we don't observe that a new species has to be reconstructed as a special creation every time. All existing species come from ancestral organisms.


There is an awful lot of things that we can't observe, or that we think we can't observe, but that doesn't make them untrue. Lack of evidence is not proof of anything other than a lack of evidence. You might claim that lack of evidence means that God is not involved in the life of each small baby, but I would say that your lack of evidence simply means that you cannot see God at work.

For example, if we say that God is the causer of causes (a typical component of Christian theology), in that He is the source for every natural cause, then it is nonesense to claim that God is not constructing every human life. A Christian would say that God is using natural forces. This is a claim that is not supportable by science, but not suprising given the limitations of science.


Yes. If a Designer God makes too many mistakes, such as constructing babies with debilitating or even fatal deficits, then it is not a parsimonious explanation. Of course if your idea of a Designer God is a bumbling tinkerer than how is that different from evolution?


The idea that if there was a designer, then everything should have been designed perfectly has been dealt with in a variety of ways. Within Christianity, an answer (dealing with the problem of evil) has been around for thousands of years. God did make things perfectly (although that all depends on what one's expectations of perfection are), but things went wrong due to man's bumbling choices. That isn't an answer from science, of course, but your question was not a scientific one, since science does not define mutations as mistakes, much less evolutionary theory.


Maybe not against all of ID, but I believe I scored points against irreducible complexity specifically.

ID certainly has it weaknesses , but when you have found them you need to contrast those weaknesses with those of evolutionary theory, and explain why ID weaknesses are worse. So far, you have not really attempted to be critical of your own favourite theory, which gives the impression that you are too biased to be very influential in your arguments. First, I would like to see you demonstrate that impression to be a wrong one. Second, I would like to see you educate yourself further on what ID really is about, since your posts give the impression that you have some misunderstandings there.

Come, you know this isn't true. What, you think I am lying? I mean, seriously - look at the name of the discipline: "Intelligent Design". Look at the principle, even as you state it 'to discover design'... This is not science - the agenda is already there before the 'science' is done. The hypothesis predates the observation - and that is just bad science. Just like the folk involved in SETI, or the chaps in the military that are responsible for detecting enemy traps and tricks, we are capable of searching for design without knowing if there is a designer. Thus, the ID approach is possible without needing a prior commitment to God as the designer. Plus, there is plenty within evolutionary theory that is hypothesis without observation. I guess you would call that bad science also. And, when we find pattern, we call it design... and not JUST 'design', but intelligent design. This suggests a purpose, a plan... an overarching control. They might not call it 'god'... they might like to pretend that isn't what they are talking about - but if I don't name my red-flower-with-thorns, it is still a rose. ID is strictly looking for design. What you do with it, e.g. interpret it to suggest a purpose or a plan or an overarching control, is your thing, not a part of ID. Interpretation is up to the individual. Just like evolutionary theory. It deals with the material world. Some people think that evolutionary theory means that we don't need a God anymore, and that this supports their belief that there is no God. But evolutionary theory doesn't state this, and this is simply an individual interpretation based on evolutionary theory. The fact is that many Christians also support evolutionary theory, albeit they interpret it to mean that God used natural forces to create the world. Interpretation, Grave, is in the hands of the individual. Identifying design does not mean that God exists unless you interpret it that way.

Rain falls and forms a puddle. The exact surface of the puddle against the rough and irregular ground is far too complex for us to model and as the puddle fits so well to the puddle hole it must have been designed to fit in such an exact way.

The puddle was therefore designed to fit in the hole.

No, you can only postulate design when you can see that natural random forces are either inadequate or would tend to work in the opposite direction (e.g against design). In the case of the puddle, we can see that the bottom surface of the puddle is formed by the surface of the ground, given that a liquid's shape tends to be defined by its container. Thus we can safely conclude that the bottom surface of the puddle was probably not designed.

However, if the irregular surface of the ground itself showed a smilie face pattern, we might be forgiven for suspecting that it was designed.

[involvement in thread]:headbang:
Ah that feels better. And so much more rewarding and useful than trying to reason with anyone who fails to see and admit why ID isnt science and why irreducible complexity is nothing more than argument from ignorance. [/involvement in thread]

I can see the headlines now!

"The Teachings of Religious Extremists Found to be Utter Bunk. World Reels In Shock"
"In related news, a new study from Princeton University has revealed that bears appear to shit in the woods."

ID is about testing material forces. I have never read about any suggestions by IDers to test any other forces. And if there was, I would agree that it definitely is not science. Perhaps there is a challenge for you--to demonstrate how ID is trying to test for non-material forces.

Really? Ok, please provide a reference to a scientific study performed to test ID. I'm talking about experiments, not editorials. Something in which a hypothesis is proposed, along with criteria for disproving the hypothesis, and then the hypothesis is empirically tested using natural methods.

OK, I read your link. I was impressed by the ingenuity there. Rather clever mousetraps. The problem with the concept though was that the traps with the simpler parts actually had just as much complexity as the original. What happened is that when a part was removed, one or more of the remaining parts was modified to keep the trap functional. Thus, while technically, the modified traps have less parts, the are not really any less complex, or where they are less complex, their effectiveness is greatly reduced--perhaps to the point of not working at all??!!, e.g., the one-part mouse trap was a single piece of wire that was bent in such a way as to cover the functions of four parts of the original. The only thing that was missing was the platform. And it is questionable whether anyone could catch a mouse without that platform--more like giving the poor mouse a tap on the head.

You are saying that a single part mouse trap (with only a piece of metal that came from the original mouse trap) is still more complex than a five-part mouse trap.

Please explain this clearly to all of us readers here what you are trying to say.

Really? Ok, please provide a reference to a scientific study performed to test ID. I'm talking about experiments, not editorials. Something in which a hypothesis is proposed, along with criteria for disproving the hypothesis, and then the hypothesis is empirically tested using natural methods.

One of the major leaders of the ID movement is William Dembski. http://www.designinference.com/
On this site are several articles, suggestions, discussions. I reckon there has to be some mention of ID-type experiments there somewhere.

No, you can only postulate design when you can see that natural random forces are either inadequate or would tend to work in the opposite direction (e.g against design). In the case of the puddle, we can see that the bottom surface of the puddle is formed by the surface of the ground, given that a liquid's shape tends to be defined by its container. Thus we can safely conclude that the bottom surface of the puddle was probably not designed.

However, if the irregular surface of the ground itself showed a smilie face pattern, we might be forgiven for suspecting that it was designed.

But the chances of getting any particular random irregular puddle bottom are infinitely small. Do to the total improbability of a puddle bottom forming with any particular random irregular surface in that exact way (talking about an ordinary puddle bottom, not the smile one yet) being minutely small it MUST have been designed. How else could something so unique and exact have formed? And even more so how could it have possibly been exactly fitted by the water in it?

As to smiley faces - you're saying regularity means design? Like... a crystal edge HAS to be designed? Or popcorn looking like clouds has to be designed? Or clouds looking vaguely like people, horses, mountains, etc have to be designed? Could not happen by a combimnation of chance and intepretation?

One of the major leaders of the ID movement is William Dembski. http://www.designinference.com/
On this site are several articles, suggestions, discussions. I reckon there has to be some mention of ID-type experiments there somewhere.
You reckon? You mean you don't know of any?

Come on, you made this assertion, and you seem very sure of yourself. If ID is science, then it shouldn't be any trouble for you to provide at least ONE example of a scientific experiment they've performed to test their hypotheses.

Or hell, let's just start with their hypotheses. What are the testable hypotheses advanced by ID? What would be required to disprove each of them?

UPDATE: Even though it's not my job to do your homework for you, I scanned the link you provided anyhow (because I'm just that nice). So far, I've not encountered a single experimental study that tests any ID hypotheses. I might have missed one, though, so feel free to point it out if you see one.

*Checks the pulse of the thread*

I think I've killed it. :(

*Checks the pulse of the thread*

I think I've killed it. :(

Awwww! And I was really enjoying it too! Tsk! :(

Awwww! And I was really enjoying it too! Tsk! :(

Me too. I honestly would love to sink my teeth into some real science on this topic. The science is the fun part! But, sadly, there is no science behind ID, so there really is no fun to be had.

Me too. I honestly would love to sink my teeth into some real science on this topic. The science is the fun part! But, sadly, there is no science behind ID, so there really is no fun to be had.

Perhaps we should define what we mean by "science;" what constitutes science and what doesn't.

William Dembski wrote:
''Darwin, in his Origin of Species, wrote, “'If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.'” ID, in arguing for design on the basis of complexity, takes up Darwin’s gauntlet.''
http://www.uncommondescent.com/index.php/archives/266

Dembski goes further is saying:
''Intelligent design and evolutionary theory are either both testable or both untestable. Parity of reasoning requires that the testability of one entails the testability of the other. Evolutionary theory claims that certain material mechanisms are able to propel the evolutionary process, gradually transforming organisms with one set of characteristics into another (for instance, transforming bacteria without a flagellum into bacteria with one). Intelligent design, by contrast, claims that intelligence needs to supplement material mechanisms if they are to bring about organisms with certain complex features. Accordingly, testing the adequacy or inadequacy of evolutionary mechanisms constitutes a joint test of both evolutionary theory and intelligent design.''



As is typical of Dembski's scientific "honesty", let's finish up his Darwin quote w/ the next sentance:

"But I can find out no such case.".

As for ID being religious dogma, Try Kitzmiller v Dover:

"The proper application of both the endorsement and Lemon tests to the facts of this case makes it abundantly clear that the Board's ID Policy violates the Establishment Clause. In making this determination, we have addressed the seminal question of whether ID is science. We have concluded that it is not, and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents.

Both Defendants and many of the leading proponents of ID make a bedrock assumption which is utterly false. Their presupposition is that evolutionary theory is antithetical to a belief in the existence of a supreme being and to religion in general. Repeatedly in this trial, Plaintiffs' scientific experts testified that the theory of evolution represents good science, is overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, and that it in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine creator."


"....and from requiring teachers to refer to a religious, alternative theory known as ID. "

Perhaps we should define what we mean by "science;" what constitutes science and what doesn't.
Well, in the most general terms, science is the systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation.

Well, in the most general terms, science is the systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation.

And don't forget peer review and replication of the results via repeating the original experiment. :)

And don't forget peer review and replication of the results via repeating the original experiment. :)
Yeah, I guess you could make it, "...the systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through verifiable observation and reproduceable experimentation."

As is typical of Dembski's scientific "honesty"...
Glad to see that I'm not the only one who has encountered Dembski before. If he really is one of the best and brightest of the ID movement, that's just plain sad.

You are saying that a single part mouse trap (with only a piece of metal that came from the original mouse trap) is still more complex than a five-part mouse trap.

Please explain this clearly to all of us readers here what you are trying to say.

Actually, that isn't exactly what I meant. My point is that while there might be some reduction of complexity in one sense (fewer parts), in another sense, since the remaining part is modified, the complexity remains and is essential for the functioning of the trap.

From your link:
''It (the trap) has five main parts: a hammer, which kills the mouse; a spring, which snaps the hammer down on to the mouse; a hold-down bar, which holds the hammer in the cocked position; a catch, which holds the end of the hold-down bar and releases it when the mouse jiggles the catch; and a platform, to which everything else is attached.''

This is a description of the five part mouse trap. The one part mouse trap is indeed simpler in the sense that it has only one part. However, that one part is modified in several ways. Each modification is an increase in complexity. The trap engineer is methodically reducing the number of parts, but increasing the complexity of each of the remaining parts. The net effect is that complexity does not change very much. The parts are fewer, but the bends and angles and notches increase. What makes it even less convincing is that the one part trap is only a hypothetical one (not tested) and it certainly does not look anywhere near as effective as the five part trap.

Just to further my point, I will include this from your link:
''A four-part mousetrap. The first step in reducing the complexity of a mousetrap is to remove the catch. The hold-down bar is then bent a little so that it will catch on the end of the hammer that protrudes out from the spring; this end of the hammer might need a little filing to make the action nice and delicate. I've made one of these by modifying a regular mousetrap, and just like the five-part mousetrap, it snaps with mouse-killing force when I jiggle the bait with a pencil. ''

The catch is removed, reducing the number of parts from five to four. However, there is an additional bend introduced in the hold-down bar, and (perhaps) a ''little filing'' in the end of the hammer. That means two modifications for one reduction in the number of parts. Thus, the author of your link has not proved his point. The complexity is not necessarily reduced, and the end result is a decrease in effectiveness--not the basis on which natural selection is supposed to operate.

*Checks the pulse of the thread*

I think I've killed it. :(

Oh :( ... not completely your fault though. I helped to kill it too by pointing out that Bruarong considers one-part mouse traps as complex as five-part mouse traps. If one can reduce something down to only one part and still consider it complex, then irreducible complexity doesn't make sense at all.

At least it didn't downgrade into a word game. ;)

And don't forget peer review and replication of the results via repeating the original experiment. :)

And isn't there something about a scientific proposition being falsifiable, which ID is not? I found an article in Wiki on falsifiability but my brain imploded when I tried to read it.

Glad to see that I'm not the only one who has encountered Dembski before. If he really is one of the best and brightest of the ID movement, that's just plain sad.

Dembski and Behe are the best they have. The entire movement (as you well know) is based on half-truths. Did Darwin make the statement? Yes. It's just been selectively edited to take it out of context. Just like the "Pandas" book was text replaced to replace creation w/ whatever is the popular buzz-phrase now.

I've been involved in a "debate" in my community over this topic. Not a single person has been able to answer any of my questions w/ anything better than "That's just nonsense". The usual response is "well science can't answer this" and then present more psuedo-science while ignoring my questions.

Here's my favorite source for arguments against ID and such: http://www.skeptic.com/

And isn't there something about a scientific proposition being falsifiable, which ID is not? I found an article in Wiki on falsifiability but my brain imploded when I tried to read it.
Yeah, that's a key element as well.

For instance, I'm in the process of writing up a predoctoral fellowship application. One of the most serious criticisms any applicant can receive is, "This work does not appear to be hypothesis-driven." That is scientist-speak for, "You really kind of blew it at the most fundamental level." For your work to meet the absolute minimum standards to even be considered, you have to present clear hypotheses, including how they might be disproven, and then detail how you propose to go about testing those hypotheses. You don't get to just say, "I think this is what's going on, and there's really not much evidence that I'm wrong, so give me some money please."

Dembski and Behe are the best they have. The entire movement (as you well know) is based on half-truths. Did Darwin make the statement? Yes. It's just been selectively edited to take it out of context. Just like the "Pandas" book was text replaced to replace creation w/ whatever is the popular buzz-phrase now.

I've been involved in a "debate" in my community over this topic. Not a single person has been able to answer any of my questions w/ anything better than "That's just nonsense". The usual response is "well science can't answer this" and then present more psuedo-science while ignoring my questions.
Yeah, in all the years I've been discussing creationism I've never encountered a single person who could give me an example of an empirical experiment to test creation "theory." They usually just think of experiments that test evolutionary theory, as if there weren't already thousands of researchers (like me!) doing exactly that.

Actually, that isn't exactly what I meant. My point is that while there might be some reduction of complexity in one sense (fewer parts), in another sense, since the remaining part is modified, the complexity remains and is essential for the functioning of the trap.Thus, the author of your link has not proved his point. The complexity is not necessarily reduced, and the end result is a decrease in effectiveness--not the basis on which natural selection is supposed to operate.

You are saying that to maintain the same function ( trapping mice) there is a certain amount of complexity that cannot be reduced.

By spreading glue on a piece of floor, I make a one-piece mouse trap without adding complexity to any of the five pieces of the original mousetrap.

That was simple.

But the chances of getting any particular random irregular puddle bottom are infinitely small. Do to the total improbability of a puddle bottom forming with any particular random irregular surface in that exact way (talking about an ordinary puddle bottom, not the smile one yet) being minutely small it MUST have been designed. How else could something so unique and exact have formed? And even more so how could it have possibly been exactly fitted by the water in it?

No, being minutely small, unique and precise does not necessarily mean it must have been designed. One can only conclude design if the natural forces are deemed inadequate. In the case of the puddle, it is easy to see that the detail in the bottom surface of the water can be accounted for by the detail in the surface of the ground. In this case, natural forces are sufficient.



As to smiley faces - you're saying regularity means design? Like... a crystal edge HAS to be designed? Or popcorn looking like clouds has to be designed? Or clouds looking vaguely like people, horses, mountains, etc have to be designed? Could not happen by a combimnation of chance and intepretation?

No, regularity does not equal design, nor do patterns, nor clouds which vaguely resemble people, etc. When patterns can be accounted for by either the laws of nature or chance (which is not really random, like mutations, which are not actually random but too complicated to predict and are thus considered 'random'), then design is not to be concluded.

However, if we were to observe a smiley face on the bottom of the puddle, a closer inspection might be required in order to determine whether it is there by chance, by a law of nature (though I know of no law of nature which makes smiley faces) or by chance. We therefore have a choice between chance and design. How to distinguish between them is a focus for ID.

Actually, that isn't exactly what I meant. My point is that while there might be some reduction of complexity in one sense (fewer parts), in another sense, since the remaining part is modified, the complexity remains and is essential for the functioning of the trap.

From your link:
''It (the trap) has five main parts: a hammer, which kills the mouse; a spring, which snaps the hammer down on to the mouse; a hold-down bar, which holds the hammer in the cocked position; a catch, which holds the end of the hold-down bar and releases it when the mouse jiggles the catch; and a platform, to which everything else is attached.''

This is a description of the five part mouse trap. The one part mouse trap is indeed simpler in the sense that it has only one part. However, that one part is modified in several ways. Each modification is an increase in complexity. The trap engineer is methodically reducing the number of parts, but increasing the complexity of each of the remaining parts. The net effect is that complexity does not change very much. The parts are fewer, but the bends and angles and notches increase. What makes it even less convincing is that the one part trap is only a hypothetical one (not tested) and it certainly does not look anywhere near as effective as the five part trap.

Just to further my point, I will include this from your link:
''A four-part mousetrap. The first step in reducing the complexity of a mousetrap is to remove the catch. The hold-down bar is then bent a little so that it will catch on the end of the hammer that protrudes out from the spring; this end of the hammer might need a little filing to make the action nice and delicate. I've made one of these by modifying a regular mousetrap, and just like the five-part mousetrap, it snaps with mouse-killing force when I jiggle the bait with a pencil. ''

The catch is removed, reducing the number of parts from five to four. However, there is an additional bend introduced in the hold-down bar, and (perhaps) a ''little filing'' in the end of the hammer. That means two modifications for one reduction in the number of parts. Thus, the author of your link has not proved his point. The complexity is not necessarily reduced, and the end result is a decrease in effectiveness--not the basis on which natural selection is supposed to operate.

Oh my - it has turned into a word game :rolleyes: . You are saying that you can only reduce the number of parts but cannot modify them? Descent without modification? That's not evolution.

Behe was considering complexity in terms of many parts working together to form like flagellum.

By your standards even one protein can be irreducibly complex if it is "functionally adequate". Or even one neurotransmitter molecule (say nitric oxide).

I don't think Behe would go that far. This makes irreducible complexity completely meaningless.

However, if we were to observe a smiley face on the bottom of the puddle, a closer inspection might be required in order to determine whether it is there by chance, by a law of nature (though I know of no law of nature which makes smiley faces) or by chance. We therefore have a choice between chance and design. How to distinguish between them is a focus for ID.

Which is ID's primary fault. They "infer" a designer w/o evidence. A watch has a verified designer as do mousetraps. If you were to inspect that "smiley face" and see ink or finger prints, you have evidence of a designer. Show me the tested, repeated experiments for ID's designer.

Which is ID's primary fault. They "infer" a designer w/o evidence. A watch has a verified designer as do mousetraps. If you were to inspect that "smiley face" and see ink or finger prints, you have evidence of a designer. Show me the tested, repeated experiments for ID's designer.
The whole "watchmaker" thing baffles me. They look at a watch and say, "Ok, a some dude made this watch." Then, they claim that they look at a mountain and say, "Some omnipotent Creator-being made this." Why not say, "Ok, some dude made this mountain"? If watches are evidence of (human) watchmakers, then why are mountains not evidence of (human) mountainmakers? Contrarywise, if mountains are evidence of a supernatural mountainmaker, then why are watches not evidence of a supernatural watchmaker?

*snip*However, if we were to observe a smiley face on the bottom of the puddle, a closer inspection might be required in order to determine whether it is there by chance, by a law of nature (though I know of no law of nature which makes smiley faces) or by chance. We therefore have a choice between chance and design. How to distinguish between them is a focus for ID.

How does one quantify how much must it look like a smiley face in order for it to be by design? What if a horse stepped into the puddle? Or a worm crawled across it?

Someone will subjectively find a smiley face in every puddle. Another person would find none.

However, if we were to observe a smiley face on the bottom of the puddle, a closer inspection might be required in order to determine whether it is there by chance, by a law of nature (though I know of no law of nature which makes smiley faces) or by chance. We therefore have a choice between chance and design. How to distinguish between them is a focus for ID.

Ok so you know of no natural forces that make smiley face puddles... how about giant martian mountains? Will that do as an example to set precedent for you?

You reckon? You mean you don't know of any?

I have actually read several ideas for experiments that ID would do. But in order to find them for you, I would have to go back over lots of stuff that I have read. The best I could do is try to remember. Even that is not easy. As I recall, I have several times posted those proposals here on NS.


Come on, you made this assertion, and you seem very sure of yourself. If ID is science, then it shouldn't be any trouble for you to provide at least ONE example of a scientific experiment they've performed to test their hypotheses.

Welllllll, there is an idea was developed in a book published by the IDers, called 'Mere Creation', edited by W. Dembski. This idea is that animals can be separated into basic types, somewhat similar to the current categories of Genus. Animals that can interbreed to produce offspring (fertile or not) are considered to belong to one basic type, such as lions and tigers, dolphins and whales, horses and donkeys, etc. The idea is that if the ID model is right, then there will only be interbreeding possible within the basic types, and never between members of different basic types. This would be consistent with the concept that basic types are designed, rather than evolved. The book develops this idea a whole lot more, and includes a number of challenges to be overcome, and the limitations involved.


Or hell, let's just start with their hypotheses. What are the testable hypotheses advanced by ID? What would be required to disprove each of them?

Dembski is a mathematician and deals mostly with probability and differentiation between chance and design. Personally, I find it hard to get a grasp on lots of his stuff.

A quote from Dembski is (also posted in post number 60 of this thread, and was from the webpage that you were supposed to have read):
''Intelligent design and evolutionary theory are either both testable or both untestable. Parity of reasoning requires that the testability of one entails the testability of the other. Evolutionary theory claims that certain material mechanisms are able to propel the evolutionary process, gradually transforming organisms with one set of characteristics into another (for instance, transforming bacteria without a flagellum into bacteria with one). Intelligent design, by contrast, claims that intelligence needs to supplement material mechanisms if they are to bring about organisms with certain complex features. Accordingly, testing the adequacy or inadequacy of evolutionary mechanisms constitutes a joint test of both evolutionary theory and intelligent design.''

With this statement, Demski is tying together the hypotheses of evolutionary theory and ID. Prove one wrong, and the other wins by default, since there are no other realistic options (perhaps a possibility of an infinite number of other universes, so that we happen to be living in the 'best' one, but that doesn't really pass the giggle test, in my view).

Thus, when evolutionary theory proposes that humans evolved from ancient apes, ID says that this should be tested. If it can't be tested, then don't consider it science. If it can be tested, the test will show either evolutionary theory or ID to be the better theory.


UPDATE: Even though it's not my job to do your homework for you, I scanned the link you provided anyhow (because I'm just that nice). So far, I've not encountered a single experimental study that tests any ID hypotheses. I might have missed one, though, so feel free to point it out if you see one.

It was never my homework, Bottle. It was yours. My challenge was that if you or anyone else could demonstrate that ID was trying to test forces that were not material, I would readily agree that ID was not science.

Welllllll, there is an idea was developed in a book published by the IDers, called 'Mere Creation', edited by W. Dembski. This idea is that animals can be separated into basic types, somewhat similar to the current categories of Genus. Animals that can interbreed to produce offspring (fertile or not) are considered to belong to one basic type, such as lions and tigers, dolphins and whales, horses and donkeys, etc. The idea is that if the ID model is right, then there will only be interbreeding possible within the basic types, and never between members of different basic types. This would be consistent with the concept that basic types are designed, rather than evolved. The book develops this idea a whole lot more, and includes a number of challenges to be overcome, and the limitations involved.

Evolution predicts a similar phenomenon with species that are more closely related from recent common decent having a greater probablity of interbreeding due to more compatible genetics and without the need to infer a designer. Occam's Razor.



It was never my homework, Bottle. It was yours. My challenge was that if you or anyone else could demonstrate that ID was trying to test forces that were not material, I would readily agree that ID was not science.

see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt6oBxZmOG0

intelligent design = creationism

evolution gets going after the fact of first origins. Whether it be from god creating a first created cell, abiogenesis from non-living matter, space aliens screwing around, or any magical robot tennis balls that were programmed and built by each other to create life.

Ok so you know of no natural forces that make smiley face puddles... how about giant martian mountains? Will that do as an example to set precedent for you?

didn't that one torn out to only look like a face until they got a better lens?

Although that makes an even better point on ID. An ID thoughtline would say that that face was probably designed. They would have also have said the 'canals' on the moon carried water and were also most likely designed (as was believed at the time).

But then as we have gotten better and better technology we ahve seen their true nature - that the canals on the moon look nothig like canals, and that face looks nothing like a face once we use better technology to look at it.

I.e. ID seeks to imagine an explination for the unknown with minimal evidence which are then found wrong as soon as we have better technology.

Like rain used to be used as an example of ID.

The truely foul thing about ID is that every time you research and cut down a n "it could only be designed" arguement by showing how it could indeed have happened without design they just run off and find some other critter to plonk on your desk. And they will keep doing it until EVERY critter is explained. Then they will find something else.

Oh my - it has turned into a word game :rolleyes: . You are saying that you can only reduce the number of parts but cannot modify them? Descent without modification? That's not evolution.

The issue is not the number of parts, but the overall complexity. Your link is trying to equate a reduction in parts with a reduction in complexity, and I am pointing out that while the number of parts is reduced, the complexity is not (necessarily).


Behe was considering complexity in terms of many parts working together to form like flagellum.

But the measure of complexity is not necessarily determined by counting the parts.


By your standards even one protein can be irreducibly complex if it is "functionally adequate". Or even one neurotransmitter molecule (say nitric oxide).

Is it any surprise to you that proteins consist of primary, secondary, and tertiary structures? Sometimes even the removal of a single amino acid can render the whole protein 'functionally inadequate''.

Or take the nitric oxide. Remove a single electron from the molecule, and it may no longer function as nitric oxide (it probably would no longer be nitric oxide).


I don't think Behe would go that far. This makes irreducible complexity completely meaningless.

Why?

Or take the nitric oxide. Remove a single electron from the molecule, and it may no longer function as nitric oxide (it probably would no longer be nitric oxide).


As far as i remember from back in in chemistry days if you knocked an electron of the molecule you'd just create an ionised version of that same molecule.

What scientific background do you have? That kind of stuff is pretty basic in science. Or should i give benefit of the doubt and assume you meant a proton which would indeed form a different compound. And a neutron would be the same compound but containing an isotope.........

Its been a while so someone correct me if i've screwed up.

It was never my homework, Bottle. It was yours. My challenge was that if you or anyone else could demonstrate that ID was trying to test forces that were not material, I would readily agree that ID was not science.

Already done. It assumes a supernatural "designer". Read over the court case. Even ID's proponents admit it wants to allow untestable beliefs into science.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05271/578955.stm

Evolution predicts a similar phenomenon with species that are more closely related from recent common decent having a greater probablity of interbreeding due to more compatible genetics and without the need to infer a designer. Occam's Razor.


According to evolutionary theory, all modern animals are related, and thus all of them should theoretically be capable of interbreeding--by degrees. Thus, for example, while a shark could not directly interbreed with a whale, it might be able to interbreed with a dolphin, which could in turn breed with a whale. Thus the shark and the whale are only separated by degrees of genetic difference, with the dolphin in between.

(This is only a poor example, and not meant to suggest that I think dolphins and sharks capable of interbreeding--although it does seem as though dolphins and whales can.)

If all mammals of nature cold be shown to be capable of interbreeding--separation only by degrees of difference, than the idea of basic types would be either false or in need of a good deal of revision.

With the basic types, however, the idea is that no matter how similarly related animals are (take humans and chimps, for example), no amount of interbreeding between member of difference basic types would produce offspring.

Of course, I'm not suggesting that we ought to try crossing humans and chimps, for ethical reasons, but this sort of comparison could be applied to the rest of the animals. ID would predict that no amount of interbreeding between humans and chimps would produce offspring because they belong to different basic types.

Obviously, the definition of basic types is critical in such an experiment. But every experiment has its limitations.

According to evolutionary theory, all modern animals are related, and thus all of them should theoretically be capable of interbreeding--by degrees. Thus, for example, while a shark could not directly interbreed with a whale, it might be able to interbreed with a dolphin, which could in turn breed with a whale. Thus the shark and the whale are only separated by degrees of genetic difference, with the dolphin in between.

(This is only a poor example, and not meant to suggest that I think dolphins and sharks capable of interbreeding--although it does seem as though dolphins and whales can.)

If all mammals of nature cold be shown to be capable of interbreeding--separation only by degrees of difference, than the idea of basic types would be either false or in need of a good deal of revision.

With the basic types, however, the idea is that no matter how similarly related animals are (take humans and chimps, for example), no amount of interbreeding between member of difference basic types would produce offspring.

Of course, I'm not suggesting that we ought to try crossing humans and chimps, for ethical reasons, but this sort of comparison could be applied to the rest of the animals. ID would predict that no amount of interbreeding between humans and chimps would produce offspring because they belong to different basic types.

Obviously, the definition of basic types is critical in such an experiment. But every experiment has its limitations.

Thank you for showing your complete ignorance of basic biology. ID "predicts" no such thing. That is basic biology and evolution. Theories that have been around for quite a long time.

As far as i remember from back in in chemistry days if you knocked an electron of the molecule you'd just create an ionised version of that same molecule.

What scientific background do you have? That kind of stuff is pretty basic in science. Or should i give benefit of the doubt and assume you meant a proton which would indeed form a different compound. And a neutron would be the same compound but containing an isotope.........

Its been a while so someone correct me if i've screwed up.

I'm not that polished in chemistry, but I suspect that an ionised version of nitric oxide would not function very well in the human nervous system. For one, it wouldn't last very long in that state, possibly taking an electron from somewhere else. However, if all the nitric oxide molecules were ionised, and could not be satisfied with an additional electron to form the stable state, I think we would have a problem. But, like I said, the details are not so important as the point, so feel free to correct my chemistry. Just don't ignore the point.

According to evolutionary theory, all modern animals are related, and thus all of them should theoretically be capable of interbreeding--by degrees. Thus, for example, while a shark could not directly interbreed with a whale, it might be able to interbreed with a dolphin, which could in turn breed with a whale. Thus the shark and the whale are only separated by degrees of genetic difference, with the dolphin in between.

(This is only a poor example, and not meant to suggest that I think dolphins and sharks capable of interbreeding--although it does seem as though dolphins and whales can.)

If all mammals of nature cold be shown to be capable of interbreeding--separation only by degrees of difference, than the idea of basic types would be either false or in need of a good deal of revision.

With the basic types, however, the idea is that no matter how similarly related animals are (take humans and chimps, for example), no amount of interbreeding between member of difference basic types would produce offspring.

Of course, I'm not suggesting that we ought to try crossing humans and chimps, for ethical reasons, but this sort of comparison could be applied to the rest of the animals. ID would predict that no amount of interbreeding between humans and chimps would produce offspring because they belong to different basic types.

Obviously, the definition of basic types is critical in such an experiment. But every experiment has its limitations.

All i can say is Ring Species (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species)

I have actually read several ideas for experiments that ID would do. But in order to find them for you, I would have to go back over lots of stuff that I have read. The best I could do is try to remember. Even that is not easy. As I recall, I have several times posted those proposals here on NS.

All I'm asking is for ONE testable hypothesis. That shouldn't be too hard, should it?


Welllllll, there is an idea was developed in a book published by the IDers, called 'Mere Creation', edited by W. Dembski. This idea is that animals can be separated into basic types, somewhat similar to the current categories of Genus. Animals that can interbreed to produce offspring (fertile or not) are considered to belong to one basic type, such as lions and tigers, dolphins and whales, horses and donkeys, etc. The idea is that if the ID model is right, then there will only be interbreeding possible within the basic types, and never between members of different basic types. This would be consistent with the concept that basic types are designed, rather than evolved. The book develops this idea a whole lot more, and includes a number of challenges to be overcome, and the limitations involved.

And how would the lack of interbreeding between "types" support the theory of an intelligent designer? Given that this very phenomenon is well-described in evolutionary theory, it doesn't seem remotely necessary for there to be "intelligent design" to see this kind of thing at work.


Dembski is a mathematician and deals mostly with probability and differentiation between chance and design. Personally, I find it hard to get a grasp on lots of his stuff.

It's not that hard, really. His theories have little to no substance.


A quote from Dembski is (also posted in post number 60 of this thread, and was from the webpage that you were supposed to have read):
''Intelligent design and evolutionary theory are either both testable or both untestable. Parity of reasoning requires that the testability of one entails the testability of the other. Evolutionary theory claims that certain material mechanisms are able to propel the evolutionary process, gradually transforming organisms with one set of characteristics into another (for instance, transforming bacteria without a flagellum into bacteria with one). Intelligent design, by contrast, claims that intelligence needs to supplement material mechanisms if they are to bring about organisms with certain complex features. Accordingly, testing the adequacy or inadequacy of evolutionary mechanisms constitutes a joint test of both evolutionary theory and intelligent design.''

And that's a lovely example of how Dembski is fully prepared to tell bald-faced lies in the hopes that scientists will simply be so shocked at his naked dishonesty that they will be struck dumb and unable to respond.

Intelligent design proposes no testable hypotheses, it simply claims that anything which we haven't (yet) explained must be attributed to a cause that has been completely made up by the superstitious. Dembski's quote, above, is no different from saying that tests of the evolutionary theory also test the theory that magical pixies created all of our universe from the ground-up bones of ancient dragons.


With this statement, Demski is tying together the hypotheses of evolutionary theory and ID. Prove one wrong, and the other wins by default, since there are no other realistic options (perhaps a possibility of an infinite number of other universes, so that we happen to be living in the 'best' one, but that doesn't really pass the giggle test, in my view).

With that statement, Dembski is attempting to distract the gullible from the fact that he has no evidence for the BS he is spouting. He's also hoping that everybody else is as unimaginative and ignorant as he is, and that they're prepared to believe that the only reasonable alternative to evolutionary theory is to say that a magic sky fairy made the world.


Thus, when evolutionary theory proposes that humans evolved from ancient apes, ID says that this should be tested.

No, when evolutionary theory proposes that humans evolved from ancient apes, SCIENCE say that this should be tested. ID says "Nuh uh!" and stamps it's little foot at the meanie-head scientists.


If it can't be tested, then don't consider it science. If it can be tested, the test will show either evolutionary theory or ID to be the better theory.

What lazy ignorance. ID is not a null hypothesis. It's not a hypothesis at all. This malarky is just a bunch of excuses being spouted by people who refuse to do any research themselves, and who want other people to do all the hard work.


It was never my homework, Bottle. It was yours.

You're the one asserting that ID is science. It is for you to support your assertion.


My challenge was that if you or anyone else could demonstrate that ID was trying to test forces that were not material, I would readily agree that ID was not science.
Thus far, we've established that ID isn't trying to test ANYTHING. You've failed to show any example of a single experiment they've performed to test the hypotheses that you aren't able to even name.

Remember, science isn't "anything that doesn't involve testing immaterial stuff." You don't to call something "science" by default. If you want to assert that ID is science, then it is YOUR job to demonstrate how ID rises to the level of science.

Which is ID's primary fault. They "infer" a designer w/o evidence. A watch has a verified designer as do mousetraps. If you were to inspect that "smiley face" and see ink or finger prints, you have evidence of a designer. Show me the tested, repeated experiments for ID's designer.

ID looks for design, not a designer. It focuses on distinguishing design from chance and natural laws in nature, and does not attempt any experiments to test for ID's designer.

ID looks for design, not a designer. It focuses on distinguishing design from chance and natural laws in nature, and does not attempt any experiments to test for ID's designer.
You know what the "I" in "ID" stands for? Let's just think on that one for a moment, shall we?

ID looks for design, not a designer. It focuses on distinguishing design from chance and natural laws in nature, and does not attempt any experiments to test for ID's designer.

Right, like I said, it "assumes" a designer w/o any evidence for one. It presents no experiments at all beyond " A hasn't been completely explained yet so it must be designed".

Where is its testable hypothesis?

Where is its testable hypothesis?

Honestly, I think it would be best if we just spammed this question over and over until it gets a response. Because really, it's the only one that matters.

It's this simple:

If you assert that ID is science, the burden is on you to present the testable hypotheses of ID. If you assert that ID proponents are testing their theory using scientific methods, the burden is on you to present their research.

No, we don't have to take your word for it. No, ID does not get to just be assumed to be science as long as it's not trying to test non-material things. No, tests of evolutionary theory do not count as tests of ID theory. Present your own hypotheses and how you test them. Or admit you are wrong.

Books to be read by everyone who believes in the absolute junk nonsense science of Intelligent Design:

"Intelligent Thought: Science Versus the Intelligent Design Movement." Edited by John Brockman.

"On the Origin of Species." Charles Darwin.

"The God Delusion." Richard Dawkins.

"The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design." Richard Dawkins.

"The Selfish Gene." Richard Dawkins.

"Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon." Daniel C. Dennett.

"Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life." Daniel C. Dennett.

"The End of Faith." Sam Harris.

"Letter to a Christian Nation." Sam Harris.

If you retain your delusional mythologies after reading any three or four of those books, then I consider you to be mentally inseparable from the intellectual flotsam that fell dead on the jungle floor of Jonestown years ago.

interesting thought.

many theories were redefined when new facts that didn't fit the theories were discovered tested and proven. what if, and I do say IF... there is a basic, underlying flaw, one so basic that it's undetectable (i forgot to carry that damned 2 :D ) that if corrected (and to do so would prove almost everything based in science flawed) it actually proves God's exsistance. How enthusiastic would the scientific community do this, or would they just wave their hands and stick to flawed methods because it suits them.

Like they perceive Diests to be doing now...

If the "underlying flaw" is undetectable by science, then there would be no way for science to ever recognize it.

Proofs only work within the particular logical construct in which they are based. There certainly can be a "proof" of God's existence, depending on what axioms and logical constructs are used to get there. However, such a logical construct would, by definition, be outside of science.

If science is based in flawed axioms - if, for instance, the universe is not deterministic and does not "run on" specified rules - if, in fact, the events in the universe are truly random, then science is incorrect. However, because science is based in that axiom, science cannot be used to disprove the axiom. And, in the end, there is no way to test the axiom in the first place. You might convince a particular scientist (or even a whole group of them) that the scientific method and it's backings are wrong, but you cannot use science to disprove all of science, as it were.

If the "underlying flaw" is undetectable by science, then there would be no way for science to ever recognize it.

Proofs only work within the particular logical construct in which they are based. There certainly can be a "proof" of God's existence, depending on what axioms and logical constructs are used to get there. However, such a logical construct would, by definition, be outside of science.

If science is based in flawed axioms - if, for instance, the universe is not deterministic and does not "run on" specified rules - if, in fact, the events in the universe are truly random, then science is incorrect. However, because science is based in that axiom, science cannot be used to disprove the axiom. And, in the end, there is no way to test the axiom in the first place. You might convince a particular scientist (or even a whole group of them) that the scientific method and it's backings are wrong, but you cannot use science to disprove all of science, as it were.

Indeed.

From a philosophical standpoint, I freely admit that science itself requires assumptions. I assume materialism. I assume determinism. I assume that I am not simply trapped within a Matrix-like illusion. These are requirements for science. I am more than willing to admit that there are ways to ponder and explore existence which are NOT science, and that we don't really have any way of "objectively" verifying if science is the most legit way to go about exploring our universe.

ID is not science. It is myth. It is sometimes philosophy. It is one means of trying to explain the world. For some people, it has great power and meaning and import. But it's not science. It does not meet the most fundamental requirements of being science.

That's ok. Lots of things in the world aren't science, and that doesn't necessarily make them bad or wrong. It just means they're not science.

My challenge was that if you or anyone else could demonstrate that ID was trying to test forces that were not material, I would readily agree that ID was not science.

I have an idea here:
How did the designer design, eh?
If it was with natural laws, then it ought to be possible for those natural laws to create animals without a designer.
If it was with some supernatural force, then it's not science.

Hi Dem.

I don't think that ID rests on the claim that all of the parts are necessary for adequate functionality.

That is the very basis of irreducible complexity - the idea that removal of one part destroys functionality.

Is insults like that really necessary here? The guy wanted to know people's reaction to his article in which he was attacking ID and calling it trash, and I suggested that he review his arguments, in the light of my conclusions.

What insult? I simply made an observation.

The point is that the governing assumptions of ID haven't been demonstrated to be any less science than the governing assumptions in evolutionary theory. So their repetitive labeling of ID as non-science appears to be more like some sort of harassment than an intellectual conclusion.

Yes, they have. There are no "extra" governing assumptions in evolutionary theory. There are only those axioms which govern the scientific method itself. ID, on the other hand, adds the assumption of the existence of a being they admit they cannot test for, but one which is capable of creating life (or, in some cases, the entire universe). ID adds an untestable assumption. Evolutionary theory does not. It simply works with the axioms in which science is based in the first place.

They actually don't need to.

William Dembski wrote:
''Darwin, in his Origin of Species, wrote, “'If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.'” ID, in arguing for design on the basis of complexity, takes up Darwin’s gauntlet.''
http://www.uncommondescent.com/index.php/archives/266

Of course, it is impossible to demonstrate that something could not possibly have formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications. The idea of "irreducible complexity," rests in an assumption that a given system could not have developed this way. It has never had anything to do with actually demonstrating this.

In other words, ID is as testable as evolutionary theory, because the way to falsify ID is to demonstrate that evolutionary theory is true, and visa versa. You are not wrong in pointing out the weaknesses of ID, perhaps, but this only serves to highlight the weaknesses in evolutionary theory.

And, once again, you show a complete lack of understanding of the scientific method. You cannot "demonstrate that evolutionary theory is true," and you definitely can't "demonstrate that ID is true" using science. Science doesn't work that way. It works by FALSIFYING ideas, not by demonstrating them to be true. A failure to falsify lends support to a theory if and only if that theory can be falsified. However, ID is based in a completely untestable and unfalsifiable assumption and thus cannot be falsified using science, even if it is false. Evolutionary theory, on the other hand, is based soley in the scientific method itself. The principles from which the theory is derived are testable, and can be falsified using experimentation.

On what basis do you assert that I fail to see this?

The fact that it is obvious. You continually cite the axioms in which science is based and then claim that, because there are axioms which are (by definition) untestable, we can just add any old untestable assumption we want into science and have it still exist as science.

All this is fine, and not meaning that design cannot be detected in nature.

Design can only be detected if one first assumes the existence of a possible designer. You have admitted that ID does not propose to test for the existence of such a designer. In other words, they wish to make an assumption that there is no intention (and most likely no possibility, since most IDers are willing to admit that the designer they are assuming is God) to ever test that assumption. They assume that something can design, and then interpret evidence as being "designed." But they can only do so by first adding an untestable assumption into science - thus changing science itself.

ID does not try to investigate the designer.

And this is precisely the problem. They assume that there is an entity capable of designing that which they look at, but have no empirical evidence whatsoever that such an entity exists.

I don't know. But at least a good deal of it.

No, all of it. The entire theory is based in the scientific method. If we were to say we were going to throw out that which was not, we wouldn't have anything to throw out.

And how would the lack of interbreeding between "types" support the theory of an intelligent designer? Given that this very phenomenon is well-described in evolutionary theory, it doesn't seem remotely necessary for there to be "intelligent design" to see this kind of thing at work.

Evolutionary theory has it that all animals are related, and if so, that all are capable of interbreeding by degrees of separation (see other post). ID would say that interbreeding is only cabable between members of the same basic type. The experiment would be a large scale program of interbreeding between all animals, with humans being the one exception.


It's not that hard, really. His theories have little to no substance.

I don't really trust your judgment, with all due respect.


And that's a lovely example of how Dembski is fully prepared to tell bald-faced lies in the hopes that scientists will simply be so shocked at his naked dishonesty that they will be struck dumb and unable to respond.

See, good thing I don't, because I have found no evidence of lying, and yet you have accused him of this, without a shred of supporting evidence.


Intelligent design proposes no testable hypotheses, it simply claims that anything which we haven't (yet) explained must be attributed to a cause that has been completely made up by the superstitious. Dembski's quote, above, is no different from saying that tests of the evolutionary theory also test the theory that magical pixies created all of our universe from the ground-up bones of ancient dragons.


And you keep wondering off to the strawman's land. ID doesn't concern itself with who the designer might be, only to distinguish between design and chance. When design has been concluded, it is the individual's responsibility to interpret the meaning of the design, and attribute it to God or pixies or whatever. This is not the realm of science, but that of faith and religion, and is similar to what people do all the time with evolutionary theory, in which they interpret the apparent lack of a need for God as being support for the lack of God.


With that statement, Dembski is attempting to distract the gullible from the fact that he has no evidence for the BS he is spouting. He's also hoping that everybody else is as unimaginative and ignorant as he is, and that they're prepared to believe that the only reasonable alternative to evolutionary theory is to say that a magic sky fairy made the world.


Sorry, that's just ranting. If you claim someone is ignorant, at least have the decency to provide supporting arguments.


No, when evolutionary theory proposes that humans evolved from ancient apes, SCIENCE say that this should be tested. ID says "Nuh uh!" and stamps it's little foot at the meanie-head scientists.


Actually, this is completely not true, and if you really think this, you are seriously misled, in my view. ID welcomes the test for whether humans evolved from ancient apes. The problem is that there is no known way of doing such a test. And such a test would be great for ID, because it would be a sign that many who support evolutionary theory are really prepared to test it rather than simply assume that it is true.


What lazy ignorance. ID is not a null hypothesis. It's not a hypothesis at all. This malarky is just a bunch of excuses being spouted by people who refuse to do any research themselves, and who want other people to do all the hard work.


More ranting, I'm afraid. The point was simply that people who criticise ID should also be criticising evolutionary theory. Currently, it seems that everyone wants ID to come out with a hypothesis that can be tested, but seem to forget that the same is required of evolutionary theory.


You're the one asserting that ID is science. It is for you to support your assertion.


Actually, I came into this thread criticising the criticism directed at ID. The onus is rather with those who are criticising ID. Plus, I have already given some hints at where ID can be tested. You, on the other hand, have not even attempted to provide evidence that ID is trying to test for forces that are not natural.


Thus far, we've established that ID isn't trying to test ANYTHING. You've failed to show any example of a single experiment they've performed to test the hypotheses that you aren't able to even name.


I did mention the case of basic types (albeit very briefly).
Plus, my inability to do a good job of defending ID is probably because I am not an IDer, and thus don't know as much as I would like to about what they do.


Remember, science isn't "anything that doesn't involve testing immaterial stuff." You don't to call something "science" by default. If you want to assert that ID is science, then it is YOUR job to demonstrate how ID rises to the level of science.

What I have been arguing all along is not that ID is so very good. It does have its weak points and problems. My main point is that evolutionary theory has precisely the same weaknesses, in some regards, namely, untestable hypotheses. I do not reject all of evolutionary theory, but I can easily see that is suffers many of the same problems that ID has.

You seemed to have a well developed criticism of anything other than evolutionary theory. But evolutionary theory is somewhat of a beloved pet, the golden child, the glorious truth of modern man. Excuse me while I puke a little.

What is the testable hypothesis of ID?
What repeated experiments have been done to support ID?

Just like the folk involved in SETI,

The folk involved in SETI work from the assumption that intelligent life capable of communications can exist in the universe.

Of course, this is a pretty good assumption, since we already know of one such lifeform.

or the chaps in the military that are responsible for detecting enemy traps and tricks,

...working under the assumption that a possible designer exists. After all, we know that humans exist and that they can design traps and tricks. We can look for evidence of those traps and tricks only by first assuming that someone exists that is capable of making them.

we are capable of searching for design without knowing if there is a designer.

But not without at least assuming that there is an entity capable of the design in question.

Thus, the ID approach is possible without needing a prior commitment to God as the designer.

But not without assuming some entity capable of the design - an assumption for which they have provided no evidence, and you have made it clear that they are not even looking.

Plus, there is plenty within evolutionary theory that is hypothesis without observation.

Like?

Identifying design does not mean that God exists unless you interpret it that way.

It means that some designer exists - one capable of designing and guiding the formation of life itself (and, to some, the entire universe). I wonder what we would call such a designer....

The whole "watchmaker" thing baffles me. They look at a watch and say, "Ok, a some dude made this watch." Then, they claim that they look at a mountain and say, "Some omnipotent Creator-being made this." Why not say, "Ok, some dude made this mountain"? If watches are evidence of (human) watchmakers, then why are mountains not evidence of (human) mountainmakers? Contrarywise, if mountains are evidence of a supernatural mountainmaker, then why are watches not evidence of a supernatural watchmaker?

The difference is simple, but the IDers don't like it. We can look at a watch and say, "Some dude made this watch," because we know that human beings are capable of making machinery. We've observed it happening. And if we find a watch, we can perform all sorts of tests that would suggest human involvement in its making.

However, we don't know of any being capable of creating a mountain. We haven't observed any entity making a mountain or making life or making a universe, etc. Of course, we damn sure haven't seen a human being creating a mountain or life or a universe, so we know it would be far too much of a logical leap to say there is a human mountainmaker. So, some people just ignore the fact that they have no evidence of an actual "mountainmaker" entity, and just say, "Well, it looks like something I would design if I had the power, so whatever designed this must be really, really powerful."

And how would the lack of interbreeding between "types" support the theory of an intelligent designer? Given that this very phenomenon is well-described in evolutionary theory, it doesn't seem remotely necessary for there to be "intelligent design" to see this kind of thing at work.

If they wave their hands and try to get people to ignore the underlying unfalsifiable assumptions, and then claim that all of the same evidence that supports evolutionary theory supports ID, they might convince the layperson that they are "just as good."

And that's a lovely example of how Dembski is fully prepared to tell bald-faced lies in the hopes that scientists will simply be so shocked at his naked dishonesty that they will be struck dumb and unable to respond.

Intelligent design proposes no testable hypotheses, it simply claims that anything which we haven't (yet) explained must be attributed to a cause that has been completely made up by the superstitious. Dembski's quote, above, is no different from saying that tests of the evolutionary theory also test the theory that magical pixies created all of our universe from the ground-up bones of ancient dragons.

I'd like to see this sort of thing used in a court of law. "Your honor, I have clearly falsified the idea that my client committed the crime, as he was in the hospital at the time. Obviously, this means that President Bush did it." =)

What lazy ignorance. ID is not a null hypothesis. It's not a hypothesis at all. This malarky is just a bunch of excuses being spouted by people who refuse to do any research themselves, and who want other people to do all the hard work.

But....but.... THERE CAN ONLY BE TWO OPTIONS!!! ANY MORE HURTS MY HEAD! I can't possibly imagine that both evolutionary theory and ID might both be false and that the truth might lie elsewhere!

I still hold that the penis is the greatest arguememnt against ID. I mean, look at it!

Evolutionary theory has it that all animals are related, and if so, that all are capable of interbreeding by degrees of separation (see other post). ID would say that interbreeding is only cabable between members of the same basic type. The experiment would be a large scale program of interbreeding between all animals, with humans being the one exception.

I hate to beat a dead horse like someone into necrophilia, beastiality and s&m, BUT Ring Species (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species) example of interbreeding species that blur out until those at the ends cannot interbreed. Exactly as would be predicted by common descent. And like I mentioned before (along with others) evolutionary theory predicts a similar thing to what you suggest but without invoking an untestable designer.


And you keep wondering off to the strawman's land. ID doesn't concern itself with who the designer might be, only to distinguish between design and chance. When design has been concluded, it is the individual's responsibility to interpret the meaning of the design, and attribute it to God or pixies or whatever. This is not the realm of science, but that of faith and religion, and is similar to what people do all the time with evolutionary theory, in which they interpret the apparent lack of a need for God as being support for the lack of God.

God of Gaps, Argument from Ignorance, call it what you like it comes down to the same thing.

And Horse beating part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt6oBxZmOG0

Actually, this is completely not true, and if you really think this, you are seriously misled, in my view. ID welcomes the test for whether humans evolved from ancient apes. The problem is that there is no known way of doing such a test. And such a test would be great for ID, because it would be a sign that many who support evolutionary theory are really prepared to test it rather than simply assume that it is true.

We test it by making predictions that could be falsified (as stated ad nauseum). And when the observations fit the predictions it supports the case
eg.
-Similar non-functional gene sequences such as the Vitamin C synthesis malfunction in humans, chimpanzees and gorillas but not other mammals
- the same number of chromosomes and genetic material in closely related species.... but humans have less chromosomes than chimps... but when you line up a certain two chimp chromosomes together they exactly match one of the human chromosomes that fused the two chimp chromosomes. Right done to the positioning of extra centromeres and telomeres.
-morphological similarities
-fossil evidence
-DNA sequencing showing greater similarity between closely related species
<insert 200 years of study here>

Actually, I came into this thread criticising the criticism directed at ID. The onus is rather with those who are criticising ID. Plus, I have already given some hints at where ID can be tested. You, on the other hand, have not even attempted to provide evidence that ID is trying to test for forces that are not natural.

How about you state explicitly instead of hint? And how about you address all the points people have raised that require ID to invoke a supernatural cause...



I did mention the case of basic types (albeit very briefly).
Plus, my inability to do a good job of defending ID is probably because I am not an IDer, and thus don't know as much as I would like to about what they do.

You're NOT an IDer? Fooled me. So what IS your personal position?

What I have been arguing all along is not that ID is so very good. It does have its weak points and problems. My main point is that evolutionary theory has precisely the same weaknesses, in some regards, namely, untestable hypotheses. I do not reject all of evolutionary theory, but I can easily see that is suffers many of the same problems that ID has.

Ah the true tactic of ID. Dont address the problems with ID just redirect the conversation to an attack on evolution . You'll fit right in with the ID crowd.


You seemed to have a well developed criticism of anything other than evolutionary theory. But evolutionary theory is somewhat of a beloved pet, the golden child, the glorious truth of modern man. Excuse me while I puke a little.

It's a beloved pet because of the mountain of supporting evidence and its grounding in good scientific method. Excuse the rest of us while we puke over the gross defamation, abomination, and insult to science that calls itself Intelligent Design

I find the painting analogy quite interesting. If you wanted to prevent a picture from being painted, it could be done at any point before the last stroke, and you would be left with an incomplete picture. So with a baby, all we need to do is prevent the last development, and then we would have an incomplete human....and thus a non-human. On second thoughts, I don't think the painting analogy works that well. You are right, the human issue is certainly not simpler than a painting. I would say it is a lot more complicated. What is at stake is a good deal more than a mere painting, even if it was a painting by Michealangelo. So long as one holds the life of a human to be sacred, there should be much caution exercised when comparing it to something material like a painting.

So are less intelligent people not full humans? Are retarded people not full humans so shouldn't have rights? It's a slippery slope making exceptions for who is really human. The same reasoning that Cortez used to say "well, these South Americans aren't really human, they just look and act like them.

How about you state explicitly instead of hint? And how about you address all the points people have raised that require ID to invoke a supernatural cause...





You're NOT an IDer? Fooled me. So what IS your personal position?



Ah the true tactic of ID. Dont address the problems with ID just redirect the conversation to an attack on evolution . You'll fit right in with the ID crowd.




It's a beloved pet because of the mountain of supporting evidence and its grounding in good scientific method. Excuse the rest of us while we puke over the gross defamation, abomination, and insult to science that calls itself Intelligent Design

I'm still waiting for the hypothesis.

Evolutionary theory has it that all animals are related, and if so, that all are capable of interbreeding by degrees of separation (see other post).

Um, no.


ID would say that interbreeding is only cabable between members of the same basic type.

And this precise concept is part of basic biology. There is absolutely nothing whatsoever about this concept which requires intelligent design.


The experiment would be a large scale program of interbreeding between all animals, with humans being the one exception.

How would this test ID?


I don't really trust your judgment, with all due respect.

Happily, you don't have to. That's the lovely thing about empirically-verifiable science: you don't have to take anybody's word for it.


See, good thing I don't, because I have found no evidence of lying, and yet you have accused him of this, without a shred of supporting evidence.

The quote you posted is an example of a lie. Dembski made a statement which is untrue, and which he knows to be untrue (seeing as how it has been explained to him during numerous exchanges and by numerous scientists. Consult PZ Myers if you want some specific examples). That is called "lying."


And you keep wondering off to the strawman's land. ID doesn't concern itself with who the designer might be, only to distinguish between design and chance.

Demi has already addressed this at length.


When design has been concluded, it is the individual's responsibility to interpret the meaning of the design, and attribute it to God or pixies or whatever.

Present the hypotheses for testing "design."


This is not the realm of science, but that of faith and religion, and is similar to what people do all the time with evolutionary theory, in which they interpret the apparent lack of a need for God as being support for the lack of God.

You're right, all that is for another thread. What you need to focus on here is establishing that ID is science. Please present the testable hypotheses set forth by ID. Please describe experiments which could disprove ID.


Sorry, that's just ranting. If you claim someone is ignorant, at least have the decency to provide supporting arguments.

You are ignorant of a great many fundamental concepts in science, and you have amply demonstrated them here. That's ok. We're all ignorant to one degree or another. It doesn't mean you're stupid or wicked or anything, just that you don't yet know about some cool stuff. There are lots of people around this forum who will be delighted to tell you all about science and the scientific method...you've got me and Demi on this thread alone!


Actually, this is completely not true, and if you really think this, you are seriously misled, in my view. ID welcomes the test for whether humans evolved from ancient apes. The problem is that there is no known way of doing such a test.

Sure there is. In fact, there are a great many ways to test this theory. An introductory genetics course could point you in the right direction. You could also study archeology and anthropology.


And such a test would be great for ID, because it would be a sign that many who support evolutionary theory are really prepared to test it rather than simply assume that it is true.

What a laugh. ID proponents are too lazy to provide a single hypothesis or experiment of their own, yet they presume to insult the countless scientists who have been testing evolutionary theory for decades.

Present your hypotheses. Present your experiments.


More ranting, I'm afraid. The point was simply that people who criticise ID should also be criticising evolutionary theory.

They are. Let me clue you in: every single bit of the substantive, worthwhile criticism of evolutionary theory has been produced by SCIENCE. A single evolutionary biologist produces more substantive criticism of evolutionary principles before she has breakfast than the entire ID movement has ever produced. I can guarantee you, with 100% certainty, that I have done more to criticise evolutionary theory TODAY then you have done in your entire life. And I've been typing on this forum a lot today, so you know I'm not even working that hard. ;)


Currently, it seems that everyone wants ID to come out with a hypothesis that can be tested, but seem to forget that the same is required of evolutionary theory.

No, dear, they're just honest enough to recognize that evolutionary theory has proposed tons of testable hypotheses, while ID hasn't generated a single one.

Moreover, even if you were right, and even if evolutionary theory didn't have one single testable hypothesis, that STILL wouldn't make ID science. So you'd still be just as wrong.


Actually, I came into this thread criticising the criticism directed at ID. The onus is rather with those who are criticising ID. Plus, I have already given some hints at where ID can be tested.

"Hints"? Why "hint"? Just speak plainly. What are the testable hypotheses that would support ID? What are the experiments? So far, you've presented one hypothesis that does not support ID, and which has already been thoroughly addressed by evolutionary biology, and you coupled it with a vague experiment to try to breed creatures which we already know cannot be bred to one another. Is that really the best you've got? Is that the best ID can produce?


You, on the other hand, have not even attempted to provide evidence that ID is trying to test for forces that are not natural.

I don't need to. The myth of Zeus isn't trying to test for forces that are not natural, so does that mean that the myth of Zeus is science? If my kid brother writes out his name in crayon, he's not trying to test forces that are not natural, so does that mean that he is doing science?

Science is NOT defined as "anything that is not trying to test for forces that are not natural." Give it up, you're just flailing around on this one.


I did mention the case of basic types (albeit very briefly).
Plus, my inability to do a good job of defending ID is probably because I am not an IDer, and thus don't know as much as I would like to about what they do.

If you don't know much about ID, then you probably should go around stating that it's science. If you don't even know ONE SINGLE TESTABLE HYPOTHESIS produced by ID, you probably shouldn't be trying to argue that it's science. If you don't understand the most fundamental definitions of science and evolutionary theory, you probably shouldn't be insisting that you are right while evolutionary biologists are wrong.

Just a thought.


What I have been arguing all along is not that ID is so very good. It does have its weak points and problems. My main point is that evolutionary theory has precisely the same weaknesses, in some regards, namely, untestable hypotheses.

And you are wrong in that point. As we have described to you several times.

Here's a starter link for you:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

Here's another one:
http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2004/10/testing_fundame.html

These should help you begin to understand how evolutionary theory presents testable hypotheses. The fact that evolutionary theory has also led to the generation of som (so far) untestable theories isn't a problem; science does that a lot. As long as the theory rests upon what IS testable, it's ok to also have some additional speculations. It's ok to have hypotheses that you can't yet test, due to limitations in technology or human abilities, as long as you don't expect to have a recognized theory that is based exclusively on such hypotheses.


I do not reject all of evolutionary theory, but I can easily see that is suffers many of the same problems that ID has.

Evolutionary theory doesn't "suffer" from the fact that we don't fully understand all biological mechanisms yet. Science doesn't "suffer" from this sort of thing.

ID "suffers" as a scientific concept because it's not scientific. Pure and simple. Evolutionary theory does not suffer from this problem.


You seemed to have a well developed criticism of anything other than evolutionary theory.

The subject of this thread is Irreducible Complexity and Intelligent Design. Those are the topics I am addressing. You appear determined to divert the discussion from actually examining ID or creationism. This is a common and dishonest tactic. We are discussing ID here, so quit changing the subject.


But evolutionary theory is somewhat of a beloved pet, the golden child, the glorious truth of modern man. Excuse me while I puke a little.
Oh my, forgive me while I fall on the floor laughing.

You really, really don't understand how science works, do you? You've never actually spent a single day in evolutionary biology, have you?

Let me set your mind at ease: scientists are the harshest, fiercest, most vicious critics of biological theories, INCLUDING evolution. Bar none. Evolutionary biologists are the ones coming up with the most heartless tests of evolutionary biology's hypotheses. The peer-review process in the biological sciences is goddam BRUTAL, particularly these days when funding is so tight.

You seem to think that scientists treat our theories as pampered children. On the contrary! Science is about ripping into your own hypotheses, tearing at them from every angle you can think of, and then inviting all your friends and collegues to do the same...and that's before you even submit a PAPER on the subject!

Evolutionary theory has it that all animals are related, and if so, that all are capable of interbreeding by degrees of separation (see other post).

Of course, this isn't proposed by evolutionary theory at all. As usual, you are making up things that are not a part of evolutionary theory.

It is perfectly possible, within evolutionary theory, for species to have diverged to the point that interbreeding is no longer possible - even without an intermediary.

ID would say that interbreeding is only cabable between members of the same basic type. The experiment would be a large scale program of interbreeding between all animals, with humans being the one exception.

See, good thing I don't, because I have found no evidence of lying, and yet you have accused him of this, without a shred of supporting evidence.

His claim that "anything which tests evolutionary theory also tests ID," is a lie. It is based in the completely idiotic assumption that there are only two options. That the "truth" is either ID or evolutionary theory, and it is impossible for them both to be wrong.

Even if evolutionary theory were somehow completely disproven, this would provide no evidence whatsoever for ID. ID has to test its own hypotheses directly (and thus they do have to be falsifiable) and must fail, over and over again, to actually falsify them. That is how you support a scientific theory.

And you keep wondering off to the strawman's land. ID doesn't concern itself with who the designer might be, only to distinguish between design and chance.

You cannot distinguish "design" without an idea of who the "designer" might be. It is illogical to conclude "design" without first assuming an entity capable of doing the designing.

Actually, this is completely not true, and if you really think this, you are seriously misled, in my view. ID welcomes the test for whether humans evolved from ancient apes. The problem is that there is no known way of doing such a test. And such a test would be great for ID, because it would be a sign that many who support evolutionary theory are really prepared to test it rather than simply assume that it is true.

There are all sorts of tests. You just don't think they support evolutionary theory, although you have failed to show how they don't.

What I have been arguing all along is not that ID is so very good. It does have its weak points and problems. My main point is that evolutionary theory has precisely the same weaknesses, in some regards, namely, untestable hypotheses.

Name one.

I'm still waiting for the hypothesis.

I'd start my stopwatch, but I think it only goes up to 100 hours

I don't know if anyone has said this since I never have time with my studies to come on here and read things, but there is one glarring error in the idea of irreducible complexity to me.

If something started out as a more complex system with excess parts, natural selection would move towards eliminating unnecessary parts of the mechanism. This is because organisms that do not make an unnecessary energy expenditure have more energy to spend elsewhere so they can more efficiently use resources and by this small change become superior competitors in the long run.

So, some creature who has a more 'irreducible' eye will not need as many resources to create and operate the eye. It works on less, it needs less, so it can survive using less resources. So, you can have more of these creatures for the same amount of resources so naturally they are selected for.


I love when intelligent design people try to whip irreducible complexity out like it's their ace in the hole. Yeah, many people aren't going to know what to say, but people who know about biology will. I mean, these people think they've defeated some evil biology conspiracy by stumping six grade teachers and random people who know nothing about biology. Ridiculous.

That is the very basis of irreducible complexity - the idea that removal of one part destroys functionality.

My point was that not all of the complexity in nature is irreducible, and not every complex requires all of the parts to function. I do admit after re-reading my post that it may have not communicated exactly that point clearly.



What insult? I simply made an observation.

You basically said that I don't recognise even simple logic when it comes to arguments against ID--which would mean that I am quite blindly biased. If you know this to be true, I suggest that you don't bother replying to my posts. Alternatively, if you only suspect this, I suggest that you keep such comments to yourself, or at least put them in a way that makes it sound like you only suspect this. It will help us maintain a more emotional-free discussion that is more likely to be more enjoyable for everyone.



Yes, they have. There are no "extra" governing assumptions in evolutionary theory. There are only those axioms which govern the scientific method itself.

So how does the idea that all of life is related through a common ancestor make it into one of the axioms that govern the scientific method?


ID, on the other hand, adds the assumption of the existence of a being they admit they cannot test for, but one which is capable of creating life (or, in some cases, the entire universe). ID adds an untestable assumption. Evolutionary theory does not. It simply works with the axioms in which science is based in the first place.

Perhaps you could say that one of the axioms of evolutionary theory is that mutation and natural selection are adequate to account for all of the diversity of life. But I would say that this axiom is added, since science does not need such an axiom. Thus evolutionary theory is adding an untestable assumption.



Of course, it is impossible to demonstrate that something could not possibly have formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications. The idea of "irreducible complexity," rests in an assumption that a given system could not have developed this way. It has never had anything to do with actually demonstrating this.

Just like evolutionary theory. Serious attempts to demonstrate just how ''numerous, successive, slight modifications'' can adequately explain complexity appear to be quite rare, even less any attempts to falsify this. Hmmm, looks like evolutionary theory is simply just not science.



And, once again, you show a complete lack of understanding of the scientific method. You cannot "demonstrate that evolutionary theory is true," and you definitely can't "demonstrate that ID is true" using science. Science doesn't work that way. It works by FALSIFYING ideas, not by demonstrating them to be true.

And you are just complaining about my choice of words, claiming that this means that I don't understand a shred of scientific theory. (Forgive me if I no longer trust your judgment.) If something can pass the 'falsifying' test, then it is likely to be true. That is simply what I meant. The problem with evolutionary theory is that nobody seems to be even trying to make it pass the test. It seems to have been accepted without any test. Poor ID. It gets locked out of the club because it was a late arriver. Now it doesn't get in without passing that test. Apparently science only has room for one theory with such a special privilege.


Evolutionary theory, on the other hand, is based soley in the scientific method itself. The principles from which the theory is derived are testable, and can be falsified using experimentation.


Care to name a few?


Design can only be detected if one first assumes the existence of a possible designer.

How about postulating the presence of a designer, rather than assuming one? The positive identification of design would mean that there is an entity capable of design, and the lack of a positive identification of design would mean that there may or may not be one. No assumption needed. Just a postulation, and the conclusion depends on the results of the experiment.

At any rate, there should be no problem for a scientific mind to postulate the presence of a designer. It won't kill science, any more than evolutionary theory has with all it's assumptions.


But they can only do so by first adding an untestable assumption into science - thus changing science itself.

But evolutionary theory has already added an assumption that 'numerous, successive, slight modifications' are adequate to bring about the development of bacterial-like forms into humans. This is an added untestable assumption, and I suppose it has changed science itself, somewhat.



And this is precisely the problem. They assume that there is an entity capable of designing that which they look at, but have no empirical evidence whatsoever that such an entity exists.


There is no empirical evidence that natural forces are adequate, and there is good evidence that they are not. But this does not stop evolutionary theory from being accepted into science.


No, all of it. The entire theory is based in the scientific method. If we were to say we were going to throw out that which was not, we wouldn't have anything to throw out.

Ever heard of revision? Why not revise evolutionary theory to throw out all of the parts that rely on assumptions, the parts that cannot be tested and verified, such as
'numerous, successive, slight modifications' being adequate to develop bacteria-like forms into humans. That way everyone would be happy. No evolutionary theory (at least nothing like it is today) and no ID.

In the real world, however, we need hypotheses to progress, and competing hypotheses would further progress, in my view.

*Snip circular logic, assumptions, and red herrings*

What is ID's testable hypothesis?
What tests have been done in support of ID?

The difference is simple, but the IDers don't like it. We can look at a watch and say, "Some dude made this watch," because we know that human beings are capable of making machinery. We've observed it happening. And if we find a watch, we can perform all sorts of tests that would suggest human involvement in its making.

However, we don't know of any being capable of creating a mountain. We haven't observed any entity making a mountain or making life or making a universe, etc. Of course, we damn sure haven't seen a human being creating a mountain or life or a universe, so we know it would be far too much of a logical leap to say there is a human mountainmaker. So, some people just ignore the fact that they have no evidence of an actual "mountainmaker" entity, and just say, "Well, it looks like something I would design if I had the power, so whatever designed this must be really, really powerful."
One of my college buddies has a cabin at a ski mountain. This mountain was originally chosen for a ski resort because one side of it just happens to naturally constitute an absolutely perfect ski slope. I'm no geologist, so I don't understand precisely what forces create this kind of slope, but there it was. Perfect for skiing.

The resort got pretty popular over the years, and eventually they decided to expand and add another slope. Unfortunately, the other sides of the mountain are really shitty skiing. So, with the help of some dynamite and other human-made devices, they converted a previously-inhospitable slope into a lovely new ski slope.

I got to watch much of this construction in action. I have seen human beings making a surface perfect for skiing. By the logic of ID, I should now conclude that the original slope of the mountain was also made by human beings using modern machinery (even though we have painting and pictures of it that date back to before these machines existed). I should also conclude that all mountain slopes that are nice for skiing were made by people.

On the other hand, I have never seen a watch being made. I can never travel back in time to witness my current watch being made, so I can never know how it came to be. I should therefore conclude that my watch was made by an Intelligent Designer (let's call him, say, "God") who also just happens to have created the rocks and trees and bunnies and people.

Folks, judging by the number of replies, my post have been entertaining quite a few. I acknowledge that there are a number of good points that are worthy of replies, but happily, I am not married to my computer, but a beautiful woman back home who is waiting for me. I may get back to the computer later (or I may not--no promises).

Best wishes to all, for now.

My point was that not all of the complexity in nature is irreducible, and not every complex requires all of the parts to function. I do admit after re-reading my post that it may have not communicated exactly that point clearly.

*snip*

In the real world, however, we need hypotheses to progress, and competing hypotheses would further progress, in my view.

You dont address any issues raised against ID or acknowledge any of the explanations everyone gives you regarding evolutionary theory. Everytime there is a serious challenge to ID you dont address it you merely claim that evolution has the same flaws (usually 'flaws' we have collectively explained away for you previously). You are not scoring any points here.

Either you are willfully ignoring that which is undebatable for you, you are deliberately trolling, you think you are a lot smarter than you really are.

I make no apology for any perceived ad hominum.

Folks, judging by the number of replies, my post have been entertaining quite a few. I acknowledge that there are a number of good points that are worthy of replies, but happily, I am not married to my computer, but a beautiful woman back home who is waiting for me. I may get back to the computer later (or I may not--no promises).

Best wishes to all, for now.

Translation: I can't answer even the simple question of "what is ID's testable hypothesis? "or "what tests have been done in support of ID?" So will cut and run and just repeat the same fallacies another day.

The ID crowd loves the idea of irreducible complexity - how evolution cannot produce more information in an organism etc.

Just a couple of hours ago, I suddenly thought of a super simple example to illustrate why irreducible complexity is total nonsense.

I've written a detailed article (http://freshbrainz.blogspot.com/2006/10/irreducible-complexity-pwned.html) about this, but my main idea is - irreducibly complex systems cannot grow or shrink.

What are your thoughts?

I love the bit about the one part mouse trap.

I had always thought of irreducible complexity in terms of a keystone in an arch, like in a bridge. Or the cap of a dome. All the stones have to be lined up from the base up to the keystone, otherwise the whole thing will fall to bits. So if the whole thing can't stand without the keystone, then how did it get in there. Must the whole bridge exist at once or not at all.

Of course not. The bridge had other means of support until the keystone was put in place. When the keystone was put in place the scaffolding underneath it became uneccesary, and faded away.

Our eyes don't work without all the bits they've got, but we have lost the original bit that worked all by itself. A patch of photosensitive skin that got irritated by the presence of light. If we still had that bit we'd call it catarracts (sp) but because we don't have it, idiots with no imagination assume God must had designed the whole eye at once.

Trilby63;11788221']I still hold that the penis is the greatest arguememnt against ID. I mean, look at it!

As one comedian put it. It looks like God started tying a bow and then the phone rang.

You basically said that I don't recognise even simple logic when it comes to arguments against ID--which would mean that I am quite blindly biased.

...which appears to be quite true. You insist on making completely illogical statements - even after their lack of logic has been plainly pointed out to you. Supporting illogical ideas like "Testing evolutionary theory automatically tests ID," is illogical. Continuing to make up ideas not contained within evolutionary theory to try and "debunk" it is illogical. Continuing to simultaneously claim that you both can assume a creator and cannot assume a creator all within science is illogical. Making the claim that, because science, like any logical system, is based in axioms, you can introduce new untestable assumptions into the process, is illogical.

If you know this to be true, I suggest that you don't bother replying to my posts.

You, like IDers speak as if you know what you are talking about. You often use the language of science, albeit incorrectly. I'd rather not see you, like them, convince people of falsities. I respond to your posts, not for you - you have demonstrated yourself to be completely incapable of listening. I respond to them so that they will not mislead others.

So how does the idea that all of life is related through a common ancestor make it into one of the axioms that govern the scientific method?

That isn't an axiom that governs the scientific method. Of course, it also isn't an assumption in evolutionary theory. It is a conclusion, held by many, drawn from the theory and the evidence at hand. Of course, it isn't even a conclusion necessary to evolutionary theory itself. The theory would still stand, as-is, if there was more than one common ancestor - if life "began" multiple times.

Perhaps you could say that one of the axioms of evolutionary theory is that mutation and natural selection are adequate to account for all of the diversity of life. But I would say that this axiom is added, since science does not need such an axiom. Thus evolutionary theory is adding an untestable assumption.

First of all, you are misusing words again. Theories don't have axioms - logical systems do. You are also, once again, intentionally misrepresenting evolutionary theory. It is not based in the assumption that mutation and natural selection account for the diversity of life. That is a hypothesis, one that has been tested again and again and again, and has yet to be disproven. Thus, it can be deemed "theory."

You are making the mistake of thinking that evolutionary biologists do what IDers do - assume their conclusion to arrive at their conclusion. This is inherent in ID, but not in evolutionary theory.

Just like evolutionary theory. Serious attempts to demonstrate just how ''numerous, successive, slight modifications'' can adequately explain complexity appear to be quite rare, even less any attempts to falsify this. Hmmm, looks like evolutionary theory is simply just not science.

All of evolutionary biology are attempts to demonstrate these slight modifications and the changes they can make. Once again, you are either unaware of research in biology, or being completely dishonest.

And you are just complaining about my choice of words, claiming that this means that I don't understand a shred of scientific theory. (Forgive me if I no longer trust your judgment.) If something can pass the 'falsifying' test, then it is likely to be true. That is simply what I meant. The problem with evolutionary theory is that nobody seems to be even trying to make it pass the test.

You obviously don't read much in biology.

Care to name a few?

They have been named. Homology, genetic comparisons, interbreeding actually is one support.

How about postulating the presence of a designer, rather than assuming one? The positive identification of design would mean that there is an entity capable of design, and the lack of a positive identification of design would mean that there may or may not be one. No assumption needed. Just a postulation, and the conclusion depends on the results of the experiment.

Circular logic. You cannot "positively identify" design without first knowing that there is an entity capable of said design. Without that knowledge, there is no reason whatsoever to think that something is designed.

I'll answer the rest later.

I find the painting analogy quite interesting. If you wanted to prevent a picture from being painted, it could be done at any point before the last stroke, and you would be left with an incomplete picture. So with a baby, all we need to do is prevent the last development, and then we would have an incomplete human....and thus a non-human. On second thoughts, I don't think the painting analogy works that well. You are right, the human issue is certainly not simpler than a painting. I would say it is a lot more complicated. What is at stake is a good deal more than a mere painting, even if it was a painting by Michealangelo. So long as one holds the life of a human to be sacred, there should be much caution exercised when comparing it to something material like a painting.


I don't find the painting analogy to make a lot of sense. It reminds me of the joke "If a man and a half can dig a whole and a half in a day and a half then how many holes can three men dig in 3 days." What ever you compute the answer to be the joke lies in the fact that half a hole is still a complete hole. Just a hole of half the size.

By the same token a painting gradually takes shape over its creation. Remember the white guy with the afro on PBS? He just used to paint for a half an hour and the painting was finished when the show was, but you could tell from watching that sometimes he had "completed" the picture and was just painting to the clock, because it looked like a complete landscape and there was nothing left he could do that would make it better. It wasn't less of a painting. In fact if it were "finished" even when there were obvious improvements to be made, it still wouldn't be less of a painting, though potentially a less good painting.

But basketball players aren't more human despite having more height. Sumo wrestlers aren't more human despite being more human.

I find the mousetrap and the painting analogies both inadequate. Neither self replicate, and both have been directly observed being created by human influence. Also, styles of paintings do evolve and diversify. Expressionism, impressionism, surrealism, etc etc.. and within each genre the styles have changed over the years.

When trying to compare to evolution these examples are totally redundant.

Some other resources (http://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/religion/index.html).

To me, ID is just the lazy person's way out of hard problems: "This structure seems to be irreducibly complex, I can't make heads or flagellae out of it, it must be designed."

I'm also reminded of something Thomas Huxley said (and I'm going to get the quote wrong, though I hope not the point) in response to a clergyman saying there were very few facts in support of evolution (this was in the 1800s'): "My theory may be supported by very few facts, but yours is supported by no facts at all."

Finishing...

At any rate, there should be no problem for a scientific mind to postulate the presence of a designer. It won't kill science, any more than evolutionary theory has with all it's assumptions.

If there is evidence that would lead a scientist to believe that an entity capable of designing the particular object under study actually exists, there is no problem with that postulation. Of course, it would require that such an entity be testable and falsifiable.

But evolutionary theory has already added an assumption that 'numerous, successive, slight modifications' are adequate to bring about the development of bacterial-like forms into humans. This is an added untestable assumption, and I suppose it has changed science itself, somewhat.

Once again, you intentionally misrepresent the theory. Evolutionary theory is not based in any such assumption. That is the HYPOTHESIS. Because this hypothesis has been tested, and no evidence has yet disproven it, it has become theory.

There is no empirical evidence that natural forces are adequate, and there is good evidence that they are not. But this does not stop evolutionary theory from being accepted into science.

There is all sorts of evidence, my dear. Every time we measure natural forces. What evidence do you have that natural forces are not involved? Do show me the empirical evidence you have of supernatural involvement.

Ever heard of revision? Why not revise evolutionary theory to throw out all of the parts that rely on assumptions, the parts that cannot be tested and verified, such as
'numerous, successive, slight modifications' being adequate to develop bacteria-like forms into humans. That way everyone would be happy. No evolutionary theory (at least nothing like it is today) and no ID.

That (a) isn't an assumption of the theory and (b) isn't untestable. You lose on both counts. Try again.

In the real world, however, we need hypotheses to progress, and competing hypotheses would further progress, in my view.

In the real world of science, hypotheses must be scientific to be useful.

I also think it's funny that some people automatically assume you are ignorant on a subject if you disagree with their opinions.

I have read and evaluated much of the same information that all of you have, so don't think me a fool just because I disagree with you.

It is rather close minded and arrogent, don't you think, to assume that your interpretation is the only 'intelligent' interpretation of a certain set of data?

Think for yourselves, and don't label me as ignorant just because I disagree with your (and my) professors on this one. I've sat through a few biology classes in my life time (and I got high marks in them too, I might add).

I also think it's funny that some people automatically assume you are ignorant on a subject if you disagree with their opinions.

I find that funny too. I also find it funny when people try to hide their ignorance behind, "It's just my opinion," which seems to be a much more prevalent case in this subject. (Not that this necessarily describes you, but it is quite common).

If someone states that evolutionary theory makes a given statement, or that the scientific method works a certain way, we aren't in the realm of opinion. If the statements said person is making are wrong - if evolutionary theory does not say "X" or the scientific method does not work in the manner they are putting forth, they are wrong. This means that they are either ignorant of the subject,or lying.

I have yet to see an objection to evolutionary theory in the forums that wasn't based in ignorance - in either a misconception of the theory itself or in a misconception of the methods of science.

It is rather close minded and arrogent, don't you think, to assume that your interpretation is the only 'intelligent' interpretation of a certain set of data?

Indeed. Who is doing that?

Let's reexamine your statements, shall we?

I just think it's interesting that science is willing to believe we randomly sprang into existence from non-living matter,

This is what, in debate, is called a strawman. You are making a claim that science is "willing to believe" a specific statement. What you have actually done is grossly simplified a particular hypothesis in science - that of abiogenisis - the the point that it sounds silly so that you can pretend you have debunked it.

Science does not claim that "we randomly sprang into existence from non-living manner," so your "interesting" observation is not an observation at all, but something you, in fact, made up specifically to make it sound silly.

and that one very simple organism evolved into many different species, when they have no concrete proof that either occurrence is even possible.

Here, you invoke "concrete proof", as if such a term is a matter of science in the first place. This suggests that you are either ignorant of the scientific method and how it works, or that you are intentionally misrepresenting it. With the exception of those who have demonstrated otherwise, I will generally go with ignorance over lying. Someone who is ignorant can learn. Someone who is intentionally misrepresenting something is simply dishonest.

And seeing as creation is the traditionally held view I think the burden of proof rests upon the shoulders of evolution. Their case is mostly based on supposition and conjecture, and I don't find it very convincing.

Here, you make three statements First of all, you say that "creation is the traditionally held view," which is absolutely true. It is still the predominantly held view - even amongst scientists. Most human beings, scientist or other, believe in some sort of creator, and thus believe in Creation.

Note: If your intent was to suggest that a literal reading of Genesis is the "traditionally held view", that is categorically untrue and can be demonstrated as such historically. Creationism, as a movement, was a response to evolutionary theory. It grew out of fundamentalism - a reactionary movement.

Your second statement seems to follow from the first, "the burden of proof rests upon the shoulders of evolution." There are two problems with this statement. First of all, it sets up a false dichotomy. You are making the argument that either "creation" must be true or "evolution" must be true. In fact, both can simultaneously be true. No one need give up a belief in creation to accept evolutionary theory as a valid theory. The second problem with it is it basically says, "If lots of people believe something, no one needs to actually demonstrate it to be true." There have been all sorts of widely held misconceptions in our history. When it comes right down to it, the burden of proof is on anyone making a positive statement of which they wish to convince others. If you want others to believe in your particular brand of creationism, the burden of proof is, in fact, on you.

Your third statement is that evolutionary theory is "mostly based upon supposition and conjecture." This isn't a matter of opinion - you are making a statement of fact. In this case, it is a statement of fact that is untrue. Evolutionary theory is based on the evidence that has led us to believe that mutations and natural selection make changes in species over time. Someone didn't just sit at home and suppose that this might happen, we have observed and tested these principles.

Probably. As long as you didn't get it on the sofa. Sisters tend to be very protective of furniture in my experience.

I suppose that depends on what she was wearing at the time too, if it was her favorite and very expensive dress you're screwed.

*snip*

I wish you'd just come out and say what you think, Dem.

:p

You make me proud and envious.

Any supporting reasons for your assertions?
Yes: ID is religion. Shall I remind you of who supports ID? Shall I remind you of what the designer is?


Actually, the leaders of the ID movement say that ID seeks to discover design in nature.
No, they say there is design in nature and then posit god to "explain" it. It's just another attempt at the argument from design.


ID is about testing material forces.
No it isn't. It's about positing a supernatural creator. No amount of hemming and hawing from the IDers will detract from the ultimate conclusion they come to: goddidit. They just don't want to say that so that they can have it taught in schools. It's utterly dishonest and despicable.


And, please, there isn't any need to claim that I am lying. That isn't necessary here.
I believe that it quite is necessary.

OWNED.

Ha! Gee, it's a shame creationism is a religious ideology. Being a creationist, I see no disagreement with the article's conclusion: Intelligent design is not a scientific theory. Of course it's not. GOD ==/== SCIENCE. Now back to the petty one-word insults...

The issue is not the number of parts, but the overall complexity. Your link is trying to equate a reduction in parts with a reduction in complexity, and I am pointing out that while the number of parts is reduced, the complexity is not (necessarily).

If complexity is not measured by the number of parts, how do you measure complexity?

You can call anything complex, be a crystal or a piece of basaltic rock. It's all a matter of subjective opinion.

Is it any surprise to you that proteins consist of primary, secondary, and tertiary structures? Sometimes even the removal of a single amino acid can render the whole protein 'functionally inadequate''.

You are right, but you are also aware that sometimes removal of numerous amino acids (splice isoforms) doesn't affect function, or permits novel function.

If you mean "irreducible" complexity can tolerate massive reduction as long as it doesn't affect function, then what is so "irreducible" about it? That's just trying to confuse us readers here by playing with words. :cool:

I love the bit about the one part mouse trap.

I had always thought of irreducible complexity in terms of a keystone in an arch, like in a bridge. Or the cap of a dome. All the stones have to be lined up from the base up to the keystone, otherwise the whole thing will fall to bits. So if the whole thing can't stand without the keystone, then how did it get in there. Must the whole bridge exist at once or not at all.

Of course not. The bridge had other means of support until the keystone was put in place. When the keystone was put in place the scaffolding underneath it became uneccesary, and faded away.

Our eyes don't work without all the bits they've got, but we have lost the original bit that worked all by itself. A patch of photosensitive skin that got irritated by the presence of light. If we still had that bit we'd call it catarracts (sp) but because we don't have it, idiots with no imagination assume God must had designed the whole eye at once.

This is a good analogy. :)

Is it possible that ID is instantly attacked because it is associated with Christians, rather than actually addressed?

If ID had a different name, would it be taken more seriously?

Perhaps we all actually believe and assume such a thing as ID actually controls the world? IF not, why do we look at an interior organ and wonder "what is it supposed to do?" How can it 'suppose' to do anything if it isn't designed? IF we walked on our elbows and then hurt ourselves wouldn't the doctor say, You aren't supposed to walk on your elbows, they aren't designed to take that pounding?"

We all do it, we look at how some part of our body is 'supposed' to work, like it was designed with a job function in mind, and yet we get all pissy if someone suggest that maybe we should intentionally look at biology science with the idea of what was it 'designed' to do.

Is there really 'wasted' DNA space, trash that does nothing? OR do we look at it with a new attitude and say, what was it designed, intended, supposed, to be doing? The change in outlook is what ID is supposed to be. Without it, traditional evolution might have a few questions that aren't easily answered if we are left without 'purpose' questions.

Is Traditional Evolution Theory in trouble? Here are some Books that suggest this might be the case…
http://www.amazon.com/gp/explorer/1880582244/2/ref=pd_lpo_ase/002-6490594-2669610?\

Is it possible that ID is instantly attacked because it is associated with Christians, rather than actually addressed?


Uh, it is actually addressed. Read any of the very long posts made in this thread.


If ID had a different name, would it be taken more seriously?


No. No it wouldn't. Shit, by any other name, still smells just as bad. The problem isn't it's origin(when referring to science), it's that it doesn't follow the Scientific Method, in any way shape or form. The Conclusion comes before the evidence, there have been no experiments done to provide evidence. Thus, it is not Science.


Perhaps we all actually believe and assume such a thing as ID actually controls the world? IF not, why do we look at an interior organ and wonder "what is it supposed to do?" How can it 'suppose' to do anything if it isn't designed? IF we walked on our elbows and then hurt ourselves wouldn't the doctor say, You aren't supposed to walk on your elbows, they aren't designed to take that pounding?"

Which is exactly the point, really. Those question ask a question, and experiments and evidence is collected to support the conclusion. No assumption is required before the conclusion. With ID, the conclusion is assumed true before any testing is done. As far as organs "supposed" to do things, you are putting the cart before the horse. In hindsight, it would appear that certain organs are "supposed" to do things, however, under evolution there is an explanation as to how these organs developed without them doing something they are "supposed" to do. Also, showing what an organ does does not mean that that's what they are "supposed" to do, really. It just shows the chemical processes which these organs do.


Is there really 'wasted' DNA space, trash that does nothing? OR do we look at it with a new attitude and say, what was it designed, intended, supposed, to be doing? The change in outlook is what ID is supposed to be. Without it, traditional evolution might have a few questions that aren't easily answered if we are left without 'purpose' questions.

Thing is, we're not really sure if all the DNA is used, what is and isn't junk DNA if junk DNA exists, and what different alleles do. However, we CAN test as to what allele does what, and which groups of coding causes what. Some alleles may have no noticeable effect, some most definately will.

And I don't that by removing a Designer, any real holes will be made. It is rather easy to explain away many holes that are brought up, and many arguments are purely semantic or misconception, or a test in logic rather than actually doing anything to prove or disprove anything. It's passible phylosophy, at best, but is in no way Science.


Is Traditional Evolution Theory in trouble? Here are some Books that suggest this might be the case…
http://www.amazon.com/gp/explorer/1880582244/2/ref=pd_lpo_ase/002-6490594-2669610?\

I'll look into, but really I doubt it is. The problem is very simple. Attacks made on Evolution are usually phylosophical, not scientific. The reason why Evolution has stood the test of time thus far is that it has yet to be disproven at all. ID has not had any proof-only conjecture. There is a huge difference.

You dont address any issues raised against ID or acknowledge any of the explanations everyone gives you regarding evolutionary theory. Everytime there is a serious challenge to ID you dont address it you merely claim that evolution has the same flaws (usually 'flaws' we have collectively explained away for you previously). You are not scoring any points here.

Either you are willfully ignoring that which is undebatable for you, you are deliberately trolling, you think you are a lot smarter than you really are.

And he STILL won't give us a testable hypothesis.

Just one. That's all I'm asking. Give me ONE of the falsifiable hypotheses set forth by ID. Just one. One. That's it.

If ID is so very obviously science, and if "Darwinists" are just bitter and spiteful and nasty, then they should be able to whip out such a hypothesis in two seconds flat. It should be absolutely no trouble at all to present ONE testable hypothesis that ID has proposed. Just one.

I'll look into, but really I doubt it is. The problem is very simple. Attacks made on Evolution are usually phylosophical, not scientific. The reason why Evolution has stood the test of time thus far is that it has yet to be disproven at all. ID has not had any proof-only conjecture. There is a huge difference.
Pretty much. Like the Dembski link that was posted several pages back: it was full of theological, philosophical, or editorial references, but not a single peer-reviewed empirical study that I could find.

This is because the ID crowd aren't doing any science or research at all. They are simply writing their opinions down and talking about how evolution is "just a theory" (um, duh). They're not even making any substantive contributions to criticism of EVOLUTION, let alone making any contributions to their own "theory."

I hate to beat a dead horse like someone into necrophilia, beastiality and s&m, BUT Ring Species (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species) example of interbreeding species that blur out until those at the ends cannot interbreed. Exactly as would be predicted by common descent. And like I mentioned before (along with others) evolutionary theory predicts a similar thing to what you suggest but without invoking an untestable designer.

My point was that regardless of how similar two different organisms might be, e.g. chimp and human, ID predicts that there will be no progeny from crossbreeding. On the other hand, evolutionary theory predicts that similarity is an indication of the degree of relatedness due to common descent, and that the only thing preventing successful crosses is genetic distance.

ID predicts that similarity is due to function, so that similar genetic sequences between chimps and humans are due to the functions that those genes serve, not because they share a common source. That also explains why bacteria and humans share some strong similarities in some genes, while many other species don't, because those bacteria live in the human gut and eat the same food. The point is that similarity means similar function or environment, not necessarily common ancestry, particularly between species that do not belong within the same basic type, according to ID.



We test it by making predictions that could be falsified (as stated ad nauseum). And when the observations fit the predictions it supports the case
eg.
-Similar non-functional gene sequences such as the Vitamin C synthesis malfunction in humans, chimpanzees and gorillas but not other mammals

Similarities are due to similar functions or environment, according to ID, and similarities will mean similar 'weaknesses'. Thus mutations that are shared between humans and chimps and gorillas could also be due to a common 'weakness', not necessarily due to common ancestry.


- the same number of chromosomes and genetic material in closely related species.... but humans have less chromosomes than chimps... but when you line up a certain two chimp chromosomes together they exactly match one of the human chromosomes that fused the two chimp chromosomes. Right done to the positioning of extra centromeres and telomeres.


And it can be accounted for by design. Designed similarly because of the similar functions they serve. Similar designs means similar strengths and weaknesses, and not necessarily common ancestry.


-morphological similarities


Or more evidence for design, depending on how one looks at it.


-fossil evidence

More evidence that doesn't support evolution very well. Evolutionary theory doesn't give very good explanations for things like the Cambrian explosion, while ID fits it very well.


-DNA sequencing showing greater similarity between closely related species
<insert 200 years of study here>


The problem here is (like I keep saying) that the closer the relatedness, the more similar the functions that both genes serve, and the conditions in which they operate, and not necessarily because of recent common ancestry. Thus similarity will never mean ancestry in the absence of more supporting data. A duck bill and a platypus bill are similar, but nobody thinks of that this similarity means recent common ancestry.




How about you state explicitly instead of hint? And how about you address all the points people have raised that require ID to invoke a supernatural cause...


Because that would be the strawman of the day. ID does not invoke a supernatural cause, and doesn't even speculate over whether the design comes from the natural or the supernatural. The supernatural does not even play a part in ID. It focuses on identifying design. The hypothesis of ID, as I understand it, is that it is possible to identify design in nature but distinguishing between design and effects of chance and the laws of nature. That is the hypothesis that people keep asking for, and I have only said it about half a dozen times on this thread already.

What people do with the design, by interpreting it to mean that there must have been an interfering supernatural presence, is entirely up to the individual, and not something that ID includes as part of it's conclusions.




You're NOT an IDer? Fooled me. So what IS your personal position?


I'm just a critic, who is slightly surprised to see how easy it is to criticise the people who are intent on criticising ID.
My own position belongs to a separate thread, I reckon. I have already discussed it plenty of times before, here on NS.
One of my favourite sayings is that it is simply better to confess ignorance than to cling to clearly inadequate explanations.


Ah the true tactic of ID. Dont address the problems with ID just redirect the conversation to an attack on evolution . You'll fit right in with the ID crowd.


The point is that if you accept evolutionary theory, given that there is much within it that isn't science, and given how much it is based on non-science assumptions that cannot be tested, why should you demand that ID pass the very test that evolutionary theory cannot. My tactic has been to show up this inconsistency, in hopes that you will either recognise both ID and evolutionary theory as non-science, or accept that both are genuine approaches that can contribute to science.



It's a beloved pet because of the mountain of supporting evidence and its grounding in good scientific method. Excuse the rest of us while we puke over the gross defamation, abomination, and insult to science that calls itself Intelligent Design

Precisely because evolutionary theory doesn't have a mountain of supporting evidence and that it isn't well grounded in the scientific method (despite the rhetoric) is one of the reasons why I cannot rule out ID.

So are less intelligent people not full humans? Are retarded people not full humans so shouldn't have rights? It's a slippery slope making exceptions for who is really human. The same reasoning that Cortez used to say "well, these South Americans aren't really human, they just look and act like them.

Indeed, my argument is not that intelligence is the measure of what it means to be human. That is precisely why I didn't like the picture painting analogy. A child, a retarded person, an invalid, a person in a coma--these are all humans, because humanity is NOT defined by intelligence. Someone lacking in intelligence is no less human than Einstein was.

I'm not sure that I can define what a human is, and yet I have no trouble distinguishing humans from (other) animals--so long as it isn't a dark alley somewhere in.......I don't know.......New York?

What, you think I am lying?


I wasn't saying that. But, we have covered this territory before, and I seem to recall that ALL the 'founders' of the ID idea are Christian Creationists. They approached the subject with a clear bias - a need to 'prove' evolution wrong, and prove their agenda correct.

The fact that they lacked the courage to admit their bias is a mark against them, as is the fact that they do not aply the scientific method to an idea they pretend is scientific.


Just like the folk involved in SETI, or the chaps in the military that are responsible for detecting enemy traps and tricks, we are capable of searching for design without knowing if there is a designer.


People searching for military traps don't know if there is a designer? What - they think Vietnam has a 'native flowering' minefield plant?

The folks at SETI are looking for things that don't match tht MIGHT lead to discovery of intelligent life elsewhere. They do not assume, every time they discover some blip in radiation, that they MUST be seeing evidence of martian invaders.... they just look at a new phenomenon.

There is a big difference between both of those practises (looking at observations, in the hope of finding enough common material to formulate a theory), and the dishonest science of the ID crowd, looking for evidence to support the conclusion they started with.


Thus, the ID approach is possible without needing a prior commitment to God as the designer. Plus, there is plenty within evolutionary theory that is hypothesis without observation. I guess you would call that bad science also.


If you give it the attributes of 'god', and you allow it the scope of 'god', I don't care what you call it. ID is not scientific, so it ONLY appeals to those with a peculiar bent in 'that direction' to start with - i.e. those who seek to validate their 'belief'.

Personally, that seems counter-productive to me... belief is belief, and evidence is evidence... and one should never pretend that the one is the other.

Where is the hypothesis in evolution that is without observation? There are concepts that are based on extrapolation, or comparison with similar thoughts from other disciplines... but that isn't particularly bad science. One should look for precedents, even outside of ones 'field'.


ID is strictly looking for design. What you do with it, e.g. interpret it to suggest a purpose or a plan or an overarching control, is your thing, not a part of ID. Interpretation is up to the individual. Just like evolutionary theory. It deals with the material world. Some people think that evolutionary theory means that we don't need a God anymore, and that this supports their belief that there is no God. But evolutionary theory doesn't state this, and this is simply an individual interpretation based on evolutionary theory. The fact is that many Christians also support evolutionary theory, albeit they interpret it to mean that God used natural forces to create the world. Interpretation, Grave, is in the hands of the individual. Identifying design does not mean that God exists unless you interpret it that way.

This IS dishonest. ID is NOT strictly looking for design. It defines 'design' in terms that WE can comprehend, and in terms of order. It seeks to apply the idea of a causative force to principles that are just as easily explained without such external interference.

Thus - it attempts to prejudice the results. This is dishonest, and not objective. The whole paradigm is fatally flawed.

I agree with you that evolution states nothing about God, and that those who consider it PROOF of no god are mistaken - but that is not implicit in the DESIGN of evolutionary theory. On the contrary, ID requires a 'god', whether or not the pseudo-science involved has sufficient honesty to admit to the term.

Is it possible that ID is instantly attacked because it is associated with Christians, rather than actually addressed?
No, it's attacked because it's junk, assumes design rather than demonstrating it, AND is an attempt to sneak literalist biblical creationism into schools.


If ID had a different name, would it be taken more seriously?
I doubt it. Any stance which presumes its own conclusion as ID does would be attacked anyway.

Little point here:

More evidence that doesn't support evolution very well. Evolutionary theory doesn't give very good explanations for things like the Cambrian explosion,
Lie.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC300.html

http://palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/Palaeofiles/Cambrian/Index.html

Please--I beg you--do some real research before you post. Stop spouting cretinist lies.

Welllllll, there is an idea was developed in a book published by the IDers, called 'Mere Creation', edited by W. Dembski. This idea is that animals can be separated into basic types, somewhat similar to the current categories of Genus. Animals that can interbreed to produce offspring (fertile or not) are considered to belong to one basic type, such as lions and tigers, dolphins and whales, horses and donkeys, etc. The idea is that if the ID model is right, then there will only be interbreeding possible within the basic types, and never between members of different basic types. This would be consistent with the concept that basic types are designed, rather than evolved. The book develops this idea a whole lot more, and includes a number of challenges to be overcome, and the limitations involved.


Curiously, this is also an argument used in Christian Creationist circles, although they refer to the 'types' as kinds, and imply that the Bible is accurate in saying that animals developed 'after their kinds'. In other words - they allow for the possibility of 'survival of the fittest', but disallow that it could result in an overall evolutionary trend.

The flaw, of course, is that one cannot breed a banana and a fish, which sticks close to the diea of 'kinds' or 'types'... but there are also instances within one 'type' where interbreeding is impossible... such as the (definitive) mule.

Thus, the mule - which CLEARLY is the product of one animal shagging another - becomes miraculous evidence of some superior guiding force spontaneously 'designing' a 'type'.

It is also worth remembering that this 'experiment' ALSO 'proves' just as conclusively, that animals that have evolved 'too far' from each other in genetic terms, cannot (easily) bridge the gap - and thus MUST become MORE 'diverse'.

This 'experiment' proves nothing - because it does not answer the fundamental question of if there IS a designer, and it is not capable of suggesting any evidence AGAINST the 'evolutionary' model.

I've often wondered what a "kind" is. No cretinist seems to know, and certainly no IDer would use the term, for that would instantly out that person for the literalist biblical cretinist we know IDers to be.

Is it possible that ID is instantly attacked because it is associated with Christians, rather than actually addressed?

No. Many of those who criticize ID and demonstrate that it is not science are, in fact, Christians (as are many who demonstrate that Creationism is not science).

If ID had a different name, would it be taken more seriously?

No, it would still be the same idea.

Perhaps we all actually believe and assume such a thing as ID actually controls the world? IF not, why do we look at an interior organ and wonder "what is it supposed to do?" How can it 'suppose' to do anything if it isn't designed? IF we walked on our elbows and then hurt ourselves wouldn't the doctor say, You aren't supposed to walk on your elbows, they aren't designed to take that pounding?"

Humans tend to anthropomorphize just about everything. When my cultured cells aren't growing well in a specific medium or on a specific surface, I often say they "don't like it," or they "aren't happy." Now, I am obviously aware that a bunch of smooth muscle or bone marrow or embryonic stem cells dont' actually have feelings. They aren't upset with me because I put them in a growth medium or on a surface that they don't grow particularly well on. But, because it is common in the language, they get described this way.

When my computer is acting up, I might say it "doesn't like me," does that mean that computers must have feelings - likes and dislikes?

Is it possible that ID is instantly attacked because it is associated with Christians, rather than actually addressed?

If ID had a different name, would it be taken more seriously?

No. It wouldn't. The theory that aliens build the pyramids of Egypt has nothing to do with Christians, and no one takes that seriously either.

Perhaps we all actually believe and assume such a thing as ID actually controls the world? IF not, why do we look at an interior organ and wonder "what is it supposed to do?" How can it 'suppose' to do anything if it isn't designed? IF we walked on our elbows and then hurt ourselves wouldn't the doctor say, You aren't supposed to walk on your elbows, they aren't designed to take that pounding?"

This is all verbal shorthand, and a certain amount of lay-confusion. Just because we talk about it in terms of purpose and design doesn't mean that it's the case, only how we tend to think. Whiskey burns like gasoline. Is it designed to? No. We know it isn't because it is designed to get us drunk. Elbows aren't designed, so we don't automatically assume that it isn't designed to make our arms more useful.

We all do it, we look at how some part of our body is 'supposed' to work, like it was designed with a job function in mind, and yet we get all pissy if someone suggest that maybe we should intentionally look at biology science with the idea of what was it 'designed' to do.

On the other hand, Cystic Fibrosis, Cycle Cell Anemia, and Tay Saks disease are all "supposed" to happen, and we try very hard to "fix" them. Lay people think about design and purpose because we, inaccuratly, carry over training from our regular lives and assume it still holds true in science. It doesn't.

If there's design on the other hand, why do these diseases exist? Why, if a creator wanted to create resistance to disentery, did he demand that it must come with a life expectancy of 20 years? Why not just build a better set of intestines without pairing it with a dysfunctional set of lungs? Was it a programing error? Did the creator pawn the job of DNA design off on his grad students who then went on to work for Microsoft? Darwinism explains it, how does ID?

Is there really 'wasted' DNA space, trash that does nothing? OR do we look at it with a new attitude and say, what was it designed, intended, supposed, to be doing? The change in outlook is what ID is supposed to be. Without it, traditional evolution might have a few questions that aren't easily answered if we are left without 'purpose' questions.

Is Traditional Evolution Theory in trouble? Here are some Books that suggest this might be the case…
http://www.amazon.com/gp/explorer/1880582244/2/ref=pd_lpo_ase/002-6490594-2669610?\

But the purpose questions exist in Darwinism, it's just that the scientists understand that the idea of purpose is metaphorical, just like the term advantage (in that unthinking forces and random events can hardly be said to appreciate advantages or bemoan disadvantages.)

The question on what this "junk DNA" is for has already been asked. The answer was "nothing, we can remove it, and it works just fine." So then Darwinism has an answer as to why it's there. "It was useful before this organism found another way to do the same job for less energy. But evolution is a slow process and it takes a long time to get rid of stuff that isn't a big problem." Like snakes with toenails. Why do they have them? What purpose do they serve? None, but they used to provide traction when snakes had toes.

Curiously, this is also an argument used in Christian Creationist circles, although they refer to the 'types' as kinds, and imply that the Bible is accurate in saying that animals developed 'after their kinds'. In other words - they allow for the possibility of 'survival of the fittest', but disallow that it could result in an overall evolutionary trend.

Hence the reason that a book about Creationism could simply replace every instance of the word "Creationist" with "design proponents" and every instance of the word "Crationism" with "Intelligent Design" and still be just as "accurate" a book. ID has basically taken Creationism, removed the actual word "God" and then said, "NO, REALLY! WE ARE SCIENCE! SEE?!?!?!?!"

Evolutionary theory has it that all animals are related, and if so, that all are capable of interbreeding by degrees of separation (see other post).

This is a strawman.

A strawman - whether yours, or the pet of the founders of ID, can never prove or disprove anything, except it's own created platform.

A PC is 'related' to Babbage's counting engine, and yet the two cannot interact, except through the creation of extra degrees.

(Also, of course, your version of the evolutionary theory 'meaning' all animals can 'interbreed by degree' is meaningless if one does not have ACCESS to every degree, every permutation that has existed.)

Curiously, this is also an argument used in Christian Creationist circles, although they refer to the 'types' as kinds, and imply that the Bible is accurate in saying that animals developed 'after their kinds'. In other words - they allow for the possibility of 'survival of the fittest', but disallow that it could result in an overall evolutionary trend.

The flaw, of course, is that one cannot breed a banana and a fish, which sticks close to the diea of 'kinds' or 'types'... but there are also instances within one 'type' where interbreeding is impossible... such as the (definitive) mule.

Well, I heard a story a few years ago in which fish genes were spliced with a kind of tree which made the fish grow a lot bigger.

As for the mules thing. "Mule produces offspring in Morocco. (http://www.messybeast.com/genetics/hybrid-equines.htm)"

You creepy persons.
Bunch of heretics.
God exists. We killed his son.
Next time we'll have to do better.

See you in hell.

Hence the reason that a book about Creationism could simply replace every instance of the word "Creationist" with "design proponents" and every instance of the word "Crationism" with "Intelligent Design" and still be just as "accurate" a book. ID has basically taken Creationism, removed the actual word "God" and then said, "NO, REALLY! WE ARE SCIENCE! SEE?!?!?!?!"

Which is my big problem with it.

I think ID should be in classrooms, if it be the will of the people... but it should be in some class that allows for an absence of the scientific method, and allows it's principia to be established on faith.

My problem isn't (as Poot suggests) the 'trappings' of ID - but the fact that (despite all it's own protestations to the contrary) it just isn't science.

You creepy persons.
Bunch of heretics.
God exists. We killed his son.
Next time we'll have to do better.

See you in hell.

Are there still vacancies in Hell? I really want to get in before it's completely full up; Purgatory really just doesn't cut it for me - you know, the whole white void and everything.

Does Satan do time-shares? Some form of rental scheme?

Which is my big problem with it.

I think ID should be in classrooms, if it be the will of the people... but it should be in some class that allows for an absence of the scientific method, and allows it's principia to be established on faith.

My problem isn't (as Poot suggests) the 'trappings' of ID - but the fact that (despite all it's own protestations to the contrary) it just isn't science.
Exactly.

I was taught many different creation myths in school, and I don't see anything wrong with teaching kids about these stories. I don't see anything wrong with kids knowing about religious beliefs and the history of human efforts to explain our world. I just object to us calling ID "science," when it very clearly is not. I don't want to see "Moby Dick" used as a textbook for marine biology courses, either, but that doesn't mean I'm opposed to kids reading literature in school.

Surprise surprise, B comes back and ignores every single question posed previously and starts the same nonsense all over again. The whole "no mountain of evidence" makes me laugh. I guess tens of thousands of peer reviewed papers isn't sufficient evidence but 0 makes a "theory' possible.

Come on B, what is ID's hypothesis? What tests have been done to support it?

Well, I heard a story a few years ago in which fish genes were spliced with a kind of tree which made the fish grow a lot bigger.

As for the mules thing. "Mule produces offspring in Morocco. (http://www.messybeast.com/genetics/hybrid-equines.htm)"

And yet, the mule cannot even reproduce with it's own specific line, half of them can't reproduce ever, and the other half doesn't always yeild viable potential mates. Similarly, sheep and goats cannot successfully reproduce, and yet they are almost the same thing in terms of 'kind'. Indeed, as both are 'cattle', if the principle established for this 'type' breeding is going to be embraced, we should be seeing yaks as capable of breeding with deer, shouldn't we?

Exactly.

I was taught many different creation myths in school, and I don't see anything wrong with teaching kids about these stories. I don't see anything wrong with kids knowing about religious beliefs and the history of human efforts to explain our world. I just object to us calling ID "science," when it very clearly is not. I don't want to see "Moby Dick" used as a textbook for marine biology courses, either, but that doesn't mean I'm opposed to kids reading literature in school.

I think Robert Jordans World War series should be taught in history class.

Little point here:


Lie.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC300.html

http://palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/Palaeofiles/Cambrian/Index.html

Please--I beg you--do some real research before you post. Stop spouting cretinist lies.

He clearly learned research from the Anne Coulter institute.

Here's my proof that there's no evidence that the cambrian explosion supports ID.

I googled, "the cambrian explosion totally proves that evolution is bunk and that god created the world" and came up with zero results. On the whole internet, there isn't one site that shows how the cambrian explosion supports ID. That's googling the Coulter Way. :D

And yet, the mule cannot even reproduce with it's own specific line, half of them can't reproduce ever, and the other half doesn't always yeild viable potential mates. Similarly, sheep and goats cannot successfully reproduce, and yet they are almost the same thing in terms of 'kind'. Indeed, as both are 'cattle', if the principle established for this 'type' breeding is going to be embraced, we should be seeing yaks as capable of breeding with deer, shouldn't we?

But that's what B says the TOE states so it must be true. ID is "real" science because it tests.... what again?

You creepy persons.
Bunch of heretics.
God exists. We killed his son.
Next time we'll have to do better.

See you in hell.

God exists... This seems to be a popular opinion. The only real disagreement seems to be over what to call him.

On the other hand, whether you call him Vishnu, Kali, or Zeus... the fact remains that Irreducible Complexity really is bunk.

Surprise surprise, B comes back and ignores every single question posed previously and starts the same nonsense all over again. The whole "no mountain of evidence" makes me laugh. I guess tens of thousands of peer reviewed papers isn't sufficient evidence but 0 makes a "theory' possible.

Come on B, what is ID's hypothesis? What tests have been done to support it?
Yeah, we're still waiting over in another thread, too. Just one testable hypothesis, guys, that's all I'm asking for!

How would this test ID?

Because of the different predictions that can be made based on ID and evolutionary theory.


Happily, you don't have to. That's the lovely thing about empirically-verifiable science: you don't have to take anybody's word for it.
The quote you posted is an example of a lie. Dembski made a statement which is untrue, and which he knows to be untrue (seeing as how it has been explained to him during numerous exchanges and by numerous scientists. Consult PZ Myers if you want some specific examples). That is called "lying."

No, that's called disagreeing. It's a pity that disagreeing can't happen without the accusation of lying flying around. If you have read Dembski's writings, you will find his reasons for disagreeing. Just because the others have given him their explanations, that doesn't automatically mean those explanations are right, or even that Dembski knows that they are right, even if you believe that they are right.


Present the hypotheses for testing "design."



Simply that design can be detected in the natural world.


You're right, all that is for another thread. What you need to focus on here is establishing that ID is science. Please present the testable hypotheses set forth by ID. Please describe experiments which could disprove ID.


Just that design can be identified in the natural world. To test it, we would have to check if chance or the laws of nature, as we currently understand them, are sufficient to account for the 'design', rather than an intelligent intent. Take bacterial flagella. ID would take the leading evolutionary model for how flagella evolved, and test it. If the evolutionary model clearly fails, this is not to be taken as proof for design, but only current supporting evidence, until such time as a better evolutionary model can be invented. At which point the better model also gets tested, and so on and so forth, until we either arrive at a really great evolutionary model that does not fail the test, or we exhaust our knowledge of the laws of nature and of chance and of bacterial flagella and conclude that it may have been designed--or even better, that we don't know. Such testing might have no end, but then again, the day we know everything, science will die.


You are ignorant of a great many fundamental concepts in science, and you have amply demonstrated them here. That's ok. We're all ignorant to one degree or another. It doesn't mean you're stupid or wicked or anything, just that you don't yet know about some cool stuff. There are lots of people around this forum who will be delighted to tell you all about science and the scientific method...you've got me and Demi on this thread alone!


I've no problem admitting that I am ignorant about many generally know concepts and ideas. So I don't take insult to that. And I enjoy the discussion, so I'm grateful to have you and Dem around. Keep up the good work.


Sure there is. In fact, there are a great many ways to test this theory. An introductory genetics course could point you in the right direction. You could also study archeology and anthropology.

An introductory genetics course certainly does not constitute a test to examine whether humans really are one of the great apes. I was thinking more along the lines of an actual experiment. It seems the best we have is to be able to point to the similarities. Homology, however, does not always mean common ancestry, as any good geneticist would know. The terms divergent evolution and convergent evolution should never be far away from homology based theories.


They are. Let me clue you in: every single bit of the substantive, worthwhile criticism of evolutionary theory has been produced by SCIENCE. A single evolutionary biologist produces more substantive criticism of evolutionary principles before she has breakfast than the entire ID movement has ever produced. I can guarantee you, with 100% certainty, that I have done more to criticise evolutionary theory TODAY then you have done in your entire life. And I've been typing on this forum a lot today, so you know I'm not even working that hard. ;)

Large claims, Bottle, but they don't impress me. I know scientists are experts in criticism, and many of them criticise the various explanatory accounts within evolutionary theory. But how many stop to ask whether the whole of this evolutionary idea might be quite wrong? If they do ask that question, they seem to get subjected to a modern version of the Inquisition. So I guess it's only a shower question. Just ask it when you are alone having a shower, so that no body else hears you.


No, dear, they're just honest enough to recognize that evolutionary theory has proposed tons of testable hypotheses, while ID hasn't generated a single one.

Moreover, even if you were right, and even if evolutionary theory didn't have one single testable hypothesis, that STILL wouldn't make ID science. So you'd still be just as wrong.


My point is that evolutionary theory itself is not testable, even while it does make predictions that are testable. I'm not arguing that ID is science, because what is or isn't science appears to be up to the individual. And I am fine with that. Everyone has their own right to decide what is or isn't science, to make their own choice. What I am pointing out is the similarities between ID and evolutionary theory. ID tends to get rejected as non-science either because people think it is something that it isn't, or because they perceive limitations within ID while not seeing the same ones in evolutionary theory.

How many times have you seen people claim ID as not science because it makes a hypothesis before it makes an observation? And how many people realize that evolutionary theory hypothesize that microbes evolved into man, or prokaryotes into eukaryotes, without observing this incredible transition? Oh, they say, it took millions of years, so observation isn't possible. And so that is apparently sufficient for them to allow that evolutionary theory is somehow ok with making hypotheses without observation, while ID isn't.


"Hints"? Why "hint"? Just speak plainly. What are the testable hypotheses that would support ID? What are the experiments? So far, you've presented one hypothesis that does not support ID, and which has already been thoroughly addressed by evolutionary biology, and you coupled it with a vague experiment to try to breed creatures which we already know cannot be bred to one another. Is that really the best you've got? Is that the best ID can produce?


The vague-ness that you are complaining about is from my brain, sorry. I'm just not the best advocate for ID, and I can't remember what I read several months back.


I don't need to. The myth of Zeus isn't trying to test for forces that are not natural, so does that mean that the myth of Zeus is science? If my kid brother writes out his name in crayon, he's not trying to test forces that are not natural, so does that mean that he is doing science?


My original challenge was that if anyone could demonstrate how ID was trying to test for non-natural forces, then I would agree that ID should not be called science (in response to some other poster's criticism of ID).
I suggest you address that particular challenge, or else it looks like you are just huffing and puffing smoke on that one.



Science is NOT defined as "anything that is not trying to test for forces that are not natural." Give it up, you're just flailing around on this one.


I don't think so. I have repeated my challenge above, just to bring clarity to this little dispute.


If you don't know much about ID, then you probably should go around stating that it's science.

And that is evidence that you should read your posts before you post them (there is a typo, I presume?)

Furthermore, if you can find a post of mine where I have explicitly stated that ID is science, then you can have a cookie.


If you don't even know ONE SINGLE TESTABLE HYPOTHESIS produced by ID, you probably shouldn't be trying to argue that it's science. If you don't understand the most fundamental definitions of science and evolutionary theory, you probably shouldn't be insisting that you are right while evolutionary biologists are wrong.

Just a thought.



Hmmm, yeah, well good thing that I'm not arguing that it's science. Perhaps it's a good thing that I'm just criticising the criticism of ID.

And as for understanding the fundamental definitions of science and evolutionary theory, there isn't anything in your posts that convinces me that you understand it any better--so far anyway.


And you are wrong in that point. As we have described to you several times.

Here's a starter link for you:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

Here's another one:
http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2004/10/testing_fundame.html

These should help you begin to understand how evolutionary theory presents testable hypotheses. The fact that evolutionary theory has also led to the generation of som (so far) untestable theories isn't a problem; science does that a lot. As long as the theory rests upon what IS testable, it's ok to also have some additional speculations. It's ok to have hypotheses that you can't yet test, due to limitations in technology or human abilities, as long as you don't expect to have a recognized theory that is based exclusively on such hypotheses.


The test is not whether evolutionary theory can make testable predictions, but whether it can make testable predictions that will test the major assertions within evolutionary theory, such as mutation and natural selection and lots of time being adequate to turn microbes into man, or all of life being descended from a common ancestor, or that homology means relatedness due to ancestry. These are some of the major foundations upon which the theory rests, and little effort is directed at testing them. The are accepted, rather than demonstrated. But if they are wrong, then probably most of the theory is wrong, a possibility that cannot be ruled out.

And if evolutionary theory generates some (so far) untestable theories, why don't you tolerate untestable theories generated by any other theory. It can't be because they don't carry the label 'science', because your definition of science depends on something being testable, does it not? Perhaps you ought to admit that evolutionary theory is just not science.

And I often frequent the talkorigins page.


Evolutionary theory doesn't "suffer" from the fact that we don't fully understand all biological mechanisms yet. Science doesn't "suffer" from this sort of thing.

ID "suffers" as a scientific concept because it's not scientific. Pure and simple. Evolutionary theory does not suffer from this problem.


So ID is not science because it's not scientific, because in order to be scientific it has to be testable. Evolutionary theory, however, is science because it is scientific despite depending on untestable assumptions. I don't really follow your logic, I must say.

Both theories postulate untestable assumptions. Evolutionary theory postulates the concept that gradual and numerous small changes can explain the remarkable development of life on this planet. ID postulates that there might have been a designer, and if so, then design is identifiable on this planet. ID cannot test for the presence or identity of the designer, and does not try to. Evolutionary theory cannot test for the adequacy of gradual and numerous small changes, and does not try to. Why should you favour one over the other?


The subject of this thread is Irreducible Complexity and Intelligent Design. Those are the topics I am addressing. You appear determined to divert the discussion from actually examining ID or creationism. This is a common and dishonest tactic. We are discussing ID here, so quit changing the subject.


In order to make a point, I am trying to compare and contrast ID and evolutionary theory. There is nothing dishonest about that. I am trying to get out of you just exactly why you prefer one over the other, and then checking to see if that preference is based on reasoning that I can agree with.


Oh my, forgive me while I fall on the floor laughing.

You really, really don't understand how science works, do you? You've never actually spent a single day in evolutionary biology, have you?


If you really want to know, yes I have, and more than just one.


Let me set your mind at ease: scientists are the harshest, fiercest, most vicious critics of biological theories, INCLUDING evolution. Bar none. Evolutionary biologists are the ones coming up with the most heartless tests of evolutionary biology's hypotheses. The peer-review process in the biological sciences is goddam BRUTAL, particularly these days when funding is so tight.


Sure, harsh fierce critics that appear to be too afraid to question whether the basic assertions upon which evolutionary theory are good ones, or even if they appear to fit the data.
Peer review only works for those issues on which there is a division within the community. For any issue over which everyone is too afraid to question, the peer review process utterly fails in it's objectives.

It's not that they lack intelligence. It's simply too often a case of funding. If your reputation is one of questioning the basic assumptions of evolutionary theory, you are labelled a creationist fundie and there goes your funding.


You seem to think that scientists treat our theories as pampered children. On the contrary! Science is about ripping into your own hypotheses, tearing at them from every angle you can think of, and then inviting all your friends and collegues to do the same...and that's before you even submit a PAPER on the subject!

Yes, that is all very fine, except for when it comes to the governing assumptions within evolutionary theory. Criticise everything but the golden calf, it seems.

My point was that regardless of how similar two different organisms might be, e.g. chimp and human, ID predicts that there will be no progeny from crossbreeding. On the other hand, evolutionary theory predicts that similarity is an indication of the degree of relatedness due to common descent, and that the only thing preventing successful crosses is genetic distance.

Once again B, being that TOE predicts no such thing and ID predicts nothing, I'm going to assume you've gone from willfully ignorant to blatant lying. SHow me any TOE paper that states that. SHow me any ID paper.

ID predicts that similarity is due to function, so that similar genetic sequences between chimps and humans are due to the functions that those genes serve, not because they share a common source. That also explains why bacteria and humans share some strong similarities in some genes, while many other species don't, because those bacteria live in the human gut and eat the same food. The point is that similarity means similar function or environment, not necessarily common ancestry, particularly between species that do not belong within the same basic type, according to ID.

ID predicts nothing. Show the evidence.




Similarities are due to similar functions or environment, according to ID, and similarities will mean similar 'weaknesses'. Thus mutations that are shared between humans and chimps and gorillas could also be due to a common 'weakness', not necessarily due to common ancestry.

ID predicts nothing. Show the evidence.



And it can be accounted for by design. Designed similarly because of the similar functions they serve. Similar designs means similar strengths and weaknesses, and not necessarily common ancestry.

But most likely. Show the evidence to counter it.



Or more evidence for design, depending on how one looks at it.

Designed by what? Show the evidence for a designer.

More evidence that doesn't support evolution very well. Evolutionary theory doesn't give very good explanations for things like the Cambrian explosion, while ID fits it very well.

According to whom? Every scientific facility in the world or the couple creationist groups that support ID?



The problem here is (like I keep saying) that the closer the relatedness, the more similar the functions that both genes serve, and the conditions in which they operate, and not necessarily because of recent common ancestry. Thus similarity will never mean ancestry in the absence of more supporting data. A duck bill and a platypus bill are similar, but nobody thinks of that this similarity means recent common ancestry.

Show the evidence.


Because that would be the strawman of the day. ID does not invoke a supernatural cause, and doesn't even speculate over whether the design comes from the natural or the supernatural. The supernatural does not even play a part in ID. It focuses on identifying design. The hypothesis of ID, as I understand it, is that it is possible to identify design in nature but distinguishing between design and effects of chance and the laws of nature. That is the hypothesis that people keep asking for, and I have only said it about half a dozen times on this thread already.

Every primary ID proponent invokes a supernatural cause. It was made up by a creationist group. That is not a "hypothesis" as there is nothing testable about it nor has any "designer" been identified to disprove or test for. Maybe you should take a basic science class.

What people do with the design, by interpreting it to mean that there must have been an interfering supernatural presence, is entirely up to the individual, and not something that ID includes as part of it's conclusions.

So you deny that the only groups that support it are creationist Christian?


I'm just a critic, who is slightly surprised to see how easy it is to criticise the people who are intent on criticising ID.
My own position belongs to a separate thread, I reckon. I have already discussed it plenty of times before, here on NS.
One of my favourite sayings is that it is simply better to confess ignorance than to cling to clearly inadequate explanations.

Denial is not a river in Egypt. You've been presented evidence by actual scientific institutions and legitimate scientists. You've been shown evidence that ID is not science in any way. You've shown your inherent ignorance of anything relating to TOE and have yet to show anything that could even remotely support ID.


The point is that if you accept evolutionary theory, given that there is much within it that isn't science, and given how much it is based on non-science assumptions that cannot be tested, why should you demand that ID pass the very test that evolutionary theory cannot. My tactic has been to show up this inconsistency, in hopes that you will either recognise both ID and evolutionary theory as non-science, or accept that both are genuine approaches that can contribute to science.

Repeating yourself doesn't make your argument stronger. TOE has passed every test. ID has not. Everyone here has shown it but you just keep repeating yourself w/o presenting any evidence.

Precisely because evolutionary theory doesn't have a mountain of supporting evidence and that it isn't well grounded in the scientific method (despite the rhetoric) is one of the reasons why I cannot rule out ID.

Remember folks, tens of thousands of papers /= "mountain of supporting evidence" but 0, count em ZERO, = a legitimate "theory".

So ID is not science because it's not scientific, because in order to be scientific it has to be testable.

Personally, I think 'falsifiable' is far more important than 'testable' (since 'testable' is such a nebulous concept... one can 'test' a theory in pure mathematical model, without ever witnessing a real-world manifestation).

*snip rehashed BS*

Translation: I'm going to continue to ignore every single link posted showing I'm completely ignorant and repeat myself.


TOE has been tested for and shown viable. ID has tested for nothing. TOE has held up under 150 years of scrutiny. ID has been laughed out of every legitimate scientific organization but also courts (which has also linked it to religious beliefs). TOE is falsifiable. ID is not. TOE is science. ID is religion.

Personally, I think 'falsifiable' is far more important than 'testable' (since 'testable' is such a nebulous concept... one can 'test' a theory in pure mathematical model, without ever witnessing a real-world manifestation).
Yeah, this discussion seems to revolve around IDists trying to wiggle out through any available linguistic loop hole, so I guess I'd better be very careful about my choice of words.

At any rate, Bru, I won't be responding to you at length until you provide at least one falsifiable hypothesis presented by ID. That is the bare minimum required for you to begin discussing ID as science. If you aren't willing/able to do that, then the discussion is over before it begins. At this point you seem to be mostly just repeating yourself, perhaps in the hope that if you say the same wrong things enough times they will become right. It's dull.

Yeah, this discussion seems to revolve around IDists trying to wiggle out through any available linguistic loop hole, so I guess I'd better be very careful about my choice of words.

At any rate, Bru, I won't be responding to you at length until you provide at least one falsifiable hypothesis presented by ID. That is the bare minimum required for you to begin discussing ID as science. If you aren't willing/able to do that, then the discussion is over before it begins. At this point you seem to be mostly just repeating yourself, perhaps in the hope that if you say the same wrong things enough times they will become right. It's dull.

But assuming something is "designed" by using an argument from ignorance and an untestable/unfalsifiable "designer" is a legitimate hypothesis, isn't it? I mean come on, we teach astrology and phrenology in science classes, don't we? "spectral evidence" is still allowed in courts, isn't it?

But assuming something is "designed" by using an argument from ignorance and an untestable/unfalsifiable "designer" is a legitimate hypothesis, isn't it? I mean come on, we teach astrology and phrenology in science classes, don't we? "spectral evidence" is still allowed in courts, isn't it?

Maybe this is a point.

I might consider ID as acceptable in science classrooms, once we allow divination of spirits in courtrooms.

But assuming something is "designed" by using an argument from ignorance and an untestable/unfalsifiable "designer" is a legitimate hypothesis, isn't it? I mean come on, we teach astrology and phrenology in science classes, don't we? "spectral evidence" is still allowed in courts, isn't it?
Yes, and as Demi has explained to us, we are able to prove things by disproving absolutely anything else! If I can prove that I did not personally kill Martin Luther King, Jr., then that unequivocally proves that Jesus Christ killed him!

Little point here:


Lie.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC300.html

http://palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/Palaeofiles/Cambrian/Index.html

Please--I beg you--do some real research before you post. Stop spouting cretinist lies.

Your talkorigins page was indeed full of explanations, although mostly summarized, and not discussed, so limited opportunity to investigate their reasons (would have to read the papers cited).

I have read arguments and counter arguments over the Cambrian explosian over the past couple of years, and I am not finished with it by any means.

But my conclusions thus far is that while many of the evolutionary arguments claim '...some plausible explanations for why diversification may have been relatively sudden', these explanations include things like the incredible 'spurred' evolution of animals with hard body parts (particularly when we are questioning the wisdom of 'spurred evolution'), microscopic ancestors (with no real reason why the descendents of the currently invisible microscopic ancestors should have suddenly grown SO much bigger within a relatively short space of time), snowball earth (rising climate spurring evolution--presumeably increasing populations), evolution of the Hox genes (with no evidence that they really were evolving around this time), levels of oxygen in the atmosphere changing (with no other evidence that they were changing around that time)......I could go on, but the point is that all of the explanations that I have read that are thrown in to explain the Cambrian--I personally do not find them very convincing. Particularly when I compare them to the ID scenario. I find it more likely that species were generally going extinct, as the climate changed, and just as they are doing today, and that the Cambrian explosion was not an explosion of species but a mass extinction.

ID predicts nothing. Show the evidence. OK. To be precise, these are my predictions based on my understanding of evolutionary theory and ID, and what I understand from reading around the topic. Granted, my understanding is limited (as is anyone's), so I'm trying to make the best of it. As for showing you evidence, I'm not sure what satisfy your appetite. Do you want me to show you the design? Or would a link satisfy you? Here is a paper from the National Catholics Bioethics Quarterly. www.intelligentdesignnetwork.org/ NCBQ3_3HarrisCalvert.pdf
http://www.intelligentdesignnetwork.org/NCBQ3_3HarrisCalvert.pdf#search=%22intelligent%20design%20papers%22

Just that design can be identified in the natural world. To test it, we would have to check if chance or the laws of nature, as we currently understand them, are sufficient to account for the 'design', rather than an intelligent intent. Take bacterial flagella. ID would take the leading evolutionary model for how flagella evolved, and test it. If the evolutionary model clearly fails, this is not to be taken as proof for design, but only current supporting evidence, until such time as a better evolutionary model can be invented. At which point the better model also gets tested, and so on and so forth, until we either arrive at a really great evolutionary model that does not fail the test, or we exhaust our knowledge of the laws of nature and of chance and of bacterial flagella and conclude that it may have been designed--or even better, that we don't know. Such testing might have no end, but then again, the day we know everything, science will die.

This is based on an either/or logical fallacy. Just because natural selection or 'evolution' is false doesn't make intelligent design beliefs correct. That's like saying that if you have an animal that's not a cat, it must be a dog. The more evidence that says it's not a cat is proof of it being a dog. Obviously not true. Evidence against any evolutionary theories only makes them less viable, it doesn't make other ideas more viable.


How many times have you seen people claim ID as not science because it makes a hypothesis before it makes an observation? And how many people realize that evolutionary theory hypothesize that microbes evolved into man, or prokaryotes into eukaryotes, without observing this incredible transition? Oh, they say, it took millions of years, so observation isn't possible. And so that is apparently sufficient for them to allow that evolutionary theory is somehow ok with making hypotheses without observation, while ID isn't.
Natural selection and descent from a common anscestor imply that this is true. They don't explicitly state it and why would they need to?
Evidence exists that speciation occurs, that organisms change over time based on selective pressures. Why can't this extend to a larger scale without observation? This feels to me like someone saying multiplication doesn't apply to extremely large numbers since I can not perform the math in my head...so I've never seen it for myself.

And if evolutionary theory generates some (so far) untestable theories, why don't you tolerate untestable theories generated by any other theory. It can't be because they don't carry the label 'science', because your definition of science depends on something being testable, does it not? Perhaps you ought to admit that evolutionary theory is just not science.
The hypotheses are not untestable! It could be tested whether or not organisms evolve into seemingly very different ones over a long period of time. It would just need to be observed for milliions of years. Impractical? Hell yes. Untestable? No. And intelligent designer is untestable. There is no method to find this designer, it will always be something we just can't get to. And if this designer is so intelligent why doesn't he belt out a message to us to tell us we're wrong? I mean what a jackass.

Sure, harsh fierce critics that appear to be too afraid to question whether the basic assertions upon which evolutionary theory are good ones, or even if they appear to fit the data.
Peer review only works for those issues on which there is a division within the community. For any issue over which everyone is too afraid to question, the peer review process utterly fails in it's objectives.
My question for you is, what about when natural selection was first proposed? Or lets even go back to transmutation. Do you think everyone just accepted it? It was ridiculously controversial. Many religious folks hated it, as now, but the scientific community wasn't fond of it as well. But it makes sense. If it is so flawed in a way that everyone seems to have trouble being specific about how did it get in in the first place?

Your talkorigins page was indeed full of explanations, although mostly summarized, and not discussed, so limited opportunity to investigate their reasons (would have to read the papers cited).

I have read arguments and counter arguments over the Cambrian explosian over the past couple of years, and I am not finished with it by any means.
IOW: you're just spewing the same tired cretinist rhetoric. You have nothing worthwhile for ID. All you have is "goddidit", and you even want to deny that just so it doesn't look like cretinism, as cretinism suffers from most people laughing at it.

Now then, please stop using the argument from design. It's thoroughly debunked.

OK. To be precise, these are my predictions based on my understanding of evolutionary theory and ID, and what I understand from reading around the topic. Granted, my understanding is limited (as is anyone's), so I'm trying to make the best of it. As for showing you evidence, I'm not sure what satisfy your appetite. Do you want me to show you the design? Or would a link satisfy you? Here is a paper from the National Catholics Bioethics Quarterly. www.intelligentdesignnetwork.org/ NCBQ3_3HarrisCalvert.pdf
http://www.intelligentdesignnetwork.org/NCBQ3_3HarrisCalvert.pdf#search=%22intelligent%20design%20papers%22

Fix the link please.

Of course, this isn't proposed by evolutionary theory at all. As usual, you are making up things that are not a part of evolutionary theory.

I didn't say that evolutionary theory specifically proposes this, but I have interpreted the implications of evolutionary theory, as I understand it.


It is perfectly possible, within evolutionary theory, for species to have diverged to the point that interbreeding is no longer possible - even without an intermediary.


Obviously. And that is one of the limitations of such an experiment.



His claim that "anything which tests evolutionary theory also tests ID," is a lie. It is based in the completely idiotic assumption that there are only two options. That the "truth" is either ID or evolutionary theory, and it is impossible for them both to be wrong.

No, it really isn't a lie. If we interpret the implications of evolution as simply diversity by material causes, and the implications of ID as diversity by material and non-material causes, then what is the alternative to these two possibilities? Multiple parallel universes? Hardly a real option.



You cannot distinguish "design" without an idea of who the "designer" might be. It is illogical to conclude "design" without first assuming an entity capable of doing the designing.


I disagree. All that is required is that humans be capable of recognising design (i.e. distinguishing it from chance and the laws of nature). Ideas of the nature of the designer are not necessary.


There are all sorts of tests. You just don't think they support evolutionary theory, although you have failed to show how they don't.


How would you test the idea that man has a microbe ancestor? One test would be to look for a single case in nature where an organism is demonstrating a recent history of gaining novel information (i.e. the creation of new genes, not alleles and not the acquisition of genes from another organism).


Name one.

The hypothesis that natural selection and today's mutation rates are capable of generating new information--just to name one.

OK. To be precise, these are my predictions based on my understanding of evolutionary theory and ID, and what I understand from reading around the topic. Granted, my understanding is limited (as is anyone's), so I'm trying to make the best of it. As for showing you evidence, I'm not sure what satisfy your appetite. Do you want me to show you the design? Or would a link satisfy you? Here is a paper from the National Catholics Bioethics Quarterly. www.intelligentdesignnetwork.org/ NCBQ3_3HarrisCalvert.pdf
http://www.intelligentdesignnetwork.org/NCBQ3_3HarrisCalvert.pdf#search=%22intelligent%20design%20papers%22

Being that I found outright lies in the first few pages, this isn't a very strong paper. TOE says nothing about there being no god.

It states that they oppose the definitions of science because it does not include non-naturalistic origins.

More already debunked Dembski quotes.

They even claim they have not developed any empirical tests for ID but that they "are working on it".

Design is "intuitive".
More on SETI, ad hominems, arguements by ignorance/authority, etc.

It even claims that ID should be respectible because lots of people believe in God.

"apparent Design", debunked "Irreducible Complexity", comparisons between biologics and non-biologics, some outright lies and red herrings.


If this is the best ID has to offer, then it is pathetic. Not one actual falsifiable or empirically testable hypothesis has been presented. TO presents excerpts from hundreds of peer reviewed papers and links to others. The courts have shown th connection between ID and religion. No legitimate organization even bothers w/ it.

I didn't say that evolutionary theory specifically proposes this, but I have interpreted the implications of evolutionary theory, as I understand it.

Translation: You made crap up base on blatant ignorance.



Obviously. And that is one of the limitations of such an experiment.

But you claimed TOE implied that. More BS.




No, it really isn't a lie. If we interpret the implications of evolution as simply diversity by material causes, and the implications of ID as diversity by material and non-material causes, then what is the alternative to these two possibilities? Multiple parallel universes? Hardly a real option.

When you make crap up and then continue to state it w/o presenting evidence and after it's been debunked, it's a lie.




I disagree. All that is required is that humans be capable of recognising design (i.e. distinguishing it from chance and the laws of nature). Ideas of the nature of the designer are not necessary.

So more making crap up w/o evidence. It's "inferred" even if there is no supporting evidence whatsoever.



How would you test the idea that man has a microbe ancestor? One test would be to look for a single case in nature where an organism is demonstrating a recent history of gaining novel information (i.e. the creation of new genes, not alleles and not the acquisition of genes from another organism).

By tracing back DNA, fossils, geologic structures and all those other wonderful branches of science that you have admitted you know little about.



The hypothesis that natural selection and today's mutation rates are capable of generating new information--just to name one.

So you deny the existance of the nylon bug? That's new information that has been verified, tested and repeated.

I disagree. All that is required is that humans be capable of recognising design (i.e. distinguishing it from chance and the laws of nature).


I pour sand from a bottle onto a surface. The sand falls randomly, particle against particle, and scatters randomly as it hits the surface. I am left with a structure as the result, in which the surface is observably almost infinitely complex, and the form is strictly geometric.... clearly, this sturcture and appearance MUST have been artifacts of my design, yes?

We can say something LOOKS like design. We cannot say something IS design, unless we can identify the design. Or the designer.


How would you test the idea that man has a microbe ancestor?

Why would we? You confuse the mechanism with the origin argument.


The hypothesis that natural selection and today's mutation rates are capable of generating new information--just to name one.

Duplication is possible. Mutation is possible. Duplication plus mutation would yield extra, different, information.

Thus, with out current understanding, it is possible to generate 'new' information.

Your talkorigins page was indeed full of explanations, although mostly summarized, and not discussed, so limited opportunity to investigate their reasons (would have to read the papers cited).

I have read arguments and counter arguments over the Cambrian explosian over the past couple of years, and I am not finished with it by any means.

But my conclusions thus far is that while many of the evolutionary arguments claim '

And this really says it all.

And this really says it all.
Indeed. "I haven't actually read any of the actual research, but I'm quite comfortable making conclusions about the validity of your theory. Much like I'm quite comfortable concluding that ID is science, despite not having a single reference for a single falsifiable hypothesis offered up by ID."

Indeed. "I haven't actually read any of the actual research, but I'm quite comfortable making conclusions about the validity of your theory. Much like I'm quite comfortable concluding that ID is science, despite not having a single reference for a single falsifiable hypothesis offered up by ID."

I keep imagining a political cartoon w/ a blind man marked "ID proponents" over a scratched out "creationist proponents" running into a mountain side marked "evidence for evolution" and stating "This must be evidence for ID" with a tiny little ID bump off in the distance.

Simply that design can be detected in the natural world.

And who is the proposed designer? What entity do we know of that has the ability to design the natural world? What entity do we even have empirical evidence of that would have this ability?

Just that design can be identified in the natural world. To test it, we would have to check if chance or the laws of nature, as we currently understand them, are sufficient to account for the 'design', rather than an intelligent intent.

Ah, we are back to the "God of the gaps," argument, except you're simply trying to make it the "Designer of the gaps."

Your argument is basically, "If the rules of the universe, as we know them, don't completely explain this, we just shove a designer in there as a placeholder until we learn more." Sorry dear, but that placeholder isn't scientific, it's laziness.

Large claims, Bottle, but they don't impress me. I know scientists are experts in criticism, and many of them criticise the various explanatory accounts within evolutionary theory. But how many stop to ask whether the whole of this evolutionary idea might be quite wrong?

Quite a few. However, as of yet, we haven't seen anything to disprove the basic principles of evolutionary theory - that mutation and natural selection can cause changes.

How many times have you seen people claim ID as not science because it makes a hypothesis before it makes an observation? And how many people realize that evolutionary theory hypothesize that microbes evolved into man, or prokaryotes into eukaryotes, without observing this incredible transition? Oh, they say, it took millions of years, so observation isn't possible. And so that is apparently sufficient for them to allow that evolutionary theory is somehow ok with making hypotheses without observation, while ID isn't.

You are either completely dishonest, or biased beyond comprehension. The hypothesis that prokaryotes evolved into eukaryotes IS based in observation. It is based in the observation of mutation, natural selection, the similarities between the two types of organism, etc., etc. From those observations, hypotheses about the relation between the two types of organism can be drawn.

What observations lead IDers to assume an entity capable of designing life?

My original challenge was that if anyone could demonstrate how ID was trying to test for non-natural forces, then I would agree that ID should not be called science (in response to some other poster's criticism of ID).

The problem is that they aren't trying to test for them. They are simply assuming that such forces exist.

The test is not whether evolutionary theory can make testable predictions, but whether it can make testable predictions that will test the major assertions within evolutionary theory, such as mutation and natural selection and lots of time being adequate to turn microbes into man, or all of life being descended from a common ancestor, or that homology means relatedness due to ancestry. These are some of the major foundations upon which the theory rests, and little effort is directed at testing them.

(a) As I have pointed out TIME AND TIME AGAIN, the idea that all of life is descended from a common ancestor is far from a foundation of evolutionary theory. The theory would remain essentially the same with or without such an assertion. Evolutionary theory doesn't deal with the beginnings of life, but with the way it changes over time. If there were more than one "original ancestor", the theory wouldn't have any problems at all.

(b) Evolutionary theory does not claim that "homology means relatedness due to ancestry." Homology, however, can certainly suggest this relatedness, and can be evidence of such a hypothesis.

(c) And your claims that evolutionary biologists don't test for speciation (which you extrapolate out to microbes->man as if this were a single step) is absolutely ridiculous.

And if evolutionary theory generates some (so far) untestable theories, why don't you tolerate untestable theories generated by any other theory.

(a) "So far untestable" is not the same thing as "untestable." We are just now getting to the technological level to test much of Einstein's theory of relativity, but that didn't make it unscientific to begin with. It is (and was) testable, we simply didn't have the technology yet to do all the tests we'd like.

(b) The problem with ID is that the entire thing is untestable and unfalsifiable. They assume the existence of some entity capable of designing life. Without this assumption, there would be no way to conclude that a given object was, in fact, designed - your circular logic notwithstanding. They do not, however, test for this designer and, in fact, say that they cannot, as the major proponents of ID all claim this designer to be God. With this sort of assumption, you can never disprove it. No matter what evidence is found, no matter what the processes appear to be, the proponents can always say, "Well, that designer we haven't found any evidence of yet designed it."

So ID is not science because it's not scientific, because in order to be scientific it has to be testable. Evolutionary theory, however, is science because it is scientific despite depending on untestable assumptions. I don't really follow your logic, I must say.

That's because you are injecting falsehoods into it. You have yet to demonstrate a single "untestable assumption" on which evolutionary theory is supposedly based. You bring up a lot of the hypotheses of evolutionary theory and claim that they are assumptions. You bring up a few conclusions of evolutionary theory and claim that they are asumptions. But you have yet to demonstrate a single actual untestable assumption in which evolution is based.

Both theories postulate untestable assumptions.

Misusing words yet again, are we? You don't "postulate" assumptions. Assumptions are taken as true without testing. However, to be valid science, they do have to be testable.

You "postulate" a hypothesis. This hypothesis must also be testable. Of course, you have yet to bring up a single hypothesis made by evolutionary theory that is, in fact, untestable.

And, as usual, the ID proponent cannot present any evidence of their "theory" and falls back on attacking the TOE while knowing little about by their own admission.

And, as usual, the ID proponent cannot present any evidence of their "theory" and falls back on attacking the TOE while knowing little about by their own admission.
Please tell me that you weren't expecting anything else.

No, it really isn't a lie. If we interpret the implications of evolution as simply diversity by material causes, and the implications of ID as diversity by material and non-material causes, then what is the alternative to these two possibilities? Multiple parallel universes? Hardly a real option.

(a) First of all, it is a dishonest "interpretation" Evolutionary theory does not invoke any and all "material causes". It is a specific mechanism described in a specific way. You are intentionally trying to set up a false dichotomy. It is completely possible that some other mechanism accounts for the diversity of life.

(b) Do make up your mind. Is ID related to the supernatural or not? You cannot label ID as "non-material" causes and then simultaneously say that it refers to something material.

I disagree. All that is required is that humans be capable of recognising design (i.e. distinguishing it from chance and the laws of nature). Ideas of the nature of the designer are not necessary.

If you do not know the laws of nature, how do you recognize "design" as separate from those laws? Or are you claiming that we know all the laws of nature?

In science, we recognize that we don't know everything. In fact, a great deal of what we "know" is probably wrong. Our understanding of the "laws of nature" is, at best, incomplete and, at worst, completely wrong. Your "designer of the gaps" argument simply doesn't fit into science. Without some idea of what could possibly design life, nothing can automatically point to design, because we have no way of disproving that it can be explained by natural causes.

How would you test the idea that man has a microbe ancestor? One test would be to look for a single case in nature where an organism is demonstrating a recent history of gaining novel information (i.e. the creation of new genes, not alleles and not the acquisition of genes from another organism).

Interestingly enough, we do look for evidnece of such things. There are mechanisms, especially in microbes, in which entire genes are recopied back into the genome. With two copies of the same gene, one can mutate more rapidly than the other without providing a significant selection pressure against the organism. This copying has been observed, and testing to watch the mutation levels could certainly be carried out.

Thank you for disproving your own point.

The hypothesis that natural selection and today's mutation rates are capable of generating new information--just to name one.

So, you name a hypothesis that isn't in any way part of evolutionary theory (although it is testable)? Cute, but it doesn't answer my question. Tell me, where in evolutionary theory does it state that mutation rate has never changed? Try again.

Please tell me that you weren't expecting anything else.
Call me a crazy optimist, but I tend to assume that most people are generally honest and well-meaning. It always takes me by surprise when others are perfectly willing to tell bald-faced lies and conduct blatantly dishonest discussions. The honest search for knowledge is so fundamentally a part of my life that I cannot really comprehend the kind of mind that goes to this much effort to avoid having to learn anything.

Here's a nice little Dembski quote:

"The conceptual soundings of the [intelligent design] theory can in the end only be located in Christ"
Intelligent Design; the Bridge Between Science and Theology (Dembski, 1999) pg210.

"Not only does intelligent design rid us of this ideology, which suffocates the human spirit, but, in my personal experience, I've found that it opens the path for people to come to Christ. Indeed, once materialism is no longer an option, Christianity again becomes an option. True, there are then also other options. But Christianity is more than able to hold its own once it is seen as a live option. The problem with materialism is that it rules out Christianity so completely that it is not even a live option. Thus, in its relation to Christianity, intelligent design should be viewed as a ground-clearing operation that gets rid of the intellectual rubbish that for generations has kept Christianity from receiving serious consideration." (Dembski, "Intelligent Design's Contribution to the Debate Over Evolution", Designinference.com website, February 2005)


Still care to claim ID isn't religous in nature?

And, as usual, the ID proponent cannot present any evidence of their "theory" and falls back on attacking the TOE while knowing little about by their own admission.
Yup. ID doesn't hold up to even the most gentle examination (ONE HYPOTHESIS, STILL WAITING) so they have to quickly divert attention and put evolutionary theory on the defensive. And they can't even do that very effectively.

It really says something about the state of science education.

Yup. ID doesn't hold up to even the most gentle examination (ONE HYPOTHESIS, STILL WAITING) so they have to quickly divert attention and put evolutionary theory on the defensive. And they can't even do that very effectively.

It really says something about the state of science education.

Here's the fun thing. Although he hasn't done it here, Bruarong claims to either have or be studying for (I can't remember which) a doctorate in the field of biology!

Here's a nice little Dembski quote:

"The conceptual soundings of the [intelligent design] theory can in the end only be located in Christ"
Intelligent Design; the Bridge Between Science and Theology (Dembski, 1999) pg210.

"Not only does intelligent design rid us of this ideology, which suffocates the human spirit, but, in my personal experience, I've found that it opens the path for people to come to Christ. Indeed, once materialism is no longer an option, Christianity again becomes an option. True, there are then also other options. But Christianity is more than able to hold its own once it is seen as a live option. The problem with materialism is that it rules out Christianity so completely that it is not even a live option. Thus, in its relation to Christianity, intelligent design should be viewed as a ground-clearing operation that gets rid of the intellectual rubbish that for generations has kept Christianity from receiving serious consideration." (Dembski, "Intelligent Design's Contribution to the Debate Over Evolution", Designinference.com website, February 2005)


Still care to claim ID isn't religous in nature?

are you sure he isn't "dumbski"?

Here's the fun thing. Although he hasn't done it here, Bruarong claims to either have or be studying for (I can't remember which) a doctorate in the field of biology!
Well sure, if you consider it "studying" when you pay $100 for a print-out diploma from Online University. ;)

Seriously though, if he really does try to use that as a kind of claim to authority on this subject, then it's just another example of how he's genuinely clueless about science. The appeal to authority just don't work in the sciences. It doesn't matter if you've won a Nobel Prize, you can't just make shit up and have the rest of the scientific community take you at your word. We've got plenty of people making their careers out of criticizing and attacking the work of the most famous and respected scientists in history.

It doesn't matter how many degrees you hold...if your science sucks, scientists are going to tell you so. Bru can claim to hold as many science degrees as he likes, and it won't change the fact that he's wrong.

Call me a crazy optimist, but I tend to assume that most people are generally honest and well-meaning. It always takes me by surprise when others are perfectly willing to tell bald-faced lies and conduct blatantly dishonest discussions. The honest search for knowledge is so fundamentally a part of my life that I cannot really comprehend the kind of mind that goes to this much effort to avoid having to learn anything.
Remember the words of the Red Queen when she said that sometimes she believed as many as six contradictory things before breakfast.

One other thing: when a person is defending some belief which clearly was not come by via any rational means, you really shouldn't be suprised when the person makes the most outlandish denials of reality. I know that it's painful to wade through all that bullshit. I know that you'd like to believe that most people are generally honest and well-meaning--and most of them are. In most cases. But some things just cause a few to shut off the think-box and jump into bed with their blankie.

Here's the fun thing. Although he hasn't done it here, Bruarong claims to either have or be studying for (I can't remember which) a doctorate in the field of biology!

If that were true it would be somewhat upsetting to me to know that there is someone who can have such an enormous misunderstanding about the funadmentals of biology and not be removed from the institution for incompetence. I mean, a doctorate? I can't imagine getting past sophmore year at a school with views like that. Everything would be ridiculously confusing.

"Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution."
-Theodosius Dobzhansky

And more "non-religious" ID isms':

"First, defense expert Professor Fuller agreed that ID aspires to "change the ground rules" of science and lead defense expert Professor Behe admitted that his broadened definition of science, which encompasses ID, would also embrace astrology. Moreover, defense expert Professor Minnich acknowledged that for ID to be considered science, the ground rules of science have to be broadened to allow consideration of supernatural forces."

pg 68 of Judges Dover decision.

The Discovery Institute, the think tank promoting ID whose CRSC developed the Wedge Document, acknowledges as “Governing Goals” to “defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies” and “replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.” (P-140 at 4). In addition, and as previously noted, the Wedge Document states in its “Five Year Strategic Plan Summary” that the IDM’s goal is to replace science as currently practiced with “theistic and Christian science.” Id. at 6.

Pg 69 and 70 of Dover decision

The primary "textbook" for ID: published by the FTE (promoting and publishing textbooks presenting a Christian perspective,")

Early draft:

Pandas:

Creation is the theory that various forms of life began abruptly, with their distinctive features already intact: Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers and wings, mammals with fur and mammary glands.

published:

Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact: Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks and wings, et cetera.

And more "non-religious" ID isms': *snip for brevity*


Indeed. Over in the "Missing Link" thread, Kormanthor did eventually come out with it, that his (her?) stand against evolution was a matter of faith. Carried on the argument on that basis, as I know many of you remember.

I always think of ID as the lazy person's way out of doing science homework. As I said a while ago in Bottle's "take the opposite side" thread, "We need ID to give our kids and us an out when science gets just too darn hard to understand."

I think I may have discovered the reasoning behind ID's support among people. Bear with me, here, as this is a rather rough idea, and is in no way complete or polished.

The idea is formulated by people using a predestination idea. They see humans, and think that it would take an illogical amount of chance in order for humans to evolve. Thus, there must have been a designer, as it is very unlikely that humans would have evolved from mere chance. They hold the idea that humans(or all current organisms) are the destination.

However, it is important to remember that humans are NOT the destination, they are the journey, so to speak. What do I mean by this?

Well, imagine it terms of the current President.

Now, then to start. Had Britain given the colonies Home rule, the American Revolution never would have happened. This would mean that the USA would never had been formed. For obvious reasons, now, the current President would never have President. But also, this may have had adverse implications on his very life.

For instance, had the Revolution never happened, none of the soldiers would have died. This would mean a larger population in both England and the Colonies. This would mean that many of those who may have met, and eventually married, after the war, may have married many of those who either did not die in the war, or died before they had a chance to have children or more children. This in turn would create more competition for reproduction, and the degree of difference in this alternate version and the real version would be slightly different.

Further more, there may have never been an end to Slavery in the colonies, as the Civil War never would have happened, and as the colonies would have had home rule, they could make their own rules irregardless of what the others wanted.

This would mean that for a much different amount of time, slavery would have existed unchallenged.

In turn, the Industrial Revolution in the US may have come much later, as there would be less of a push nationally to create an Industrialized area, as we would not need to compete with Britain in terms of Industrial might, and could remain agriculturally inclined for a greater amount of times.

We would not have the immigration history as we do now, as the British would have had control over who comes in and out of the country.

So forth and so on, with the differences.

All of these factors would mean that the current President's bloodline would have been EXTRAORDINARILY unlikely to have remained intact, thus he would never have been born.

Now, in ID, the idea is that all of these events occurred to produce the current President. They are looking, in hindsight, and drawing the conclusion.

However, the problem is not the case. Each of these events occurred without any idea of the outcome over time, and the overall implications are unknown. There is no predestination while the events occur-only when one looks at the events in hindsight can one assume such.

Not sure how well this came across.

My point was that regardless of how similar two different organisms might be, e.g. chimp and human, ID predicts that there will be no progeny from crossbreeding. On the other hand, evolutionary theory predicts that similarity is an indication of the degree of relatedness due to common descent, and that the only thing preventing successful crosses is genetic distance.

And because of the post I made earlier which mentions the successful breeding of a horse and mule in Morocco a few years ago, TOE is supported and ID has been refuted.

If in fact those are the predictions based on the respective "theories."

The ID crowd loves the idea of irreducible complexity - how evolution cannot produce more information in an organism etc.

Just a couple of hours ago, I suddenly thought of a super simple example to illustrate why irreducible complexity is total nonsense.

I've written a detailed article (http://freshbrainz.blogspot.com/2006/10/irreducible-complexity-pwned.html) about this, but my main idea is - irreducibly complex systems cannot grow or shrink.

What are your thoughts?

DOUBLE KILL!

MULTI-KILL!

M-M-M-MONSTER KILL!

Great job on the slam dunk. Stick it to those IDer wing nuts.

Thanks. This is not for school (I am actually doing a structural biology assignment right now), the article is my hobby. I believe that scientists are estranged from wider society because they are often incomprehensible, so writing such articles forces me to practice using the simplest, most relevant and most vivid example I can think of to illustrate certain concepts.Hmm after thinking about it, you also made another mistake on your paper... the fact that the Watchmaker theory is not comparing a watch in total to the human body, but the complexity of said watch. hence, your concentration of the human's body ablility to grow isn't a proper focus of the differences. It's like comparing Water to Iron.


Umm, perhaps you mean uncontrolled cell division. Usually cells don't divide in rhythm, some cells divide a lot (say intestinal epithelium, skin) some cells divide rarely or never (brain).all cells divide as they are meant to divide. to say uneven, means you need to compare all similar type cells. Intestinal Epithelium with Intestinal Epithelium. to compare all cels in total, would be like comparing all automobiles. SUV's performe differently than Racing Cars, and they perform differently than Dump Trucks...

Thus UNEVEN cellular growth in Similar Cells results in adverse conditions. You can call it Uncontrolled, but the fact that there is a controlling agent can point to order.


Those parts are useless as of now and in this current environment. A proponent of purposeful design would find it wasteful to have a genome full of stuff meant for a future that an organism cannot foresee (or may not even survive to reach). Of course if you believe in a God that made the first prokaryote, and controlled all aspects of the environment so that it would evolve into human beings, there is no conflict at all with biological evolution.sorry, but I've never heard anything to indicate that ID claims that nothing is Wasted NOW. only that everything is planned and created with a purpose, wether that purpose is now, or in the future, is never defined. and yes, I Never saw any conflict with Biological Evolution and the idea of ID (not Creationsim).

Except you now have a even bigger (and possible unexplainable) mystery - the Designer God.no, the same problem. it's people who tries to define God that run into such problems.

And I am not an typical "evilutionist" neither. I am a deist but I don't believe in a Designer God. I think God is only interested in Porn and Chocolate. And 42. Stupid me, how can I forget about 42?
for the record.... I have not, will not and never will call anyone "Evilutionist" :)

Me too. I honestly would love to sink my teeth into some real science on this topic. The science is the fun part! But, sadly, there is no science behind ID, so there really is no fun to be had.

well, you can double check his theories and see if they are scientifically sound... ;)

If the "underlying flaw" is undetectable by science, then there would be no way for science to ever recognize it.

Proofs only work within the particular logical construct in which they are based. There certainly can be a "proof" of God's existence, depending on what axioms and logical constructs are used to get there. However, such a logical construct would, by definition, be outside of science.

If science is based in flawed axioms - if, for instance, the universe is not deterministic and does not "run on" specified rules - if, in fact, the events in the universe are truly random, then science is incorrect. However, because science is based in that axiom, science cannot be used to disprove the axiom. And, in the end, there is no way to test the axiom in the first place. You might convince a particular scientist (or even a whole group of them) that the scientific method and it's backings are wrong, but you cannot use science to disprove all of science, as it were.
ah, but in science, one does not recreate the wheel, it's all taught as facts and built upon each other. thus such an imagined flaw, if any, would not be detected unless someone who thinks "outside" the box goes and recreates the wheel. you will not find many who will attempt that.

the closest I've found to test that would be the "String Theory"

Trilby63;11788221']I still hold that the penis is the greatest arguememnt against ID. I mean, look at it!*watches Triby63 hold his penis against ID...*
Carefull you don't go off Half-Cocked :p


Seriously tho. Science, to this day, has not and will not disprove nor will it prove the Exsistance of God.

Evolution does not disprove Intelligent Design (not creationsim) and never will unless A higher being is either Proven to not Exsist or to Exsist.

instead of wasting time and money trying to "Debunk" the other, more time and money should be spent improving the quality of life in both Quantity and Quality.

ah, but in science, one does not recreate the wheel, it's all taught as facts and built upon each other.

Teaching science is this way, and should be, once the basics of the scientific method are taught.

However, science is not carried out this way. Things certainly do build upon one another, but it is those who discover the new and exciting, or find a new explanation that fits better, or come up with a new method that revolutionizes a field, etc. that push science forward.

thus such an imagined flaw, if any, would not be detected unless someone who thinks "outside" the box goes and recreates the wheel. you will not find many who will attempt that.

The problem is that you are (or were, in the post I responded to) talking about thinking completely outside the box of science. It should be fairly evident that science cannot be used to disprove itself, as all the work in science is based in the underlying assumption that the scientific method is a good way of exploring the universe.

There are many, many people, who talk about other ways of exploring and learning. However, when doing so, they are not carrying out science. They are outside of that box.

The problem with your scenario is that you asked whether or not scientists would "see the light" if the scientific method were flawed. The answer is that no, without stepping completely outside of science and ceasing to be scientists in the first place, that would be impossible. You cannot find that flaw while actually using the methods based in it.

Teaching science is this way, and should be, once the basics of the scientific method are taught.

However, science is not carried out this way. Things certainly do build upon one another, but it is those who discover the new and exciting, or find a new explanation that fits better, or come up with a new method that revolutionizes a field, etc. that push science forward.agreed, but wouldn't that make such a flaw impossible to detect? since it is taught as fact.

The problem is that you are (or were, in the post I responded to) talking about thinking completely outside the box of science. It should be fairly evident that science cannot be used to disprove itself, as all the work in science is based in the underlying assumption that the scientific method is a good way of exploring the universe.

There are many, many people, who talk about other ways of exploring and learning. However, when doing so, they are not carrying out science. They are outside of that box.

The problem with your scenario is that you asked whether or not scientists would "see the light" if the scientific method were flawed. The answer is that no, without stepping completely outside of science and ceasing to be scientists in the first place, that would be impossible. You cannot find that flaw while actually using the methods based in it.yep. but it is an interesing thought, not a dig at science btw...

I mean, Imagination is also a great innovator and inspiration for science. Heavier than air flight... Reaching the moon... finding the fountain of youth... etc...

ah, but in science, one does not recreate the wheel, it's all taught as facts and built upon each other. thus such an imagined flaw, if any, would not be detected unless someone who thinks "outside" the box goes and recreates the wheel. you will not find many who will attempt that.

the closest I've found to test that would be the "String Theory"
But that has mathematical formulae. ID has....the bible.

But that has mathematical formulae. ID has....the bible.

Although some IDers claim it isnt creationism, in which case they have..... nothing.

I pour sand from a bottle onto a surface. The sand falls randomly, particle against particle, and scatters randomly as it hits the surface. I am left with a structure as the result, in which the surface is observably almost infinitely complex, and the form is strictly geometric.... clearly, this sturcture and appearance MUST have been artifacts of my design, yes?

We can say something LOOKS like design. We cannot say something IS design, unless we can identify the design. Or the designer.

ID appears to have the problem covered. They don't called structures designed when there is a reasonable model that can explain the structure using the laws of nature or chance. In your analogy, however, if there is an inadequate explanation for the source of the sand, or the pouring action--if it cannot be explained using natural laws and/or chance, then the presence of such a structure would point towards design.

This doesn't require that one know everything about the laws of nature, just what science currently knows. And it certainly won't have proved ID, just lent more support for the theory.



Duplication is possible. Mutation is possible. Duplication plus mutation would yield extra, different, information.

That might be possible, theoretically, but then again, it might not. The problem is that we don't actually know much about the generation of new genes, possibly because we have never had the opportunity to see it happen in the real world.


Thus, with out current understanding, it is possible to generate 'new' information.

Wrong. We can hypothesize that it is possible, but we cannot claim that it is possible. Big difference.

So you deny the existance of the nylon bug? That's new information that has been verified, tested and repeated.

This issue seems, at first read, to give support for the rise of new genes.
Negoro, S., Biodegradation of nylon oligomers [review], Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology 54:461–466, 2000. This review sums up some of the findings and you can read them on this link: http://www.springerlink.com/content/2r7r38j5unmr31bg/

Briefly, the findings are
Three enzymes are involved in Flavobacterium K172: F-EI, F-EII and F-EIII, and two in Pseudomonas NK87: P-EI and P-EII. None of these have been found to have any catalytic activity towards naturally occurring amide compounds, suggesting that the enzymes are completely new, not just modified existing enzymes.

No homology has been found with known enzymes.

The Answers in Genesis have an interesting article that deals with this issue, and asks the question ''Is the evidence consistent with random mutations generating the new genes?''
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v17/i3/bacteria.asp

Quoting from this paper,
Yomo, T., Urabe, I. and Okada, H., No stop codons in the antisense strands of the genes for nylon oligomer degradation, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 89:3780–3784, 1992.
they conclude that:

''Some statements by Yomo et al., express their consternation:
‘'These results imply that there may be some unknown mechanism behind the evolution of these genes for nylon oligomer-degrading enzymes.'

‘'The presence of a long NSF (non-stop frame) in the antisense strand seems to be a rare case, but it may be due to the unusual characteristics of the genes or plasmids for nylon oligomer degradation.'

‘'Accordingly, the actual existence of these NSFs leads us to speculate that some special mechanism exists in the regions of these genes.’' ''

The AiG article concludes that:
''The Japanese researchers demonstrated that nylon degrading ability can be obtained de novo in laboratory cultures of Pseudomonas aeruginosa [strain] POA, which initially had no enzymes capable of degrading nylon oligomers. This was achieved in a mere nine days! The rapidity of this adaptation suggests a special mechanism for such adaptation, not something as haphazard as random mutations and selection.''

And that these....''plasmids are designed features of bacteria that enable adaptation to new food sources or the degradation of toxins. The details of just how they do this remains to be elucidated. The results so far clearly suggest that these adaptations did not come about by chance mutations, but by some designed mechanism. This mechanism might be analogous to the way that vertebrates rapidly generate novel effective antibodies with hypermutation in B-cell maturation, which does not lend credibility to the grand scheme of neo-Darwinian evolution.''

Food for thought.

After re-reading much of this thread and seeing Bruarong et. al . sidestep issues, trying to claim he is scoring points for ID by making poor critiques of evolution whilst not realising he hasnt made any positive claims for ID or any testable, falsifiable hypotheses, completely ignore the concept of parsimony and generally just not GETTING IT. I have realised that as much fun as these debates are for a short time i really should have just stuck to my original post in this.

[involvement in thread]:headbang:
Ah that feels better. And so much more rewarding and useful than trying to reason with anyone who fails to see and admit why ID isnt science and why irreducible complexity is nothing more than argument from ignorance. [/involvement in thread]

I look forward to B's rehashed statements about how evolution isnt any more scientific than ID.

After re-reading much of this thread and seeing Bruarong et. al . sidestep issues, trying to claim he is scoring points for ID by making poor critiques of evolution whilst not realising he hasnt made any positive claims for ID or any testable, falsifiable hypotheses, completely ignore the concept of parsimony and generally just not GETTING IT. I have realised that as much fun as these debates are for a short time i really should have just stuck to my original post in this.



I look forward to B's rehashed statements about how evolution isnt any more scientific than ID.
The IDists really don't seem to get it:

Even IF you showed that evolution is wrong (which you can't do),

Even IF you proved that evolutionary theory isn't science (which you can't do),

Even IF you demonstrated that the scientific community is a bunch of big meanies who don't like ID because they hate Jeebus (which you can't do),

Even IF you did all of the above, it STILL wouldn't make ID scientific, nor would it provide any support whatsoever for the pathetic Goddidit cop-out of a "theory" that you're trying to advance.

Still waiting for ONE FALSIFIABLE HYPOTHESIS, folks. Just one.

Still waiting for ONE FALSIFIABLE HYPOTHESIS, folks. Just one.


They can't do it because "testing thy God" is a sin. :D

I would like to state for the record that i know that all life evolved apart from hedgehogs which i designed last tuesday after a cup of tea and a muffin. Then Dr. Who then came by and chatted for a while and agreed to take one back in time in his tardis so that the hedgehogs would be around for all of us to enjoy.

I was going to make the hedgehogs green and purple and with razor sharp fangs.. But i didnt. Should have I?

ID appears to have the problem covered. They don't called structures designed when there is a reasonable model that can explain the structure using the laws of nature or chance. In your analogy, however, if there is an inadequate explanation for the source of the sand, or the pouring action--if it cannot be explained using natural laws and/or chance, then the presence of such a structure would point towards design.

This doesn't require that one know everything about the laws of nature, just what science currently knows. And it certainly won't have proved ID, just lent more support for the theory.


First - no matter what happens to evolution, ID is not a 'theory'. It doesn't meet the requirements.

Second - you are wrong. Even if all the evidence in the world suggests that the current understanding of 'natural principles' CAN'T explain something, that does nothing to lend ANY support to the idea of ID. This is not a binary situation - it isn't as simple as a or b.

Third - I was reading a copy of the Jehovahs Witness magazine "Awake!" yesterday, which had an interview with Behe. He said that ID relies upon identifying what LOOKS LIKE design.

Faced with choosing between your definition of ID, and his... (though I prefer your model), I think I'm going to have to choose him as the 'authority', no?

Finally - I can explain all the 'sturcture' of life, using nature and (what you refer to as) chance. By your claim, this means ID has nothing left to explain.


That might be possible, theoretically, but then again, it might not. The problem is that we don't actually know much about the generation of new genes, possibly because we have never had the opportunity to see it happen in the real world.


If both mechanisms work, why the doubt that the two mechanisms can work cumulatively?


Wrong. We can hypothesize that it is possible, but we cannot claim that it is possible. Big difference.

No - we CAN claim it is possible. Proving it might be harder.

They can't do it because "testing thy God" is a sin. :D

I tested god once. I broke it, and they wouldn't honour the guarantee, because it was outside of the warranty period.

I tested god once. I broke it, and they wouldn't honour the guarantee, because it was outside of the warranty period.

Those bastards.

I tested god once. I broke it, and they wouldn't honour the guarantee, because it was outside of the warranty period.

Should have invested in an extended warranty. And one of those little deity repair kits that comes with a roll of tin foil and a set of screwdrivers and other bits and pieces.

And who is the proposed designer? What entity do we know of that has the ability to design the natural world? What entity do we even have empirical evidence of that would have this ability?


The answers to those questions are not necessary in order to discover design in the natural world. All that is needed is an up-to-date understanding of the laws of nature.


Ah, we are back to the "God of the gaps," argument, except you're simply trying to make it the "Designer of the gaps."

Your argument is basically, "If the rules of the universe, as we know them, don't completely explain this, we just shove a designer in there as a placeholder until we learn more." Sorry dear, but that placeholder isn't scientific, it's laziness.


No, I don't think ID would just 'shove a designer in there' and move on. They work with theories. Finding something that seems to be designed supports their theory, but does not prove it. In the light of new information, old theories are revised.

The presence of a gap in general knowledge is not proof that the designer fits it. But it can be an indication that the alternative theory is inadequate.


Quite a few. However, as of yet, we haven't seen anything to disprove the basic principles of evolutionary theory - that mutation and natural selection can cause changes.


No one is arguing that mutation and natural selection don't cause changes, only whether they are sufficient to develop microbes to man. People who are satisfied that such development from microbes to man is possible on the basis of observing small changes are making a similar assumption that man can walk to the moon by making a series of 800 cm walking steps. After all, distance is only a matter of degrees, right?


You are either completely dishonest, or biased beyond comprehension. The hypothesis that prokaryotes evolved into eukaryotes IS based in observation. It is based in the observation of mutation, natural selection, the similarities between the two types of organism, etc., etc. From those observations, hypotheses about the relation between the two types of organism can be drawn.


They observe similarities, and assume that similarity is due to common descent. Thus, in this case, the hypothesis does have some basis in observation, but the rest is in the general idea that all of life is related through a common ancestor, thus similarity means a degree of common ancestry. What I have been getting at is that there is no good evidence for the development of eukaryotes from prokaryotes apart from these similarities. And given the numerous cases where similarity does not mean close relatedness, the similarity is not a convincing argument. What is needed is evidence that prokaryotes can evolve into eukaryotes by DEMONSTRATING in a lab some of the hypothesised pathways of development.

This approach is fraught with such problems as the one with the nylon eating bacteria, but not to the point of being meaningless.


What observations lead IDers to assume an entity capable of designing life?


The idea that nothing comes from nothing--to name just one. This means that information cannot arise from systems by chance.


The problem is that they aren't trying to test for them. They are simply assuming that such forces exist.


My point also.


(a) As I have pointed out TIME AND TIME AGAIN, the idea that all of life is descended from a common ancestor is far from a foundation of evolutionary theory. The theory would remain essentially the same with or without such an assertion. Evolutionary theory doesn't deal with the beginnings of life, but with the way it changes over time. If there were more than one "original ancestor", the theory wouldn't have any problems at all.


You think? At any case, I don't insist exclusively on a single common ancestor candidate. There could be a limited number of common ancestors, but due to the high number of unlikely events required in the evolutionary story, it is even less likely for multiple ancestors than it is for a single ancestor--based on what we know thus far. Evolutionary theory, as I understand it, generally prefers the most likely explanations, thus the multiple common ancestor possibility isn't very popular. You appear to be nitpicking on this point. Whether one or several, what difference does it make? All of life as we know it appears to hold some rather strong similarities.




(b) Evolutionary theory does not claim that "homology means relatedness due to ancestry."


No not always, but still a good deal more than I think is scientific.


(c) And your claims that evolutionary biologists don't test for speciation (which you extrapolate out to microbes->man as if this were a single step) is absolutely ridiculous.


Sure, they investigate speciation, and *assume* that it accounts for the microbes to man development.


(a) "So far untestable" is not the same thing as "untestable." We are just now getting to the technological level to test much of Einstein's theory of relativity, but that didn't make it unscientific to begin with. It is (and was) testable, we simply didn't have the technology yet to do all the tests we'd like.

Next you'll be allowing ID as science, despite the acknowledgment we cannot currently test some parts of it, because one day we might.


(b) The problem with ID is that the entire thing is untestable and unfalsifiable. They assume the existence of some entity capable of designing life. Without this assumption, there would be no way to conclude that a given object was, in fact, designed - your circular logic notwithstanding.

Like I keep saying, one doesn't need to know if aliens exist in order to search for extra-terrestrial intelligence. One only needs to allow that they might exist, similar to agnosticism, minus the part which assumes that there is no way to find out.
There is a way to theorise whether something is designed or not--by having a good grasp of all that we currently know--not that complicated, really.


They do not, however, test for this designer and, in fact, say that they cannot, as the major proponents of ID all claim this designer to be God. With this sort of assumption, you can never disprove it. No matter what evidence is found, no matter what the processes appear to be, the proponents can always say, "Well, that designer we haven't found any evidence of yet designed it."


It is an assumption because it cannot be disproved, just like we have in the evolutionary scenario.


That's because you are injecting falsehoods into it. You have yet to demonstrate a single "untestable assumption" on which evolutionary theory is supposedly based.

And I get tired of repeating myself. Instead, why don't you post the assumptions that you think evolutionary theory is based on, and then we can use them? Or shall we turn to wikipedia for a consensus?

''In biology, evolution is the change in the heritable traits of a population over successive generations, as determined by shifts in the allele frequencies of genes. Over time, this process can result in speciation, the development of new species from existing ones. All contemporary organisms are related to each other through common descent, the products of cumulative evolutionary changes over billions of years.''

Can we agree on that?


Misusing words yet again, are we? You don't "postulate" assumptions. Assumptions are taken as true without testing. However, to be valid science, they do have to be testable.


pos‧tu‧late  [v. pos-chuh-leyt; n. pos-chuh-lit, -leyt] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation verb, -lat‧ed, -lat‧ing, noun
–verb (used with object)
1. to ask, demand, or claim.
2. to claim or assume the existence or truth of, esp. as a basis for reasoning or arguing.
3. to assume without proof, or as self-evident; take for granted.
4. Mathematics, Logic. to assume as a postulate.
–noun
5. something taken as self-evident or assumed without proof as a basis for reasoning.
6. Mathematics, Logic. a proposition that requires no proof, being self-evident, or that is for a specific purpose assumed true, and that is used in the proof of other propositions; axiom.
7. a fundamental principle.
8. a necessary condition; prerequisite.
[Origin: 1525–35; < L postulātum petition, thing requested, n. use of neut. of ptp. of postulāre to request, demand, akin to pōscere to request]
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/postulation


You "postulate" a hypothesis. This hypothesis must also be testable. Of course, you have yet to bring up a single hypothesis made by evolutionary theory that is, in fact, untestable.

In a paper that I was reading a while ago, entitled 'The evolutionary history of quorum sensing systems in bacteria' Lerat, E. and Moran N., 2004, Molecular and Biological Evolution, they write this:
''The genes underlying QS are distributed in a discontinuous manner among the bacteria, suggesting that they have been subject to loss or horizontal transfer. In this regard, gene phylogenies for the components of QS systems can provide evidence as to whether they are ancestral and lost in some species or have been acquired from distantly related lineages. Knowledge of the evolutionary mechanisms of such genes is of particular importance because they are increasingly being considered as potential targets in new antimicrobial strategies.''

Here in their statement of motivation for such research, the assertion is that similarities in genes is because of ancestry, even in cases that do not appear to support this assumption. Rather than questioning this assumption, they assume that the 'discontinuous manner' is due to several other possibilities, despite having no evidence to support that. Why? Because they are working with the assumption that all of life is related through ancestry? Here is real science at work with assumptions that are not being tested. Indeed, it cannot be tested.

''The genes underlying QS are distributed in a discontinuous manner among the bacteria, suggesting that they have been subject to loss or horizontal transfer. In this regard, gene phylogenies for the components of QS systems can provide evidence as to whether they are ancestral and lost in some species or have been acquired from distantly related lineages. Knowledge of the evolutionary mechanisms of such genes is of particular importance because they are increasingly being considered as potential targets in new antimicrobial strategies.''

Here in their statement of motivation for such research, the assertion is that similarities in genes is because of ancestry, even in cases that do not appear to support this assumption. Rather than questioning this assumption, they assume that the 'discontinuous manner' is due to several other possibilities, despite having no evidence to support that. Why? Because they are working with the assumption that all of life is related through ancestry? Here is real science at work with assumptions that are not being tested. Indeed, it cannot be tested.

Read your own quote. They say either because of ancestry or through acquisition. I read that as wanting to find out why the genes are distributed discontinuously, not assuming they were that way because of ancestry. Did you read it differently? Are the genes not distributed discontinuously? What did I miss? I was a Humanities major and would love to know.

First - no matter what happens to evolution, ID is not a 'theory'. It doesn't meet the requirements.

Each person is entitled to their own view point. I just don't share yours. My reason is that while I agree that some aspects of ID cannot be tested, that doesn't mean that IDers are trying to do experiments that do not allow the falsification of their hypothesis--that design is detectable. Much like the evolutionary scenario which has several assumptions, but plenty of testable predictions based on those assumptions. The assumptions of evolutionary theory cannot be tested, though, which means that it probably shouldn't pass your 'theory test'.


Second - you are wrong. Even if all the evidence in the world suggests that the current understanding of 'natural principles' CAN'T explain something, that does nothing to lend ANY support to the idea of ID. This is not a binary situation - it isn't as simple as a or b.


Why not? How many other theories do you have up your sleeve to explain the diversity and complexity of life? Or would you be happier with no theory than having to accept one that you didn't like? In that case, you probably wouldn't be that far from my own position.


Third - I was reading a copy of the Jehovahs Witness magazine "Awake!" yesterday, which had an interview with Behe. He said that ID relies upon identifying what LOOKS LIKE design.

Well, he is sort of right. If it 'looks' like anything, then one had to have used one's eyes. Last time I checked, the scientific method depends on the same sort of process. It would be hard to be a scientist without your eyes, now, wouldn't it? And is this any worse than 'It looks homologous, therefore it must be related?'


Faced with choosing between your definition of ID, and his... (though I prefer your model), I think I'm going to have to choose him as the 'authority', no?

Yes. That is if you can find a difference between what he is saying and what I am. He is an IDer, after all. (I'm not.)


Finally - I can explain all the 'sturcture' of life, using nature and (what you refer to as) chance. By your claim, this means ID has nothing left to explain.

If you mean by 'explain' as mere speculation, regardless of how weak or confusing it looks, then I suppose anyone can make the same claim.

I'm not asking anyone to believe in ID, or God, for that matter. I only began this thread by criticising the criticism of ID. If you want to criticise ID, go for it. Make a crappy criticism, and I'll try to point it out to you. Make a good one, and I will commend you for it. I also have criticism for ID, but have not posted it here because I doubt anyone here is objective enough to improve it.



If both mechanisms work, why the doubt that the two mechanisms can work cumulatively?


Doubt is an important part of critical science.
Why believe something is possible if you have no evidence that it is possible?



No - we CAN claim it is possible. Proving it might be harder.

But the claim is not on the basis of real evidence, just a feeling or belief, which makes a mockery of the skeptical nature of science.

This issue seems, at first read, to give support for the rise of new genes.
Negoro, S., Biodegradation of nylon oligomers [review], Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology 54:461–466, 2000. This review sums up some of the findings and you can read them on this link: http://www.springerlink.com/content/2r7r38j5unmr31bg/

Briefly, the findings are
Three enzymes are involved in Flavobacterium K172: F-EI, F-EII and F-EIII, and two in Pseudomonas NK87: P-EI and P-EII. None of these have been found to have any catalytic activity towards naturally occurring amide compounds, suggesting that the enzymes are completely new, not just modified existing enzymes.

No homology has been found with known enzymes.

The Answers in Genesis have an interesting article that deals with this issue, and asks the question ''Is the evidence consistent with random mutations generating the new genes?''
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v17/i3/bacteria.asp

Quoting from this paper,
Yomo, T., Urabe, I. and Okada, H., No stop codons in the antisense strands of the genes for nylon oligomer degradation, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 89:3780–3784, 1992.
they conclude that:

''Some statements by Yomo et al., express their consternation:
‘'These results imply that there may be some unknown mechanism behind the evolution of these genes for nylon oligomer-degrading enzymes.'

‘'The presence of a long NSF (non-stop frame) in the antisense strand seems to be a rare case, but it may be due to the unusual characteristics of the genes or plasmids for nylon oligomer degradation.'

‘'Accordingly, the actual existence of these NSFs leads us to speculate that some special mechanism exists in the regions of these genes.’' ''

The AiG article concludes that:
''The Japanese researchers demonstrated that nylon degrading ability can be obtained de novo in laboratory cultures of Pseudomonas aeruginosa [strain] POA, which initially had no enzymes capable of degrading nylon oligomers. This was achieved in a mere nine days! The rapidity of this adaptation suggests a special mechanism for such adaptation, not something as haphazard as random mutations and selection.''

And that these....''plasmids are designed features of bacteria that enable adaptation to new food sources or the degradation of toxins. The details of just how they do this remains to be elucidated. The results so far clearly suggest that these adaptations did not come about by chance mutations, but by some designed mechanism. This mechanism might be analogous to the way that vertebrates rapidly generate novel effective antibodies with hypermutation in B-cell maturation, which does not lend credibility to the grand scheme of neo-Darwinian evolution.''

Food for thought.



Now provide me the entire peer -reviewed paper . Not just excerpts from "answers in Genesis". You claim TO just summarizes paper, AIG blatantly lies.

Convienent that you claim ID isn't religious (even though I've shown it is) and then use religious sources to support it. You claim ID doesn't invoke the supernatural (even though I've shown it does) and then use sources showing it does. You claimed there was no addition of data. I showed there was and now you're claiming there had to be some "external source" to provide the additional data. Do you now deny making that statement?

Here's a nice refutation of AIG:

http://www.nmsr.org/nylon.htm

"Sequence analysis of a cryptic plasmid from Flavobacterium sp. KP1, a psychrophilic bacterium," Makoto Ashiuchi, Mia Md. Zakaria, Yuriko Sakaguchi, Toshiharu Yagi, FEMS (Federation of European Microbiological Societies) Microbiology Letters 170 (1999), 243-249.

"Bacteria of genus Flavobacterium, Gram-negative bacteria, are widely distributed in soil and fresh marine waters. Some of them harbor plasmid(s) involved in metabolism of synthetic organic compounds. Flavobacterium sp. K172 harbors plasmids, pOAD1, pOAD2 and pOAD3; pOAD2 (43.6 kbp) encodes nylon oligomer degradation genes."

"A New Nylon Oligomer Degradation Gene (nylC) on Plasmid pOAD2 from a Flavobacterium sp.," Seiji Negoro, Shinji Kakudo, Itaru Urabe, and Hirosuke Okadam, Journal of Bacteriology, Dec. 1992, p. 7948-7953.

"The EI-encoding gene (F-nylA) and EII-encoding gene (F-nylB) of Flavobacterium sp. K172 are located on plasmid pOAD2 (44 kb), one of the three plasmids harbored in strain K172."

"Birth of a unique enzyme from an alternative reading frame of the pre-existed, internally repetitious coding sequence", Susumu Ohno, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Vol. 81, pp. 2421-2425, April 1984. PDF

"Analysis of the published base sequence residing in the pOAD2 plasmid of Flavobacterium sp. K172 indicated that the 392-amino acid-residue-long bacterial enzyme 6-aminohexanoic acid linear oligomer hydrolase involved in degradation of nylon oligomers is specified by an alternative open reading frame of the preexisted coding sequence that originally specified a 472-residue-long arginine-rich protein."

It's interesting to note that the precise plasmid of Flavobacterium sp. K172, namely pOAD2, was cited by Susumu Ohno fully eleven years before the publication of the "new evidence" that AiG claims " shows that the ability was due to plasmids..."


http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/apr04.html

Read your own quote. They say either because of ancestry or through acquisition. I read that as wanting to find out why the genes are distributed discontinuously, not assuming they were that way because of ancestry. Did you read it differently? Are the genes not distributed discontinuously? What did I miss? I was a Humanities major and would love to know.

The point is that they do not ask the question of whether the genes might reflect a pattern of design, that the genes are present based on the environment for which the bacteria were design. Thus, ancestry or acquisition (ie. conjugation, which is mating between bacteria, or the taking up of foreign DNA from the environment, known as transformation) are the only postulated alternatives. Evolutionary theory would probably hold that ancestry is more likely, given the prominence of the theory of universal common descent in the theory of evolution. However, discontinuous distribution makes that look unlikely, so acquisition of genes is the next major candidate. However, because it is the last candidate they consider, they mention nothing of its likelihood. And likelihood depends rather heavily on the number of alternatives. The likelihood of the last chance suddenly looks quite good, regardless of whether we know that it is possible.

*snip rehashed nonsense*

You've made outlandish claims of TOE based on ignorance and then repeated them after being shown wrong. You've claimed ID isn't religious when it's major proponents claim it is. You've claimed ID doesn't invoke the supernatural when its own inventors state it does. You've claimed TOE isn't testable when it's been shown practically everything in it has been and repeated by the scientific method. Nothing in ID is testable. Even your own sources cited claim they haven't come up w/ a test. ID's entire purpose is to try and get christian YE creationism into school science curricullum.

The point is that they do not ask the question of whether the genes might reflect a pattern of design, that the genes are present based on the environment for which the bacteria were design. Thus, ancestry or acquisition (ie. conjugation, which is mating between bacteria, or the taking up of foreign DNA from the environment, known as transformation) are the only postulated alternatives. Evolutionary theory would probably hold that ancestry is more likely, given the prominence of the theory of universal common descent in the theory of evolution. However, discontinuous distribution makes that look unlikely, so acquisition of genes is the next major candidate. However, because it is the last candidate they consider, they mention nothing of its likelihood. And likelihood depends rather heavily on the number of alternatives. The likelihood of the last chance suddenly looks quite good, regardless of whether we know that it is possible.

So the alternative is to assume a mythical "designer" which has never been observed, tested for , or repeated. Not to look for other causes. Yep, that's scientific.

The point is that they do not ask the question of whether the genes might reflect a pattern of design, that the genes are present based on the environment for which the bacteria were design. Thus, ancestry or acquisition (ie. conjugation, which is mating between bacteria, or the taking up of foreign DNA from the environment, known as transformation) are the only postulated alternatives. Evolutionary theory would probably hold that ancestry is more likely, given the prominence of the theory of universal common descent in the theory of evolution. However, discontinuous distribution makes that look unlikely, so acquisition of genes is the next major candidate. However, because it is the last candidate they consider, they mention nothing of its likelihood. And likelihood depends rather heavily on the number of alternatives. The likelihood of the last chance suddenly looks quite good, regardless of whether we know that it is possible.

Oh, I see. You just want to include "or it was designed" as the last alternative in all research. The trouble with that is, you can never have that as the final solution. Research continues and if someone doesn't figure something out today, someone else will undoubtedly figure it out tomorrow or next week or in a hundred years. This is where we part company, because ID's ultimate conclusion is that humanity is incapable of fully understanding the natural world. It is also sort of insulting to all the people out there doing serious research, whose efforts you would reduce to "ID did it."

Oh, I see. You just want to include "or it was designed" as the last alternative in all research. The trouble with that is, you can never have that as the final solution. Research continues and if someone doesn't figure something out today, someone else will undoubtedly figure it out tomorrow or next week or in a hundred years. This is where we part company, because ID's ultimate conclusion is that humanity is incapable of fully understanding the natural world. It is also sort of insulting to all the people out there doing serious research, whose efforts you would reduce to "ID did it."

Which, as shown earlier, really means "God did it" using different words.

Which, as shown earlier, really means "God did it" using different words.
And which, when you come right down to it, it a totally useless statement.

What new hypotheses does this kind of crap produce? What progress can be made by scientists throwing up their hands and saying, "It was designed"? It doesn't accomplish anything, any more than it accomplishes something for scientists to attribute unexplained phenomena to the actions of invisible pixies.

And which, when you come right down to it, it a totally useless statement.

What new hypotheses does this kind of crap produce? What progress can be made by scientists throwing up their hands and saying, "It was designed"? It doesn't accomplish anything, any more than it accomplishes something for scientists to attribute unexplained phenomena to the actions of invisible pixies.

Which ID would also allow for.

Another question for IDers:

Over a dozen new, living species have been discovered over the last year alone. Were they suddenly "designed" or had they just not been discovered yet?

Now provide me the entire peer -reviewed paper . Not just excerpts from "answers in Genesis". You claim TO just summarizes paper, AIG blatantly lies.

I suggest you go the AiG site and use their list of peer-reviewed papers.


Convienent that you claim ID isn't religious (even though I've shown it is) and then use religious sources to support it.

Did I claim this? Where? I said that the ID approach doesn't require belief in a designer, just the allowance that a designer might exist. Of course most IDers are probably religious. I wouldn't know. But I don't think that that would invalidate the approach, necessarily. It would be hard to find an objective scientist. I don't think they exist.


You claim ID doesn't invoke the supernatural (even though I've shown it does) and then use sources showing it does.

AiG is not ID. They are creationists, of the more stricter sort.


You claimed there was no addition of data. I showed there was and now you're claiming there had to be some "external source" to provide the additional data. Do you now deny making that statement?


I'm made a lot of posts on this thread. Perhaps you could be so kind as to provide exactly the statement of mine you are referring to.


Here's a nice refutation of AIG:


http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/apr04.html
[/QUOTE]

The controversy continues to rage over whether the mutations that gave rise to the new enzymes are really random or directed (in that way that antibody generation is directed to be random). The evolutionists argue that there is no evidence for directed mutation, therefore it must have been random. The creationists point to the incredible fact that non-nylon-degrading strains can develop the de novo ability to degrade nylon in just 9 days, and that this argues for some sort of directing of mutation.

At any rate, my conclusion is that the evolutionists in this case are arguing for randomness on the basis of ignorance, and that scientists should be careful about claiming such mutations as evidence for the sort of information generation that can produce man from microbes.

I suggest you go the AiG site and use their list of peer-reviewed papers.

They don't have any. They use other peer reviewed papers and take them out of context.



Did I claim this? Where? I said that the ID approach doesn't require belief in a designer, just the allowance that a designer might exist. Of course most IDers are probably religious. I wouldn't know. But I don't think that that would invalidate the approach, necessarily. It would be hard to find an objective scientist. I don't think they exist.


Yes you did. You also claimed it didn't invoke the supernatural. I proved you wrong.
It doesn't require you to beleive there is an "intelligent designer" to assume ID? Nice way to contradict yourself there. You can "believe" whatever you want.



AiG is not ID. They are creationists, of the more stricter sort.

As the point whooshes over his head. AIG is a proponent of ID because it is a religious belief. It was made by christians, is supported by christian groups, and it's express designed purpose was to push YEC into schools. All you've used to support ID has been religious sources.



I'm made a lot of posts on this thread. Perhaps you could be so kind as to provide exactly the statement of mine you are referring to.

Your statement responding to Dem asking for false assumptions of TOE:

The hypothesis that natural selection and today's mutation rates are capable of generating new information--just to name one.

The controversy continues to rage over whether the mutations that gave rise to the new enzymes are really random or directed (in that way that antibody generation is directed to be random). The evolutionists argue that there is no evidence for directed mutation, therefore it must have been random. The creationists point to the incredible fact that non-nylon-degrading strains can develop the de novo ability to degrade nylon in just 9 days, and that this argues for some sort of directing of mutation.

At any rate, my conclusion is that the evolutionists in this case are arguing for randomness on the basis of ignorance, and that scientists should be careful about claiming such mutations as evidence for the sort of information generation that can produce man from microbes.

No, the arguement from ignorance is from the IDers and you. "we don't know yet" = "it was designed" is your entire arguement.

There is no controversy in scientific fields over this. The only ones who claim it is are the ones trying to push for the degredation of science.

Oh, I see. You just want to include "or it was designed" as the last alternative in all research. The trouble with that is, you can never have that as the final solution. Research continues and if someone doesn't figure something out today, someone else will undoubtedly figure it out tomorrow or next week or in a hundred years. This is where we part company, because ID's ultimate conclusion is that humanity is incapable of fully understanding the natural world. It is also sort of insulting to all the people out there doing serious research, whose efforts you would reduce to "ID did it."

Sure, if you always had it as the final solution, then it will always win, by default. The last theory left standing, not because it was demonstrated as true, but because the others were demonstrated as not.

But this is not the ID approach, as I understand it. Complexity is never labelled 'design' because of a lack of information. It is labelled as 'perhaps designed'. Obviously, lots more work has to go into checking this, and even then, it will perhaps always remain a mere theory, and should never be believed as fact. The same goes for evolutionary theory, of course, although some people insist on calling it fact. I obviously don't think much of their understanding of the theory.

I don't know if ID has such an ultimate conclusion about not even fully understanding the natural world. I've certainly never read that in ID writings, and neither do I see it implied. My own personal feeling is that the moment humanity fully understands the natural world, science will cease from pursuing knowledge and become a museum piece. But I reckon that the natural world is far far far too complicated for you and I to concern ourselves over that issue in our lifetime.

If the natural world is designed, then I don't really care if the feelings of all the 'people out there doing serious research' are hurt. I would be far more interested in the truth, not preserving the self respect of even the most respectable people in white coats.

But I don't claim that that the world is designed--not as a scientific statement anyway. It so happens to be a part of my belief, as a Christian. But I don't claim to be able to support that with science, so my belief cannot be criticised by science. However, it is the belief that purports to be scientific that can be and should be ruthlessly criticised.

But I don't claim that that the world is designed--not as a scientific statement anyway. It so happens to be a part of my belief, as a Christian. But I don't claim to be able to support that with science, so my belief cannot be criticised by science. However, it is the belief that purports to be scientific that can be and should be ruthlessly criticised.

It should be and is, using the scientific method. Not invoking supernatural causes or assuming there is a "designer" and then looking for "implied" evidence of the design.

Sure, if you always had it as the final solution, then it will always win, by default. The last theory left standing, not because it was demonstrated as true, but because the others were demonstrated as not.

But this is not the ID approach, as I understand it. Complexity is never labelled 'design' because of a lack of information. It is labelled as 'perhaps designed'. Obviously, lots more work has to go into checking this, and even then, it will perhaps always remain a mere theory, and should never be believed as fact. The same goes for evolutionary theory, of course, although some people insist on calling it fact. I obviously don't think much of their understanding of the theory.

I don't know if ID has such an ultimate conclusion about not even fully understanding the natural world. I've certainly never read that in ID writings, and neither do I see it implied. My own personal feeling is that the moment humanity fully understands the natural world, science will cease from pursuing knowledge and become a museum piece. But I reckon that the natural world is far far far too complicated for you and I to concern ourselves over that issue in our lifetime.

If the natural world is designed, then I don't really care if the feelings of all the 'people out there doing serious research' are hurt. I would be far more interested in the truth, not preserving the self respect of even the most respectable people in white coats.

But I don't claim that that the world is designed--not as a scientific statement anyway. It so happens to be a part of my belief, as a Christian. But I don't claim to be able to support that with science, so my belief cannot be criticised by science. However, it is the belief that purports to be scientific that can be and should be ruthlessly criticised.

I see. You consider the Theory of Evolution not so much science as a belief system.

I see. You consider the Theory of Evolution not so much science as a belief system.

That's the typical justification. "We refuse to recognize it as science so why can't our belief system be included?"