ID (split from Christians and White Horses by Lothar)

[CUDA]

man I love the whole NON-exisistant seperation of church and state falacy that ppl use to remove religion from our lives

I contemplate with solemn reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.

the problem is that most ppl forget the "or prohibiting the free exercise there of" part

this site explains what it meant very well

http://www.noapathy.org/tracts/mythofseparation.html

[Palzon]

man I love the whole NON-exisistant seperation of church and state falacy that ppl use to remove religion from our lives

I contemplate with solemn reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.

the problem is that most ppl forget the "or prohibiting the free exercise there of" part

this site explains what it meant very well

http://www.noapathy.org/tracts/mythofseparation.html

Cuda, you miss the point entirely. The Dover election results have nothing to do with removing religion from our lives. It's about removing stupid politicians who don't understand the difference between science and philosophy.

i lauphed my ass off when all 8 got voted out. Do you think the people of Dover are Satan worshipers? You think they all vote Democrat? Don't be silly. They just recognize a stupid idea when they see one.

Pay attention to the Dover Panda and you will see that ID is being made into a laughing stock by it's own proponents. Some of the witnesses for ID have given testimony conflicting with their original depositions, i.e. they lied. Some of the witnesses for ID with the strongest credentials have refused to testify (probably because they don't want to be exposed for the fraud's they are). And some of the witnesses for ID have given testimony that helped the other side!

So Cuda, the free excercise of religion should not be impeded in the public school science classroom? Maybe your church should start giving evolution equal time from the pulpit if they expect equal time in the science class. the thing about ID is that it is not science. Fact is, it is not even good philosophy.

If you examine the universe, there's plenty of design flaws.

[CUDA]

maybe you should attend Church more Palz, you'll find that "most" christians believe in evolution, we just believe that the world was created by ID

[De Rigueur]

The proponent of ID doesn't have to claim that much, Cuda, just that some things are designed.

[Lothar]

the thing about ID is that it is not science. Fact is, it is not even good philosophy.

ID is a science, it's just a baby science. It's underdeveloped. Trying to study evolution/origins using ID is like trying to study physics using arithmetic. The tool simply isn't powerful enough to study what people are tying to use it to study.

Unfortunately, the loudest pro-ID voices don't realize this.

[DCrazy]

What's more unfortunate is that the loudest pro-ID voices are merely piggybacking on the concept of attributing the inexplecable to a higher being, converting it into a vehicle to promote Christianity under the guise of "science".

Put faith in whatever you want, but don't tell my kids in science class that because we don't (yet) have an explanation for a naturally-manifested phenomenon that it must be the work of a higher being (and we all know which being that is).

[De Rigueur]

the concept of attributing the inexplecable to a higher being,

This is often referred to as an appeal to the "God of the gaps". However, those committed to science do something analogous. When confronted with something that cannot be explained, instead of invoking the supernatural, they call it a "brute fact of nature" that needs no further explanation. Both tendencies should be called a priori assumptions, imo.

[DCrazy]

Really? Cause then there would be no impetus to explain these things...

The thing about science is that you can take given assumptions and work within their framework without making declarations about the nature of those assumptions. "We know X is true, but not why" is a far different statement from "X is true because {deity} made it that way".

[Ferno]

ID is a science?

is there any imperical evidence that backs up ID? is there any experiments that you can replicate that supports ID?

[De Rigueur]

Really? Cause then there would be no impetus to explain these things...

I was referring to the inexplicable (to use your term). I believe that, due to human finitude, there are at least theoretical, if not practical, limits to our ability to explain things. Possible examples are things like why is there something rather than nothing, how did life and consciousness arise. At least some scientists/philosophers account for these by saying that they are just brute facts of nature.

The thing about science is that you can take given assumptions and work within their framework without making declarations about the nature of those assumptions."We know X is true, but not why" is a far different statement from "X is true because {deity} made it that way".

If the first statement can be expressed as, "X is true because that's just the way nature is", then the two statement represent distinct metaphysical "declarations" concerning the nature of reality.

[Lothar]

ID is a science?

I refer you to the threads ID'ers by Woodchip and ID brainteasers and problems by Drakona. Or, just read the first couple paragraphs of this post and some of this post.

I'm amazed at how many times I repeated myself just in those threads, and yet how few people seem to have picked up on what was said. If you read first, it saves the rest of us the trouble of repeating ourselves.

[Drakona]

ID is a science?

is there any imperical evidence that backs up ID?
is there any experiments that you can replicate that supports ID?

Absolutely. Here's an emperical, repeatable experiment you can carry out to demonstrate that intelligently generated information can be distinguished from randomly generated information in a consistent way. We'll even make it a double-blind test.

You will need:
- Several pages of human-generated text with meaning. (Paragraphs from a novel will do).
- Several pages of randomly-generated text (draw some scrabble tiles or something).
- Several volunteers.

Give the pages to your test leader. Do not tell him which are human-generated. Have him give the pages to the volunteers and see if they can pick out the ones that are human-generated. If they consistantly can, this demonstrates that there is a method for the detection of the operation of intelligence.



Okay, that's tongue-in-cheek... but nonetheless a valid experiment. It wouldn't work if systematically detecting intelligent agency wasn't possible.

The more interesting question is when can you detect intelligent agency? Ask people to judge text, they'll always succeed. Ask people to judge music (algorithimc vs. artistic), they'll almost always succeed. Ask people to judge rock formations, you'll probably get some misses. Ask people to judge gravitational phenomena (orbits) and you'll get a lot of misses. Ask people to judge solutions to calculus problems and you'll get all misses.

That intelligent design can sometimes be detected is completely obvious (see the above experiment). When it can be detected and how are the interesting questions. And of course, the $64 million question is can it be detected in biology/microbiology/cosmology and--if so--what are the criteria?

That's the question. The answer, to my judgement, is beyond the current state of the art. (But those that, without rigorous justification, say it categorically cannot be detected... I would accuse of being science-killers.)

[Drakona]

Really? Cause then there would be no impetus to explain these things...

This is a common misconception that is completely untrue. A conclusion of intelligent design does not stifle inquiry on a subject, but rather directs it. More generally, any design-theoretic conclusion both constrains and directs further inquiry.

For example, suppose we find a perfectly toroidal ring of stone in the middle of an open field. Design-theoretically speaking, we may conclude one of the following:

(1) The object is completely random.
(2) It is the product of some natural law.
(3) It is the result of intelligent action.

(I chose the example I did because the last two are both plausible.)

If we make the positive-design assumption (3), we will examine the object for evidence of tool-work. We will examine local culture and perhaps geography to see if there is a natural use for the object. We will examine the possible methods of manufacture depending on the material and the available technology. On the other hand, we will not look at local erosion patterns or plant growth.

If we make the negative-design assumption (2), that it is the product of natural law, we will begin to study the natural phenomena in the area to determine which of them could cause the object. We will look at erosion patterns, weathering patterns, or perhaps animal behavior. We will not, however, look at local culture and technology.

In either case, our assumptions both constrict and direct our research. We will ask certain questions, and we will not ask others, becuase of our design-theoretic assumptions. This is a good thing if our assumptions are right; it's a bad thing if our assumptions are wrong.

In fact, the only assumption on that list that is a true science-killer is option (1)--it's just chance. "Chance" is a meaningless explanation. It just means, "Well, laws caused it, but complicated and not very interesting ones." It is a code-word for "nothing to learn here, move on."

In general, a positive-design assumption or conclusion does not shut down inquiry, it just changes the questions we ask. It's true that a positive-design assessment of origins would cause us to stop asking how things could naturally have evolved. On the other hand, we would start looking for the purpose for bits of biology that--under the natural theory--are ascribed to chance (junk DNA, for example). We would also begin asking who made us, and how and when, questions that can all be pursued empirically.

A design-positive assumption will help science if it's right (because it means you will be asking the right questions rather than the wrong ones). Even if it's wrong, it means you will be asking different questions than everyone else, so may well discover new things (and this is a good thing).

This is why free enquiry is so important and orthodoxy is so bad.

[Palzon]

ID is a science?

is there any imperical evidence that backs up ID?
is there any experiments that you can replicate that supports ID?

Absolutely. Here's an emperical, repeatable experiment you can carry out to demonstrate that intelligently generated information can be distinguished from randomly generated information in a consistent way. We'll even make it a double-blind test.

You will need:
- Several pages of human-generated text with meaning. (Paragraphs from a novel will do).
- Several pages of randomly-generated text (draw some scrabble tiles or something).
- Several volunteers.

Give the pages to your test leader. Do not tell him which are human-generated. Have him give the pages to the volunteers and see if they can pick out the ones that are human-generated. If they consistantly can, this demonstrates that there is a method for the detection of the operation of intelligence.



Okay, that's tongue-in-cheek... but nonetheless a valid experiment. It wouldn't work if systematically detecting intelligent agency wasn't possible.

The more interesting question is when can you detect intelligent agency? Ask people to judge text, they'll always succeed. Ask people to judge music (algorithimc vs. artistic), they'll almost always succeed. Ask people to judge rock formations, you'll probably get some misses. Ask people to judge gravitational phenomena (orbits) and you'll get a lot of misses. Ask people to judge solutions to calculus problems and you'll get all misses.

That intelligent design can sometimes be detected is completely obvious (see the above experiment). When it can be detected and how are the interesting questions. And of course, the $64 million question is can it be detected in biology/microbiology/cosmology and--if so--what are the criteria?

That's the question. The answer, to my judgement, is beyond the current state of the art. (But those that, without rigorous justification, say it categorically cannot be detected... I would accuse of being science-killers.)

is this a proof of god, or anthropomorphism? you've said nothing to lend credibility to tenets of ID.

[Drakona]

is this a proof of god, or anthropomorphism? you've said nothing to lend credibility to tenets of ID.

I've not attempted to say anything about God. What I was demonstrating in that post is that intelligence can sometimes be detected. You knew that already, of course. Everybody does. You can differentiate between spam and real email because you can detect intelligence. That's all I'm demonstrating there: it can sometimes be done.

When it can be done is the interesting question for me. Obviously it can't always be done. Can you even do it on biology? And if you could, what would the criteria be? I don't have an answer for that, and I haven't seen one that satisfies me positive or negative. You gotta grant that biological stuff *looks* designed, but is that intuitive impulse rigorously warranted? I'd love to know.

Go read the puzzles I posted in the thread Lothar linked to for a clearer idea of the question and issues.

Edit: You can also look at Dembski's Specified Complexity criterion to see an attempt at clarifying the idea. I think he's wrong, but at least he's trying to do the right thing.

[DCrazy]

Drakona, your flaw is that in making Assumption 3, you declare that no experiments are carried out whose outcomes may be contrary to it. Real science would make a hyopthesis, which must be proven, not an assumption, which is taken as prima facie true.

[Drakona]

Drakona, your flaw is that in making Assumption 3, you declare that no experiments are carried out whose outcomes may be contrary to it. Real science would make a hyopthesis, which must be proven, not an assumption, which is taken as prima facie true.

Why, then, does everyone feel so justified in making assumption #2 without any experiment?

Wouldn't it be most proper to evaluate design or naturalism as a hypothesis, rather than assuming one? We should--as ID advocates--study things and conclude design or naturalism according to some rigorous standard.

The development of such a standard is the point of ID.

[DCrazy]

That's an Atheism vs. Theism argument, not a Science vs. ID argument. People who understand science are those whom you would probably tend to label agnostic; they make no unqualified assumptions about things they cannot explain. Rather, they posit theories and models that satisfy all observable conditions and aid in working in other fields. Just because we can't prove a deity created the universe doesn't mean we've proven that a deity did not create the universe. The reverse is also true.

Another example: the (statistically significant) possibility exists that our theory of quantum mechanics is completely wrong, but the model we use makes transistors possible. Most people do not dispute the current theory of quantum mechanics, however, because there is a preponderance of evidence in its support. Likewise, the theory of evolution is rooted in years of research, and the genetic model seems to support the concept that species change over time, and those whose standard genetic mutations are beneficial to their environment propagate and survive better than those who have not developed those mutations. It could be completely wrong. Hell, there could be parts of cells that determine the utility of certain genetic adaptations and change accordingly. Or, there could be a higher power guiding (or that guided) the creation of each individual species.

The truth is that we don't know for sure and most likely can never know for sure. What is certain is that anyone who claims they are sure has deceived himself. Furthermore, the theory of intelligent design relies on a concept that is antithetical to the Scientific Method: faith. It shouldn't be in the science class.

[fliptw]

The most vocal on both sides of the issue have no clue what sciences means nor implies.

To condense what Drakona said, and paraphrase it: there isn't enough data to formula a good consise experiment for either ID or evolution, and that either are equally valid theories, kinda like the Theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.

Except that nobody is willing to find a theory that supports both ID and Evolution, like physists are for Relativity and QM.

Both, as currently stated, explain everything, but there are areas in all the four concepts that contradict each other in their respective areas. But Relativity and Quantum Mechanics(ironically both forumlated after Darwin) don't question God directly, (tho they are the best way of answering the question of the existance of God better than biology would) evolution does, and has been the much defended theory of the history and future on life on earth simply because of its origins in observation by a scientist, rather limply opposed by creationism.

And as we all know, the only one championed by politicians until recently, when a more scientificly based re-imaging of creationism cropped up.

The problem is, the supporters of Intellegent Design for some reason think it can't(or shouldn't) stand on its own scientific merits, and want to change the definition of science, no longer limiting it to just natural explanations of phenomena.

Except that, if god exists, he'd be a natural explanation of phenomena too, and if ghosts exists, they too would be natural phenomena.

The expermental validity of these two theories shouldn't be the issue - its that one side of this debate thinks that by changing the meaning of established words(or just ramming a idelogy down peoples throats) will redefine the world in a way they'll accept, and the other side simply rejecting the other side's ideas wholesale because of the manner in which they wish to populate it.

Both theories are, once again, equally valid, but both equally lack enough data for a informed conclusion, and the vast majority fails to understand that point.

[Lothar]

Why do some people insist on acting like ID is a theory about origins/evolution? Try reading more carefully. Seriously. Drop your preconceptions about what you think ID is and listen.

DCrazy: what Drakona said is NOT a theism vs atheism argument. If she'd said "comparing evolution to creationism" then it might be, but she's talking about general problems, not one specific problem. In general, people feel like it's OK to assume "natural law" but not OK to assume "intelligent agent", regardless of the problem. That's a flaw in their methodology.

Everything you said was specific to origins/evolution. I'm not even going to address it, because it's completely irrelevant.

fliptw: You obviously didn't understand what Drakona said. Your "condensed" version was completely and totally NOT WHAT SHE SAID. It wasn't even in the same ballpark.

Your "condensed" version spoke of experiments between ID and evolution. That doesn't even make sense -- ID (at least as we've spoken of it here and in the other threads) isn't a theory about origins, it's a paradigm and framework for general science. (For someone who complains of words being redefined, you sure don't hesitate to ignore the proper definition of ID!) Speaking of experiments to differentiate between ID and evolution is like speaking of experiments to differentiate between physics and Boyle's Law, or between naturalism and the Newtonian model of gravity, or between chemistry and the Phillips curve.

When you spoke of science being limited to natural explanations of phenomena, you left a key word off of what Drakona was saying: it's not "natural" vs "intelligent", but "natural law" vs "intelligent". To see the difference, consider the example she gave of finding a ring of stone, and note the two theories that are examined: people made the ring of stone, or it was the result of erosion / weather / animals. Both "people" and "erosion" are natural explanations, in the sense that both people and erosion are existing forces. But "people" is a statement that an intelligence caused the rock formation, while "erosion" is a statement that natural law caused the rock formation.

The stuff about "changing the meaning of established words", "comparing the two theories", and so on, is specific to origins/evolution. As with DCrazy's post, I'm not going to address it, because it's completely irrelevant.

[Drakona]

Argh.

People who understand science ... make no unqualified assumptions about things they cannot explain. . . . Just because we can't prove a deity created the universe doesn't mean we've proven that a deity did not create the universe.

... ... Uh, thanks, that's great. I had no idea what the difference between an assumption and a conclusion was, so I appreciate you clearing that up. This "burden of proof" is a new concept for me too, I'll have to think about it a while to let it soak in. While you're at it, I'm kind of unclear on this "hypothesis" idea you were throwing about earlier. Do you offer an advanced course?

While I work on developing some logical subtlety, could you look back over what I wrote? I'm not sure you completely absorbed the difference between the development of a rigorous standard for detecting design and an arbitrary assumption of design. I have thrice now advocated the development of such a standard and you are still chiding me for 'faith' and 'assuming things'.

There is a difference between the abstract concept of making a design inference (on any problem) and actually holding design as an origins position. I am actively interested in the former. I haven't discussed the latter in this thread or even fully developed an opinion on it for myself! I repeat for emphasis--this is not an atheism vs. theism discussion. This is a logical foundations of science discussion.

You try to keep abreast of the logical distinctions here while I go study up on the contraposative a bit, 'kay?

[DCrazy]

I'd love to know where the condescending tone came from, because it certainly wasn't implied in my post.

I was in no way "chiding" you. In fact, do you see me accusing "you" of doing anything at all? My comments about faith were made in the context of the meaning of the thread, not just your specific post. Doesn't the concept of ID rely on faith in the existence of a higher being? Because I see a problem in arguing that X is complex, therefore it must have had an intelligent creator, and therefore X is proof of the existence of a designer. Replace X with your rock analogy and there is a host of evidence outside of the observable qualities of the rock itself from which one can derive its origin ("local culture and geography" and "erosion patterns and plant growth" were representative of the two paths of study you claimed plausible). Replace X with "the natural world", however, and there's no other evidence accessible to humans to support the existence of a designer, just faith alone. THAT is where my problem with ID-as-a-scientific-theory lies, not in your specific and personal viewpoint which as you said you never laid out or hinted at in this thread.

I'm still pretty shocked at the animosity. If you're peeved at me for defining hypothesis and assumption, it was for emphasis and clarification as to their relevance to my post, not meant in any way to deride you specifically.

[Pugwash]

when can I get the readers digest version of this thread?

[Weyrman]

Definitions

hy·poth·e·sis (hī-pŏth'ĭ-sĭs) pronunciation:

n., pl. -ses (-sēz').

1. A tentative explanation for an observation, phenomenon, or scientific problem that can be tested by further investigation.
2. Something taken to be true for the purpose of argument or investigation; an assumption.
3. The antecedent of a conditional statement.

the·o·ry (thē'ə-rē, thîr'ē) pronunciation
n., pl. -ries.

1. A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.
2. The branch of a science or art consisting of its explanatory statements, accepted principles, and methods of analysis, as opposed to practice: a fine musician who had never studied theory.
3. A set of theorems that constitute a systematic view of a branch of mathematics.
4. Abstract reasoning; speculation: a decision based on experience rather than theory.
5. A belief or principle that guides action or assists comprehension or judgment: staked out the house on the theory that criminals usually return to the scene of the crime.
6. An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture.

scientific method
n.

The principles and empirical processes of discovery and demonstration considered characteristic of or necessary for scientific investigation, generally involving the observation of phenomena, the formulation of a hypothesis concerning the phenomena, experimentation to demonstrate the truth or falseness of the hypothesis, and a conclusion that validates or modifies the hypothesis.

Comment:

Scientific method is accepted to be the proving or demonstrating of fact by repeatable steps under given conditions.

A hypothesis is made, a theory is developed and then tested under controlled conditions. When the tests continually prove the theory, then a fact comes into being.

On this basis, ID is only the background premise on which a hypothesis is built.

As to the Creation/Evolution argument, neither side is able to be proved or even tested by scientific method as neither process can be reproduced over and over. They are simply the background premise on which we choose to base our line of reasoning, research and interpretation of the results. Remember that both sides have the same evidence and avenues of testing, so it comes down to, that people only accept the interpretation that fits their underlying premise ( or if I dare belief/religion).

This debate is over belief sytems, not science!

[Palzon]

when can I get the readers digest version of this thread?

didn't you know? if you use fancy lingo and spout a lot of nonsense people might think you know what you're talking about.

[WarAdvocat]

My two cents:

Whatever ID is being presented as (the science of distinguishing whether things are created or naturally occuring?), and however valid that field of inquiry may (or may not) be....The legitimization of 'ID' is the first step in the legitimization of "Creationism" in the eyes of the not-so-educated public. They're not going to draw fine lines like "oh this isn't ORIGINS, this is just GENERAL ID".

Smart move in the war of perception, and a sad day for scientific endeavor.

I find it ironic in the extreme that (perhaps) valid fields of scientific study can result from such flawed intentions.

[woodchip]

Aside from all the good discussion so far, I want to bring to light a different aspect of the whole ID construct. The progression from creationism to ID is a subtle slitting of religions throat. Why is that you ask? Well it seems we have gone from refering to "God", which conotates a spiritual being, to "Intelligent Design" which denotes merely a organic or machine being. So why should we pray to a undefinable deity when now we are told that everything in existance was created by some intelligent person? It would seem all we have to do to become equal to this Intelligent Person is to study ID and we will become the equal of that which created the universe. Kinda sounds like blasphemy, no?

[woodchip]

I'd love to know where the condescending tone came from, because it certainly wasn't implied in my post.

I'm still pretty shocked at the animosity. If you're peeved at me for defining hypothesis and assumption, it was for emphasis and clarification as to their relevance to my post, not meant in any way to deride you specifically.

I have to agree with you Dcrazy. This is the first time I have heard Drakona take a "attitude" towards a poster.

[WarAdvocat]

Aside from all the good discussion so far, I want to bring to light a different aspect of the whole ID construct. The progression from creationism to ID is a subtle slitting of religions throat. Why is that you ask? Well it seems we have gone from refering to "God", which conotates a spiritual being, to "Intelligent Design" which denotes merely a organic or machine being. So why should we pray to a undefinable deity when now we are told that everything in existance was created by some intelligent person? It would seem all we have to do to become equal to this Intelligent Person is to study ID and we will become the equal of that which created the universe. Kinda sounds like blasphemy, no?

So we're all just subroutines in some super-being's "Sim-cosmos" game?

[Tricord]

ID is a science?

is there any imperical evidence that backs up ID?
is there any experiments that you can replicate that supports ID?

Absolutely. Here's an emperical, repeatable experiment you can carry out to demonstrate that intelligently generated information can be distinguished from randomly generated information in a consistent way. We'll even make it a double-blind test.

You will need:
- Several pages of human-generated text with meaning. (Paragraphs from a novel will do).
- Several pages of randomly-generated text (draw some scrabble tiles or something).
- Several volunteers.

Give the pages to your test leader. Do not tell him which are human-generated. Have him give the pages to the volunteers and see if they can pick out the ones that are human-generated. If they consistantly can, this demonstrates that there is a method for the detection of the operation of intelligence.



Okay, that's tongue-in-cheek... but nonetheless a valid experiment. It wouldn't work if systematically detecting intelligent agency wasn't possible.

The more interesting question is when can you detect intelligent agency? Ask people to judge text, they'll always succeed. Ask people to judge music (algorithimc vs. artistic), they'll almost always succeed. Ask people to judge rock formations, you'll probably get some misses. Ask people to judge gravitational phenomena (orbits) and you'll get a lot of misses. Ask people to judge solutions to calculus problems and you'll get all misses.

That intelligent design can sometimes be detected is completely obvious (see the above experiment). When it can be detected and how are the interesting questions. And of course, the $64 million question is can it be detected in biology/microbiology/cosmology and--if so--what are the criteria?

That's the question. The answer, to my judgement, is beyond the current state of the art. (But those that, without rigorous justification, say it categorically cannot be detected... I would accuse of being science-killers.)

I feel like picking in on this, because the reasoning is flawed. You start with a tongue-in-cheek example with pages of meaningful text and other pages with scrambled letters.

In order to recognise text, you have to know what you're looking at. In other words, you need external knowledge prior to conducting the experiment. A monkey doesn't have that knowledge, and to him all pages look the same. He is not able to discern intelligent design among those pages, because he himself is not on par with the level of design he is confronted with.

So, lets accept ID theory for a while. It is in my opinion trivial that we will never be able to understand it, to gather knowledge about our existance, because doing so would put us on par with God himself. That's why ID can never be more than religion; maybe philosophy at best, but never science.

[woodchip]

Then too the scrambled text could be code and with the right templet the text would have a hidden message.

[De Rigueur]

I don't think ID is that much more far-fetched than SETI.

If you're interested in the historical side of the controversy, proto forms of ID date back at least to Anaxagoras, a 5th cent BC philosopher in Athens. His ideas were incorporated by Plato and Aristotle into their systems. The atomists took the opposing view and later followers include Epicurus and Leucretius. The fortunes of either side have waxed and waned through the centuries.

At present, scientific naturalism is the entrenched paradigm, according to which mater is all there is and nature is a closed network of cause and effect -- so every phenomenon has a natural explanation. To gain a foothold, all ID has to do is show that, eg, one genetic mutation did not occur randomly.

the theory of intelligent design relies on a concept that is antithetical to the Scientific Method: faith.

It depends on what you mean by faith and science. Some areas of science are more theoretical and speculative than others and so they use different methods. Eg, it's not feasible to run repeatable lab experiments that involve star formation. As for faith, the proponent of ID simply denies some of the tenets of scientific naturalism. I don't think this requires more faith than for someone to affirm those tenets.

[Duper]

To take Drakona's illustration of stones a bit further, I present this.

When you First saw a picture of hedge stone, (whatever age, whatever circumstance, irregardless of what you know about it now) what were your thoughts about it? That glaciers did this? or that it looks like it was built? or that an astoroid impacted near by and all these "rocks" flew into the air and landed this way?

Upon observing Hedge stone, what school of scientce would you employ? Geology or archaeology? Meterology or Anthropology?

ID has set aside the "WHO" factor and focused on the "what". Eveyone decides on "who" for themselves or simply sets it aside to examine this point of view. "World News Tonight" will tell you differently, though, and likes to spotlight Pat Robertson for his off the wall comments and then calls it news.

[Ferno]

Absolutely. Here's an emperical, repeatable experiment you can carry out to demonstrate that intelligently generated information can be distinguished from randomly generated information in a consistent way. We'll even make it a double-blind test.

You will need:
- Several pages of human-generated text with meaning. (Paragraphs from a novel will do).
- Several pages of randomly-generated text (draw some scrabble tiles or something).
- Several volunteers.

Give the pages to your test leader. Do not tell him which are human-generated. Have him give the pages to the volunteers and see if they can pick out the ones that are human-generated. If they consistantly can, this demonstrates that there is a method for the detection of the operation of intelligence.

boooooo!

Also, I can't believe i missed out on the ID brain teasers. they looked like fun.

If ID is to be a pure science (ala newton's therories which are wholly provable and Einstien's energy theroies), we need a lot more concrete evidence to back it up. Right now, to me anyways, it's largely based on loose theories.

BUT: if ID moves to one conclusion that is akin to 'God did it', that's where I'll have to draw the line.

[Drakona]

I'm sorry for blowing up at you DCrazy. I work as an engineer these days, and that gives me little patience for technical presumption--something that causes a lot of damage in an engineering context. The result is that I now have short fuse: I'll explain technical things once, maybe twice, but if after that the people who don't get it don't realize they don't get it and are still talking... it's time to raise the volume. I guess that's not quite appropriate online... I'll try to keep a lid on that in the future.

Doesn't the concept of ID rely on faith in the existence of a higher being? Because I see a problem in arguing that X is complex, therefore it must have had an intelligent creator, and therefore X is proof of the existence of a designer. Replace X with your rock analogy and there is a host of evidence outside of the observable qualities of the rock itself from which one can derive its origin ("local culture and geography" and "erosion patterns and plant growth" were representative of the two paths of study you claimed plausible). Replace X with "the natural world", however, and there's no other evidence accessible to humans to support the existence of a designer, just faith alone. THAT is where my problem with ID-as-a-scientific-theory lies,

No, ID does not require faith in the intelligence studied. It produces evidence for the intelligence studied. For example, an archeologist might discover an ancient city in Antarctica. He makes a design inference quite naturally--after all, nature doesn't make cities. The city is evidence for a set of intelligent beings--namely primitive people living in Antarctica--which he didn't previously believe existed. This is a design inference as evidence for existence.

Or take another example. Suppose you have a bag of scrabble tiles, and you dump them all out on the table. They land with all of the tiles facing down except fourteen of them, which line up and spell, "CALL YOUR MOTHER". Ten seconds ago, you didn't believe there were intelligent beings who could influence Scrabble times poured out of a bag. Now you do--and furthermore, you start speculating on the nature of those beings and wondering why they would tell you to call your mother. A design inference is evidence for an intelligent influence which you did not previously believe existed. That isn't "faith" as the term is used to mean irrational belief--quite the contrary, it's belief due to evidence!

Whether this inference is problematic for your belief system depends on what you're studying. A design inference drawn from an email doesn't require anything more problematic than a belief in a human being on the other end. A design inference in biology would require you to believe in God, Aliens, Time Travel, Ancient Genetic Engineers, or... I don't know, something of that sort. A design inference in cosmology would pretty much require belief in God.

But note that--like the scrabble tiles--it doesn't require prior belief in the thing, and has nothing to do with "faith". The design inference--itself--is the evidence for intelligent influence. You're right that you need further evidence to pick or name the influence, and that requires further study (or you may simply not have the information and be forced to wonder.)

Incidentally, belief works such that that inference can go the other way. You could throw those scrabble tiles and--though what you have looks like a design inference--you could be sure enough that nothing could influence them that you would conclude the design inference had to be wrong. This is the route a lot of people take on origins--"Well, I may not know where life came from, and yeah, I don't have a good scientific explanation for it, and yeah it does look designed. But that design inference must be wrong because I know that life arose from natural causes." (I'd call that faith--but it's the healthy sort if it arises from auxiliary evidence.)

I think the difficulty is that some people see no reason to believe in God or aliens or whatever and conclude that nobody can have a reason to believe in them--or worse, that such a reason could not in principle exist. This is ideological bigotry of the highest degree.

Whatever ID is being presented as (the science of distinguishing whether things are created or naturally occuring?), and however valid that field of inquiry may (or may not) be....The legitimization of 'ID' is the first step in the legitimization of "Creationism" in the eyes of the not-so-educated public. They're not going to draw fine lines like "oh this isn't ORIGINS, this is just GENERAL ID".

People don't draw the distinction well, that's true. The ID community itself doesn't draw the distinction between ID as a method and ID as an origins position very well. But as you say, unfortunate (or fortunate, depending on your POV) political consequences make a method any more or less valid.

In order to recognise text, you have to know what you're looking at. In other words, you need external knowledge prior to conducting the experiment. A monkey doesn't have that knowledge, and to him all pages look the same. He is not able to discern intelligent design among those pages,...

This is true. In order to draw a design inference, one of the necessary prerequisites is to be able to find a pattern or discern meaning in the thing you're looking at. Just what--rigorously speaking--that means is the subject of deep philosophical fascination for me.

... because he himself is not on par with the level of design he is confronted with.

This is where you make your mistake. You don't have to be as smart as the designer you detect, nor do you have to understand all of his purpose. Just some of it--just enough of it to draw a design inference.

For example, if an advanced alien spaceship landed on earth, we would recognize it as designed. The aliens themselves may be far, far intellectually superior to us, and their technology might be entirely incomprehensible. We may not know why they came, what they're saying, or what they want from us. But we can recognize a spaceship as a mechanical device for transporting creatures through space, and recognize that they designed it to do that on p urpose. That is plenty of comprehension of their intellectual activity to allow us to draw a design inference.

So, lets accept ID theory for a while. It is in my opinion trivial that we will never be able to understand it, to gather knowledge about our existance, because doing so would put us on par with God himself.

This is not true. All that is necessary--if we are indeed studying God--is that some subset of his motives are comprehensible to us. That is, that his thoughts are not wholly alien to us. This strikes me as entirely plausable, the same way some of my thoughts and motives are accessible to a dog. Not nearly all of them, of course, but it can certainly understand "belly rub" and understands plenty 'nuff of "No!".



Ferno, maybe we should resurrect that ID brainteasers thread. I was disappointed with the lack of response the first time around, and it's a good way to intuitively explore when a design inference is valid and when it isn't. Maybe I'll start another thread of that sort.

I know the experiment I gave is kinda stupid, but it would work. It demonstrates that intelligence can be detected under certain circumstances. It's sort of the stupid counter-example you give when people say, "There is no scientific evidence that design can ever be reliably detected". That clearly isn't true. Of course, what they really have in mind is some certain set of circumstances under which design cannot be detected--and that is the more interesting question.

By the way, I have not yet seen a rigorous method for the detection of design that satisfies me. Dembski has some good ideas, but he didn't get there--and I think he's the only one that has seriously tried. I'm not even sure it's possible in general, but I know it must be in specific cases (see the Stupid Experiment). In the mean time, I applaud those exploring the question and I think the intuitive games are fun.

[Jeff250]

It's easy to detect human design because we already know how humans design. It's more difficult to detect aliens' design, but we think that it is possible by suspecting certain assumptions, like that they are somehow analagous to humans, since they grew up in the same universe and had the same universal utilities at their disposal. For example, we might suspect that they use metallic space vehicles for transportation or EM waves for communication. We also might be able to appeal to identifiable universals, such as prime numbers a la the movie "Contact."

But how might we detect the design of a designer about which we know absolutely nothing, that might not even be from our universe, that might not even exist? It seems that the possiblity that this designer shares similarities to humans (and their idea of design) is one of an infinitude of other possibilities. Are there some sort of beyond-universal qualities of design that can be tested?

[Tricord]

So, lets accept ID theory for a while. It is in my opinion trivial that we will never be able to understand it, to gather knowledge about our existance, because doing so would put us on par with God himself.

This is not true. All that is necessary--if we are indeed studying God--is that some subset of his motives are comprehensible to us. That is, that his thoughts are not wholly alien to us. This strikes me as entirely plausable, the same way some of my thoughts and motives are accessible to a dog. Not nearly all of them, of course, but it can certainly understand "belly rub" and understands plenty 'nuff of "No!".

Here again, you assume prior knowledge before the actual recognition. You had to teach the dog yourself; the initiative to educate the dog didn't come from the dog itself. Secondly, you have to be physically present to interact with the dog. God on the other hand doesn't manifest himself directly. God gives us no incentive nor clue himself, we are left to guess.

[Kilarin]

In order for Evolution to be a science, ID must be.
No, really, science DOES require that a theory be Falsifiable. If it isn't, that doesn't necessarily mean it isn't true (or false) but science can't do much with it. It isn't SCIENCE.

So, our question is, is EVOLUTION falsifiable? Yes it is, and Charles Darwin himself dictated the test.

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. Origin of Species (1859) p.189

Without this test, Evolution fails as a science. SO, evolution MUST embrace ID as a science because it is the goal of ID to discover if there are any complex organs which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modification.

So lets not have any of this "ID" is not a science nonsense unless we are going to throw out Evolution as a science. Which *I* am not willing to do.

Evolution has too many facts to back it up. No, I am NOT a "Young Earth" creationist. The Fossil record, radio isotope dating, and so many other simple techniques argue in favor of Evolution. Please note that Michael Behe (My favorite ID scientist), is ALSO an evolutionist. He has stated clearly that he believes in common descent. (I wonder if that is descent 1, 2 or 3?)

The question is, can Evolution explain EVERYTHING? Is Evolution alone adiquate to explain the origin and development of life. Charles Darwin set the test, ID is being criticized for daring to apply it.

Can you argue that a heart could have evolved in steps? Yes, you can. There are MANY structures that could have evolved by numerous, successive, slight modifications. BUT, there also exsist structures that could not. Take a look at the the cilium, or the flagellum. Multiple complex parts, and they don't function unless all parts are in place and working. You can't evolve it one step at a time. Which leaves design as the only logical explanation. Who designed it? THAT is a different question.

Kilarin

[Jeff250]

Even if you determined that something couldn't have evolved, that doesn't necessitate that it was designed.

[Mobius]

the thing about ID is that it is not science. Fact is, it is not even good philosophy.

ID is a science, it's just a baby science. It's underdeveloped. Trying to study evolution/origins using ID is like trying to study physics using arithmetic. The tool simply isn't powerful enough to study what people are tying to use it to study.

Unfortunately, the loudest pro-ID voices don't realize this.

Dude you have lost it. ID is not science. Please refer to the "Scientific Method". Saying we don't have the tools for it is the same as saying we don't have to tools to examine demons, vampires and angels. LOL.

I hereby do place a bet with you, for the amount of $1000 (inflation adjusted USD) to a peanut, that ID will NEVER be recognised as science, and there will NEVER be articles supporting ID in Scientific American. Given that I expect I'll be around for at least another 150 years - and hopefully 20,000 - I'm giving you a good long time to collect.

To assert "ID is science" reveals utter incompetence, but more importantly and disturbingly, a thorough disrespect of true science.