Is Intelligent Design dead?

[Meleagar]

Quote by: tengers I honestly don't believe that anyone on this thread understands your argument. So I will ask a simple question. In your ID world, where do stars come from? Do the 50 sextillion stars come from some type of intelligence in your ID Theory?

I D theory doesn't make any predictions about where stars come from.

[barts]

Quote by: Meleagar One wonders why, if ID is dead and Behe fully discredited,research is still being done and current papers published and news releases offeredclaiming that his challenge has just now been refuted. Why are they spending so much time and effort researching, rebutting and publically refuting a dead theory that wasn't even scientific in the first place? Heh.

To insure that when advocates of various religions attempt to push their dogma into the classroom disguised as science, there is valid and demonstrable scientific evidence to refute their assertions.

Duh.

[tengers]

Quote by: Meleagar I D theory doesn't make any predictions about where stars come from.

Does ID theorize that the stars are designed? If so, by what?

[Meleagar]

Quote by: tengers Does ID theorize that the stars are designed? If so, by what?

As far as I know, no ID theorist has made a case that stars are best explained via ID.

[tengers]

Quote by: Meleagar As far as I know, no ID theorist has made a case that stars are best explained via ID.

Ok, when does Intelligent Design kick in? Are you saying that ID only applies to living things or is there some intermediate place between the stars and say a platypus that ID takes over?.

[Meleagar]

Quote by: tengers Ok, when does Intelligent Design kick in? Are you saying that ID only applies to living things or is there some intermediate place between the stars and say a platypus that ID takes over?.

A few ID theorists have made specific cases that specific features are best explained by ID; Behe has argued such for the bacterial flagellum; Stephen Meyers has argued the case for functionally specified complex information in biological form (like DNA) over 500 bits; Dembski and Marks are making the mathematical, information-theory based argument that evolution itself must be conditioned by some teleological process (ID).

[tengers]

Quote by: Meleagar A few ID theorists have made specific cases that specific features are best explained by ID; Behe has argued such for the bacterial flagellum; Stephen Meyers has argued the case for functionally specified complex information in biological form (like DNA) over 500 bits; Dembski and Marks are making the mathematical, information-theory based argument that evolution itself must be conditioned by some teleological process (ID).

So it is life forms then?

[Meleagar]

Quote by: tengers So it is life forms then?

It's anything that meets the criteria. Your computer is intelligently designed, but that is a rather obvious and trivial example. So are, say, ancient artifacts and ruins. Another applications of ID theory is SETI (whether they admit it or not); cryptography and forensics are other examples of ID theory already in use by science.

[tengers]

Quote by: Meleagar It's anything that meets the criteria. Your computer is intelligently designed, but that is a rather obvious and trivial example. So are, say, ancient artifacts and ruins. Another applications of ID theory is SETI (whether they admit it or not); cryptography and forensics are other examples of ID theory already in use by science.

I don't think that anyone questions that things made by humans would be considered intelligently designed. I guess the question is is where does this ID process start. Is the Earth itself intelligently designed?, or does ID start with the creation of life or some substance on Earth?

[Meleagar]

From here:

Evolution still scientifically stable 14 September 2009

Sounds defensive, doesn't it? Was the stability of evolution in question prior to these findings? Not if you listened to Darwinists here.

An international team of researchers, including Monash University biochemists, has discovered evidence at the molecular level in support of one of the key tenets of Darwin's theory of evolution.

In support of? I thought Darwinistic Evolution was a fact as solid as gravity. What, they're just now finding a way to support it at the molecular level?

"Our cells, and the cells of all organisms, are composed of molecular machines. These machines are built of component parts, each of which contributes a partial function or structural element to the machine. How such sophisticated, multi-component machines could evolve has been somewhat mysterious, and highly controversial." Professor Lithgow said.

Mysterious? I thought it was a fact! Controversial? I thought there was no controversy!

Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.

A non-Darwinian explanation, from believers of Intelligent Design, proposed these complex machines to be "irreducibly complex". In other words they are so neatly complex and complete that they couldn't have evolved but rather must have been designed by an intelligent entity.

Why are they arguing against non-science? Isn't ID not even worth debating, much less devoting time, energy and resources to try and rebut through research? How do you scientifically rebut claims that aren't even scientific and make no testable predictions in the first place?

Ooops!

[Meleagar]

Quote by: tengers I don't think that anyone questions that things made by humans would be considered intelligently designed. I guess the question is is where does this ID process start. Is the Earth itself intelligently designed?, or does ID start with the creation of life or some substance on Earth?

Outside of human intentionality, "where it starts" is unknown. Most design theorists that I know of are pretty much involved in just trying to establish a rigorous methodology for defining and determining what constitutes a "best explanation' case of ID by using specific candidates or examples.

[Uncle Rhynchus]

Quote by: Meleagar Sounds defensive, doesn't it? Was the stability of evolution in question prior to these findings? Not if you listened to Darwinists here.

Looks like a headline crafted to grab attention. But that's what you get when your primary source of science is the media.

In support of? I thought Darwinistic Evolution was a fact as solid as gravity. What, they're just now finding a way to support it at the molecular level?

If you honestly think this is the first case where someone has published an explanation for the evolution of things at the "molecular level", then you really haven't been paying attention, and certainly are in no place to debate what has or hasn't been done in evolutionary biology.

Mysterious? I thought it was a fact! Controversial? I thought there was no controversy!

The only "controversy" is that evolutionary biologists haven't figured out the evolutionary history for every structure and system on earth. That's not controversy, that's science.

Why are they arguing against non-science? Isn't ID not even worth debating, much less devoting time, energy and resources to try and rebut through research? How do you scientifically rebut claims that aren't even scientific and make no testable predictions in the first place?

It's a media article Meleagar. Relax.

[tengers]

Quote by: Meleagar Outside of human intentionality, "where it starts" is unknown. Most design theorists that I know of are pretty much involved in just trying to establish a rigorous methodology for defining and determining what constitutes a "best explanation' case of ID by using specific candidates or examples.

Ok, so let's say that you and I are are in my lab and we wish to search for intelligent design evidence and we pick one of the life forms such as a bacteria and we subject it to a new food source and see if it adapts or changes in some way so it can eat Wheaties instead of its usual Milk diet . I notice that after a while, it has a different gene( or whatever) from its great great .....grandfather. Now what do we do from the ID point of view?

[Meleagar]

Quote by: tengers Ok, so let's say that you and I are are in my lab and we wish to search for intelligent design evidence and we pick one of the life forms such as a bacteria and we subject it to a new food source and see if it adapts or changes in some way so it can eat Wheaties instead of its usual Milk diet . I notice that after a while, it has a different gene( or whatever) from its great great .....grandfather. Now what do we do from the ID point of view?

The Edge of Evolution defines 2 point mutations that work in concert as the upper limit; Meyers defines it as 500 bits of FSCI. First, one would need to define the probability bounds of the system - i.e., what one can reasonably expect to be generated by chance & natural selection, then one would have to define wether or not the mutations served a concerted functional purpose.

If the mutation or set of mutations is best explained by natural selection/random mutation (falls within the bounds of probability and the normal physicodynamic interactions), then that provides a certain avenue of investigation. If, however, it sufficiently exceeds that probability bound, and ID is indicated, then that directs a different course - such as, trying to backtrack or more closely scrutinize how those mutations came to exist, because it seems that something other than random errors are involved. Perhaps a variation was selected from a library; perhaps commands were issued by some process that didn't just create a "copy error", but manufacture a variant "on purpose".

There might also be a secondary or tertiary information system that gathers data about the environment and translates it into taxonomic or phenotypical variations.

One might also decide to conduct experiments to see if there is some kind of observer effect in play "gaming the system" as it appears to do in electron double-slit experiments.

IOW, a finding of RM & NS compels one line of investigation; a finding of ID compels a different line of investigation.

[barts]

Quote by: Meleagar A few ID theorists have made specific cases that specific features are best explained by ID; Behe has argued such for the bacterial flagellum; Stephen Meyers has argued the case for functionally specified complex information in biological form (like DNA) over 500 bits; Dembski and Marks are making the mathematical, information-theory based argument that evolution itself must be conditioned by some teleological process (ID).

And not one of these people's ideas have yet to survive scrutiny as they pertain to ID.

You're disseminating false and misleading information again, Meleagar.

For those who would rather not wade through the deliberately dense, impenetrably obtuse, pseudo-intellectual, convoluted, academically barren, fallacious jargonism put forward in earlier posts in defense of ID, I recommend going to YouTube, or TED, or Fora TV or Google Video and searching on any of Meleagar's sources to see them flail away when confronted in debates with the silliness of their ideas.

I suggest the videos because it's venue where the ID advocates are unable to hide behind dense, deliberately impenetrable prose and they are more entertaining than most of the ID-pro posts on this thread.

[tengers]

Quote by: Meleagar The Edge of Evolution defines 2 point mutations that work in concert as the upper limit; Meyers defines it as 500 bits of FSCI. First, one would need to define the probability bounds of the system - i.e., what one can reasonably expect to be generated by chance & natural selection, then one would have to define wether or not the mutations served a concerted functional purpose. If the mutation or set of mutations is best explained by natural selection/random mutation (falls within the bounds of probability and the normal physicodynamic interactions), then that provides a certain avenue of investigation. If, however, it sufficiently exceeds that probability bound, and ID is indicated, then that directs a different course - such as, trying to backtrack or more closely scrutinize how those mutations came to exist, because it seems that something other than random errors are involved. Perhaps a variation was selected from a library; perhaps commands were issued by some process that didn't just create a "copy error", but manufacture a variant "on purpose". There might also be a secondary or tertiary information system that gathers data about the environment and translates it into taxonomic or phenotypical variations. One might also decide to conduct experiments to see if there is some kind of observer effect in play "gaming the system" as it appears to do in electron double-slit experiments. IOW, a finding of RM & NS compels one line of investigation; a finding of ID compels a different line of investigation.

Alright, but then I say in our experiment that perhaps the distribution of probabilities is not Gaussian (Bell Curve) and I say let us look into whether or not this distribution has fat tails. A fat tail is when what seem to be a highly improbable event occurs and it occurs often enough to cause trouble and unpredictableness. The recent financial collapse would be such a thing. An extreme flood is another such case. A triple billed platypus might be another. These things happen with mind numbing regularity, but are not readily predictable, so this Gaussian tool that we are using may not be up to the task, since we are looking for why the anomoly occured. This is where the rubber hits the road and it is presently where we are stuck. Relying on Gaussian distributions can work for certain types of things. You can sift sand or measure people's height and get these distributions, but one day, and several times afterward, there will be an 11 ft man standing outside the doorway and their occurance will be outside of all reasonable probability. There have been several stock market changes as an example, that had probabilities that were less than 1 out of the number of atoms in the universe, but it happens. This is where science stands today.

[Meleagar]

Quote by: tengers Alright, but then I say in our experiment that perhaps the distribution of probabilities is not Gaussian (Bell Curve) and I say let us look into whether or not this distribution has fat tails. .

I'm not a statistician. That would be up to experts in those areas to figure out.

[Uncle Rhynchus]

You don't have to be a statistician to understand that the " this is too improbable to happen" argument is ridiculous.

As has been pointed out several times, outrageously improbable things happen every single minute of every day.

[Angry Citizen]

Quote by: barts And not one of these people's ideas have yet to survive scrutiny as they pertain to ID. You're disseminating false and misleading information again, Meleagar. For those who would rather not wade through the deliberately dense, impenetrably obtuse, pseudo-intellectual, convoluted, academically barren, fallacious jargonism put forward in earlier posts in defense of ID, I recommend going to YouTube, or TED, or Fora TV or Google Video and searching on any of Meleagar's sources to see them flail away when confronted in debates with the silliness of their ideas. I suggest the videos because it's venue where the ID advocates are unable to hide behind dense, deliberately impenetrable prose and they are more entertaining than most of the ID-pro posts on this thread.

Please directly link some of these debates, if you can. My curiosity is piqued.

[Aussie]

Quote by: Angry Citizen Please directly link some of these debates, if you can. My curiosity is piqued.

Have a look at Why People Laugh At Creationinists on youtube (cant link at the moment)