Intelligent design

[TRoutMac]

Its also funny that the ID response to the claim that ID isn't science is to say "Your RIGHT! ID isn't science! Science is flawed at its core! ID is BETTER then science!" I'm still waiting for some predictions and experiments from the ID people. Maybe when, and if, they do ID will move from a lawyer's game of rhetoric into the realm of actual science.

 

What's really funny is how you guys are in such a severe state of denial and desperation that you can't see your way clear to be honest about what I.D. proponents are saying. If our arguments are so weak and poorly supported, then why must your side insist on misrepresenting and distorting everything we say? I'll try to be more clear, although I can't imagine how that's possible.

 

I never said that science was flawed at its core, and no I.D. proponent has ever said that. To suggest that we have is a blatant misrepresentation. (and that's being extremely charitable)

 

Science, as a method of discovering truths about the natural world, is not flawed at its core. And when science is unencumbered by the presuppositions of methodological naturalism, it is an extremely powerful tool and serves us very well. But when you strap a philosophy like methodological naturalism onto science, it becomes pseudo-science. Again, refer to the illustration about the detective and the murder investigation. Have you no answer to that?

 

Real science allows the evidentiary chips to fall wherever they may. Care to deny that? Wanna go on record as having said that science must always steer the evidence towards or away from a certain conclusion? That's what methodological naturalism does, folks. And that's not a matter of debate… You all freely admit it, and people like Robert Pennock, Barbara Forrest and Eugenie Scott all admit it as well. And yet you think you are somehow preserving something noble about science by pushing that on us?

 

Any attempt to make the chips fall here or there (methodological naturalism) is not science, but fraud. You would say the same thing if I tried to force the chips into my camp, but somehow you feel your side should be exempt from that little standard.

 

What I don't understand is, if you're not willing to deal honestly with the issues, then why visit a science forum at all?

 

And oh yeah… if you're still waiting for predictions and experiments, you haven't been paying attention.

[damocles]

And oh yeah… if you're still waiting for predictions and experiments, you haven't been paying attention.

 

What experiments? What predictions?

 

Waiting..............................

[Turtle]

What I don't understand is, if you're not willing to deal honestly with the issues, then why visit a science forum at all?

 

And oh yeah… if you're still waiting for predictions and experiments, you haven't been paying attention.

 

 

 

I went to have a look at your Bedfellow as I have little respect for authority. I found him lame & incapable of the murder. :hyper: I'm not eavesdropping, just in the vicinity & paying attention. :hihi:

[Erasmus00]

What's really funny is how you guys are in such a severe state of denial and desperation that you can't see your way clear to be honest about what I.D. proponents are saying. If our arguments are so weak and poorly supported, then why must your side insist on misrepresenting and distorting everything we say? I'll try to be more clear, although I can't imagine how that's possible.

 

Hold on, you claim that methodological naturalism (which has always been the core of science) is flawed. Therefore, you claim science is flawed at its core. You try to back out of it by redefining science, but your basic claim is that the methodology currently known as science is broken.

 

If you "unencumber" science, then it makes no progress. Every unknown becomes, simply, "god did it." How do birds fly? God lifts them up. What causes superconductivity? God controls the electrons. Science cannot operate like that. So, if you want to test your competing hypothesis, that of ID, you must fit it into the scientific method. You must make predictions and test them against the natural world. Untill ID starts doing this, its just a lawyers trick.

 

Again, refer to the illustration about the detective and the murder investigation. Have you no answer to that?

 

Your strawmen analogies are just rhetoric. If you want to settle a scientific question, you do so with experiment. ID has not.

 

And oh yeah… if you're still waiting for predictions and experiments, you haven't been paying attention.

 

Forgive me. If I had been paying attention, I'd have noticed you dodging this at every opportunity. ID has no experimental support, because it makes no predicitons. To see an evolutionary prediciton, see above posting by Turtle. There are others.

-Will

[GAHD]

After reading the bateria.asp link Trout provided, I'm left with a fishy feeling. The artcle takes a quote of 'some Unknown Mechanism' and in it's conclusion states 'some designed mechanism'.

 

I must note that nothing in the article indicates that the mecanism needs to be designed. The first mention of design comes in at the 'stasis in bacteria' section, and the logic leap that they made seems to have been very lemming-like.

 

The article's a decent read, but it's conclusions are unfounded.

[TRoutMac]

I went to have a look at your Bedfellow as I have little respect for authority. I found him lame & incapable of the murder. :confused: I'm not eavesdropping, just in the vicinity & paying attention. :confused:

 

The illustration demonstrates perfectly the inherent flaw of methodological naturalism. Your reply, such as it is, fails miserably to refute the illustration.

 

How were you able to find him "lame and incapable" of the murder when you weren't allowed to investigate him? You've just underscored the fact that your basis for the rejection of ID is your assumptions and presupposition, not evidence. And that is not scientific… even Damocles said so.

 

See, you folks are trapped.

[damocles]

The illustration demonstrates perfectly the inherent flaw of methodological naturalism. Your reply, such as it is, fails miserably to refute the illustration.

 

How were you able to find him "lame and incapable" of the murder when you weren't allowed to investigate him? You've just underscored the fact that your basis for the rejection of ID is your assumptions and presupposition, not evidence. And that is not scientific… even Damocles said so.

 

See, you folks are trapped.

 

Now that did not make any sense at all.

 

What has this false analogy got to do with the central argument of god testing? Do you even understand your own false analogy?

 

You have to invoke the same authority to prevent the authority's criminal investigation. Yet by this legal circular logic you claim that this proves the crime?

 

And on top of that you claim the crime is common knowledge as to intent and the guilty identity of the guilty party because the investigator can prove this by the fact that his investigation was thwarted by those same authorities in the know?

 

That is nuts.

 

Here, let me help you.

 

Posted by Troutmac

 

Lemme illustrate it this way: Imagine you're a detective and you're investigating a murder. Let's say there are two suspects, one of which is "Joe Six Pack" and the other is a popular State Senator, who we'll call "Senator Bedfellow" (apologies to Berke Breathed). Now, imagine that your superior approaches you and says "Dave, we've got to get to the truth of this case. I want you to pull out all the stops and find out who did this. But just one thing, Dave: You cannot consider Senator Bedfellow a suspect."

 

What would you immediately suspect is happening here? Aren't you inclined immediately to think the following?

 

1) Senator Bedfellow is probably guilty.

2) Your superior is not really concerned about discovering the truth.

3) Your superior is protecting someone, most likely the Senator, which gets you back to point 1, the Senator is probably guilty or at least complicit.

 

 

1. In real life, your superior can make the request and you can knuckle under? Not bloody likely! The newspapers, other cops, DAs, reporters out to make a reputation will crucify the senator and you.

 

2. Earlier I wrote that you dodged the central question of god testing by making false equivalencies of situations(prune pit equals orange tree) by tryying to set up adversarial scholastic logic trains as syllogisms(look it up) but here you combine reflexive reasoning error with circular reasoning error and pronounce a proof.

 

To wit you assert;

-a. Set A=set B no congruence established in equivalence(comparing rocks to mice and saying the situation is the same; false assumption.)

-b. Condition of set A therefore demonstrates condition set B(false statement since A not proven equal :confused:

-c. However condition known about set A is unknowable because condition set A prevents proving set A, and knowing that condition set A prevents knowing the condition set A proves the condition set A.(circular logic)

-d. That proves condition set B.

 

In simple English if you couldn't follow that, you said(as I wrote you would-see above in this thread and below in this post.):

 

"Nobody will allow ID advocates to publish the truth teach it, and convince others because they won't accept the truth. It threatens the power-elite status quo!"

 

Welcome to the world of perpetual motion machine inventor theology!

 

There are truth in labelling laws.

 

Nobody prevents the ID crowd from funding and running their own experiments and publishing their own results.

 

Nobody prevents them publishing their arguments.(You are here, aren't you?)

 

But you have to admit by your own scholastic rules(and I used them, here; or didn't you notice?) that the flimsy house of cards you built, is less than the puff of air it takes one to dislodge them from the stack.

 

For you see, if Senator Bedfellow is a god(as you subconciously intended for him to be accepted by us in your false analogy) then he is a devil. For by your reasoning he used his power to prevent his "sin" from being investigated(MURDER). And yet everybody KNOWS he did it.(by your circular reasoning)

 

I can argue theology too.

 

But in any event you actually said(implied) a god can't be proven to exist; because he will prevent it, so that proves he exists.

 

And that is exactly what I said you would do.

 

Posted by Damocles

 

Instead of addressing the question directly the opposition brings up side issue false analogies and then scholastically argues that the scientists because they use a methodology are closed to the idea of the supernatural.

 

If the supernatural leaves behind evidence? It will be seen.

 

But then, by the ID crowds' definition, that isn't correct evidence because it would be seen as physical evidence subject to "methodological naturalism" and is hence not supernatural-that is not acceptable to ID proponents as a valid observation.

 

Follow that argument?

 

Yep. That is why I suggest that the ID crowd are a religion masquerading their theory as science.

[C1ay]

Yes, fair enough. There are many evidences that the evolutionist side claims for itself, but on closer inspection, you will often realize that they are merely interpreting the evidence in a way that appears to support evolution, and that there are other interpretations of the evidence that may not support evolution and, in fact, support Intelligent Design. Such is the case with your two examples.

 

http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v16/i1/bird.asp

 

http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v17/i3/bacteria.asp

 

Notice, however, I am not claiming that these two interpretations of the evidence are necessarily correct. I'm merely pointing out that there is more than one interpretation of the evidence, and as such, the evidence doesn't necessarily support evolution. In fact, it appears that it does not, unless by "evolution" you really mean "micro-evolution".

 

Furthermore, I am immediately skeptical of any interpretation of evidence that comes from a philosophy of methodological naturalism for reasons I've explained in great detail. Methodological naturalism is a lousy way to discover truth.

Interesting points of view to say the least. I see the first actually conceeds that there may be some evolution after all, i.e.

It is clear from such examples that species are not fixed and unchanging, and that two apparently different species may in fact be genetically related. New species (as man defines them) can form. The herring gull and the lesser black-backed gull could not have been initially created as two separate groups reproducing only after their kind, or else they would not be joined by a chain of interbreeding intermediates.

The second article attempts to discharge adaptation as a feature of evolution and claims that it is specially designed,i.e.

Plasmids seem to be adaptive elements designed to make bacteria capable of adaptation to new situations...

That adaptation exists is not evidence that it was designed, only that it exists.

 

More interesting to me is the references themselves that you used. I specifcally asked for the point of view from the IDist's perspective and you responded with articles from a site which attempts to support biblical creation, not ID. Does ID have any scientific support for ID without resorting to claims of biblical creation?

[Turtle]

How were you able to find him "lame and incapable" of the murder when you weren't allowed to investigate him?

 

I simply ignored the order not to investigate; I went on my own authority as people are wont to do. I disobeyed. :confused:

[goku]

What, if any, predictions does intelliegent design make?

 

What, if any, testable, falsifiable experiments are possible, as in, what would disprove intelligent design?

predictions?

if you teach kids that they're monkeys, they'll behave like animals.

 

scientists have allready done the tests and experiments.

i have not seen one that disproves ID, all prove ID.

[Boerseun]

predictions?

if you teach kids that they're monkeys, they'll behave like animals.

 

scientists have allready done the tests and experiments.

i have not seen one that disproves ID, all prove ID.

goku, this serves to illustrate why, in my opinion, ID and proponents of ID leaves a lot to answer for in their position:

Your analogy of kids and monkeys points out a basic flaw in your understanding of the opposition's argument. Humans did NOT evolve from monkeys. However, humans and monkeys have evolved, in parallel, from a common, now extinct, ancestor. There's a world of difference there. It seems as if proponents of the ID-side of the debate are reacting in indignation of our common ancestry with the primates. And that is surely not science.

Science can explain everything from the inflationary period after the Big Bang without needing to introduce an external intelligence to steer the process. Why should it do so now?

 

If there ever was an intelligence involved in building the universe, that intelligence set the Big Bang in motion. And then exited stage left. And the only reason science can't hypothesize any further back than the Big Bang, is because everything, time, space, the lot, comes to a complete and utter dead stop at the Big Bang when you run the history of the universe in reverse. But after the Big Bang, your illustrious creator/designer served no more purpose, and disappeared. But soon, Science will most likely come up with an explanation for that as well, and then there will be absolutely no need to invoke a designer, apart from serving human fears and conceits about us being special in any way.

 

We are not.

 

We are slow, gawky bipeds who've exchanged the trees for the savannahs when conditions favoured that. We can't even climb trees properly anymore nowadays. But we are designed for it. Our brains enlarged in order for us to fill a niche that existed on this planet. We filled the niche, but even intelligence isn't guaranteed to be a good development - chances are good we'll kill ourselves and the rats and cockroaches will take over. We've only been using a small percentage of our proper mental potential since the industrial revolution. The peanut-brained dinosaurs ruled Earth for longer that there have been mammals on this planet. They died. If there was a designer, it seems that he/she's fallable as well, and Life on Earth is a hit-or-miss affair. Science gives a much more detailed and structured answer, as opposed to evading the technicalities by saying "somebody did it". That's no answer, and shows that proponents of ID simply doesn't understand how science works. They do, however, have a popular slant towards explaining our being, and the science-dumb majority of this world will suck it up and contribute to their cause, because it is a position understandable to the billions of people on this planet who don't know the first thing about science.

 

Intelligent Design should understand the fact that it is, indeed, not science, and should stop trying to meddle in the affairs of serious science. Intelligent Design should set up office somewhere in the Metaphysics field, where it can contend for contributions side-by-side with Christianity, Islam, Bhuddism, Judaism, Shintoism, heck - the list goes on.

 

But leave science to the scientists, and leave the science cirriculum to scientific matters - unless, of course, you want future US-trained scientists to be the laughing stock of the world. US scientists are currently respected world-wide. Don't fix what's not broken.

[TRoutMac]

Hold on, you claim that methodological naturalism (which has always been the core of science) is flawed. Therefore, you claim science is flawed at its core. You try to back out of it by redefining science, but your basic claim is that the methodology currently known as science is broken.

 

Slight problem, Erasmus. Expert witness for the plaintiffs in the Kitzmiller vs. Dover trial, Dr. Robert Pennock, has conceded (while under oath) that there is a controversy among philosophers of science concerning whether methodological naturalism is essential to the definition of science. Said another way, that methodological naturalism has always been at the core of science is merely your opinion and is not universally agreed upon. Mind you, it's not William Dembski saying there's disagreement on that issue… it's Robert Pennock. He's on your side.

 

If you "unencumber" science, then it makes no progress. Every unknown becomes, simply, "god did it." How do birds fly? God lifts them up. What causes superconductivity? God controls the electrons. Science cannot operate like that. So, if you want to test your competing hypothesis, that of ID, you must fit it into the scientific method. You must make predictions and test them against the natural world. Untill ID starts doing this, its just a lawyers trick.

 

In other scientific pursuits, such as "How do birds fly?" or "What causes superconductivity?" the competing hypotheses can all be characterized as "natural explanations" and each competing hypothesis is considered "equally possible" until the evidence from observation and experimentation begins to disprove alternate hypotheses. Then and only then is a conclusion ultimately drawn. If the extent of our question is "How do birds fly?", then all we need to do is work out the physics, mechanics and aerodynamics involved and from that we will get a good answer. It's only when we ask ourselves "How did birds get here?" that we need to explain the "big picture." And in that context, methodological naturalism fails because it can never get out of its own way. As I've said repeatedly, restricting your explanations to natural causes only presupposes the natural causes, and now you have to explain those causes, and then the causes behind them, and the causes behind them for as far as the eye can see. That's a box you cannot escape and therefore the ultimate answer can never be discovered… in fact, there is no ultimate answer. On that basis, methodological naturalism gets you nowhere.

 

Methodological naturalism presumes to know the nature and boundaries of nature, presumes to know something about evidence which it hasn't yet gathered, presumes to know that everything can be explained by reference to natural phenomena. This is not objective science. It is forcing science to fit inside a paradigm that you assume to be correct. You want an example of rhetoric? There it is, right there.

 

Your strawmen analogies are just rhetoric. If you want to settle a scientific question, you do so with experiment. ID has not.

 

It's only rhetorical to the extent that you are ill-equipped to answer it, Erasmus.

 

Who among you are actually willing to say that science should steer itself away from certain conclusions? Trapped again, aren't ya?

 

If I had been paying attention, I'd have noticed you dodging this at every opportunity. ID has no experimental support, because it makes no predicitons. To see an evolutionary prediciton, see above posting by Turtle. There are others.

 

Once again, a willful misrepresentation of Intelligent Design. Here are several "predictions" of I.D. Some of which I've already mentioned, although you are loathe to admit it.

 

(1) Machine-like complex structures will be found in biological systems.

 

Care to deny the existence of "molecular machinery"?

 

(2) Instructions for building and operating an organism would be discovered within the cells of the organism.

 

Ooops, look at that. We've got DNA. Shazzaam!!

 

(3) Single cells would be very complex.

 

Heh. Darwin and others believed that cells were simple because they lacked the technology to break down the cell and figure out how it functioned. In that day, the cell was regarded as a simple homogenous blob of undifferentiated matter. Since then, however, science has discovered that a single cell is tremendously complex.

 

(4) Numerous forms will be found in the fossil record which appear suddenly and without any precursors.

 

Ever hear of the "Cambrian Explosion"? And by the way, evolution would predict just the opposite, and yet the Cambrian Explosion is there for all to see.

 

(5) Genes and functional parts would be re-used in different unrelated organisms.

 

Oooo yeah… all the way down to DNA and the Universal Genetic Code. Same information storage, retrieval & processing system used for all living organisms. As intelligent designers ourselves, we tend to do the same thing. (although we're not all that successful!) In drafting, for example, there are standard methods for representing certain design features, and standard protocols for presenting, interpreting, duplicating and executing those instructions. Similarly, parts are interchangeable and similar design themes are employed, even amongst unrelated machines. A motorcycle, for example, might use the same spark plug(s) as a car, and might also burn the same gasoline. These characteristics exist among machines designed by intelligent humans, and the same characteristics exist among biological machines.

 

(6) The genetic code will NOT contain discarded genetic baggage code or functionless "junk DNA".

 

Looks like you guys are hosed here, too. Molecular biologists are now finding uses for stretches of DNA previous referred to as “junk.” John Bodnar, for instance, has found “non-coding DNA in eukaryotic genomes [that] encodes a language which programs organismal growth and development.” To write off so-called "junk DNA" as useless is arrogant premature, because it presumes we already know what we haven't discovered yet. What was regarded as "useless" yesterday may yet prove to be quite useful.

 

And here's another prediction along those lines… the more we delve into DNA, the more layers of coded information we will find, even in the midst of what you NOW like to call "junk DNA", which will make the genetic code as we understand it currently (which is already incredibly complex) look like child's play by comparison. And if that's what we find, then that will be further support of Intelligent Design, and likewise will further discredit Darwin's silly little theory.

 

What's really funny is that the idea that every natural phenomenon has a natural explanation is an idea that cannot be "tested". How do you prove empirically that every natural phenomenon has a natural explanation? You can't!! So once again, when you point your finger at me, you've got three more fingers pointin' back at you!!

 

So what it comes down to is this, guys: The suggestion that I.D. makes no predictions and is "untestable" is just so much hot air and baloney. It is utterly false. You would be well-advised to stop making the claim and start dealing with the issue honestly and stop accusing me of dodging questions.

[goku]

humans and monkeys have evolved, in parallel, from a common, now extinct, ancestor.

they did?! that means we can breed with chimps

horses and donkeys evolved from a common ancestor.

i agree, before the big bang there was nothing.

i'm not so much a ID person as i am a god did it person.

[TRoutMac]

I simply ignored the order not to investigate; I went on my own authority as people are wont to do. I disobeyed.

 

If you disobeyed and investigated the Senator anyway, then you did just what you claim IDers should not do, (that is, violate methological naturalism) and your knowledge and understanding increased as a result in that you were able to discover that the Senator was not capable of the murder. You could not know that until you investigated.

 

Of course, I know you were just being a smart-alek… but even as you thought you were being clever, you only managaed to prove my point. In that analogy, the only RIGHT answer is to investigate every suspect regardless of where that leads and tell your superior to "jam it". You recognized this on an intuitive level, and you acted on it, and you were right to do so. Unfortunately, the undeniable logic of that conflicts directly with what many of you believe about science, evolution, and methodological naturalism.

 

The philosophy of methodological naturalism, if you accept it, prevents you from investigating both "suspects". It insists you must only investigate "Joe Six Pack" even though the Senator appears to be an equally likely suspect. Fortunately, you have sense enough (or so it would appear) to reject that restriction and investigate where the evidence leads you, and if that ends up being a dead-end, then so be it. But you couldn't know that until you investigated.

 

How do you reconcile your very logical and rational reaction to the analogy with a "belief" in methodological naturalism?

[TRoutMac]

Now that did not make any sense at all…You have to invoke the same authority to prevent the authority's criminal investigation. Yet by this legal circular logic you claim that this proves the crime?

 

I said nothing of the sort, Damocles. If you re-read my post, I said that the fact that you're ordered by your superior NOT to investigate the Senator might lead you to be more suspicious of the Senator, and perhaps your superior as well. It doesn't mean that there isn't some other legitimate reason why you shouldn't investigate the Senator and it doesn't necessarily mean the Senator is guilty or even complicit. But it certainly would look pretty "fishy".

 

At any rate, you're merely trying to deflect from the salient point of the analogy which is simply that when you seek a truthful answer, you must be allowed to explore all the hypotheses. If you are restricted from doing so, you are far less likely to discover what is true.

 

Granted, you might discover what is true, but only if the truth already lies within your artificial boundaries. (in other words, maybe Joe Six Pack is really guilty) But if the truth lies beyond the artificial boundaries you've established, then you can look within those boundaries until you're blue in the face, and you will never find the truth.

 

Are you really going to deny this?

[damocles]

I said nothing of the sort, Damocles. If you re-read my post, I said that the fact that you're ordered by your superior NOT to investigate the Senator might lead you to be more suspicious of the Senator, and perhaps your superior as well. It doesn't mean that there isn't some other legitimate reason why you shouldn't investigate the Senator and it doesn't necessarily mean the Senator is guilty or even complicit. But it certainly would look pretty "fishy".

 

At any rate, you're merely trying to deflect from the salient point of the analogy which is simply that when you seek a truthful answer, you must be allowed to explore all the hypotheses. If you are restricted from doing so, you are far less likely to discover what is true.

 

Granted, you might discover what is true, but only if the truth already lies within your artificial boundaries. (in other words, maybe Joe Six Pack is really guilty) But if the truth lies beyond the artificial boundaries you've established, then you can look within those boundaries until you're blue in the face, and you will never find the truth.

 

Are you really going to deny this?

 

Waste of of my time. That debunked argument is DEAD. Test for god.

 

Go in peace.

[TRoutMac]

Waste of of my time. That debunked argument is DEAD. Test for god.

 

Oh, I see. Once Damocles declares an argument "DEAD", then it's "dead". Nevermind why it's dead. Nevermind an explanation… Damocles said it, therefore it's true and there can be no debate on the issue. Sorry, I didn't understand this previously. My mistake… I thought this was a "science" forum.

 

By the way, I'll take your non-answer as a "No."