Intelligent Design Class to be taught at Cornell University

I wonder if this might be less a science course and more a "socio/religious/philosophical impact of the theory of evolution" course.Or is it an attempt to sneak ID into the curriculum under the cloak of a supposedly social studies type of course.ID's history concerning self-promotion (the BSOW fiasco comes to mind) would indicate the latter is more likely, but I don't think we need be concerned about ID penetration at the college level. Academic and research institutions are where examination of these ideas is supposed to take place. Moving ID into the college classroom while it still has no evidence is premature, but university faculty has a great deal of influence over course curiculums, and there's a long history of professors promoting pet ideas in their classrooms. If there are ID professors out there who want to duke it out against evolution in the halls of science then I am all for it.What I am against is teaching ID in public school science classrooms as if it were an accepted view within science. Since ID is not accepted within science, saying that it is would be equivalent to teaching a lie.--Percy

About junk DNA, recent research over the past few years has revealed that it isn't as non-functional as first thought. In some cases the evidence is direct, in that some kind of function has been identified, and in other cases it is indirect, such as exhibiting a degree of preservation of nucleotide sequences unexpected in non-functional DNA. This is an area of active research.From the IDist perspective I thought her answer was pretty good about trying to detect the degree of correspondence between the amount of actual non-functional DNA versus what one would expect in a design by humans.Of course, from a scientific perspective this approach has a few significant and inherent problems. The quality of human designs varies all over the map. Since it depends on the talent and expertise of the particular person doing the design, it seems problematic for deciding what kind of quality we should expect of an unspecified intelligent designer. And finding no function doesn't mean something isn't designed. For example, the operating system on my computer comes with a complete set of fully non-functional programs that don't do a single constructive thing - they're system tests. And finally, there's no reason to expect that designs by people would have any correspondence to the designs by an unknown intelligent designer.The IDist claim of finding correspondences in nature of human types of designs is hard to fathom. Hannah used the example of a textbook or a machine, but there are no examples of things like this in nature. IDists also like to draw analogies, for instance between boat propellers and the bacterial flagellum. Its difficult to explain the fallacy of implying design from similarity of function. Its such a foreign concept for those of us accustomed to a pragmatic chain-of-evidence approach that its not clear where to even start in a rebuttal, which is one of the qualities of ID that gives it its power.Despite the difficulties, at heart ID fails for easily understood reasons, because its foundation is built from analogies and interpretations instead of from evidence.Hannah said it was finals season at Cornell, which seemed a bit early, so I checked the schedule that can be found at Academic Calendar 2022-2023 | Cornell University Registrar. Exams start May 11. Hmmm.--Percy

The objection isn't to the pursuit of ID. I don't think anyone on the science side objects to the pursuit of any science.The objection is to the IDist preference for offering analogy and conjecture as evidence, and for claiming status as legitimate science when it hasn't been conferred. I guess we think scientific validity should be obtained the old fashioned way, by earning it.Evolutionists have to continually remind ID advocates that it isn't the idea of ID that we object to. No one would be more excited than scientists if true evidence were found of an intelligent force at work in the universe. The objections are to ID's emphasis on promoting itself as science instead of actually doing science. ID will never be true science because the IDist pursuit isn't one of science, but of religion. Ironically, this means that if an intelligent designer is actually out there somewhere, he'll be found by accident by a researcher investigating something else completely, and not by anyone in the ID movement.--Percy

I don't think you really mean to say this. Being right is one thing, misrepresentation is another. Even if ID eventually becomes an accepted viewpoint within science, it isn't today. Saying it is as a means of promotion can be called many things, but "valid" isn't one of them. This would be a legitimate plea were IDists hard at work in the field and in laboratories trying to produce scientifically valid results for presentation in journals and at conferences, but they're not. Their efforts are primarily in promotion. By working on the promotion and not the science, by concentrating on the wedge strategy instead of upon the research, it is guaranteed to always be early days for ID. Look at the traditional creationists, still pleading that is early days after well more than half a century.--Percy

This would be a misinterpretation of what RickJB said, and of one of the principles upon which SETI is based. It isn't the existence of extraterrestrial intelligent life that has been established as a fact, but the possibility of intelligent life arising in the universe that has been established as a fact. The existence of Homo sapiens on the planet Earth is the evidence supporting the possibility of intelligent life arising in the universe.Given that intelligent life has arisen at least once in the universe, SETI concludes that it could possibly have happened more than once and at locations other than Earth.Where ID differs from SETI is that there is no evidence of a single god anywhere ever. ID assumes the existence of something for which there is not a single example. ID cannot claim (not that they don't try) that the IDer could just be an intelligence and not a god because of the problem of infinite regress.--Percy

How many years of lobbying legislatures, school boards and text book publishers do you think it will take for ID to make legitimate scientific progress?The question is rhetorical, of course. ID is a premise based not upon any scientific observations or conundrums, but upon religious belief. And there's nothing wrong with that. The source of an idea cannot be used as an indictment of the idea. The problem is that the apple of ID has not fallen far from the religious tree, beneath whose canopy it remains. The ID apple has to somehow find a way to roll under the science tree so that legitimate scientific investigation can begin. Until it begins, there can be no scientific progress for ID.Or to state the problem more obviously via analogy, how long do you think it would take you to drive from New York to San Francisco at 0 mph? I imagine that after 10 years of sitting on the Cross Bronx Expressway you'd still be yelling to passing traffic, "It's still early days, I'll get to San Francisco yet!"--Percy

All science is based on naturalism.If I could step briefly into admin mode, your claim that SETI is a religious pursuit is generating lots of posts that aren't much related to the original topic. If you feel this is an important issue that deserves some time then I think you should propose a new thread.--Percy

It all depends upon what stage your scientific investigation is at. If you're at the very beginning, which is what you seem to be saying with your repeated claims of "early days", then you have observations or evidence for which you advance a hypothesis for investigation. At this stage it would be proper to ask what evidence or observations your hypothesis was formulated to explain, and what type of evidence you'll be seeking to verify your hypothesis.It will always be early days for ID because no actual scientific investigative work is being done. This is clear from the lack of answers to simple questions like what type of evidence it is seeking.--Percy

You've misunderstood RickJB's point. He was drawing a distinction between inferring a designer of things like cars and computers, since we already know that the designer of cars and computers exists (he is us), and inferring a designer of things like universes and biological organisms, since we've never seen these things designed, and we're not aware of any candidates for the designer of such things, plus there are natural explanations for these things.RickJB's point was that concluding a designer from examining biological organisms is not at all the same thing as concluding a human origin for cars and computers. Is isn't a logical error in reasoning. Based upon the observation that neither creationism generally nor ID specifically has engaged in scientific investigative work up to this point in time, it is therefore assumed that this situation will likely continue on into the future. In other words, I believe that IDists will continue focusing their efforts not on scientific research, but on the lobbying of the public, of legislatures, of state and local school boards, and of textbook publishers. Put another way, I believe they'll continue to do just what they're already doing and not anything else. This is a good starting point. Science begins examination of ID by questioning the initial observation. What is the "evidence of design in nature"? Can you take it beyond the argument, "Anyone looking at biological organisms can see that they were obviously designed"? To give you a flavor of what I'm looking for, Dembski provides an example of such an attempt when he introduces concepts like specified complexity, but he's been unable to apply his concept to actual lifeforms. How would you propose showing that biological organisms are designed?If life is too complex to have arisen on its own and required a designer, then the alien race that designed us must itself have had a designer, which in turn must have had a designer, and which in turn must have had a designer, and so forth ad infinitum. It's an infinite regress unless you say that at some point the designer was God, and that's why, ultimately, ID is religion and doesn't belong in science.--Percy