Could bio-design and rapid geo-column be introduced in science courses?

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
^ OK - modify design in (i) and (ii) to design by a higher intelligence.

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And this, of course TB, is where your special pleading falls completely flat. Changing the wording in your original post on this to reflect your new caveat:

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i) Many publishing scientists would say that molecular, cellular and/or organismal data, whether completely conclusive or not, suggests intelligent design

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This assertion is utterly unsupported. Outside of a very limited circle of devoted creationists who also happen to have PhDs in one or the other discipline (being educated doesn't imply being right), there are few if any "publishing scientists" who hold with your views concerning ID. And I'd be willing to bet that the ones that DO publish never mention their Design hypothesis - not because they couldn't get it published, but rather because there's no science involved. This is pure argument from authority with no validity in science. Haven't the creationists been beaten up enough in the courts on this?

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(ii) That view is not represented in contemporary mainstream literature

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No kidding. But I submit that it isn't from any bias - except against bad science. I have asked a million times for actual physical evidence - with concrete examples from nature - for ANY evidence in favor of design. All I've ever gotten in reply is argument from incredulity (a la Paley's watchmaker) or god-of-the-gaps. You personally have been offered the opportunity by Joe Meert on this very board to submit a solid article to a peer-reviewed journal. Okay, you can't be bothered. Fine - but this renders your insistence that Design can't be published because of bias moot.Your fundamental problem is that you are asking for special consideration. You are missing the point that no hypothesis that purports to be scientific should be subjected to any less scrutiny than any other scientific hypothesis. Especially, as is the case with ID for example, where the hypothesis seeks to provide a radically "new" paradigm that would appear to overthrow the accepted, rigorously peer-reviewed results of multiply converging lines of research from multiple disciplines. In other words, there should be no "special pleading" from anyone who wishes their hypothesis to be taken seriously by the scientific community. Even sciences with significant historical components such as paleontology or evolutionary biology base their inferences on demonstrable, replicatable observations and testable predictions. The sole criteria is that provisional acceptance of a hypothesis should be based on evidence - not philosophy or metaphysics, but actual evidence.Until ID can come up with evidence, it remains simply another perpetual-motion machine idea. Except as an interesting aside, it has no place in science class.

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
Quetzal

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I think you'd be surprised at the number of scientists who think the data argues or strongly hints at an intelligent origin of life. ID/IC is a valid arguement and has far, far more support than YEC.

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You're probably right - I would be surprised if there was any large number of scientists who think this. However, given tens of thousands of active scientists working on some aspect of biology, botany, genetics, paleontology, geology or other discipline or sub-discipline of natural history, I would be even more surprised if you couldn't find some that hold to just about any belief you'd care to name. The evidence suggests that scientists are as human - and as fallible - as any other person. Throw in the occasional spurious degree, and you can use "argument from authority" to prove anything you want to prove. Which is why it's an invalid approach. The neat thing about scientific enquiry is its built-in error-correction methodology. Science is designed to weed out really untenable ideas.

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You seem to be saying that unless a proposal is utterly proved beyond doubt it cannot be presented scientifically. You would have to reject 9 out of 10 research papers ever published if that was the case.

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Nope. Never said that. Never even implied that. I have never said - nor would I ever - that provisional acceptance of a hypothesis must be based on 100% proof, or that the hypothesis must somehow be proven 100% true in all cases immediately. Science is continually evolving (pardon the term). As I’m sure you’re aware, hypotheses, theories, and even scientific laws are subject to revision based on refinements in measurement or new observations. This is even more apparent in brand-new or leading-edge sciences that are pushing the frontiers of scientific knowledge. However, there remains the requirement that there be at least some empirical support for any hypothesis — no matter how wild and speculative it might seem at first glance — before it can even be considered a reasonable first approximation at an explanation. Further research will either provide new supporting evidence, or turn up evidence that will falsify or cause modification of the original hypothesis.So: what is the evidence from nature that ID is a valid hypothesis? Try putting it in the form of: species A shows evidence of design because x, y, z. Or, the codependency of organisms B and C is evidence of design because of q, r, s. See what I mean? Evidence.