What exactly is ID?

I wouldn't call those statements irrational in themselves. When those were compared in the context of what we were debating, definitions of ID and Creationism, it was quite a bit of a stretch. I had the impression you were grasping for something because that particular part of your debate wasn't going in your favor. Easy enoughCreationism - trees before sunlight
ID - sunlight before treesCreationism - organisms created supernaturally with features intact
ID - creatures evolved but cannot outrule supernatural interventionCreationism is faith based
ID is empirically based Common descent is true; yet the explanation of common descent-even the common descent of humans and chimps-although fascinating, is in a profound sense trivial. - "The Edge of Evolution" by Michael BeheThe above from that book is something from the ID camp and I accept it as a likely explanation. There is also something from chaos theory called strange attractors that may have something to do with common descent.I may get back to some of those other messages later. Adios amigos!Oh,..and just to clear up some confusion,... ID is falsifiable. To falsify the ID position on something like the flagellum, all you have to do is prove there is an unambiguous example of an unintelligent process that can produce a flagellum.The position from science is that there is no intelligent process that can assemble a flagellum. To falsify that claim, you would have to prove that the system could not have been assembled from an infinitely large amount of unintelligent processes. Is that even possible?So which position is more falsifiable? You see,... you have to get rid of the brain washing! LOLEdited by traderdrew, : No reason given.

I'd call this a trivial difference, but doesn't it imply one of two alternatives about the designer:
1. The designer designed and built the sun before life
2. The sun pre-existed the design of lifeWhich is it? One implies a universe creating designer; the other worked with conditions that already existed. Does ID offer any evidence either way? In either case isn't it clear that the designer cannot be the same as the god of a literally interpreted bible? Both of these beg the question of limitations to the creator/designers powers or methods. I don't think many creationists will agree that created creatures cannot change, and while nobody can disprove (outrule) supernatural intervention, there is no evidence suggesting that these supernatural limitations exist. If the creator has undefined supernatural powers there is no evidence to suggest that there are limitations on the ability of the creations to change without direct supernatural intervention. The argument works both ways and is therefore meaningless. Even if ID is given the benefit of all possible doubt, it is nothing more than a thought-experiment with no unequivocol evidence supporting it. It is tainted by the religious wing-nuts who tied it into their scheme for mandating religious indoctrination for children in public schools. Since Behe, Dembski and all the rest are closely associated with the people who are running that con-game there is little point in trying to elevate them to the status of pure-science gurus instead of recognizing them for the paid religious hacks they are.If there actually is a real Intelligent Design movement I suggest that they make a clean break with the people whose actions would shame 419 scammers. Strange attractors and Chaos theory are described by mathematical formulae. This is no better than the "ID is explained by quantum mechanics" crowd. If you don't have the math, don't make the claim. I only know a little about chaos theory but I do know that there's no possible way ID can be described by use of attractors.A final question: Is there absolutely any difference between a designer and a creator that's not just symantics?

Well, you were wrong. So if an intelligent designer designed trees and the sun, but instantiated trees before the sun ... that would not be intelligent design? In the first place, there is nothing in ID that affirms evolution.In the second place creationists are now having to admit evolution. For example, the following picture is taken from the creationist website Answers in Genesis --- Except that creationists claim that they have evidence, and the opponents of ID claim that it is faith-based. I'll grant you that that's not creationism. But then, according to Thaxton's definition, it's not ID either.But also, I asked you for an argument for ID that was not also an argument for creationism. Now, when Behe admits the truth of common descent, that is not an argument for ID is it? Is the fact of common descent an argument for ID? How? No. Absolutely not. Who told you this absurd lie and why did you believe them?Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Well yes, I have not disputed that. I have already posted some comments about a literal interpretation of Genesis in this very thread. There may have very well been more than one designer.I have noticed some discussion about the Rosetta stone around here. Who says there was only one designer for the stone? It may have been a team effort or maybe a king wanted it built and employed surrogates. It is the job of science to help determine what the tentative edge of natural evolution is. I would argue ID has scientific roots. Remember my recent comment, ID is falsifiable. All you have to do is find an unambiguous natural explanation.I don't know why the creator (if the designer is God) choose to hide himself. It may have been for philisophical reasons. That was obviously wasn't mean't to persuade anyone. I would be a lot more impressed if you refuted the substance of the debates. Doesn't this comment describe what is called an "ad hominem"? So you know a little but but you do know that it is impossible. If it is that simple, why don't you just tell us why instead of just beating around the bush? Creator would imply the God of the bible or possibly some other religion and the term designer would expand the possibilities to encompass a larger view of hypotheses.Edited by traderdrew, : No reason given.Edited by traderdrew, : No reason given.

I think you miss the one of the premises of intelligent design. Remember, ID is emprically based. We have not found the designer directly. We search for the fingerprints or the evidence left behind and we believe intelligent causations can best explain certain things. So ID does not allow evolution? You have a point but are Creationists really critical of their own evidence? Do they not try to shoehorn it into a framework that came from a materialistic paradigm? This this a paradigm that shouldn't be interpreted in that way? You may laugh at this because some of you may not think I am critical of my views. First of all, I think there are a lot of people around here who "assume" or wish to believe that scientists have figured out or "will figure things out" = "faith" through blind natural processes.Well I am skeptical of Darwinian processes which is basically natural selection acting on mutations. I even will provide this quote from the National Research Council. Natural selection based solely on mutation is probably not an adequate mechanism for evolving complexity.1 Introduction | The Limits of Organic Life in Planetary Systems |The National Academies PressDoctor, you say that I believe some strange things. Well yes I do with some things. Do I believe everything I post around here? Not necessarily. I think some of these things may be possibilities within a larger picture. I like to challenge the boundaries of my paradigms and see things others don't. Maybe the designer isn't concerned about time in the same way we are. Maybe the designer is using quantum physics to change biochemistry. I have been mixing some religious views with my ID and that is something that is difficult not to do. It was me who told me that but come to think of it, you have a point and don't tell us that I am wrong again here because, I agree with you now that I think about it. Science must explain biological organisms through natural and materialistic explantions. Of course there are areas of science such as the engineering sciences which would never dispute intelligent causeations. It was Richard Dawkins who said intelligence might (His view of a remote possibility?) have played a part in the seeding of life here on earth in the film "Expelled".I could have said, "the position from Darwinism is that there is are no intelligent process that can assemble a flagellum."ID partly has its roots in engineering sciences.Just to help maybe clear things up, I am not here to win these debates. Winning can be nice but it is not worth the effort here. I have been coming here because some of you challenge my way of thinking. I would rather discuss these things with other proponents of intelligent design at this point.

From the Discovery Institute's Wedge Strategy -->Wedge Strategy (excerpts):

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We are building on this momentum, broadening the wedge with a positive scientific alternative to materialistic scientific theories, which has come to be called the theory of intelligent design (ID). Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions. ...

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Governing Goals

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To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies.

To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.

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See also the complete introduction, which includes:

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Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture seeks nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies. Bringing together leading scholars from the natural sciences and those from the humanities and social sciences, the Center explores how new developments in biology, physics and cognitive science raise serious doubts about scientific materialism and have re-opened the case for a broadly theistic understanding of nature.

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The Discovery Institute is the leading force behind the modern ID movement.Care to show me the science there? The laboratories? The research budget? The discoveries?I think the evidence is clear: The Discovery Institute is a propaganda organization pushing a particular religious fundamentalism. It's only goal pertaining to science is to destroy any part of science that dares to contradict that religious belief. They used to pretend that they were doing science, or at least try to, but in the last few years they've largely given up that pretense.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

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Okay then, what are the limits to his power? What could he have created and what can't he have created?

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We do not know, nor is it important.

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Now, we are getting somewhere. OKay, so you think that the "designer" is a human. Do you have a name? Is he someone I know?

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No I do not. Some animals are intelligent also. I'm talking about intelligence.

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So, now you are a Young Earth Creationist claiming that ALL planets and animals which ever existed were alive and well in the Garden of Eden and everything has gone downhill since.

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And you're a chance worshipper.

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I'm going to do an experiment and throw a cardboard box out the window to see if people can create flying machines. BRB.

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Nope. Didn't work. So, since I did ONE experiment in which I failed to make a machine that can fly, therefore no machine in the past present or future has been capable of flight.

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THAT'S your argument above. Since these scientists running THIS ONE experiment failed to achieve what they set out to, it must be IMPOSSIBLE for it to have ever happened.

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There are tons of experiments like that. Always showing that evolution is a one way street. Towards less, not towards more.

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If familiarity with theory and observation in biology made people agree with creationist nonsense, then the scientific community would agree with it instead of regarding creationists as blithering nincompoops.

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Here, for example, is a statement released by the Genetics Society of America.

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Without evolutionary theory, we would be forced to completely discard much of what we understand about fields such as genetics. [...] "Scientific creationism," "intelligent design," and other terms have been offered as alternative explanations for past and present biological processes. However, these represent a collection of beliefs usually based on a literal interpretation of religious texts and are thus disguises for religious doctrine, and not scientific theories. They ignore the empirical data around us.

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Now, I think that they know something more than you do about the theory, practice, and observations of genetic science.

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Name me one fact you would have to let go if you accepted ID.

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I said that it was atypical, not unique; and I should still like to know why you consider not dying not to constitute a biological function.

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Not dying, as in living, is a whole set of biological functions. And having one of those functions deteriorate is not a new function. Regardless of beneficial by-products.

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I guess that's why I said no such thing.

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Yes you did. Not being able to get infected by malaria by deforming red blood cells, is the exact same thing as damaging your HDD so it won't get infected by viruses. It's identical.

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But it is clearly not --- he is talking about a reduction of fitness leading to extinction of the species.

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That's because genetic entropy also leads to reduction in fitnes. But, every single drop in genetic information does not always mean reduction in fitnes. It may be an increase.

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The method.

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If you announced that you were going to weigh Mars, and I asked how, and you replied: "In kilograms", I should find your answer equally shifty and evasive.

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Give me the method. We need to be able to feed in a DNA sequence and get out an answer in bits. If you can't do that, then you can't make your argument meaningful, let alone correct.

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I've described the method countless times already. Not only on this, but on other topics also.

The rest of the quote reads as follows: So you neatly avoid these other details. You quote the one sentence as if to imply that reputable scientists are somehow "not convinced" about Darwinism. Your quote mining fails.

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What's wrong about it is that it isn't the claim we were talking about. What we are talking about is your assertion that the mutated enzymes did not have any function.

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It's not my problem you simply asset that it could have gained a new function in that experiment. Nobody said it did gain it. So we have no reason to think it did. All we know it lost one.

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Then all this business about 50 proteins and limits on mutation are completely irrelevant. They've got nothing to do with the specification.

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Of course they do. Because not all patterns fit that description. And it just so happens that the 50 proteins that make the flagellum do.

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p144 is in the SAME chapter. (Chapter 5 - titled Specification). And yes, it does contain information without which your definition is not complete. Indeed you should have known that the definitions of the terms were missing and that your definition was incomplete without me even having to tell you.

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It's a different sub-chapter. Anyway, we were not talking about hose 8 steps. I simply said I would define specification.

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Because it uses a fabrication instead of a valid specification. Of course I've told you this often enough that you know it already.

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Does the flagellum fit the description of "bidirectional rotary motor-driven propeller"?

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No, you didn't give me your calculation, just the result. I've demonstrated why your calculation is wrong with a simple example. I've told you how to do it correctly. If you can't be bothered then that's not my problem.

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Than stop bothering me and do it yourself.

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Of course it is the specification that matters, not the event.

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Both matter. You have to have an event from which one you will read off the pattern that it exhibits.

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Of course, I have alreeady refuted this objection.

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When, where and how?

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However, please show me how you derive the complete description of the E Coli flagellum from your specification "bidirectional rotary motor-driven propeller".

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Now that's too easy. It has a shaft, a rotor, a motor, a stator, it rotates in both directions, and it has a propeller.

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No, in this context regularity does not equal natural law. All high probability events are assigned to regularity according to the Explanatory Filter. The growth of the flagellum is a high probability event and the immediate cause is those mechanisms. There is no rule excluding mechanisms that "might be designed" from the list of possible explanations. All you can do about them is look to see if they are designed - which you don't want to do.

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Again, if that were ture. Than living organisms themselves are a high probability event. Simply becasue they grow every single time from the embryo. Therefore, by your logic, they are not designed, neitehr is anything else.

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Really ? You're saying that Dembski's method CAN'T work because whatever specification you choose the probability will always come out high ?

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No, that's YOUR method. Noth his. Your are misinterpreting his method.

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So what you are saying is that Dembski's logic is wrong, because ALL design is implemented through intermediate processes. It's an odd point of view. Certainly there are human designers who work directly with materials, or who employ craftsmen to hand-build objects.

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And by your logic, I would claim that it is not human intelligence that made those objects, but their material hands. And than I would claim that when you take into account human hands, than a book or a letter is a high probability event. Which is insane.

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Which means that you have to deal with the growth mechanisms rather than the flagellum itself.

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Oh, let's be honest. What you are trying to do is to stick with the only calculation you've got, even though it's completely wrong.

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No. If we went by your logic than nothing could be calculated. Not even the human eye, or anything else. Because it all grows from the embryo. Yet, for the billionth time, growth does nto account for the information that makes humans, it only expresses it.

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Sickle-cell is mainly found in Africa, not Europe. And, as I have said, the frequency is maintained by selection at a level well short of fixation.

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And I'm talking about HIV resistance. Both mutations are highly prevalent and fixed into their respective populations.

It's not important for you to know whether or not the thing you are attributing with the ability to create has the power to create?Do you not see the flaw in this argument? I see. So you think he's an animal. What kind of animal? Domesticated? Does it have fangs? Fur? Give us a hint so we can go looking. Except that that is a lie and I suspect you know it.I'll name ONE experiment which pops to the top of my head.The E. Coli/Citrate experiment in which a colony of E. Coli is raised and monitored FOR 20 YEARS! in a nutrient poor/citrate high environment. E. Coli normally can not consume citrate. However, as a result of a couple of mutation, A NEW ABILITY emerged allowing them to exploit the rich untapped resource.

Reality.

And this is why it is not science. You arrive at a conclusion (designerdidit), then look for "evidence" to fit your conclusion.

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Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people
-Carl SaganFor me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
-Carl Sagan

I was about ready to lauch into you again but you wrote that last sentence. I'm really tired of you guys. This is a new year. Lighten up. Are you afraid of religion? How about some wisdom? The below came from the Discovery Institute. Questions about Science Education Policy1. Does Discovery Institute favor including the Bible or creationism in science classes or textbooks?Click here for video
No. Discovery Institute is not a creationist organization, and it does not favor including either creationism or the Bible in biology textbooks or science classes.2. Is Discovery Institute trying to eliminate, reduce or censor the coverage of evolution in textbooks?Click here for video
No. Far from reducing the coverage of evolution, Discovery Institute seeks to increase the coverage of evolution in textbooks. It believes that evolution should be fully and completely presented to students, and they should learn more about evolutionary theory, including its unresolved issues. The true censors are those who want to stop any discussion of the scientific weaknesses of evolutionary theory.3. Should public schools require the teaching of intelligent design?No. Instead of mandating intelligent design, Discovery Institute recommends that states and school districts focus on teaching students more about evolutionary theory, including telling them about some of the theory's problems that have been discussed in peer-reviewed science journals. In other words, evolution should be taught as a scientific theory that is open to critical scrutiny, not as a sacred dogma that can't be questioned. We believe this is a common-sense approach that will benefit students, teachers, and parents.4. Is teaching about intelligent design unconstitutional?Although Discovery Institute does not advocate requiring the teaching of intelligent design in public schools, it does believe there is nothing unconstitutional about discussing the scientific theory of design in the classroom. In addition, the Institute opposes efforts to persecute individual teachers who may wish to discuss the scientific debate over design in a pedagogically appropriate manner.

OK, then show me the precursors to how endosymbiosis or symbiogenesis the flagellum and tell me how those precursors were created in the first place. Then show me why the new hybrid creation wouldn't have rejected the new information and how it all fit together.