Attn IDers, what would it take...?

he's just banging in copy and paste quotes from ID sites with no comment or theme develoment, and not even referencing the person who is the "ID Theorist"

Warren,Please read the first post in this thread: Style Guides. It will make your interesting posts easier to read.

Yes,and despite all your quoting to illustrate the contrary, it's really simple IMO:until we find a highly obvious sign left behind by the Intelligent Designer (a sort of Killroy Was Here) or at least independant indications of the possible existence of candidate Intelligent Designers (ETs), an ID hypothesis is utterly useless and a waste of time.It serves no purpose other than keeping the 'hope' alive that somehow we would be too good to have been the result of naturalistic processes.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."I understand what he means here, but I think perhaps you do not.We are both using a computer. I type letters on the keyboard and they appear on the screen. I hit submit and they go to the webpage.Unlike a simple machine (say a pulley), I can not see any of the actions that connect the cause and effect.In a type writer, I push a key and it moves a hammer. Here I push a key and it moves electrons.If I knew nothing about how a computer works, I'd have to conclude this was magic.As it stands, I know quite a bit about computers. Enough that I can basically express what's happening. I also know enough to know that there are people out there (computer engineers) who can, in great detail, explain to me every single step of the process connecting all the links.To a layman, advananced technology is magic. To the expert, it's no big deal.I think you are approaching biology as a layman looking for magic.

Annafan: until we find a highly obvious sign left behind by the Intelligent Designer (a sort of Killroy Was Here) or at least independant indications of the possible existence of candidate Intelligent Designers (ETs), an ID hypothesis is utterly useless and a waste of time.Warren: I disagree. You see the world through a non-teleological prism. Non-teleologists need either a message from the designer or some kind of extraordinary evidence (like a demonstration that something could not possibly be explained by a non-teleological process). There is nothing new here. But from where I sit, the non-teleologist is asking for something that would shock them out of their approach. Now, I’m not interested in providing some type of shock for the non-teleologist. I’m interested in whether an explicit teleological approach can carry out a progressive investigation that serves to weaken or strengthen ID hunches and whether it can help expand our understanding of biotic reality.Here's something for you to chew on:"We treat organisms - the parts at least -- as if they were manufactured, as if they were designed, and then we try to work out their functions. End-directed thinking - teleological thinking - is
appropriate in biology because, and only because, organisms seem as if they were manufactured, as if they had been created by an intelligence and put to work.”
Michael Ruse, Darwin and Design: Does evolution have a purpose?, p. 268 (Harvard, 2003)This message has been edited by Warren, 09-19-2005 01:59 PM

There's your problem right there. With ID, there has been no attempted transition from data to theory. There is no data on which to base such a transition. Instead, ID has started as a philosophical hypothesis, and has attempted to jump straight into the theory stage without data.Since you agree that ID is not scientific (in its present form), I'm not really sure that we have much of a disagreement. If the ID folk can actually start collecting credible data, enough to transform their philosophical ideas into a genuine scientific theory, then that would be great. Until they do, it does not belong in the science curriculum.

Sciences generally have both clearly defined terms and vague terms. There can even be vague terms in mathematics.The clearly defined terms are needed to set the criteria for collecting and evaluating facts. For example, a traditional part of biology has been classification (systematics). This requires clear criteria on which to base the classification.The general term "species" may be somewhat vague. The defining characteristics of particular species are usually clear. Where to draw the boundary line between two species may be uncertain, and might require an arbitrary decision. But once that decision has been made, the criteria are usually clear. I'll grant, however, that nature is messy, and there can sometimes be ambiguity.The problem I was trying to point out for ID, is that the basic terminology of the field is not defined well enough to set the criteria that are needed for collecting data.

The IDist looks through a kaleidoscope and sees a wonderful pattern: "lo" he claims, "the probability of this pattern occurring is one in billions, if not zillions" -- regardless of which particular pattern he is viewing.The scientist takes the kaleidoscope apart to see how it works: "lo" he claims, "it is just a pile of colored beads tumbled into any of billions or zillions of completely random distributions, and it is only the mirrors and the viewhole that give it the appearance of design" -- and covers all the possible patterns that you can view."But" says the IDist "look at the complexity of this design, it must have been arranged somehow to end up with this design" ...At which point the scientist goes off, muttering things about post hoc ergo proctor hoc and argument from incredulity logical fallacies.ID as practiced is bankrupt on science (no falsification test) and poor on philosophy\logic (full of logical fallacies).Enjoy.

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by our ability to understand

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Living things are not machines. Living things eat, excrete and reproduce. Can you show me a machine that does that?

Well, I don't know about "reproduce". But when it comes to eat and excrete, there is... CLOACA http://www.newmuseum.org/more_exh_cloaca.php

My info might be out of date. I was quoting from memory a health text book in a class I took 45 years ago.Thanks, great link.