Design With No Designer

Not only is it unwarranted, ID is not a testable or falsifiable hypothesis and is therefore not science. That is why most IDists fall back on arguments such as "design is self evident" or "an eye could not have evolved step-wise".I have to this day never heard a single proponent of ID put forth a testable hypothesis of ID with empirical evidence to back it up.cheers,
M

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The burden is upon the IDC'ers to reestablish that foundation, but so far all they have proposed are metaphors concerning mousetraps and other products of human design.

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I agree with you. They have to establish a testable hypothesis or they will get nowhere other than crying in their beers about vast conspiracies against them.What I find ironic is that Behe is a biochemist and would probably consider someone a crank if they proposed that oligo concatamers formed in vitro because of a pink unicorn farting in the galactic ether. However, the Flatulant Pink Unicorn or FPU hypothesis is as untestable, unfalsifiable, and ridiculous as ID.Also, almost all the IDists with any kind of scientific degree did their studies in fields that are far removed from evolution like Behe...it would be like a molecular biologist making half wit statements about quantum mechanics at physics meeting and then griping about the vast conspiracy to suppress their glorious ideas.

Hi Mr. H

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Are you gunning for a fellowship at the Discovery Institute or something?

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My scientific career is not that far in the crapper..at least not yet I agree with your observation that IDist and Behe in particular conflates "design" or basically anything that has localized low entropy as a sign of "intelligence" i.e. a salt crystal or a snowflake by his vague definition would be "self-evident" evidence for design. What he never addresses is how then would you distinguish between a complex structure that has been designed or has occurred at random? That is the crux of the non-testable non-falsifiable dilema for the IDists. The second part of the ID argument usually belies the arrogance of the proponents that because they cannot imagine how say a flagella evolved it must therefore have been designed. As if their intellectual capacities are the measure of scientific knowledge. Arguments from ignorance or incredulity are bogus...especially since for pretty much every example Behe and his cohorts have come up with, someone has done research and based on evidence proposed a evolutionary pathway for the structure.The entire ID movement is creationism desguised as science by 1) using scientific terms 2) have spokespeople with Ph.D.'s (in non evolution related fields) 3) avoiding the specific mention of a judeo christian god. However, it is not a scientific hypothesis and thus is no better than the FPU, astrology, voodoo etc.cheers,
M

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Several people here have pointed out that computer algorithms
that operate on the proposed evolutionary principle (heritable
variation + natural selection) can produce elecrical circuit
designs so novel that some companies have patented them ...
only to be confronted with the 'yes but an intelligence wrote
the program' and 'the output was predefined within the program'
arguments that computer models/simulations are always lamblasted
with

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This is also because of the fact that almost all of the IDists/creationists don't know the difference between the theory of evolution and abiogenesis.

Ah yes, the old "evolution can't be true because if you found a 20,000 year old swiss watch on top of a mountain it would be clear evidence of design" schtick...What I love about all the ID examples is they unfailingly pick systems that cannot pass on heritable traits like watches or cars or mousetraps and are therefore completely useless examples. But it probably makes a nice sound bite at the local fundie church in between the dancing with rattlesnakes and speaking in tongues....

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We cannot know how a designer will designer, but there must
be some aspect of intelligently designed artifacts that
can differentiate them from dumb design.

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This is precisely the problem the IDists (or IDiots as I have heard them called on other boards) face. There is no testable hypothesis to differentiate an intelligently designed from naturally designed system. The IDists either use a clearly human fabricated example like a car and then say it can not evolve and then extrapolate it to a biological system (which can pass on traits from one generation to the next) and say they cannot evolve either and were therefore designed. This is not a testable or falsifiable hypothesis (i.e. science) this is arguing from incredulity and the assumption that just because they are not bright enough to come up with a model of evolution of complexity that nobody else can...top that off with a religious agenda and you have a completely worthless pseudo-science movement pressing a creationist agenda while trying to mask itself as actual science....the only thing even remotely clever about the whole thing is that it is a far better PR instrument than having carpet chewing fundies screaming about "atheists darwinists trying to kill go" and other such nonesense..but both groups are fundamentally the same with regards to the scientific merits of their positions.

As someone who works with "junk DNA" it is a term that has served genomics badly since retroelements (which can be extremely important biologically) are often just filtered out of analysis. Though perhaps not something done by IDists in all cases, co-opting a term and then bending it in such a way to misrepresent a field (as you indicate with IDists using junk DNA as evidence of design) is not uncommon. Look at the misuse of "living fossils" by creationists.

actually, I think ID is potentially more destructive to the education system then plane creationism. I would have to postulate that the average carpet chewing sleeps with his bible fundie never had any great interest in persuing a career in science. Thus, regardless of what is taught in school, communities that produce fanatics would not be swayed by logic and would not really be affected by the quality of teaching since their communities would tell them to reject everything that is taught anyway. I mean, how many students who grew up as bible thumpers really suddenly say wow science is great when taking a bio 101 course? How many will ever take a bio course?ID is worse. It clothes itself in pseudo-scientific jargon and tries to present itself as science while simultaneously trying to disguise the religious agenda of its proponents. Thus, a non-religious student with little background may take it seriously if they are taught this nonesense before learning what science really is.

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So you'd rather have an honest obscurantist than a fundie in a lab coat? I see your point.

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Actually, I would like to see science taught properly from kindergarten on...but realistically, this will not occur as education does not seem to be a particularly high priority in most countries...and when the English teacher is responsible for the physics lectures you can imagine the kind of crap a lot of students are exposed to.This is the window of opportunity that the IDists crawl through. If students don't realize that you need a testable hypothesis that can be falsified in order to do science then ID will seem plausible...even with bonehead arguments like "self evidence" of ID. They can also portray science in whatever manner that suits their cause as opposed to how it is practiced. Such cases then leads to some of these nitwits claiming that their pet "theories" are ignored by the big atheists science establishment conspiracy that surpresses their work through peer review...and the ill informed can be swayed with such blatant idiocy.for my part, my only further interest in watching the IDists is to see just one of them even make a half hearted attempt at proposing a testable hypothesis of ID much less supporting it with evidence. ...Behe has not and none of the others have either...I certainly won't hold my breath

Hi Mr. H,Funny that you mention the Soviet Union...I guess the IDists could be compared to Lysenko in terms of completely bogus scientific proposals..I won't say hypothesis as there is no scientific hypothesis of ID

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I could provide many quotes from evolutionary scientists that would demonstrate that this is far from a universal consensus in the scientific community but i will just give you one for now.

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I thought you said you would provide a quote from an evolutionary scientist..instead you provide one from

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It was David Hull, a well-known philosopher of science, who wrote as early as 1965 ..

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...very sloppy.

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there is no more evidence for the metaphysical religion of evolution, but its adherents claim it is empirical science so feel as they dwell in a more intellectual arena. they also claim to have enough evidence, that faith is not even required.

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Now that you got your little rant against science out of the way, take a deep breathe and actually support your assertion