What exactly is ID?

First let me clarify that I am not the poster child for Intelligent Design, and every thing I say is not going to be strictly from the "ID players manual" (if there is such a thing). Nothing I say will contradict ID, but I have made it clear that I am a Young Earth Creationist. Therefore most of what I say will have been filtered through that particular point of view. So let me attempt to get this point across again. From my YEC point of view, I do not understand why you think there needs to be an ID explanation for the skulls? They are not evidence for anything, specially genetic change, therefore why do you want an ID explanation?Secondly I should point out that (as far as I know) Intelligent Design scientists do not study paleontology. That's because ID is the theory that biological organisms exhibit all the tell tale signs of being intelligently designed, which would mean the theory does not directly address fossils. That would be like asking big bang proponents to explain why honey bees die after they sting. I am sure that someone in the big bang camp, who knows something about entomology, could easily answer that question but it is not related to the big bang. Likewise fossils are not directly related to ID. Except if you are trying to present them in a supposed progression and claiming that they are evidence of human development. but then you would have to prove that they are evidence of human progression before it would become necessary for ID to explain that progression. But if it can be easily demonstrated they are not in any way evidence of human development then no explanation is required. And no I am not saying there was no change, what I am saying is that there is no evidence of "human" change.

I see... glad we cleared that one up. Note to self... replying with what is correct does not make you correct. Got it! That's nice and all but Percy your comment was, "why don't you surprise US and finally support something you say with actual evidence." Note the word US clearly demarcates the fact that you did not originally mean "just you." Actually not too "much" but rather too "specific." But I do admit that I foolishly played into your "too much" game. No ID does not really address the quantity but rather the complexity, and the specificity of the information. ID does not address the age of the Earth. My remarks are purely from a YEC perspective and do not reflect ID, as ID is not about the age of anything. Again ID only says that complex specified information has only been observed coming from an intelligent source, and that csi can be observed in the DNA of all living organisms. There is nothing in there about explaining the fossil record. As far as the genetic record goes, there has never been anything observed in biology which could explain how csi in DNA could have formed by natural processes.

I am not sure I follow you here Taq. Do you mean to say: If all X are also Y, Therefore all X ARE Y?
If that is what you mean to say then that would not be a logical fallacy. It would however be an overstatement of the facts if it was not known that all X are also Y. If line one were to read that all observed X are Y (however some unobserved X remain), then the second line should state that thus far it is reasonable to conclude that all X are Y based on all observations. Such a statement is not illogical, and allows for the possibility of being proven wrong at a later time. This is how all scientific theories are formed and no one ever considers them to be "logical fallacies." In case you were not aware, scientists still call the theory of gravity a theory, because they are leaving open the possibility that an exception could come along and disprove the theory.Actually I would say it is you who are committing a logical fallacy here by confusing two different logical premises. I can demonstrate what I mean with an analogy using the old shuffle the cups and ball game. One ball is observed being placed under one of (in this case) eight identical cups and then all the cups get shuffled. But we know from the start that a ball exists under one of the cups and therefore after turning over 6 cups and only coming up with empties, yet we still know that at least one cup has a ball under it. In this case we know that the above logic is false because if all overturned X (cups) are observed Y (empty), we still know (with foreknowledge) that at least one cup is hiding the ball, and therefore all X is already known to NOT be Y (at least once, even though the condition is still yet undiscovered).But in a second situation we have eight cups and no idea what is under any of them from the start. If after we turn over 6 cups and find no balls under any, we can logically conclude that the remaining 2 are likely empty and also have no balls under them. That is not saying that we know for sure that this is the case, that is only making a conclusion based on what has been observed. We have observed what condition exists with 75% of the evidence, and that condition exists 100% of the time thus far. Had we observed even one cup out of the 6 over turned cups to not be empty then the conclusion would have no logical basis.So then under the first logical deduction we started with the "foreknowledge" of a condition of what was under at least one of the cups, but in the second form of logical deduction we start with absolutely no knowledge of what is under the cups. In the case of the first living organisms, you are starting with "assumed" foreknowledge that life must have formed by random unguided processes and therefore just because we have not found "a ball under a cup" one must exist. That is actually the logical fallacy when no known condition exists to suggest that there ever was "a ball."I am not saying for absolute certainty that first life had to have consisted of the kind of complex specificity we observe today, but what I am saying is that from the kind of fossils observed to be left by life that existed more than 75% of earths entire age ago, are the same kinds of fossils left by 100% of the type of complex specified life we observe today. Or put another way, a good tracker can conclude with confident certainty what type of animal made a certain type of foot print in the mud. He does not know with absolute certainty that no other kind of animal could make that foot print, but since in the whole of human experience only one form of animal has been observed making that type of print, his conclusion is warranted. Actually when you count all the different "allele" combinations available, the numbers are staggeringly much higher. One organism often carries with it two alleles of the same gene. When organisms reproduce, their offspring receive one member of each pair of their chromosomes from each of their parents the two members of each pair, are the same genes, but are often different alleles. This means that the potential for variety in their offspring is great. So even in humans where two parents differ by only one allele in each of their 23 chromosomes, that would mean that the mother draws from a set of more than 8,400,000 different ones, and the same goes for the father. That makes the combined potential of variety of offspring more than 70 trillion. More than plenty for natural selection to work with in the existing gene pool to insure survival. But that does not mean that our genetic make up is not incredibly specific to our particular species. And the same argument applies for all the species. We observe changes occur only within the existing gene pool. I think you are mistaken Taq. Here's a link to a letter written to and a response from SETI. As you can see, prime numbers are obviously the key in the search for ETI. But the really funny thing about all of this is you managed to dodge the glaring answer to my question by side tracking the point here. Your original question implied that in order for ID proponents to concluded an intelligence was the cause of life, they would have had to observed an intelligence create a life. My point in bringing up SETI, was that you do not require the same standard for searching for ETI. The truth of the matter is that intelligence is detected through the same means in the search for ID as it is in the search for ETI, and that's the glaring fact you want to dodge at all cost. I think that is exactly what those who believed the fossils were from Mars thought. They looked like a duck and quacked like a duck, and so they thought they were formed by a duck (figuratively speaking of course). If they found fossils of birds on Mars, why wouldn't they think that the birds were every bit as complex as the ones we have on Earth? Yes, as I said, I've seen the picture. And here again is the accompanying link where the picture originates from with clear implied progression. But that is not even the point. Apart from just randomly attacking evolution as you suggest, I clearly and concisely demonstrated that there is no evidence that these skulls are related and especially not all human. Thus there is no "changes" in DNA for ID proponents to explain. And to other microbiologists, shared similarity between (how did you put it) "very dissimilar" life forms could also be a clue to a common designer rather than a common ancestor. I mean there is a reason why all wheels are round. This fact does not in any way imply that all modes of transportation which employ the wheel are related, only that round wheels happen to be the best design for "rolling."

Wow, I haven't seen the "I don't do your homework for you" response in a long while. I should point out to all that what you are actually saying is: "Evolution is true because of the evidence of walkingstick gene mutation, but I am not going to prove the gene mutation really took place, that's on you." Sorry my poker friend, I call. You say you have a full house, so now its your job to show me your cards. Your abstract is not evidence for anything. Note the below quote.quote: "The evolution of wheels was the central adaptation allowing people to escape predators, exploit scattered resources, and disperse into new niches, resulting in radiations into vast numbers of wheeled automobiles. Despite the presumed evolutionary advantages associated with full-sized wheels, nearly all automobiles have many partially wheeled or wheelless lineages, and some entire orders are secondarily wheelless, with about 5% of extant types being roller less. Thousands of independent transitions from a wheel form to wheelless form, have occurred during the course of automobile evolution; however, an evolutionary reversal from a wheelless to a volant form has never been demonstrated clearly for any auto lineage. Such a reversal is considered highly unlikely because complex interactions between barrings, axles, brakes and wheel bushings are required to accommodate controlled rolling. Here we show that automobiles diversified as wheels were derived secondarily, perhaps on many occasions. These results suggest that 're-evolution' of the wheel has had an unrecognized role in auto diversification."I used almost verbatim the exact same language in the above quote as you did in yours. My tale sounds silly only because you and I both know that wheels were designed and not evolved. If I seriously wanted to make a case proving that all wheels were related by common ancestry, then it would fall upon me to provide at least one link to a full paper that provides evidence to that fact. Just a silly abstract doesn't cut it. And its no more your place to try and search for evidence that wheels are related than it is mine to search for similar evidence on walking sticks. If you are going to bring the argument to the table then you are required to support it. Not me. Yes, and a stop sign uses 4 of the same 26 letters that can be found in Darwin's book, Origin of Species. But obviously a lot of new information must be added to the four letters STOP to convert it to an intelligible book. Amoebas to amphibians evolution requires information that codes for eyes, limbs, reproductive organs, brains, lungs, blood vessels, etc... to be added. That is what I am talking about that we do not observe. Biology should show this process taking place at least in some small way. Its not just the adding of more letters, but the very specific arranging of the letters, that needs to be explained as well.

As I am frequently so fond of pointing out, our friends at the SETI institute don't seem to put such a requirement on intelligence. While it is true that the highest levels of csi, so far, have only been observed coming from humans as the source, it is not true that humans are the only observed source of csi. A simple birds nest with its circular bowl shape and also lined with soft feathers, would never be considered to have been formed by random processes. Likewise the clicks, squeaks, and chirps of a dolphin have a very complex and specific language signature that carries information that means something to the sender as well as the receiver.Also I would point out that the more intelligent the entity, the more complex and specific the information has been observed to be. Since we have not even begun to scratch the surface of fully comprehending the complexity of the DNA molecule, (based on observation) such a sophisticated code can be concluded to have originated from a highly intelligent source. One that is much more intelligent than humans.As for your request on calculating information, we have to recognize that there are many different forms of information, but not all information is complex and not all information is specific. We can use Shannon theory to calculate the complexity of information, but we can not use it to determine specificity. The random letters "gbdxuvms," calculate to carry much more complexity than do the two letters "hi," but those two letters are much more specific and mean more to us than the other eight letters do. And the word "glorious" carries an equal amount of complex information as those random eight letters, but it is also a much more specific. Specificity requires that both the sender and the receiver recognize a signal to mean something. When I first heard the word "blepo," it bore no specific meaning to me because I don't speak Greek. But to someone who does, it means to see. Like with the dolphin signals, we recognize that both complex and specific signals (information) require purpose and intent (intelligence). The more complex and specific the signals are, the more intelligent the source must be. We recognize that the arrangement of nucleotides in the DNA molecule is complex. Even evolutionist Richard Dawkins agrees that the amount of information in the DNA of a single celled amoeba is greater than 1000 sets of encyclopedias. However most microbiologists also recognize that not only is it very complex, but it is also very specific.