Hi marc. I noticed that in response to my request (which you quoted) for a description of an experiment that would support a design inference, you did not actually describe any sort of experiment. That request still stands, because you still haven't shown anything to back up your earlier assertion about how "ID ... can experiment and observe a subsequent ~design~ ...".
In case you're not familiar with how to describe an experiment: you begin by stating a particular prediction based on a chosen hypothesis; you then lay out a procedure for gathering specific observations that will provide the information needed to determine whether the prediction is right or wrong. {AbE: Note that this doesn't have to involve direct manipulations in a lab; describing any relevant set of real-world observations would suffice.} Have you ever seen any such procedure described (let alone actually carried out) with regard to a prediction based on ID? I haven't. That request is still open.
Regarding some of the material quoted from Demski:
Demski writes:
If biologists really understood the emergence of biological complexity in purely material terms, intelligent design couldn’t even get off the ground.
So, who (besides Demski) is saying that ID has gotten "off the ground"? Where are the peer-reviewed journal articles citing works by ID proponents as making notable contributions to biology or providing a basis for research? So far, ID proponents have only been publishing polemic books aimed at the general public (and only appreciated by the religious right); they haven't been reporting any research results.
Demski writes:
The fact that they don’t accounts for ID’s quick rise in public consciousness.
On the contrary, the quick rise in public consciousness about ID is attributable to PR campaigns by ID proponents, pushing fundamentalist groups into a frenzy of activism directed at school boards and state legislatures. Another source of publicity for ID, of course, has been the negative impact of the legal decisions that recognize the religious foundations of ID. In any case, the things that qualified biologists do, think, and understand have had nothing at all to do with the "rise and fall" of ID.
This was an interesting snippet:
Demski writes:
Even efforts to overturn the various criteria for detecting design are welcome within the intelligent design research program. (That’s part of keeping the program honest.)
So how soon will an ID proponent be coming out with the book that accurately and honestly reviews the recent research results on blood clotting in the various species that lack certain of the components that made this process "irreducibly complex"? That research has been done, results are in, and the claims made by Behe have been refuted; now it's just a matter of ID authors getting around to the part about "keeping the program honest."
BTW, you didn't didn't say anything (or quote anything from Demski) to address my point about the difference between ID and other kinds of "design detection" -- let me recap: The point is that we need to know the physical properties and behaviors of a purported "designer" in order to establish an objective basis for concluding that something is designed by some entity for some purpose; without this, an IDer asserting a "design inference" is just making up a story about an unknowable "designer", and closing up shop on further investigation.
{AbE: This is also fully understood by every school-age child. Alas, this notion does get in the way when people consider donating a kidney...}
Every school age child? We’ll never agree on that — school children are impressionable when they see authorities making statements that favor one worldview over another.
Oh? Well, I guess this has never been tested, because contrary to what you seemed to be asserting earlier, no teacher at any school has ever tried to tell children, "If you remove the lungs from this frog, it won't die, because the creatures that frogs evolved from didn't have lungs" (or something to that effect). Any teacher who tried would be an instant laughing stock for the students. That is what I understood from the portion of your earlier post that I quoted -- shown here again:
marc9000 writes:
When we tell students that Irreducible complexity is falsified, we imply that the removal of one part of a complex system CAN’T cause the entire system to come to a standstill...
Now, if you didn't really mean it the way I took it, I apologize for the misunderstanding -- but you should work on improving your clarity. In particular, the debate is not about "removing a part of a complex system". It's about how a complex system is able to develop from less complex systems, given that we have observed living organisms in which some components of the system are in fact absent, and that we can trace the genetic relatedness between organisms that lack and others that possess the components in question. In the case of the blood clotting cascade, Behe's claims of irreducible complexity have been shown to arise from the fact (established at the Dover trial) that Behe himself is uninformed about -- and seemingly not interested in -- recent research on the topic.
marc9000 writes:
You haven’t misrepresented,
That's good to know. Thanks.
... you’ve just gone down a path that ignores the big picture. An acceptance of ID into science doesn’t mean a takeover of science by ID. The Wedge Document isn’t about force, it’s about voluntary acceptance, through common sense.
You've lost me there. How do the goals of the Wedge Document constitute "common sense"? How does a strategy to promote a specific, sectarian religious view relate to any sort of "big picture" (as opposed to dogmatic tunnel-vision)?
If ID claims it has a last word, a closing of the door on further research, it can’t prevent other people, other scientists in other labs, from doing more research. But an ID claim of a last word can provide a little more of a motive for godless scientists to do something with more time restrained, result oriented research.
The scientific community is, I'm sure, truly grateful for all that (even those scientists who are in fact
not "godless"). But they were doing just fine before ID was "invented", and they would continue doing just fine without it.
Science can’t do everything, and maybe it needs something like ID to discourage it from trying to do things that it can’t do.
Religion has been trying to do that for a few hundred years now, and on the whole, the less success religion has in that pursuit, the better off we are as a species. To quote another author on this forum: "we've tried ignorance, and it doesn't work."
Science doesn’t know what the nature of consciousness is, or how conscious mental activity arises out of physical brain activity... why the universe exists... why the universe has three spatial dimensions and only one time dimension... what the nature of mass is...
Religion doesn't score very well on any of those topics either, frankly -- even that part about why the universe exists: all Christians can say is "only God knows", which is no answer at all. And let's face it, science doesn't care "why", and doesn't need to -- it's enough that science be concerned with questions like "how did this come about?", "how does this really work?", and "what is going to happen next?" Those are the questions that matter in any sort of common sense view, and there's no point holding science back from addressing them.
... it’s constantly stated and implied that all gaps in the past have been naturalistically filled in, so future gaps will be naturalistically filled in as well. It’s not logical for open minded people to assume that...
Open minded people are not just assuming that -- they are drawing the conclusion based on experience and observation, and that's quite logical.
marc9000 writes:
The subject of ID has nothing to do with creation or the Bible.
That has been disproven -- in a court of law, no less...
It matters little what the ACLU warchest was able to buy.
The ACLU didn't have to buy
Of Pandas and People (the Dover school board bought it) -- that book and its editorial history are just the most obvious linkage between ID and Christian fundamentalism. Virtually every endorsement of ID is religiously based, and the ACLU isn't paying for that either.
You can deny it as much as you like, but you won't be convincing anyone, least of all the fundamentalist Christians who are still trying to cling to ID as if it were actually likely to do them any good (which it won't). Hmm. This leads to an interesting hypothesis:
If you yourself happen to be a fundamentalist Christian, then this implies that you, being also an ID proponent, cannot really convince yourself that ID is completely independent from your religion, which means that your own assertion ("ID has nothing to do with creation or the Bible") would be either duplicity (i.e. lying) or some odd form of self-delusion.
Edited by Otto Tellick, : minor style edit to first paragraph, addition (as noted) in second paragraph.
Edited by Otto Tellick, : fixed typo in what was previously added
Edited by Otto Tellick, : another typo repair
autotelic adj. (of an entity or event) having within itself the purpose of its existence or happening.
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