What IS evidence of design? (CLOSING STATEMENTS ONLY)

Let's rewrite your inductive argument to more accurately reflect what we actually know and what we want to prove.Then new inductive argument becomes:All non-biological IC systems whose origins we know are designed by humans.
A biological system not designed by humans shows IC
The biological system was designed by a non-human intelligent agent.The above is still an attempt at generalization, but surely it is a lot weaker form than the one you were using. Your argument would be helped immensely by observation of some number of biological systems which are known to be designed. But we don't have any of those. I think Jar was correct in calling you on extending your "proof" to biological systems. Is there really any point to going further if you cannot deal with counter-examples to your initial premise?What ID proponents do in order to make this work is to make non-rigorous arguments to the effect that nature cannot produce IC systems. But no real evidence is given to support this claim. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Or perhaps the poster is not a native speaker of English. Nothing wrong with asking for coherency, but the "retarded" crack was uncalled for, your faux disclaimer not withstanding. I'll bet you would never call an adult with a cognitive disability retarded to his face.

Hi NoNukes,I'm not sure what the problem is. Dembski thinks that specified complexity is an indicator for design, and he thinks he has a mathematical method for detecting specified complexity. I place the emphasis on the word "thinks".I believe I've posted links to the Wikipedia article on Dembski a couple times. Since I've been debating his views for years my information on Dembski doesn't come from there because I can go from memory, but it appears to echo pretty much what I've been telling you. I agree with Dembski that if design can be detected that it will be mathematically.--Percy

C'mon Percy. I am trying to drop this.I understood a statement in your message 82 to mean that Dembski had a mathematical definition for design. In response I asked you for pointers to that definition, and of course I did not get any such thing. Your later messages have made it clear that I missed your intended meaning.There is no problem.

Working in reverse it would stand to reason that anything not made by an intelligent (creature, human, animal, being, thingy kabob) is not designed. It takes an act of will to design a thing. So an accidental rock slide causing a water dam is not designed but a beaver dam is. Drift wood is not designed the act of displaying it is designed. The effect of erosion is not designed but the presidents in Mt. Rushmore are.This does not mean that everything created by an intelligent being is designed. If I accidentally spill paint on canvas the resulting picture is not designed but if I intentionally pour paint on canvas the aforementioned picture is designed. So the result of an intentional act by an intelligent being is designed.This is the crux of IC and of SC. You might not like Dembski’s method of getting there but I think most would admit that if a thing has specified complexity then it is designed.

I really doubt it, unless you also think that they would then go on to disagree with Dembski's assertion that there is specified complexity observable in living systems.TTFN,WK

That is exactly what I think. From reading this board it sounds like most of the Darwinists on this board will admit design is self evident when it is the result of a human act. Seems to me that most here would accept specified complexity or intentional order as designed so long as we are familiar with its designer.Since they discount a creator of life out of hand then the same order seen in the living things is not excepted as designed.Edited by havoc, : No reason given.

The concept of irreducible complexity was invented specifically to support the idea of intelligent design. Irreducible complexity implies design because it was defined in such a way that Behe hoped it would eliminate anything but design.If the two ideas are only linked by inductive reasoning, why is it that only those who already believe in design come to the conclusion of design? In this topic, we need to ask ourselves what evidence there is to distinguish the two. What evidence distinguishes a murder from a suicide or an accident?What evidence distinguishes an intentional dam from an accidental one? Irreducible complexity doesn't work. Move on to something that does.

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You can have brevity and clarify, or you can have accuracy and detail, but you can't easily have both. --Percy

[qs=havoc]It takes an act of will to design a thing.So an accidental rock slide causing a water dam is not designed but a beaver dam is.[/quote]Beavers intentionally build dams, but I'm not convinced that beavers design dams.Is the act of will enough to establish design? If I am told to draw a 3 inch circle and I do so using a compass, did either I or my instructor design the circle? Is a definition of design that excludes things like the circle example reasonable.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

What do you mean? Is it a question of understanding why you are doing a thing? If so, I’m not sure of the self awareness of a beaver but I think it must know that it is building a dam to back up the water to improve its habitat.Understanding why an act was done is probably not required to determine whether it is designed or not. Certainly we could find an artifact made by an alien and without having any idea of what their level of self awareness was we could determine that it was designed.

Yes, that's what I was getting at.If the driftwood was moved onto my coffee table by a flood, for example, we could expect to find other evidence of that natural cause - dirt, water marks, etc. In the absence of such evidence, we can reasonably conclude that an object surrounded by human-designed objects was put there by human design.Now, what about the dam? How can you tell whether the rocks fell into the river accidentally or were thrown there by me?Edited by ringo, : Added a hyphen, just for fun. They're cheap.

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You can have brevity and clarify, or you can have accuracy and detail, but you can't easily have both. --Percy

What you think as expressed above is not correct. Essentially all of us, including regardless of our opinions of Behe's or Dembski's theories, accept that we can establish whether an object has been designed when we know the processes by which the objects are made and the intent of those involved.On the other hand, at least some proponents of ID believe that we can determine design without knowing or even speculating about process, intent, or even the nature of the designer. I would not call myself a Darwinist, but I am skeptical that such a thing can be done. In particular, I think Behe's approach is complete bullocks.I don't see anything the least bit inconsistent with those positions.

Im not sure who designed the circle but finding a stone tablet with a circle carved into one would be correct to assume that it was designed.I think the circle question is more conceptual ie: Who is responsible for the design? Which designer gets credit for the circle? Both interesting questions but I think they are outside of evidence of design, you have to already know that a thing was designed before you could get to your question.

My point is that the biological systems far outnumber the human made IC systems. You are using a relatively small number of IC systems from non-reproducing designs to make a generalized statement about a much larger number of IC systems from reproducing organisms that, btw, evolve. Here is the inductive argument.All IC systems of known origin were designed by humans.Therefore, all IC systems of unknown origin were designed by humans.We know this can't be true, therefore IC fails as evidence of design. Therefore, not all IC systems are designed. Period. Until you show that the inductive argument does not require humans as the designer then I would say that the inductive argument has failed.

I would call it non-controversial. When an archaeologist is digging at a site and comes across an arrowhead and an earthworm which one do you think he sends back to a museum as an artefact of intelligent engineering? If you could show us how to measure such things we could certainly entertain it. Surely you need evidence of something before you accept it as true, don't you? Why should we be any different?