Does ID predict genetic similarity?

When we understood little about how the things around us worked, there were those who would say "this must require magic and miracles, therefore intelligent design."

Now, as we learn more and more, and detect "principles", there are growing numbers who say "ah, magic is not required as there are principles, therefore intelligent design."

"Intelligent design" seems to be able to predict everything and nothing.

Why? Intelligence is notable for improvisation and flexibility.

I think the mistake you're making here is thinking that Darwinism is making an argument from design in the sense that it would predict suboptimal design. It doesn't. As you say, it's compatible with both optimal and suboptimal.

Rather, the argument starts when apparent optimal design is presented as evidence for I.D., as if it's a prediction of I.D. Then, when apparent suboptimal design is pointed out, the I.D.ists say that that also is compatible with I.D. So, the "Darwinist" then points out that I.D. (like Darwinism) doesn't actually predict whether we should see apparent optimal, sub-optimal design or both. Darwinism itself is not making design predictions (apparent suboptimal isn't essential to the theory).

So, gone is the proposed evidence for I.D.

Intelligence is notoriously unpredictable, it has to be said, even when we're familiar with the species doing the designing. When we're not.......!

Evolution can't choose to do without them. Why would your intelligent designer necessarily choose there to be principles? What binds him to do so?

We're constrained by the physical world, for sure. We can't do magic.

Is that a royal "we"? And why would we expect it? If a designer is designing a world, why is he expected to design any particular type of world?

Be careful about making observations of the world, and then convincing yourself that an observation (there are principles) is a prediction of the hypothesis "the world is intelligently designed".

That's not how it works. The prediction should be necessary to the hypothesis. The designer would have to be bound to design a world of principles in order for principles to be an I.D. prediction.

"Principles" aren't a necessary prediction of the hypothesis that the world was intelligently designed, are they?

I'm well aware of your beliefs, but they have nothing to do with what an I.D. hypothesis would predict.

To summarize: Principles are not a prediction of the hypothesis that the world was intelligently designed.

All of which misses the point. Neither principles nor a physical universe are predictions of an intelligent design hypothesis.

An intelligent designer isn't limited to anything, is it? So, we can easily answer the question in the O.P. title.

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Does ID predict genetic similarity?

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No. ID doesn't predict anything. Take this hypothesis:

Our biosphere was intelligently designed.

What would the intelligent design of our biosphere necessarily imply? Nothing.

Indeed. Just like the hypothesis that evolution was designed. No predictions.

As we don't know what it is, we can only speculate on what its limitations might be.

But what are the predictions of the hypothesis that evolution on this planet (and therefore a nested hierarchy) is intelligently designed? What would this necessarily entail?

I remember the thread, which was where I pointed out to others that you hadn't strayed from naturalism in the implications of your posts at that point.

But I didn't agree that your specific hypothesis made the predictions you claimed. And I thought that there were other more plausible front loading hypotheses.

On this thread, I think that the phrase "rational design" is problematic, and requires a rigorous definition if it's to be useful.

Could the kind of rock arch called a "natural bridge" be said to exhibit rational design if it functioned perfectly as a means by which animals could cross from A to B avoiding a gully and/or stream? If not, why not?

And could the water cycle, which has an essential function for larger land organisms, be said to exhibit rational design?

You did miss my point. I asked GDR:

I was referring to a hypothetical designer of worlds and principles, not one which is constrained by this physical universe.

That there are principles and that we are in a physical universe are observations, not predictions of the hypothesis "an intelligent designer made the world".

You may say it, but unless you can demonstrate that your designer is constrained to design only worlds with principles, you'll just be making an unsupported claim. What or who constrains your designer?

Principles. Again, you can't support your last two sentences, yet you want to state "a designer would be bound to use them [principles]" as if it's a fact, after having seemed to agree that principles are not a prediction of an I.D. hypothesis.

My first post under this subtitle was one in which I was laughing at people who would consider both the breaking or absence of principles (miracles) and the principles themselves as evidence for a supreme intelligent designer.

It's surprising how many theists do actually think like that.

So I said: "Make up your minds."

I'd be fascinated to know how you know this.

What I'm saying here is straightforward.

Let's look at the hypothesis: "The world was intelligently designed."

If we found ourselves in a world in which magic seemed to operate freely and there were no rules, that's perfectly compatible with the hypothesis. If we found ourselves in a world which seemed to operate very consistently on predictable laws, but we identified the occasional miracle that broke those laws, that's perfectly compatible with the hypothesis. And if we found ourselves in a world that appeared to have set physical principles that were never to our knowledge broken, that's perfectly consistent with the hypothesis.

So, that general I.D. hypothesis makes no predictions concerning principles (or miracles), which was what I was trying to explain to GDR. A prediction would be necessary to the hypothesis, not just compatible.

The O.P. question is straightforward. The answer is "no", the general hypothesis of an intelligently designed biosphere doesn't predict genetic similarity (or anything else, when you think about it) but it is compatible with it.

How fascinating. I don't doubt it.

Now, if you're in some way trying to defend the view that principles are a prediction of the hypothesis that the world was intelligently designed, then could you actually do it? You would need to make the case that intelligent designers of worlds are constrained by some force that obliges them to create worlds with principles.

So, let's start with this constraining force which leaves them without choice on the matter. What is it?

Edited by bluegenes, : missing letter

A hypothesis isn't a prediction (in the scientific sense of prediction). It is a proposed explanation of something that should make predictions. These would be things necessarily true if the hypothesis was true.

Of course you can hypothesise to your heart's content. But what I was asking you to do was to demonstrate that principles are a prediction of intelligent design.

Also, brains. Actually, we observe that we are subject to principles (the constraints of the physical world). That's why I can't design a magic carpet and a pair of seven league boots for you, much though I'd love to. It isn't by choice. So your observation here would be that known designers (us) are subject to principles.

You then seem to want to make an inductive inference, based on your observation of ourselves as designers. You could make many of these, and put them forward as hypotheses. All designers design with brains, all designers are animals, all designers are subject to principles etc.

A prediction of that last one would be that, if there were a designer of this world, he would be subject to principles.

I think you need to understand the difference between a hypothesis and a prediction. The prediction, used in this sense, means something necessary to the hypothesis. If the prediction turned out to be wrong, the hypothesis would be falsified.

If we found out in the future that what we consider to be physical principles of this world are actually all broken somewhere in the universe, and the place is actually completely unpredictable, that would not falsify the hypothesis that this world is intelligently designed, would it? Therefore, principles are not a prediction of that hypothesis.

Here's the exchange:

How do you know that it's logical? Or did you mean "it seems logical to me" or "it seems reasonable to me." Note that GDR uses such tentative language when he makes similar claims.

But I'm glad that we're agreed. You do not know that it is logical that any world designed by designers "would have principles put in place that govern how it operated on a mundane day-to-day basis".

Concentrate on the phrase "any world" or your phrase "whatever universe". A prediction of the intelligent design hypothesis would apply to any world. It must be necessary. Therefore, in order to claim that the hypothesis predicts a world like this one in any respect, the designers would have to be obliged to include that feature (whether principles, stars, life, anything else).

Now look below. You're going to make observations about this world, and then claim that it is a logical conclusion that: "IF the universe was created that THEN it was done using a set physical principles that guide how it operates".

Your mistake is substituting "this universe" for "whatever universe" or "any world". What we observe in this universe would have been created if this universe was created. Yes, of course. That doesn't mean that anything we observe in this world is necessary to all possible created worlds.

It doesn't matter which of the three that we're in. My point was that I.D. is compatible with all of them.

Do you see the point, now? Sure, it's logical to conclude that, if this world was created, anything we observe in the world (including principles) was created. But that does not mean that I.D. of the world predicts principles (or stars), just as I.D. of biology doesn't predict genetic similarity.

But you don't seem to agree. Shortage of information is not the point. That the I.D. hypothesis is compatible with both magic and non-magic is. It's compatible with anything. It doesn't predict anything about the world, so nothing falsifies it.

Most of what you're misunderstanding on that other thread is different from what you don't seem to be able to grasp on this one.