Is Intelligent Design An Open Movement?

Sure, I'm a teleologist. But that word is way too broad to cover my specific position. Teleology, broadly speaking, means the view that their is purpose in nature. What, then, is the term for the view that the origin of the biochemical complexity of life was purposeful?

There's no such thing as a Muslim IDist, though, is there?

You mean if I keep promoting the ID movement, I am doing the work of creationists. But I'm not promoting the ID movement. Far from it. I'm simply proposing that biological life was intelligently designed.

Some would call Kenneth Miller a creationist, because, ya know, he believes that a God made all things. You're really stretching the definition of "creationism" when it comes to individuals like Behe, IMHO.

You don't even have a remotely testable leprechaun hypothesis, so the analogy doesn't fit.

Really? Creationism isn't as silly as a simple extension of Crick and Orgel's directed panspermia hypothesis?

Where I come from, the merit of an idea is not determined by how silly it sounds to any one individual.

We do not. The strongest evidence for the hypothesis that life arose through purely non-teleological mechanisms comes from experiments that demonstrate the plausibility of prebiotic synthesis of nucleic acid bases and the capability of polynucleotides to replicate in the absence of protein catalysts. However, the question of the origin of life on Earth is a historical question, and not simply one of plausibility. As such, no amount of evidence for the plausibility of the non-telic hypothesis will be able to establish the historical accuracy of that hypothesis. Yet much (if not most) of the evidence for the non-telic hypothesis merely strengthens its plausibility. For example, observations which demonstrate that RNA can catalyze its own replication say nothing about whether self-replicating RNA was indeed the precursor to modern cellular life. In short, the "overwhelming amount of evidence" for a non-teleological origin of terrestrial life is not all that overwhelming. If experiments that demonstrate the plausibility of a non-teleological origin of life are considered "overwhelming evidence" for that view, then experiments that show the feasibility of intelligent agents engineering life may be considered evidence for the thesis that life was intelligently designed.

It is true, of course, that there are some pieces of evidence for a non-teleological origin of terrestrial life. Several phylogenetic studies (and other studies based on sequence analyses) provide clues that favor a non-telic origin of life, and there are other lines of evidence (documented in a number of publications). On the whole, however, you overestimate the "overwhelming amount" of evidence for a non-telic origin of biological life, IMHO.

Geez, thanks for the encouragement.

Edited by Genomicus, : No reason given.

Yes. As I stated in a past thread, I'm taking supernatural designers off the table.

Yes.

I cannot specify the exact nature of the proposed designers. My overall position operates on the assumption that the designers of biological life had a degree and type of intelligence similar to our own. For if life was designed by engineers with a radically different kind of intelligence – a form of intelligence entirely foreign to that of the human species – it would be a hopeless task to find traces of engineering in cellular life. Thus, any design hypothesis must make this basic assumption about the nature of the designers.

By testing specific predictions of the design hypothesis -- predictions that are not made by (a) the "entirely mindless natural processes" model, and (b) the magic wand model -- we can either confirm or refute the design hypothesis. If experiments verify that the predictions have been met, then the design hypothesis is strengthened. In this way, we can "distinguish between that which has been designed with a mataphorical wrench, that which has been designed by a metaphorical wand and that which is the result of entirely mindless natural processes." See this thread (referenced above in a response to ringo) for a cursory overview of how we could go about testing the hypothesis that biological machines were engineered.

That is, to be sure, an interesting idea you linked to.

Re:

I don't think that's really a variation of the specific hypotheses I'm proposing. It is, however, a variation of design propositions in general.
My thoughts on it? It's interesting, but I think one would have a hard time testing that idea. And it would be a more general design proposition. In other words, if we are living in a computer simulation, then I'd tentatively propose that within this simulation, biological life was intelligently designed.

The question is not hypothesis specific, so I'll modify it a bit. The hypothesis that, say, the bacterial flagellum was directly engineered by rational design of proteins (and similar techniques of protein design), predicts a specific pattern of divergence times (as determined by molecular clocks) for various flagellar parts and their homologs. The same goes, of course, for any other molecular machine (e.g., the F-ATPase, replisomes, ribosome, etc.).

Correct.

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No, I'm not a creationist.

It does matter, though. If life was engineered by the aforementioned metaphorical wrench, then we could plausibly detect this through the methods of science. But the idea that life was magically poofed into existence is not testable.

See, some of you seem to think that design by physical tools and methods is indistinguishable from design by a magic wand. This is not correct. If life was engineered by specific mechanisms (e.g., rational design of proteins), then we can plausibly detect hallmarks of this within genomes.

Not really.

Your definition of creationism seems to be a bit idiosyncratic IMHO, and not one that will be found in dictionaries of the English-speaking world. Just sayin'.

I'm not arguing from irreducible complexity.

...which is what I've been arguing all along.

The difference is this: if life was created by magic, then we have no reason to expect that we can detect this. There are no predictable hallmarks that would indicate life was designed by magic. On the other hand, if life's biochemical systems were designed by rational design and similar methods, there are specific hallmarks of this mechanism that we can look for.

For example, it is possible that evolution was guided every step of the way by magical powers. Both non-teleological evolution and "magical" evolution have the same result, but the former model is (a) more parsimonious, and (b) leads to testable predictions.

Yea, so I'm not a creationist.

Figure 2 of the "Nature's Engines and Engineering" thread describes the general pattern. Flagellar parts (and their corresponding homologs) that have a slow substitution rate, but that would require large modifications in order to be engineered, would be predicted to have the earliest divergence times as determined by molecular clocks. Protein parts with a fast substitution rate and that would require only minimal modifications (to be engineered from their homologs) would predicted to have late divergence times.

This pattern is not a necessary consequence of "conscious design." It is a necessary consequence of rational design of proteins. Rational design refers to a specific mechanism for engineering proteins. Directed evolution would also lead to the same predictions.

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Okay kewl, but I'm not sure how that's relevant to what I said with regards to rational design of proteins as the mechanism of engineering behind biochemical systems? Could you elaborate?

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...I'm still a bit lost as to what you're arguing exactly (I haven't watched the lecture). Put simply, if protein machines that we find in cells were engineered via the techniques of rational design and directed evolution, there are several predictions we could make. Here it should be noted that both rational design and directed evolution refer to techniques within the field of protein design. That is, directed evolution does not, in this context, mean simply evolution directed in some way. It means a specific kind of protein engineering wherein directed mutagenesis coupled with selection is used to design protein folds.

Actually, the definition of intelligent design that I use is, in fact, used by a number of people. However, your definition of "creationist" seems to be pretty unique to you. If you peruse all definitions of "creationism," none of them will simply mean "the idea that life was engineered." Creationism is more than that. Creationism is a religious idea, one that involves deities and sacred texts. It is not merely the proposition that biological life was engineered. So, from my standpoint, it looks just a bit like you're labeling me a "creationist" as a rhetorical strategy. What exactly is your definition of "creationism"?

Okay, so maybe we could test the idea that life was designed by magic. But in the meantime I'll be concentrating my efforts on more tangible mechanisms of biological design.

Again, some might want to explore the idea that life was designed by magic. They're free to do that. I know that I won't be the person doing that, but hey, others might want to.

I think it's reasonable to consider theistic evolution as a form of creationism.

Why?

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