Is ID falsifiable by any kind of experiment?

Thanks. At that point, Behe was really responding to a question regarding what predictions ID makes. But the gist of your statement is still true. I'm not saying that a designer, especially considering if it is a supernatural designer, would necessarily have limits as to what they might do, but for ID to be able to infer anything, there would have to be a quality of the operation that is recognizable by design principles. In the recording you linked, Behe gave a good example of what this might look like (at around timestamp 13:25). He mentioned a murderer that is so careful that when he kills his victim, no investigator could distinguish it from an accident. In that case, even though it definitely was a designed event, ID would not be able to infer it. But if there were about 10 murders committed in the same manner, and it turned out that all the victims were scheduled to testify as witnesses at a criminal's drug trial, ID could make a determination it was design because a purpose behind the activity was detectable.So the limits of a designer in order for ID to be able to make a inference would be the evidence of purpose. ID doesn't have to define the parameters/mechanism for how a (not "the") designer operates. If there is no likely, undirected cause that can be demonstrated to produce the particular effect AND (not OR) it exhibits a purposeful arrangement of parts/settings (which in our uniform experience always leads back to a mind), then design can be inferred.

What are you talking about?

So if something is repeatable by experiment... and not directed by the experimenter... would you rule out a mind directing the experiment?

Posting a link to Amazon in order to promote your writings is spamming the forum.

Circular.Now you need to define what "purposeful" means - and how you would distinguish purposeful from purposeless.What is the purpose of a mountain? Was it designed to direct the weather?

Mountains are obviously designed for skiing.

But not intelligently, we had to build the lifts.

And water was designed for swimming. Notice how it fits around you so snugly. The Designer must have known what shape you would be.

It's a miracle!

LOL, how? 1) having intention or objective
2) conforms to an independently describable pattern and whose arrangement is of a sufficiently low probability. For the latter, i suppose not conforming to the description above. Well, it would depend on the context, but generally I would say: none.

Assuming there is not some detectable mind other than the experimenter's , umm... Yes.

You define a vague concept, "design", with another vague concept, "purpose". How do you distinguish something that is purposeful from someting that is not purposeful? So you're defining purposeless as not purposeful. That's a little thin, isn't it?Tell us what the steps are. How, specifically, do you decide that A is purposeful and B is purposeless?

Ok. That's interesting to me. So you don't take the results of the experiment itself as evidence of a mind.So I think you posted this before, but for you there are 2 reasons for leaning towards ID. If either one were false, then you wouldn't be in favor of ID?1. Known mechanisms don't explain the complexity of life.
2. There are no repeatable undirected experiments showing this complexity arise.So if we could have repeatable experiments showing this complexity arise... even if we don't know the mechanism, you'd still rule out a designer... ie: you wouldn't resort to the reasoning... "the only known mechanism for this happening is intelligence" ?

Vague doesn't mean circular, nor is it a synonym. So even if my answer was vague, it wasnt 'circular' Besides, 'circular', in the context of what I think you mean, would only apply to an argument. I wasnt making an argument, merely presenting a description/definition, which was what was asked.And whether or not my answer was vague is irrelevant. There was no demand for additional rigor in an answer based on the question. Really? You asked for definitions. I gave you definitions. You dont like mine? Fine.

quote:

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purpose noun
1 a: something set up as an object or end to be attained : INTENTION
b: RESOLUTION, DETERMINATION
2: a subject under discussion or an action in course of execution

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purposeful adjective
1: having a purpose: such as
a: MEANINGFUL
b: INTENTIONAL

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purposeless adjective
: having no purpose : AIMLESS, MEANINGLESS

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Those are from Webster. If you dont like those definitions, go complain to him. Observe; gather data; analyze the item/event. Estimate the relative likelyhood (probability) of the particular arrangement AND identify if it corresponds to some independent pattern. If both the probability is low and there is a pattern detected, then we can infer purpose. If neither of those criteria is fulfilled, then we would not infer purpose.

It really depends on what the experiment is. But if going off of your criteria, you would be correct. I will unpack this a little more...You asked: "So if something is repeatable by experiment... and not directed by the experimenter... would you rule out a mind directing the experiment?" First off, it is an oddly formed question. An "experiment" is a purposeful thing, being put together by an "experimenter" which would minimally be directed via a mind. So right off the bat we are dealing with a designed system.But then you say it is "not directed by the experimenter". That seems contradictory to your premise. At the very least, whatever results come about, they are constrained by the experiment, which itself is designed. So in a macro sense, by design, yes the results are being directed.But then I considered you might be referring to a more restricted context, of looking only at the processes occurring within the experiment. That is really the only way it could be "not directed by the experimenter". So the setup could be a designed scenario, but it may contain a processes that are undirected within the setup. If that is the case, and there is no further purposeful interference by the experimenter or any other mind, then yes, I would 'rule out a mind directing the experiment'. But please realize this would only be in a restricted viewpoint.As an example, suppose an experimenter setup a test of fairly rolling a 6-sided die ten times and recording the results. The fact that a die is present and will be rolled a number of times is a designed scenario, so the experiment itself is a designed/directed thing, and that there will be 10 recorded rolls is by design. But the actual rolling of the die, if done fairly, would have results that were not directed. In other words, what numbers came up on each die roll would be random/undirected. So the results (what was rolled), within the context of a directed scenario, would not be due to someone directing them. No, sorry, that wasn't me that said those things. And neither are they ID concepts.
As to (1), actions of an intelligent agent would fall under "known mechanisms". And of course ID infers that life is a result of the activity of a mind.
For (2), the phrasing is unclear. What do you mean by "repeatable undirected experiments". If it is the same thing as referred to in your question in Message 26, then see above - which would mean the experiment itself is designed, but it uses processes that are undirected within that experiment. Lenski's LTEE might qualify depending on what aspects are considered. The "this complexity arise" of your statement is the results of the experiment, and I can only assume it refers back to what you called "the complexity of life". But then you are throwing out another concept here, that of "we don't know the mechanism". Us not 'knowing the mechanism' I don't think would ever be the case. We should be able to figure out the mechanism, after all the experiment was setup around whatever mechanism's are taking place.But, if an experiment was designed with nothing at the beginning that was in a state of something akin to "the complexity of life", but then through undirected processes within that experiment results occur that are something akin to "the complexity of life", then yes, I would rule out a designer for those results. No, I wouldn't. But it also would not be something where anyone would say "we don't know the mechanism". The mechanism should be apprehensible and explainable.
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