Can't ID be tested AT ALL?

In message 9 of the "Is ID scientific ? Yet another approach to the question." thread, Chiroptera said: This makes a lot of sense to me. It started me pondering. What should we see if ID is true?Do we look for some kind of evidence in or on the creatures of earth for an answer? What kind of marks might an intelligent designer leave upon the creatures that it designs? It is very tempting to work in analogy here. Artists leave a signature, so perhaps there could be some kind of distinctive mark on all creatures? It's impossible to say, without knowledge of the designer, or of other worlds. So that doesn't work.I also thought about the standard things people often suggest, like "efficient" or "good" designs. Unfortunately, its impossible to say with any certainty if our criteria for efficient or good designs are in any way compatable with an omni-everything creator. Perhaps the likelyhood in humans of appendicitis or back problems, though inconvenient or life-threatening, actually conforms perfectly with the ID's overall plan.Secondly, even if our ideas of efficient or good designs are in accordance with the ID's, it might be that we don't understand the evidence well enough. I'm talking here about "junk" DNA, over which there is at least some disagreement about whether it is useless or not.So I'm out of ideas. Has anyone out there got any kind of ingenious idea that might make ID testable? It can be as wacky as you like. I guess what I'm getting at is this: is there really NO way in which ID can be tested? Is it a logical impossibility?If its true, then secondary questions pop up like: why? and would it help if we were a bit more definite about the designer. How much more definite would we have to be?(As a side note, it might also be fun to turn it around, and start to draw some tentative conclusions about the nature of an intelligent designer who created a world like ours.)This message has been edited by Tusko, 09-08-2005 07:13 AM

Hi Tusko,I've avoided commenting on this post, because I had difficulty thinking what to do with it. This morning I've re-read it for about the 5th time, and I think I can make a concrete suggestion. I'm sorry for the long wait.I believe the purpose of your post is stated in these few sentences: I think if you clean up this description, you can make it a pretty solid and straightforward OP. I think it would be interesting to have a thread where we discuss how WE would try and formulate a theory of intelligent design such that it was testable. (which is the ultimate direction I think the questions you're asking will lead to).I would suggest that you respond to this post, and rewrite your original post to be a little more straightforward, and more directed to the ideas contained in the quote I copy/pasted above.Thanks.

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Okay Ben - thanks for the time and effort trying to understand my attempt at an OP! I have tried one more time to explain myself - but if this is again too confused, then I'll have a go at doing as you suggested and just rewrite the last few lines of my new attempt. I thought it was somehow important to try to explain the thought process that lead to the formulation of my question, but if it still makes little sense, then it seems fruitless to persist! Thanks again for you time (I thought that one had dropped like a stone!)People who support evolution often bemoan the fact that Intelligent Design (ID) is an untestable hypothesis, and therefore pretty useless when it comes to explaining the evidence. I've always taken this as read, but now that I come to think about it, I'm unclear as to what exactly makes it untestable.To try to reach an answer, I asked myself the question: if ID is true, then what would I expect to see in the world around me? and if it isn't true, then what would I expect then?These questions are seemingly impossible to answer.One reason seems to be because the nature of the designer is unknown. (Although there MAY be staggering redundancy in genetic code and untold agony in the animal kingdom, this doesn't make the possibility of an intelligent designer any less - because it could have wanted things that way for a very good reason that our puny brains cannot comprehend.)Is this gap of knowledge about the designer what makes ID untestable? If we knew more about the designer, could we then begin to offer tentative tests or interrogate our observations with more certainty?Are there other reasons that make it untestable, in addition, or instead of this?Basically, what I'm getting at is this: what would have to change to make ID testable? How far would it have to be bent - or what would have to be added or taken away? If anyone has any really off the wall suggestions, I'd be very interested to hear them.

All the lines of your post, until the last paragraph, lead towards a question that's been asked over and over: Can ID be tested? If no, why not? I think that topic has been beaten to death, and there's not much new to say about it.Because of that, I really feel the main purpose of your post is obscured, rather than enhanced, by all of the initial talk. Even given the title, it seems you're asking the same question that has been asked ad nauseum--is ID science (i.e. is it testable in any way?). Since you don't talk about your new idea for an approach (what can we change to MAKE it testable?) until the very last sentence, it's hard for me to really extract that as the main question of your post.I appreciate your willingness to work with my feedback. If you're uncomfortable with the changes I'm proposing, I would be happy to ask another admin to take a look. Each admin has a different perspective, and it's possible that my suggestions are only really helpful to me. But at least for me, what I see as the interesting question and main purpose of your post doesn't pop out at all.Thanks.P.S. ESPECIALLY since you're asking other questions in your post, which have nothing to do with what I've been calling your main point: By having these questions in your post, you open the proposed thread to simply discussing why (or why not) ID is testable. I have my questions whether or not the discussion would continue on to thinking about the more interesting question of "what do we change to MAKE it testable?"The things that have been talked about as untestable in ID can be pulled from other threads and general criticisms of ID.

(Oh - okay, that makes total sense. I didn't realise that "why isn't ID untestable?" was quite such familiar ground. I'd be happy to just talk about making ID testable. I was asking the other questions because they are linked, but you're right, they'd just muddy the waters, especially if they are well rehearsed.)It is a truth universally ancknowledged (by evolution-philes anyway) that ID isn't testable, so its pretty unhelpful at explaining anything very much.Okay. But what could be done to make it testable? How could it be bent, broken, chopped or augmented to make it testable?Perhaps the changes would have to be novel - perhaps even as mad as a mongoose - but I imagine there might be something that could be done to make it testable.Perhaps though, I'm wrong, and there is something inherent to ID that makes testing it logically impossible, unless it is distorted out of all recognition.Any thoughts?

Copied your thread out.Maybe you want to take a look through some of the ID threads, especially the recent ones. You'll see some basic reasons that ID can't even be considered a "theory" yet.