Spotting Beretta's "designer" {Now only 1 summation message per member}

It seems to me that, if we are going to be completely fair to IDists, we have to acknowledge that there is in fact the beginning of a good idea in their position. Darwin himself conceded that if a structure can be found that cannot have developed via a series of small steps, that would invalidate his theory. The problem that IDists have is not in the basic concept that they're pursuing, it's in the execution. In fact, I think that if we discount even the possibility of the IDists' position being valid, I'm hard pressed to imagine how the ToE can be falsified.In essence, if a structure can be found that cannot have developed through natural processes, wouldn't that force us to conclude that some non-natural, intelligent agent had to be behind it? And, if the inference of an intelligent agent is supported by the evidence, it's possible, depending on what the evidence is, that that evidence might allow us to come to conclusions about the nature of the intelligent agent, or the nature of the means the agent used, or both.IDists like to argue by analogy, comparing their search for intelligence to a forensic investigation of a crime scene. Often the evidence found gives clues to the nature or identity of a human agent behind a possible crime, and the means the agent used. In the abstract, the comparison is an apt one.Of course, we all know that this is merely a theoretical discussion, because IDists, despite all their protestations to the contrary, already know who their Good Old Designer is, and any real world evidence that suggests something different from their idea will be ignored or hand-waved away, exactly the same as they ignore the evidence for the ToE. And, in the same way that no evidence will make any difference to them regarding the existence of their Good Old Designer, no amount of evidence will influence their conclusions about the nature of their Good Old Designer, or the history of the development of life.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Quoth Minnemooseus in the July 2008 Post of the Month thread: in response to my post in this thread saying Moose is quite right, of course. The mountain of evidence supporting the ToE cannot be overcome by one single piece of unexplained evidence. Science doesn't work that way. As a practical matter, it would require myriad, systematic examples of such structures to bring down the ToE. Nonetheless, it is important to keep in mind that such a possibility exists, because it is only such a possibility, in my opinion, that makes the ToE falsifiable.(Sorry if all of this is dragging the thread too far off topic.)

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Before I respond to the various issues raised in reply to my message 11, I'd like some kind clearance from Rick to pursue them. While my original message did address the topic, most of the replies have taken a different direction, and I don't want to hijack the thread. In the event that Rick doesn't want the thread to move in this direction, I'll happily start a new thread, because I think there are some interesting questions raised.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

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Only? Rabbit fossils in the Precambrian? 100 million year old hominids?

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While any such discovery would be inconsistent with our current understanding of the history of life, it would not by itself undermine the ToE. It's important to keep in mind that there is a difference between the ToE and the details of how life evolved. A great deal of the evidence supporting the ToE consists of life as it exists on the planet today, together with descriptions of how descent with modification has been observed real time, in labs as well as in the natural world, over the last several decades. No number of anomalous paleontological findings will affect this evidence in any way.Thus, 100,000 year old hominids would require us to drastically alter what we think we know about natural history, but they would not falsify the ToE.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

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this does raise the question is ID a stand alone idea , or is it there to rebutt ToE .... and as to the Good Old Designer issue , this goes back to my first question ...

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What raw material did the designer start with?

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.. which leave the whole creation issue in the air ..

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Your first question is probably unanswerable, as a theoretical matter, without a fuller exposition of exactly what ID theory you mean. There seems to be several different flavors. However, as a practical matter, in fact, ID is nothing more than a collection of ad hoc objections to various areas of science that certain religious sub-sects object to. In other words, no, it's not a stand alone idea.The other questions are questions that can remain unanswered without abandoning the central concept of some Grand Old Designer.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

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1) How could we conclude that they cannot have developed through natural processes with out being in the position of giving an argument from ignorance? We know a lot more than we did 200 years ago but we still know far from everything about natural processes.

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Well, the first thing that comes to mind is something you mention, some sort of genetic discontinuity. Other that something of that nature, it may at bottom be nothing more than an argument from ignorance. But I wouldn't find that by itself overly troubling. It would all depend on how secure we are in our level of knowledge, and our assessment of how likely it is that an as yet unknown natural process might be found to account for it. I know that this all seems rather vague and not particularly satisfying, but unless and until we actually come across something that can't be explained by natural processes, it's a bit difficult to get any more specific.

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2) What do we mean by "non-natural"? Supernatural or just a natural intelligent agent? If it is a non-supernatural intelligent agent then it is acting through some selected natural processes. They would just be different than garden variety evolutionary processes. Even "artificial" selection acts through the usual evolutionary processes. We can't tell from the ongoing development of, say, dogs that it is not natural selection (can we?). We only know because we see the designer acting but the designer only selects from existing forms just as the environment does.

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Suppose we were to discover an organism that developed a trait that made them better able to survive some cataclysmic change in advance of the change? Surely that would be evidence of an intelligent agent at work.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

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Even if we managed to rule out the possibility of unknown natural processes or known processes acting in an unexpected way (due to limits in our understanding or lack or knowledge) - a difficult task - we couldn't conclude that the source was both intelligent and supernatural. Because how can we rule out unintelligent supernatural causes ?

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Well, the conclusions that could be confidently drawn about the nature of the agent, whether it was intelligent or supernatural, would depend entirely on what we saw as an example of a structure that could not have developed by evolution. I'm sure that with a bit of imagination, any of us could describe a hypothetical discovery that would difficult, if not impossible, to explain without resorting to the intervention of an intelligent agent, supernatural or not.

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To replace evolution ID really needs to have an alternative theory. And it doesn't. With an alternative theory they would not need to rely on arguments from ignorance. With an alternative theory they would not need to falsify evolution in an absolute sense. If they were honest scientists they would not be trying to influence the school curriculum until they had a robust theory that could be shown to be superior to evolutionary alternatives in at least some respects.

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I agree absolutely. Of course, the explanation for this is that IDists have no desire to build an alternate theory. They simply want to undermine evolution. If in the process they happen to come up with something that shores up their religion, they'd certainly be quite pleased with that, but it's not their main goal.

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To give ID it's due it could have been done on a much more scientific basis. That that is not the case is entirely the fault of the ID movement which cares about science only as a (useful but not necessary) apologetic tool.

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Quite so.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

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That little bit would completely vindicate them.

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Well, yes and no.We've got to keep in mind that creos/IDists are not a monolithic bloc. It's a big tent that holds a broad spectrum of beliefs. Some are so completely ignorant of science that they think the whole game is still up for grabs, and fight tooth and nail against all science that conflicts with their reading of genesis. Certainly they would be emboldened by scientific evidence supporting ID, but that would only be one small step for them in their long journey.On the other hand, there are those who understand enough of science to know that science has conclusively established the inaccuracy of the six days of creation 6,000 years ago, that life evolves, and that we are all related. They still cling to the shred of hope that science will one day find evidence of the working of the hand of the Grand Old Designer. For them, yes, even one example of something that must have been influenced by some intelligent agent will be enough for them to declare victory.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

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Mammals were 'smart' enough to be small when the asteroid destroyed niches needed by animals that were too large. How do we know it isn't just dumb luck?

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That would all depend on the nature of the discovery. Certainly it would have to be something considerably more forceful than small mammals surviving an asteroid crash.Keep in mind that what I'm doing here is not really proposing any serious area for scientific inquiry. It's more in the nature of a thought experiment. What kind of evidence would we have to see to support a conclusion of an intelligent influence? Obviously, for starters, it would have to be something inconsistent with any possible naturalistic explanation.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

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Rabbits in the Precambrian would undermine the idea of evolution itself as an explanation for the origin of species, and therefore all evolutionary theories (Lamarckian, for example, as much as the modern theory).

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Please explain how rabbits in the Precambrian would undermine the observations made in the last 100 years about evolution in progress.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

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Rabbits in the Precambrian were just Haldane's way of pointing out that evolution could be falsified. The observations made in the last 100 years about evolution in progress would stand, by definition (they're observations) but they could no longer be used to explain the history of life on earth.

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And that's what my point was. The ToE wouldn't be falsified, but our application of it to explain the history of life would need reworking. Either that or, and here's where the IDists' ears would perk up, we'd have to resort to some sort of supernatural explanation to resolve the inconsistency. In fact, while I don't mean to underestimate the impact that such a finding would have, if that were the only anomaly, I suspect that most scientists would spend a great deal of time looking for an alternate explanation before tossing everything we know about natural history into the dustbin.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

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How does one really imagine that all different kinds of incredible eyes in all different kinds of incredible creatures all fell into place by random events and the selection of the best random events that apparently worked by chance without the slightest bit of intelligence.

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It's really quite impossible for you to conclude that something like this must be the product of a designer until you completely understand the natural processes that biologists believe were responsible for their creation. And, it's impossible for you to understand these processes so long as you begin with the conclusion that, since it looks designed it must be, and end your inquiry there.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Buzz, you get 9 out of 10 for this one.

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I see our ID position as Biblical Creationists as non-compatible with what is considered science here at EvC and most of the science area for that matter.

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I'd have given you 10 out of 10 if you'd said all of science.

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All we can do is interpret the archaeological and other evidences as supportive of the Biblical record when indeed that is possible.

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This, of course, illustrates quite cogently the difference between creos and science. Creos begin with a conclusion, then attempt to twist the evidence they see to comport with that conclusion. That approach is the antithesis of science, where the conclusion is based on the evidence.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

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Since Biblical IDists go with the sudden creation and design of all of the species from earth dust, it appears that Hell will freeze over before Biblicalist IDers will ever pass the scientific method test.

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Just curious.You do understand, don't you, that the problem isn't with the conclusions that IDers arrive at that scientists object to? It's the methods. That's why Percy said that ID must practice the scientific method to be scientific.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

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Perhaps then you could help us out by suggesting a scientific method for testing sudden intelligently designed creation of all of the species from earth's dust.

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Well, a necessary first step would be to abandon the assumption of a creator. As you yourself mentioned in a different thread, the IDist approach is to try to interpret all evidence based on the assumption of a creator. As I explained, this is the antithesis of the scientific method.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat