Intelligent Design is NOT Creation[ism]

Well it does sound like it - but Christianity also postulates Divine Intervention in human history. And that, I think, is the key point.

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Percy:
How are you going to make people believe this?

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It doesn’t matter what people believe. A fact is a fact and the fact is biological ID just cares about life on Earth.

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Percy:
One of the first questions one thinks of when hearing of ID is, "Who is the intelligent designer?"

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That is a separate topic and does not influence the detection and understanding of design.

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Percy:
When you respond that it's not important it raises alarm bells and makes people wonder what you're hiding. This isn't a formula for successful persuasion.

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Logic and reason will do nicely. As I have stated many times we don’t need to know the designer to detect & understand the design. That is a fact.

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Percy:
Your approach contrasts distinctly with legitimate science, and you raise this issue next:

Yeah right. As if the theory of evolution doesn't limit inquiry by saying we don't care how life first started on Earth. Double-standards Percy.

But we do care very much how life started on Earth. Evolution and abiogenesis are both legitimate areas of inquiry within biology.

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That is false. Biology is AFTER life starts. Therefore abiogenesis is not within biology.

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Percy:
For you to have an analogous situation you would have to claim that ID and the designer are both legitimate areas of inquiry, but that they are separate areas of research. But that's not what you're saying. You're saying intelligent design can be investigated but the designer itself is not of interest.

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That is false also. Of course the designer or designers are of interest. ID was not formulated to tell us about the designer, just the design- as in detection and understanding of. Therefore we can conclude that ID and the designer(s) are separate areas of inquiry.

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"...the most habitable place in the solar system yields the best view of solar eclipses just when observers can best appreciate them." from "The Privileged Planet"

Little problem here
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Dr Taz max
First off, it is not so much that we do not care it is that the origination of life does not neccessarily reflect on how life changes. They can be and in fact are separate areas of study.

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And the same holds for ID and the designer.

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Dr Taz max:
The study of evolution follows the methods by which it occurs, namely natural selection, which does not require any knowledge of how life first arose.

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But NS is a conserving force and does not do what evos what people to think it can.

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Dr Taz max:
The same does not hold true of ID. ID maintains that the intelligence is an integral part of the HOW of the change of life.

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Integral only in the sense of setting up the initial conditions.

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Dr Taz max:
In fact ID goes further. ID draws a direct correlation with the function of an organ or system and the apparent "design" of the same organ or system. A better analogy would be that evolution can no more be discussed without discussing natural selection than ID can be discussed without discussing the designer as, within the ID school of thought, the designer is the chief moving force of the system. And this would be correct, we do not discuss evolution as a field of study without discussing NS, you can not truly discuss ID with out the D.

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The facts say something completely different. I do not need to know who designed my software or how it was designed in order to detect that it was designed and understand it. The same goes for any object we know was designed. The designer is not important to detect and understand the design. I do not need to know anything about Henry Ford or the Wright brothers to understand the functionality with airplanes and cars. Sure people can speculate on the designer. It is just that ID wasn’t formulated to do so.As for evolution you start with the complexity that needs to be explained in the first place.Also if you are going to discuss natural selection, by your logic you must discuss nature. And if you do that you have to discuss how nature came about.

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"...the most habitable place in the solar system yields the best view of solar eclipses just when observers can best appreciate them." from "The Privileged Planet"

How can that be a fact, when we've never ever "detected" design except in cases where we already understood fundamental qualities about the designer (for instance that they were human)?The only designer we've ever detected isn't avaliable to be the designer of the structures you're talking about, because they predate the evolution of that designer. We've never been able to detect unknown designers from nothing but their purported "designs".

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LM if you or anyone else can show the bacterial flagellum arose by nature acting alone then do it and stop whining.
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LM:
I am still waiting for Behe to show the bac flag coming about in one fell swoop. Why shouldn't he be required to have the same weight of evidence?

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Actually the "one fell swoop" is under your scenario, ie the theory of evolution. Under Behe's scenario the parts and instructions for the bac flag were part of the initial conditions, ie preprogrammed.quote:
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Assertions like that are meaningless. Sure we can deduce the metaphysical from the evidence.
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LM:
How can we deduce a supernatural designer in the absence of evidence for such an entity? Even if life is designed this does not rule out a designer whose origins are natural.

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That is true.

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LM:
By simulating conditions on an early, lifeless earth.

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And how do we know what those conditions were?

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LM:
We already know that RNA and proteins can form in abiogenically, so all we have to do is show that random polymers of RNA or protein can result in a simple replicator.

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Citation please, for the RNA and proteins forming abiogenically.

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LM:
This is why ID jumps to the wrong conclusion, and does so because of the need to further political and religious goals.

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The same can be said of the theory of BS (ie evolution). ID came about because of the human need to know the reality and the lack of such coming from any other source. IOW if evos could support their case we wouldn’t have ID or Creation. And that tells me it is evos who jumps to the wrong conclusion.

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LM:
Why is it necessary for life to be present for life to arise? Where do you get this idea from? Certainly not from actual research.

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What is it with evos and the lack of comprehension? Can you not follow that simple sentence? But anyway all actual research shows that only life begets life.What I said was an example of how we can deduce the metaphysical.

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"...the most habitable place in the solar system yields the best view of solar eclipses just when observers can best appreciate them." from "The Privileged Planet"

All design hypotheses require some idea of the intentions and capabilities of the designer. If ID is to offer a full alternative to evolutionary theory it simply cannot do so without offering design hypotheses. The fact that the ID movement refuses to talk about such things is one of the reasons it is forced to rely on weak eliminative arguments and cannot propose any positive view to supplant evolution.This is also why nobody uses their methods to detect design - allowing yourself to make some hypotheses about the designer allows the proposal of positive hypotheses which can be used in an "inference to the best explanation" rather than simply relying on eliminating alternatives, as ID attempts to do.A refusal to make hypotheses about the designer is not scientifically justifiable - in fact it is one of the major obstacles to ID becoming scientific.

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crashfrog:
How can that be a fact, when we've never ever "detected" design except in cases where we already understood fundamental qualities about the designer (for instance that they were human)?

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Did we have to know they were human or anything about them in order to detect and understand (or try to) the design? No.

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crashfrog:
We've never been able to detect unknown designers from nothing but their purported "designs".

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Stonehenge is a perfect example. We didn't know who designed or built it but we know it was designed and built. IOW we know Stonehenge wasn't the product of nature acting alone. That is all that is required. It doesn't matter if we see humans doing such today. It does not mean that aliens didn't design and build Stonehenge. And then there is SETI.

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"...the most habitable place in the solar system yields the best view of solar eclipses just when observers can best appreciate them." from "The Privileged Planet"

ID man claims:

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A fact is a fact and the fact is biological ID just cares about life on Earth.

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So now it's "biological ID"? Since you always make such a big deal out of the emergence of prokaryotes, and have asked quite a few times where the "laws of physics" come from, we should be excused for thinking that you're moving the goalposts wherever you want them.It's only hurting your case, as I've mentioned before. When you talk about an "external agent" splicing genetic material into a bacterium's genome to produce a flagellum, you're talking about a being with much more limited capabilities than one that can create and calibrate the physical properties of the universe itself. So are the laws of physics evidence for design? If so, then you're talking about a very God-like designer, and ID is looking more and more like religion.regards,
Esteban Hambre

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PaulK:
All design hypotheses require some idea of the intentions and capabilities of the designer.

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Why? Just because you say so? Do we know the intentions or capabilities of those who designed Stonehenge? No.

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PaulK:
A refusal to make hypotheses about the designer is not scientifically justifiable - in fact it is one of the major obstacles to ID becoming scientific.

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And just because you say so is totally meaningless. on the designer's identity

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"...the most habitable place in the solar system yields the best view of solar eclipses just when observers can best appreciate them." from "The Privileged Planet"

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Actually the "one fell swoop" is under your scenario, ie the theory of evolution. Under Behe's scenario the parts and instructions for the bac flag were part of the initial conditions, ie preprogrammed.

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So I take it you don't even understand the very theory you are arguing against. The evolution of the bac flag would not have been completed in one fell swoop but by a step by step process. Behe claims that the bac flag came about in one fell swoop, the opposite of what is proposed in an evolutionary model. We need to see his evidence, as well as his evidence that it is preprogrammed into the genome. So far all we have is Behe's incredulity and bare assertions.

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And how do we know what those conditions were?

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Through the study of geology.Instead of going point by point, I would like to get back to the original claim, that Intelligent Design is NOT creationism.I would claim that creationism is the belief that God is required for the creation of life. ID, as you have presented it, requires the very same thing. This has been your argument as I understand it:Premise: IC systems and complexity can not arise without an intelligent designer. Life, and intelligence for that matter, require biological IC systems and complexity.Conclusion: Therefore, the origin of life is a supernatural designer, ie the Christian God.Do I have your argument listed correctly? If so, how do you differentiate yourself from the other people claiming that God created life, otherwise known as creationists?

Now that we understand that ID Man defines Creationism synonymously with Young Earth Creationism, I think we can all agree that by his definition, ID is not part of Creationism.But like almost all words, Creationism has no single definition. The definition of Creationism used by this board includes Young Earth Creationism, Old Earth Creationism and ID. What Creationism means is a function of context, and by this definition, ID is part of Creationism.Some of the disagreement in this thread is a function of shifting back and forth between definitions. For example, I said that Creationism had been discredited as science by the US legal system. But what has really been discredited is Young Earth Creationism. ID very understandably wants to distance itself from Young Earth Creationism, and ID can very legitimately say that it has nothing to do with Young Earth Creationism.ID Man's preferred definition of Creationism also has a strong claim for precedence over the broader definition, because whenever the term Creationism comes up in conversation people almost always think of Biblical literalism and its accompanying science informed by flood theology. If one means Creationism in the broader sense then one should be clear about it, and we *have* done that for the most part in this thread.Theistic evolution is another term that turned out to have more than one definition. By one definition, Joe Meert is a theistic evolutionist, but by the definitions I cited from other websites he definitely is not.In my opinion, a lot of the disagreement in this thread derives from differences of interpretation of a very few words and terms. If we allow ID Man his definition of Creationism, then he is correct, we all agree, and the discussion is over. We're done, unless ID Man also wants to assert that ID is not part of Old Earth Creationism and not derived from the old arguments from design first popularized by Paley over a hundred years ago.--Percy

ID man claims:
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A fact is a fact and the fact is biological ID just cares about life on Earth.
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MrHambre:
So now it's "biological ID"?

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There are different aspects to ID, which if you knew anything about ID, you would have known that. I use biological ID to diffeeentiate between that and the design implications in all other aspects.

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MrHambre:
Since you always make such a big deal out of the emergence of prokaryotes, and have asked quite a few times where the "laws of physics" come from, we should be excused for thinking that you're moving the goalposts wherever you want them.

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Actually it was the emergence of eucaryotes. Also other scientists say the laws of physics is evidence, outside of biology, for a designer.

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MrHambre:
When you talk about an "external agent" splicing genetic material into a bacterium's genome to produce a flagellum, you're talking about a being with much more limited capabilities than one that can create and calibrate the physical properties of the universe itself.

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But I have never talked about an external agent doing any splicing.

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MrHambre:
So are the laws of physics evidence for design?

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Scientists say they are. Including Newton, Kepler, Galileo, Copernicus and today Walter Bradley (for one).

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MrHambre:
If so, then you're talking about a very God-like designer, and ID is looking more and more like religion.

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Why? Just because you say so? Where do you think those laws came from?

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"...the most habitable place in the solar system yields the best view of solar eclipses just when observers can best appreciate them." from "The Privileged Planet"

ID man asks rhetorically

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Do we know the intentions or capabilities of those who designed Stonehenge? No.

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Well, actually, we do know that human were around at the time, as well as fully capable of building such sites. This is the only reason we can conclude that humans did build it (since eyewitness evidence seems lacking). You're asserting that life on Earth and the laws of physics were designed by an intelligence, without giving us positive evidence that any intelligent agent has ever existed which can be credited with such creative capabilities.regards,
Esteban Hambre

So long as you ignore the capabilities and intentions of the deisgner all you have is a collection of ad hoc hypotheses of the form "some intelligent being somehow did this for some reason". You don't have a theory. You can't have a theory.And yes we DO have a good idea of the capabilities of Stonehnge's builders. The hypothesised builders are human with the technology of the appropriate periods (Stonehenge was built in several phases). Indeed while Stonehenge is unique in some respects the henge culture, using rings of wooden posts or stones is quite ubiquiteous in England. By examining these related monuments we can build up a theory about their purpose which lets us make predictions about other examples (e.g. which astronomical alignments are likely to be significant). The whole idea that Stonehenge is some big mystery which we have no understading of is completely false.As for "Mike Gene"'s claims he offers no good reasons for completely ignoring the designer - he simply claims that identifying something as designed does not tell us the name or whether the designer was supernatural or not. Perhaps not - but if we ever DID identify a flagellum as designed then we could certainly infer that the designer was capable of manipulating bacterial genomes and we should certainly seek to identify a purpose.

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Percy:
Now that we understand that ID Man defines Creationism synonymously with Young Earth Creationism, I think we can all agree that by his definition, ID is not part of Creationism.

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I would include OECs. They just have a different time scale than YECs but the premise is the same- God created, just at different intervals, eg the "days" where longer than 24 hours.

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Percy:
But like almost all words, Creationism has no single definition. The definition of Creationism used by this board includes Young Earth Creationism, Old Earth Creationism and ID.

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Just because it is used on this board does not make it a correct usage.

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Percy:
What Creationism means is a function of context, and by this definition, ID is part of Creationism.

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If anything Creation is a subset of ID.

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Percy:
For example, I said that Creationism had been discredited as science by the US legal system.

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But that is false. The court ruled that because the motivation behind YEC was religion, that was the reason to not allow it in the public schools.My point is there are vast differences between YEC and ID and ID and OEC. By conflating them that point is lost.

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"...the most habitable place in the solar system yields the best view of solar eclipses just when observers can best appreciate them." from "The Privileged Planet"