Marc9000 has not addressed the issues that I made clear should be the focus of this thread. This thread is for making clear how ID follows the scientific method. If you choose to reply to this message please keep it on-topic. --Admin
Adminnemooseus writes:
I think Dawn Bertot has had plenty of replies since his/her last appearance - Please don't add any more for a while unless you really think you have something that needs to be said (highly unlikely).
I have some that aren’t hostile to Dawn, so I’m hoping you’lll find them acceptable.
MESSAGE 19
dwise1 writes:
What is the methodology for detecting and determining design in nature?
In Behe’s words; (the end of Chapter 10 in Darwin’s Black Box)
quote:
To decide borderline cases of design will require the experimental or theoretical exploration of models whereby a system might have developed in a continuous manner, or a demonstration of points where the development of the system would necessarily be discontinuous.
It’s a fact that life is fragile. Stops and starts in the development of life is not something that’s going to be high on the list for exploration of those who wish it to be a naturalistic process.
Behe continues;
quote:
Future research could take several directions. Work could be undertaken to determine whether information for designed systems could lie dormant for long periods of time, or whether the information would have to be added close to the time when the system became operational. Since the simplest design scenario posits a single cell — formed billions of years ago — that already contained all information to produce descendant organisms, other studies could test this scenario by attempting to calculate how much DNA would be required to code the information. If DNA alone is insufficient, studies could be initiated to see if information could be stored in the cell in other ways — for example, as positional information. Other work could focus on whether larger, compound systems (containing two or more irreducibly complex systems) could have developed gradually or whether there are compounded irreducibilities.
The beginning of chapter 6 in Behe’s The Edge of Evolution begins like this;
quote:
It’s time to consider some general principles. How do we decide if some biological feature is unlikely to have been produced by random mutation and natural selection? Writing of other matters in their book Speciation, evolutionary biologists Jerry Coyne and Allen Orr pinpoint the key principle:
quote:
The goal of theory, however, is to determine not just whether a phenomenon is theoretically possible, but whether it is biologically reasonable — that is, whether it occurs with significant frequency under conditions that are likely to occur in nature.
In this book we’ll apply the paramount Coyne-Orr principle to Darwinian evolution as a whole (which they do not). In light of the recent tremendous progress of science, can we determine not what is merely theoretically possible for Darwinian evolution, not what may happen only in some fanciful just-so story, but rather what is biologically reasonable to expect of unguided evolution, then we can also determine what is unreasonable to expect of it.
Which they do not is an important phrase. New advances in science can be a source of discomfort for those scientists who are committed to only naturalism, and can cause them to avoid new scientific inquiries. Without ID, some science can go unexplored. I believe that the recent new discoveries about "junk DNA" would have gone unexplored without the current private presence of ID studies. That may be worth another thread.
MESSAGE 32
Wounded King writes:
marc9000 writes:
Not rule out, but question naturalistic mechanisms that are highly unlikely, or currently unexplained in certain areas of biology, mainly concerning origins of life.
Really? Then why are his most commonly referenced examples the bacterial flagellum and the mammalian immune system.
Probably because his evolutionist opponents choose to reference them more than anything else, thus drawing attention away from other aspects of ID, or the entire concept of ID.
I can see why creationssts and IDists in these discussions love to try and make everything about abiogenesis, but that isn't refelective of the frequently made claims about current irreducibly complex systems in modern organisms.
Not only is ID about challenging some parts of evolution, it is also about addressing origins of life, something that is commonly claimed by evolutionists to have nothing at all to do with evolution. Evolutionists try to isolate ID into one small area of its study and discredit that, without consideration of how that one thing can relate to something else in ID. Evolution is a very broad term, it can mean common descent, it can mean change over time, I seem to remember it even being applied to photosynthesis in plants. If evolution can be a diverse subject, ID can too.
marc9000 writes:
Not entirely. Partially perhaps, but to no larger of an extent than it currently is in naturalistic scientific studies.
Once again simply making a claim does nothing, where is any positive ID evidence? Where is a predictive ID hypothesis? The best they have ever done is retrospectively claim the identification of functional sequences in DNA once considered non-coding 'Junk DNA' as an ID prediction, none of which research came from ID labs.
Didn’t come from ID labs? What is your source for that? I have a source that says it did.
Intelligent Design and the Death of the "Junk-DNA" Neo-Darwinian Paradigm
marc9000 writes:
In many instances it is implied that order cannot be studied scientifically if it happened by a supernatural cause, that means there is evidence for order arising from purposeless naturalistic processes. So in some instances, a process of elimination is currently used in practice of the scientific method.
Could you say that again in English?
The scientific community accuses ID of using a process of elimination (which they deem to not be scientific) and then turn right around and use a process of elimination as a weapon against ID.
MESSAGE 67
Minnemooseus writes:
The religious roots and nature of ID are well established.
As the atheistic roots and nature of evolution are well established. Why the double standard? Because the atheist worldview was established first in science shouldn't mean that it can't be countered with another worldview. If they're both doing science, the personal beliefs of those doing the science should be considered equally.
Yes, there may well be Idist hypotheses that are independent of Biblical creationism. I cite Michael Behe's efforts in my message 49. Behe is the rare example of an IDist who will clearly go against young Earth creationism. But in general, the Discovery Institute is doing a piss poor job of separating their IDism from Biblical creationism. Also see that message 49.
Why should there be a requirement of separation? Most evolution sites do a poor job of separating evolution from atheism.
So Dawn, how does your version of ID fit into the big picture of science? Do you accept what I cited that Behe accepts? Behe considers his IDism to be part of the larger biological theory of evolution. Behe (a real biological PhD) does the best job of making ID part of science, and that's not that good of a job.
If Behe alone does it, why isn’t that good enough? Why is his job not that good? To quote William Dembski; the biological community is still coming to terms with Behe’s work. Is this false? If it’s not, how many like Behe would it take for an admission by the scientific community that ID is in fact scientific?
If ID "theory" is to be considered science, then it must fit into the big picture of what is considered science.
It fits into the ‘open inquiry’ that is science. It doesn’t fit into what is considered science by atheists.
MESSAGE 82
Taq writes:
When using the scientific method (SM) you question the theory that you are putting forward. If Behe is putting ID forward then he needs show how he questioned the mechanisms of ID. He never does that.
He questions evolution, largely because evolutionists never seem to do that. If you claim that evolutionists constantly question the methods they put forward, apparently the intensity of the questioning is an important consideration. Behe’s intensity in questioning evolution seems to go several levels beyond the questioning that evolutionists do of their own methods.
The problem that will likely keep this from being a meaningful thread will be the disagreement in how the scientific method is defined. Today’s scientific community will define it to encompass all that Darwinists have accomplished (both real and imagined) in the past 150 years, and this of course is far beyond any current volume of ID studies. Darwinism in its early stages, as well as other current scientific studies like SETI, didn’t use the scientific method that you require of ID. SETI still doesn’t. As past discussions on these types of forums have made clear, ID is the only thing ever proposed as science to have to pass the testable, repeatable, falsifiable entrance exam, before even being considered as science. Again, SETI certainly didn’t, and Darwinism in its beginning stages didn’t either.
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