Intelligent Design Class to be taught at Cornell University

We do have a clue about the designer when we compare the design of living things to other designs of known source.The designer produces designs that are just like those that applying evolutionary algorithms have produced. They can be surprisingly "ingeneous" when compared to the product of a good human designers approach and they are as gerry rigged and sometimes more wasteful that the worst (best?) joke designs as exemplified by the Rube Goldberg designs (see here Error)This message has been edited by NosyNed, 04-24-2006 08:32 PM

The IDists don't claim that everything is designed, just the really complex stuff, like life. So, I think they can find some non-designed objects for their comparison.Not to argue, just to point it out.

Actually, since the IDists are Creationists in ever-thinner disguise, they DO hold that everything is designed--unless the Creator only had to design the complex stuff but could wing it on the simple.I suppose hydrogen probably took hardly any thought at all.

ID isn't interested in further investigation. They just want to find a biological feature that they can "prove" to be designed. And even that is a far lower priority than producing endless amounts of PR and spin.
ID isn't science. It isn't even trying to be science. It just wants people to believe that it is science.i

It's easy for IDists to spin things, when they make up meanings to words they use, then change them to deflect people trying to figure out what they mean

To be honest I wouldn't be able to ascertain whether or not there is any 'science' in ID or not. I see almost fanatical putting down of it by a camp that sees it as creationism in another guise but who also happens to be significantly athiestic - so can't really take the views presented as being neutrally objective. It took (a) Catholic Scientist to point out a simple flaw in Percys argument a few posts ago to highlight the bias.There are many paths to the summit and if (for one doesn't prove things in science as I so often hear) there is the slightest chance of establishing ID as a science and some feel that that is possible then you shouldn't be too surprised if they employ tactics which level the playing field somewhat. Getting folk awakened to the possibilites by bypassing the traditional avenues of peer review (if that is what they indeed do) might cause research finance to be freed up and result in a breakthrough somewhere down the line.A very wealthy believer might be following things and decide at some point that it would be worthwhile putting $10 million into research for example. More news, more headlines, more tv. This is not to say it would always be the case that ID remains media-science (if indeed that is all it is). Finding that natural machines share all the characterics of our very best intelligent designs would create the same kind of splash in the media as does the fact that chimps share 90% or whatever of human genes."Design for purpose" vs. "Continually evolve to better fit" would produce the same kinds of result. Its not that the general shift in perception needs to all that great. Understanding dense, closely reasoned scientifc arguement is the preserve of the few. The rest believe it because they are told. Why not that they believe something else because they are told?Change the perception > generate interest> release funds> more research. You might not laud the tactics but given the level of resistance to it it may be that this is a Frankensteinian monster of your own assist. Not that you could help wanting to fight it so of course.

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My avatar shows a thief-on-the-cross view of Jesus. One thief said "Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom". The other remained firmly nailed (spiritually) to the sin that had hung him (physically) there - even as he stared eternity in the face. Who do YOU say that Jesus is? Will you continue to mock him, spit on him and deny him. Or will you call on his name and be saved? "Lord...."

I agree. And it may be the ID-ists can find new theories for the excess baggage. Theories which pose reasons for the baggage which are inherent when one is designing. The more they can explain the design reason for the excess the better the item fits the design hypothesis.Take a typical moulded plastic drinks container. You'll often find a ridge along the axis of the bottle - the result of the moulding process where the mould was joined together and a little material spread into the joint of the mould. Excess, waste, not required. The result of the manufacturing process. Look at the underside of a say, an oval shampoo bottle with a round base and you'll often find a tapered depression moulded into the underside. This acts as a grip point so the the bottle can be spun to a fixed orientation in order to apply a label. Excess for end purpose - essential for manufactureSo it may go...

Both Catholic Scientist and Percy were wrong (ID is an umbrella containign many viewpoints - including the view that PErcy mentioned). And Percy isn't an atheist.I don't see the criticism of ID as fanatical (certainly it is better founded than many of the attacks coming from the other direction).Wealthy believers HAVE been putting money into ID (Where do you think that they get the money to support all the PR they put out ?). And it's gone on producing PR instead of science. And indeed actually doing science would be a very risky strategy since they would either risk getting results contary to their desires or, nearly as bad for them, results that support the views of one view within the movement over others.

And valids one if the view is in fact correct. If it isn't now that is not to say it won't be ever. It is very early days Percy. Whilst I can appreciate that a marauding pack can look at the just-born bambi-legged wilderbeest and think "Lunch", they first have to catch it. Personally I think that by circumventing 'true' science (if that is what is being done) and capturing the publics imagination the pack might find that Bambi gets protected by Mommy Media Excitement...a rather different prospect to take on - as someone else thread was musing along the lines of "how to win the battle for the publics imagination" I didn't post there but my view was that that will be a rather difficult battle. Science has its work cut out when it comes to the larger scheme of things. He wouldn't be found, the evidence would point very strongly in his direction at best (if I understand the pursuit of science correctly)This message has been edited by iano, 25-Apr-2006 10:22 AM

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My avatar shows a thief-on-the-cross view of Jesus. One thief said "Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom". The other remained firmly nailed (spiritually) to the sin that had hung him (physically) there - even as he stared eternity in the face. Who do YOU say that Jesus is? Will you continue to mock him, spit on him and deny him. Or will you call on his name and be saved? "Lord...."

Perhaps the wrong choice of words. Strident would be better. Whilst some of what I've read seems genuinely aimed a protecting Science, as beloved, trusted pursuit - much of the commentary here and elsewhere seems otherwise: rabid, thoughtless, band-wagoning.Like I say, its early days. And it may be that ID is never science, but if the aims of the people behind it are indeed to return a creator God to centre-stage and use pseudo-science to enable that then so what? This is a free society - anyone is a free to resist the ID movement if they see fit.Criticising its lack of science is one tack. Personally I don't think that will stop it - the game is being played out on a broader stage. And what tactics one should employ to torpedo it is beyond me.

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My avatar shows a thief-on-the-cross view of Jesus. One thief said "Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom". The other remained firmly nailed (spiritually) to the sin that had hung him (physically) there - even as he stared eternity in the face. Who do YOU say that Jesus is? Will you continue to mock him, spit on him and deny him. Or will you call on his name and be saved? "Lord...."

I am not criticising ID for not being science. I am criticising it for claiming to be science when it is not even making a good-faith attempt to be truly scientific.

The club annoyed or forced Provine (because he differed a bit with the former President on how to handle ID in public)to consider debating Johnson again. I dont know how that went. I do not know any of these members. It might be that instead the course was proposed rather than another national debate between Will and Phil.Since Will is so set that, if there was purpose in nature it was up to Dobshansky to have indicated where, and that Chardin could not produce what even Dobshanksy did, and that Behe's "science" is at best boring (there is an issue where Will is most likely wrong however when he quotes Gould to Johnson that we all know that Darwin knew what he as doing, murdering...), my guess is that the instructer wants to hear EXTERNAL views on the claim of purpose in NATURAL SELECTION caused change. I bet he holds there is none. But as scientists he is probably open to proof. The only way I can see to show this is if artifical microselection could anhiliate catastrophic extra-earth mass extinctions through mutual and reciprocal fractal geometry mediated by a timely alegrab of symmetry revolutions. Gould does not consider this possiblity and Provine is too far less morphologically minded to be at all interested that Gould might have been mistaken in the difference of Palyen vs continental natural theology.So, granted that there seem to be a full load of EVC type materials in the course, it will likely be maintained that there is no purpose in NATURE. The point however as i see it is that in artifical selections of natural selection there can be purpose in the ecologically caused activites of man. Lazzie-faire is dead but the molecularization of hierarcy theory in biology is not.So, since the Courts insist that there must be a SECULAR purpose to creationist work (ID also) before it can be taught in public schools, Cornell, as PRIVATE, will probably be showing that there is no NATURAL PURPOSE (whole teleology argument of Mayr) so there can be no need for other ID classes as the object of a secular purpose would never be found.I think this is mistaken, but that is probably how it will go.This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 04-25-2006 07:48 AM

Well, the problem is tha before it can find 'other theories', it first has to be a theory itself. It has the following items it has to do to become a credible science.1) It has to have explanitory power greater than the logical fallacy of 'This appears to be too complex to have formed naturally, therefore someoen must have designed it'2) It has to have evidence for it that is not merely an attack on evolution. Pointing out unknowns in one theory does automatically make another viewpoint correct. It has to be able to come up with evidence all it's own.3) It has to make testable predictions that distinguish it from other theories (in this case the theory of evolution).4) It has to have the explanitory power over the information we already have.So far, the number of points that I.D. has from above is zero. It makes no predictions. It explains none of the data basides saying 'We don't know therefore intelligent designer'.It does have a lot of fancy words, with destractions. Look at the 'information' theory of demeski. He has come up with a new 'law' of information. Unfortunatly for Demski, the 'Law of conservation of information' doesn't seem to be anything but gobbley gook. It is not testable. It is just 'required' for him to try to explain things.. and from a scientific point of view, explains nothing.

maybe it is trying to return god to center stage, but IDists are trying to dress ID up as a viable alternitive scientific theory to ToE. When it doesn't even explain anything, but they claim it does, when its only explaination is to invoke a force we can't test or observe in some way, nor can we gain insight into how things work using ID
ID isn't science its a religious-politacal con-job hiding behind science its being played out by lobbiests and badgering publishers, rather than through science. The only way we can show its wrong is to teach our children proper science so when they are adults they don't get fooled by snake-oil salesmen like the heads of IDist groups

The class will likely be one of *contraposition.* IF design THEN purpose--> no purpose therefore no design.But this is about a reality not a theoretical possilibility.I tried to say there is no THEORETICAL PROBLEM with the sentence,

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The only way I can see to show this is if artificial microselection could annihilate catastrophic extra-earth mass extinctions through mutual and reciprocal fractal geometry mediated by a timely algebra of symmetry revolutions.

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There is an issue about the scholarship of natural theology. Do you think that scientists are the ones to speak authoritatively about that?It has little pratical success in the world but it IS a broader perspective than the defensive one that secular teaching can only be about Natural Selection in bionomics (to use lead Gould took from the time of DSJORDAN AND WJBRYAN (anti-German U-boats etc)) AFTER artifical intelligent selection of Biometry Vs Mendelism established so artifactually natural selection in nature by the 80s.